wishing for a ghost, goblins

My ballot is sitting here on my desk. I've got it about halfway filled out. I should get to work on the remaining bubbles, but I'm hanging out here instead.

This last week was another fine one in my little world - trying not to think of school shootings and embarrassingly short-term press secretaries, among other things...

• A couple of my tutor students are trying my patience. One, I'm sure, does next to nothing (probably actually nothing) outside of our single 1-hour weekly tutor sessions. She's been warned that she's on track to fail. It's like she doesn't know or doesn't care that she canNOT pass a class if she turns nothing in.

Her advisor has reached out several times, but has gotten no response. And I'm a little jealous. Why does she not ghost me too?? Seriously, ghost me! It's fine that she will inevitably fail, but why did she sign up for tutoring? She's wasting our time. 

• Okay, vent over. I am grateful for my easy going tutin' job. Work is typically fun, more like a hobby, and I did have this little dialogue with another student:

Me:  How do we get the sine of x all by itself?

Tutee: Offer it some candy?

HA! I needed that after Miss Do-Nothing.

• Coworker Kitty mentioned that she's looking for a new OB/Gyn to monitor her "AMA (Advanced Maternal Age)" pregnancy. That is the term for pregnant women over 35. She was also over 35 with her first pregnancy, which was characterized as "geriatric pregnancy" at the time. Somebody wised up and changed the term. 

• And speaking of which, I hear Hillary Swank is pregnant at 52 years old?! So, was it IVF? Otherwise, that's a very old egg, and maybe should be referred to as geriatric.

• On that note, I've noticed some older ladies at the gym have been striking up conversations with me. The (adults only) gym has a pretty diverse age range, but many are 20- and 30-somethings. I imagine these elderly ladies want me to be part of their gang.
  
  
• We've continued cleaning up Helms Deep these past two weekends. Today, we prettied up a particularly gnarly part of the road.

I didn't take a "before" photo, but trust me when I say this is mucho better. Our truck nearly high centered upon our arrival, but our departure was smooooooth sailing. I think we're getting the hang of this Land Manager business.

The cows have returned to their rightful home. Most of our trail cam captures are of the dear deer family - Mom and The Twins. Haven't seen any more owls. 

• Our flatland neighborhood, however, has several new occupants as we get closer to Halloween. I find this one wonderfully creepy.

howdy, neighbor

seasonal

• A few weeks ago, I was at the college and came across Boss and a colleague talking in the hallway. It was from them that I learned that Dolly Parton had died.

Not gonna lie, when they saw me and said, "we were just talking about Dolly. Yeah, she died", my first thought was Dolly the cloned sheep. And I thought to myself *she was still alive??*. Coincidentally, I've learned that she, the sheep, was actually named after Dolly Parton because her DNA came from a mammary gland. There you go.

Anyway, the conversation then turned to an opening the colleague had in her department. K is an assistant director in recruiting and advising. She had an opening, which I actually already knew about because Sarge told me he was applying for it.

From this short conversation, I got the vibe that K was wanting me to apply. I do like K, and it would be nice to have her as a boss, but I'm just not interested in a full-time position at this "season of my life". Plus, I know Sarge is really hoping he gets the role.

The job description is nearly exactly that of one I applied for about 10 years ago at the university when we lived in Colorado Springs. At that time, it was very appealing. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. And now we're here, and I appreciate the part-time "season"

• I've been doing some decluttering in little bits the past few weeks. Despite my ongoing efforts, I seem to always manage to come across something that has me saying, "why do we have this??" 

Going through the stash of bicycle tubes, I found eight... count 'em, 8... that don't fit any bicycles in our possession. These things happen when you sell/offload 4 bicycles in the span of a couple of months. 

This, to say I have a new bicycle. I'd been researching for a few months and had been riding the hand-me-up from Meego for nearly a year. The hand-me-up's been good, but it's starting to feel its age.

So I indulged, purchased from a nice local bike shop. 

She is a joy. I've named her Honey.

gifted

I'd not thought of myself as one of those people who carries an umbrella to block the sun. But yesterday, there I was, undercover. The temperature was hovering around 100^o .

I was thankful to have that umbrella as the full onslaught of sun was bearing down as I waited for the bus to go to work. My pick up stop has a bench, and nothing more. 

