News and Updates

1. Yeah, it’s that time of year when these short little lists are the best I can do. Sometimes a job worth doing is a job worth doing at the bare minimum level, because otherwise it doesn’t get done at all. And I like doing this job, so having it fall by the wayside would just remove one more small scrap of joy in this darkening world for me.

2. Not that others aren’t eager and ready to provide that service for me, though. Remember, kids! Unless someone is being canonized, they don't need to hear from a “Devil’s advocate.”

3. We’ve got the tree up now, and will likely be decorating it later today. It’s a skinny apartment-sized tree so we have to be selective with our ornaments. We looked at getting a real tree this year but for various reasons decided against it. And we looked at getting a bigger artificial one, but for financial reasons (those things are running around $400 these days!) decided against that as well. So choices will be made. The ones I tend to prioritize are the sentimental ones – mostly from when the kids were younger – and the keychains that we pick up on our travels to remind us of places and people we’ve seen.

4. The semester down at Home Campus is now mostly over, with my grades turned in and most of my advisees moving on to other things until classes start up again in January. The class I teach for Remote Campus ends Tuesday and there will be frantic grading at that point no doubt before the holidays can kick into high gear. Online Campus seems to be in a bit of a lull as well, so that’s nice. I’m looking forward to a break in the action.

5. My effort to get into the Christmas Spirit has been flagging but I still have hope. It’s not over yet.

6. Oliver and I continue to watch as