The all-black backpack is no help to beat the heat. 

But, we're surviving, and I don't mean to complain. In fact, this is meant to be an appreciation post, starting with my appreciation for that umbrella and the ease of taking the bus on my short work commute on inclement weather days.

We got some welcome rain overnight, which didn't cool things down much, but we always need the moisture. I had a lovely jog around the neighborhood this morning, appreciative of the overcast skies.

I came across these two friends, living the good life.

The summer semester is wrapping up. POOF, ten weeks of frenzied activity. Tensions are a bit high among the tutees, working hard to keep their heads above water for about one more week. 

One such tutee end-of-semester-gift-ed me a [lovely Japanese mechanical pencil]. What a nice and unexpected surprise.

Now, I realize some may think a mechanical pencil is a strange gift, but I can attest to the fact that it is a wonderfully fitting item for a math tutor.

Well done, Tutee!

I've learned that this particular pencil is a fave among mechanical pencil aficionados. 

I've happily added it to my pencil case as part of my everyday carry in the aforementioned backpack.

The fuzzy thing in the background of the pencil pic is our cat - Napolion The Skinny. Can you see his butt bones?

I have begun giving him a daily can of kitten food, which he loves. It also makes him the envy of all other pets in the house. 

runneth over

 Welcome to daylight savings time Sunday - or as my step-MIL calls it, "my least favorite day of the year"

We are on a little getaway, visiting my Father-in-law and said step-MIL. As such, we've had one hour shaved from our getaway. But still, a nice time. 

The past week was quite busy with that PEO saga. Everything worked out as people stepped up to do the  required tasks, and I was relieved of presidential duties after two years, as originally planned.

In addition, they adorned me with this lovely flower arrangement. Now, I'm not particularly a flower arrangement person due to pets that will want to trash such things and my own allergies, but it's the thought that counts. So this was lovely as one of our members is an accomplished florist while her husband is a renowned glass blower - he made the vase. So I sneeze with gratitude.

With that load off my shoulders, I'll still be busy with PEO things, but it will no longer be my name as the one to contact for seemingly EVERYTHING. My email inbox is thankful.

granny and square

I was stressed out in kindergarten. 

I still feel the anxiety from it, 55 years after the fact. The cause? I didn't know how to tie my shoes. 

I knew that learning to tie shoes was on the kindergarten syllabus. However, I didn't realize that a lot of my classmates would already know how to accomplish this feat. This was in the ancient times - before velcro shoes. 

So there I was. Behind the curve. 

We were each provided a flat cardboard "shoe" - adorned with our name - with actual laces so as to learn by doing. Once we accomplished the task successfully, our shoes were pinned to the bulletin board of fame.

I watched in apprehension as a good number of classmates made their neat little bows, and their honorific shoes were pinned. Meanwhile, I struggled. Eventually, I tied an ugly but functional bow, and my shoe made the bulletin board at last.

Just recently, only about a month ago, I learned I've been doing it wrong this whole time. Who knew?!

"Square knot" is the correct way, and I've been doing "Granny knot" this whole time. 

In short, if your first knot is right over left, your "bunny ears" knot should be left over right or vice versa. The knots should be opposite direction, never right - right or left - left. 

This link provides a quick demo:

https://youtube.com/shorts/sCEaXpOLFlo?si=Dsf8i1dg0JuItOJV

All these years, I'd been a right-righter. But no more! And no more having to double tie! So freeing.

*******************************************************

This week was grey and cold here, but we can't complain while watching what's going on in LA.  My Father-in-law and his wife evacuated from their home in Pasadena to stay with Step-mother-in-law's daughter, not that far away. Apparently, they've been cleared to return home.

And today is sunny and clear here. I went out for a pleasant escapist run this morning - shoes expertly tied. 

We get an average of 300 days of sunshine per year here, so we're spoiled and get whiney on overcast days. I was so enjoying the sun, I stopped to get a pic of this horse's ass.

home alone 2

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow USAians! This is a quiet one for me as Magnum, Wolfgang, and Meego all went to our niece's (Magnum's sister's daughter's) who is hosting the gathering of family. I've hung back to be zookeeper to our dogs who can't be left alone for the time it takes to drive to niece's, feast, socialize, drive back.

No worries, I figured I'd get some things done around the house that need doing, spend a little time homeschooling myself on that math refresher... Those plans went out the window shortly after the guys left. 

I was stir crazy and, instead, took each of the mongrels for a decent walk. That's my purpose today, afterall. 

The college students have the whole week off, so my tutor calendar is empty empty. I worked a shift in the testing center on Monday, and that's been it for my college obligations. I'm basking in free time until Monday.

What's everyone else up to today?

I hope it's a grateful one.

testing... testing...

Happy first weekend of September. I've got the day off from work and intend to do a bit of decluttering and other mundane things. 

This week was busy despite having Monday off. Tutoring is in full swing - I did end up having a student fill my last open slot - and it's nice to be fully booked. I do appreciate the balance of testing and tutoring. I wouldn't want to do either of them full-time, but a bit of both is nice. 

Speaking of work and balance, allow me to vent just a bit. Last week, I shared that photo that Work Study had us take with her cake, supposedly for our Grandboss. Work Study has been with us for a few semesters now, starting with a typical work study stint of just a few hours per week.

At first, it was great because we were quite short staffed at the time, and her help was much appreciated. We have since become fully staffed since bringing on Mango and having Star transfer from another campus. Meanwhile, WS has somehow greatly increased her work hours. However, we just don't need her for as many hours she "works".

Additionally, she is not cleared to provide most of our services. She can help with student tests, that's it. But we do testing for a whole slew of tests having nothing to do with the college. In short, she gets paid to hang around, take care of personal business, flirt with security, etc.

I think work study is a great program, but I often grumble inwardly, thinking of the abuse of the tax payer funded work study system happening blatantly in front of me. And I know I'm not alone as coworkers have voiced similar thoughts. 

WS was set to finish her program at the end of this semester, but yesterday, she told us that she's looking to change her major, which means another two years at the college. And she wants to keep working milking the system with our department. She went to talk to Boss about it. They were in the office with door closed for quite a while.

Shortly after emerging, she quietly asked me how she could be a better worker. She acknowledged goofing around and wanting to do better. A new leaf turning over, supposedly. She took Sarge aside as well and asked the same things.

Honestly, we struggled to come up with things she could DO better. It was more about things to stop doing - and even then, we were too nice to say much.  Sarge and I both tactfully mentioned that when each of us had work study jobs, we didn't use that time to do our homework and other personal business. In the end, we didn't have much advice to offer. 

We'll see how this plays out. I'd planned to just ride out the semester since WS was expected to move on at that point, but now this new development...

Okay, enough of that. On to the decluttering - one of my fave hobbies 😊.

Oh, and I tried out those [Chatgpt] running shoes this morning for their maiden voyage.

I took a pic of them because I noticed they were "glistening" in the kitchen light this morning - something about the upper material.

But alas, my camera didn't capture the glisten - it must be magic that cameras are unable to transmit. You'll hafta take my word for it. And it was a lovely time in the glistening shoes bought for a bargain price.

Bottom line: Chatgpt did me a solid.
Make shopping easy again.

we're here

Yesterday, Magnum and I were partaking of an old folk's walk, when he said, "We should go somewhere tomorrow", implying an eating establishment perhaps. 

Now, we rarely go out for meals - go on plenty of coffee excursions, maybe throw in a bagel or such - but going out for an actual meal usually involves our kids as well. So I thought for a moment, and responded, "why?"

"It's our anniversary", he smirked.

"OH, heh. I knew that!", I quickly responded, pulling up the calendar in my head.

I do know the DATE of our anniversary, I just hadn't realized it was here already. August?! Wasn't it just May??

As is probably obvious at this point, we don't make a big do on our anniversary. I think of it in the way Vince Lombardi (I think) didn't like touchdown celebrations because he wanted his players to be all, "of course we scored, it's inevitable. Chill out".

Actually, I think the quote is "Act like you've been there before", but that might not carry the same meaning when applied to a wedding anniversary. *AHEM*

Anyway, here we were back then.

Coupla kids signing our lives away.

The wedding was in a little church in my little hometown. We did the traditional things - the flowers, the cake, the white dress, etc. 

The date itself was not particularly "special". As for many, I assume, it was a day on the calendar when the important people were free of other obligations and available to be in the little hometown, and the venue was available.

And *poof* here we are 34 years later.

So yes, we've been here before. It's inevitable, we planned it that way.chill out. ❤️

We did partake of a lovely bicycle ride this morning. I will miss these perfect mornings when we are in the thick of frozen winter. 

We stopped downtown for a coffee break - doesn't count as "go someplace" yet - it was relatively quiet. University students are starting to arrive for the fall semester. Freshmen start moving into their dorms tomorrow.

We sat near a window of the coffee shop and watched as police people walked around, investigating. There was a shooting nearby last night - one dead, one injured. A suspect has not yet been caught. 

We have a pleasant, typically wholesome, downtown area. But sadly, we also have our share of thugs.

spin me right 'round

This week seemed to have gone by fast, but I have no explanation as to why it feels that way other than the old "I'm getting old" adage. Either way, I figured I'd recap

• As I sit here, I see the referral from my dentist for the oral surgeon regarding getting a bone graft for that hole in my head. I've done nothing further than to tack it to my bulletin board. Still mulling.
  
  
• Wolfgang moved this week. Still lives in town, just moved from one address to another. He now has central air (glorious!) and we have a set of snow tires in our crawl space.
  
  
• Coworker Sarge has quite the green thumb. He brings in excess bounty on nearly a daily basis. I've adopted this nearly perfectly formed zucchini. 

I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it. I'm feeling like a good zucchini bake would do it justice, but the thought of turning the oven on during the peak of summer (unlike Wolfgang, we do not have central air) is not appealing. Its fate awaits.

 

• I had a tutor session with two delightful students who are dreadfully unprepared for their looming calculus final exam. As we slogged through the mountainous instructor-provided review, we came to a question involving a sphere inside a cube a la:

 

They began to ponder what to call such a thing (as a way to avoid actually answering the question posed, I imagine) and happily came up with the term, "SQUERE"(square + sphere), with preferred alternate spelling, "SQUEER".

Both students happen to be gay, so we all laughed at this more than we otherwise would have. 

bricks and mud

[Brickies (don't call it Lego™ even though it's all actual Legos™) Creation Fest] happened once again in downtown Fort Collins this weekend. Once again, my PEO chapter volunteered to run various activity booths and will receive a nice donation from the organizers. 

Sure beats a bake sale, I say!

I rather enjoy this particular volunteer duty. Fun activities, cute families, downtown Fort Collins... What's not to like? Well, the heat, for one thing. But, what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger.

My duty featured a *Lego* horse race, but I won't bore with the rules. Suffice to say it was enjoyed by many a fest goer, and I somehow managed to make about a 0.4 second appearance in the [instagram promo video] enticing people to come on down.

As with the previous two years I've volunteered, it featured much wholesomeness - attentive parents, cute kids, friendly teens. I particularly liked seeing older kids actually trying to lose the horse race with their younger siblings/ cousins/ friends. One older brother actually confessed, "I'm sorry, I wanted you to win", to his little sis. But it all hinged on the roll of the dice, no real skill involved. He won, fair and square. 

Good times.

Later, last evening, we were absolutely DELUGED  by an aggressive unpredicted thunderstorm. Oh sure, after the thing already moved through, we got alerts for severe weather warnings. 

This morning I went for an absolutely lovely bike ride, and there was a lot of post-storm trash - limbs, mud, guck - around town. Many an underpass was still under a good amount of water along with heaps of "flood mud". 

I confess to actually getting off the bicycle and gingerly making my way through one particularly muddy underpass because it was too spooky to attempt with my skinny tires. That stuff is slippery!

But it's been so hot and dry lately, and this was a nice break from the heat bringing much needed moisture. Everyone I encountered while on my ride seemed to be in a good mood - cheerful greetings all around! Let's not think about politics for a minute!

And all this creation happening reminded me that I've not felt/been very creative lately. 

Feeling heroic from my nearly three whole hours of volunteering, I pulled out the sketchbook.

weekend mash up

From the time we start going to school, I think we become conditioned to school days vs. summer days. Once we've gone past July 4th, I feel like we've passed the halfway point of summer, and I start looking ahead to the next thing. But I'm trying to just enjoy the summer "daze".

Our California vacation helped. It really is good to get away from the same old same old and get a change of place. Now that we've been back, I'm feeling a bit restless, like summer's running out.

• Work at the testing center has been slow, as it tends to be in summer. During spring and fall semesters, we have a pretty steady stream of roughly 50% student tests, 50% professional tests. Summertime brings hardly any student tests - averaging about 1 per day. Unlike last summer, we are now fully staffed, and it feels like we comically step all over each other when something needs to be done. Someone often goes home early.
  
  
• On that note, the college DEI department introduced a "summer reading program" at the end of the spring semester. They provided a list of about 5 books for interested people to rank in order of interest. The survey was to determine 1 or 2 books to be read and discussed. 

I completed the survey, then heard a whole lot of nothing afterward. THIS week, we finally get the word that two books have been chosen, and looks like it will be a fall reading discussion. Oh great, just when things get busy :P .

But oh well, a free book's a free book, so I picked up my copy of [Different not Less]. Seems useful so far. 

The book should be useful for tutoring too. I'd say my most challenging tutees are the ones with unchecked ADHD *give me patience*

• And on that note, I've ended up with 3 college tutees and 1 high school tutee this summer, all very pleasant. A couple of them are REALLY lacking and should probably retake the prerequisite course, but God love 'em, they try.
  
  
• I've almost got my running back to where I was before being befallen with a bum foot followed by a foray into physical therapy. Back to where I was was still trying to get my stamina back after covid two years ago, but it's not awful. I'm glad to be chugging along. 

I also acknowledge that I've aged two more years since then, so I'll take what I can get.

I'm typing this at the downtown library. Just had to get outta the house - that restlessness. Strange mix of cute kids and unhoused adults at the downtown library... 

become young

Another nice week down. This was a nice one because it was relatively uncluttered, and we know I don't like clutter.

• I had the usual shifts at the testing center, but no tutoring as the semester officially ended on Monday. Then Thursday was a short day because we closed early for commencement. No political upheavals to affect the ceremonies. 

The only "unrest" I've been aware of at our campus was when the Student Life department installed menstrual product dispensers in all the bathrooms, including the men's rooms. Apparently some of the fellas either were offended or thought the products were funny, so engaged in some sort of retalitory vandalism. 

• Chaco called us Friday night to have us go out and look for the Northern Lights.  It was cloudy where he was, but we had clear skies. The lights were apparently visible here, but too much light pollution to see anything from our neighborhood. 

Magnum took a photo with his phone, which can apparently see better than we can, and this is the best we got from our neighborhood.

I'll have to take the word of the locals who trekked out to the boonies

• These last few weeks seemed to be cluttered with various appointments - my physical therapy sessions as well as getting all the pets examined and vaccinated. I've managed to wrap all those up for the time being. I also had my annual blood screen this week, and am glad to report that everything came back green for go. 

• I'm glad I did the physical therapy bit. I received good care and information and am running again and doing better. It really is all connected like that song we learned when were were kids... "foot bone's connected to the leg bone, leg bone's connected to the..." Throw in muscles, ligaments, tendons, and it's a busy place!

• On that note, I'm sort of thinking about taking EMT classes at the college. I have no desire to be gainfully employed as an EMT or paramedic, but it seems like it would be good knowledge to have. I know of others who have done so, or who have completed a CNA course to care for a family member.  I'll check for "employee discounts" if any and consider the time commitment.  Now that we're fully staffed again, maybe I can fit the classes in.

I thought I would get in some sketchbook action this week with the extra time available, but that time got filled up with more responsible things. 

"It took my whole life to learn to draw like a child"
                                                    ~ Picasso

I'm working on it, Pablo.

Bunny, Trixie, Raul, Jerry, Penny

One more week of semester left. Is it obvious I'm counting the days? It's been a good semester, I'm just ready to have a short break from all the meth math. I was talking with one of my fellow tutors, "Bunny", last week. She was speaking of one of her students who is often late or no shows. On that particular day, the student had actually texted Bunny in advance to let her know she was running late.

"Maybe I taught her more than math this semester", Bunny observed. 

I'll remember to do that.

This past week was a good one, feels like it was productive enough

• Magnum and I had some documents we needed to have notarized for our lawyer in Colorado Springs. No, we're not getting a divorce, we have a will and such that we'd recently updated. We went to our credit union to sign the papers with a Notary Public there.

Our wills include a clause, which the lawyer refers somewhat jokingly to as "The Raul and Trixie Clause". It says that, for example, if I keel over and Magnum runs off with a stripper, our kids remain the beneficiaries and the stripper has no claim to anything when Magnum keels over. So "Trixie" refers to the stripper scenario, and "Raul" to some equally distasteful hook up of my own. 

I remember, at the time of the lawyer's explanation, thinking to myself, "hmmm, I know some Raul's who are good guys. Maybe don't call it that", but whatever. So last week as we were tediously signing off on the updates, I noticed that our notary's name was actually Raul - stars aligning for further vindication. And I doubt he would care to run off with a widowed me anyway.

• There's a [cute art supply store] here in town that I'd never been to. I knew if I went in there, I'd buy something I didn't need. Well, yesterday I went in for the first time because I needed a specific sketchbook. Magnum and I were on a coffee walk, and it was right there.
  
  

I broke in the new sketchbook with them apples.

The little store was pretty much as I expected - well stocked with all sorts of toys and with a friendly staff. 

And I only bought the one item I'd gone in there for. 

Yes, I can do this.

And now a Penny update: recall that our dog, Penny, went from being her usual ball of energy to a lethargic old lady dog seemingly overnight. 

Well, she laid around for two days, and on the third day... well... she has risen. 

No clue as to what knocked her on her ass. It's nice to have her back

 

missives

"Me and S send our deepest apologies.  We have other circumstances that prevents us from attending the tutoring session..."

 - a last minute cancel text I received from a tutee this week. It's so... formal.

If not for the grammatical errors - "Me and S" *cringe*; "...circumstances that prevents..." *frown* - I would highly suspect he asked ChatGPT or similar to write the text for him. It's what all the kids are doing these days, right?

This particular tutee is young, intelligent, and personable, but his texts are so formal. Deepest apologies? Circumstances?

Anyway, it was another busy week, and I am now basking in un-busyness. The only scheduled thing I have today is an annual well-woman check later this morning. Coworker Star is back from her worldly travels, so my Fridays are free once again, for now.

I was at work on Monday during the eclipse. We had just a little over 50% of totality here, so no biggie. The campus observatory had their filtered telescopes available, but the line was very long, so I skipped. At least the campus had a large stash of eclipse glasses, and Work Study grabbed a pair we all took turns with.

So I popped out and oohed and aahed a bit with the cardboard glasses, then went back to work. Wolfgang had road tripped to Texas with some friends to see the totality, so after work, I fed his cat. That sums up my 2024 eclipse experience.

Apparently the next eclipse to cross the U.S. will be in 2045. Its path will go right over Colorado. If I'm still alive and in Colorado at that time, maybe I'll have my nurse wake me from my nap.

And speaking of nurses, this week, we got the sweetest gift at work from one of the nursing students. 

We provide testing for several nursing students each semester.  And nursing students take a LOT of tests - sometimes 2 or 3 a week. So we get to know them quite well over the two year program and vice versa. 

They're often understandably giddy and thankful around graduation - "might not see you again... unless you're in the hospital?"

This week, one particularly pleasant student dropped off a box of donuts along with the sweetest thank-you note, even mentioning Boss, Sarge, and me by name. 

It prompted quite the onion-cutting fest, it did. 

And, the donuts? No grocery store donuts. They were from Lamar's. 

"He went to Lamar's" is the donut equivalent to "He went to Jared"

hi ho

Big, wet snowflakes are falling outside my window. Looks like it's gonna be a bus-to-work day. This image showed up in my fbook feed today - from my hometown's history:

Just a little reminder how posh most of us have it today.

We had a fire drill at the college this week. Thankfully, that day, it was relatively warm and sunny out. We had to scoot all of the people who were testing out to the gathering spot. 

Now, staff was given word of this drill several weeks ago so as to plan accordingly. We happened to have several students from one particular class taking an exam at the time. Later, their teacher emailed us, concerned about the students being able to collaborate during the fire drill "break", stating, "I thought the testing center was exempt".

Uhm, well, no. Fire drills are to be treated like the real thing for EVERYBODY, not surprisingly. We told the instructor that we were out there with her students, while not burning, and they behaved themselves, mumbling under our breath how she shouldn't schedule a large exam during a planned fire drill.

Left feeling rather underappreciated once again, I can now look at those early coal miners from my weird little hometown and realize I've got it pretty good.

fourth thursday

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all  'mericans!  

Today is actually looking to be a quiet day for me. Magnum, Wolfgang, and Meego are going to Magnum's sister's for the big gathering. I'll stay behind and chill with the dogs since we had no one to unload them upon. Chaco recently moved out of state for work, so will also be thankful in abstentia.

It's just as well with the mystery dog illness going around. This is no doubt a busy time of year for dog kennels and other boarders. I know there are heightened restrictions in place, but don't know the extent. Turns out it's a good thing to have antisocial dogs - currently anyways.

The four of us plan to get together on Saturday. Might go downtown to check out the Christmas elaborations. Either way, I'm off the hook for cooking this year.

In other mysteries, I parked my bicycle after getting home from work yesterday. I keep the two bicycles I ride most often in the house because I'm a wimp and don't like retrieving them from a cold garage they're precious.

Soon after I'd settled my commuter, the cat snuggled in beneath the bicycles and was rolling around in some sort of bliss. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought he found catnip down there. 

He hung out among the tires and chains for a good couple hours before deciding to, once again, join the sober. He hasn't returned to the seeming euphoria, and I have no idea what that was about.

I'm looking forward to four relatively quiet days off. I worked the last three days, and the place was a bit of a zoo. We thought it would be slow with the students on break, but it seems that everybody and their grandma decided this would be the time to get their professional certifications in. It was like a Black Friday version of testing. Door busters!

As I mentioned earlier, no Thanksgiving day road race for me this year. Recall that last year, I managed to beat the mayor. She no doubt has something to do with sabotaging my foot this year.

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Linking up with Mama Kat for the prompt:

1. Happy Thanksgiving! Share your Thanksgiving Day plans.

in the middle of the street

The hiring process for our new assistant boss marches on... at a snail's pace. It's good that the process is so thorough, I suppose. My fellow committee members and I have hurdles to jump through, and each jump is evaluated by HR until we are given the go ahead for the next hurdle. We're getting closer to the finish line, the application window closed yesterday.

Once we pare down the candidates, the remainders will go onto second interviews with Boss and Boss's boss. Fingers crossed we get someone in before Christmas.

Boss is able to take a look at materials submitted from the approved candidates so far. A few days ago he noted, "I didn't see anyone with test center experience".

And I thought to myself, "Well, yeah, because if they had actual test center experience, they would know not to apply for a full time job of it...", but maybe I'm just projecting *ahem*.

But I'll say it again, I like the job - the part-time version of it. It allows me time for tutoring and other interests, and I, thankfully, am not concerned about not having employee benefits. 

In other unfulfilled positions, the rental house next door to us remains vacant. Magnum reports seeing a few looky-loos as noticed while working from home. He knows when someone is checking out the backyard because our dogs announce it from our backyard. 

Affordable housing is a concern around here, like a lot of other places these days. Are the landlords asking too much?

... it's not our dogs, is it? 

Nah.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
5. Write a blog post inspired by the word: future

numbers

Sick of inktober updates? Grab the barf bag... 

I'm still alive with it, four more prompts to go. I think a couple of my pens are running on fumes, but they'll have to hold on a little longer.

Aside from that nonsense, October has seemed to have flown by. We've got real snow forecast for the weekend, so time for everyone to demonstrate how they forgot their winter driving skills.

Halloween isn't looking too rough, weather-wise. It's difficult to gauge how much trick-or-treat activity we'll have in our neighborhood. The college had a Halloween event this past Wednesday for students and staff with young kids. I'm guessing they chose Wednesday since that was the day closest to actual Halloween with the most in-person classes going on? Before the snow comes?

Anyway, the bits I saw were pretty cute. The school's mascot is the Wolves, so the event was titled "We're Wolves!" *snort*

I have no costume, the house is not decorated. There are a few houses in the neighborhood decked out for Halloween - houses where young kids live. Our neighbors have a young daughter, and their front yard features a glowing skeletal unicorn in the style of My Little Pony that is both cute and creepy.

Here we are being lazy empty nesters.

I have to leave in a bit to go scribe a test for "Ben", the calculus student with cerebal palsy. Someone asked what would happen if I wasn't there to scribe, and I'm pretty sure that someone from the math department would be called upon to do it. I rather enjoy doing it, though, and I'm thankful to have time in the schedule. Apparently, disability services is trying out some software that can do voice-to-text for math, and I'm curious as to how good it is.

For now, it's me. From the college's point of view, I imagine I'm a pretty cheap option.

hype, plumpies, doodles

A little weekend reflection...

Random happenings:

• In this week's excitement, we got a new fridge. His name is Coolio.
  
  
• The general area seems to be on a collective hangover following last night's college football match-up between Colorado and Colorado State. The two state rivals meet annually for the "Rocky Mountain Showdown", and both teams have been pretty bad the last few years.

This year, there's the whole hype train surrounding CU football, and the showdown was expected to be a blowout.  CSU apparently got tired of hearing about it, and they actually showed up for the show down, eventually taking a loss, but making CU play double overtime to get the win. I didn't watch any of it, but it's difficult to escape the hype around here. I'm exhausted just thinking about playing 2 football overtimes.

• A childhood friend of mine invited me to friend his running-for-mayor-of-hometown facebook page. He's changed both his first and last names, and he's always been a bit goofy. At first, I wondered if it was a joke page, but it seems he's legit running. 

Honestly, I've often wondered if he's undiagnosed bipolar. Not that running for mayor of a small town is too far out there, but I think it's a bit out of his league. But hey, who knows?

 A news story that caught my attention:

Fernando Botero, the Columbian artist, died last week at the age of 91. He was known for "plump, inflated forms" like this...

He was a prolific painter, apparently painting every day, all day.

I have no idea why he focused on the plump, but it made him lots of moulah.

A Triumph of the week:

• I joined that gym I did a trial at last week. I typically go to the gym and try to get strong a couple of times a week - or at least go through the motions. This new gym is a step up from where I'd been going.

A Challenge of the week:

• My Father-in-law and his wife were planning a visit in a couple of weeks, but FIL sprained/ strained a hip, so he's resting and had to cancel the trip. FIL has always been quite fit for his age, and he's now 89.

Looking ahead:

Speaking of art and challenges, the prompt list for Inktober '23 has been released. I plan to participate once again. Highly doubtful to get all 31 prompts, but we'll see where I end up. Seems all I do is doodle during downtime, so we'll see what happens this Inktober

mish mash

Late to the weekend mashup...

• Last week was a good mix of busy and relaxing as it started with a day off. Now that Labor Day has passed, it feels more like school time at the college. 

The interview process continues for our new boss position. We should know the selection shortly. Party Girl has been serving on the selection committee and sneaks little insights to us when Assistant Boss is out of hearing range. 

One candidate is apparently highly qualified to the point of being over qualified. Red flags include, will she just do the job for a few months before moving to a Dean position? My other concern is that she would have trouble working under our former boss who has been promoted one level above. Bottom line, Assistant Boss is still in the running but not in the bag.

• I scribed again for "Ben", this time for a full length unit exam. It's so hard to keep my mouth shut when he makes mistakes.
  
  
• A few months ago, Magnum and I ended our gym membership and got season recreation passes that give us access to various city amenities including gyms and pools. The season passes were a cheaper option than the gym we belonged to at the time. 

We started regularly going to the gym housed inside the city's Senior Center because its closest to where we live. It's a decent enough gym, but limited. Last week, I visited yet another gym - also close by. It's much better than our old gym and not much more expensive. Gonna switch. 

There, I now feel mashed enough to get on with the week. Off to work in a bit. 

I remember when blogs were "the new thing to do", and I read a few before starting my own way back in the old days. I read one that was a dude just blogging about day-to-day stuff he'd done during the week, and I thought, "why am I reading this?" but had to admit it was kind of relaxing.

And here we are.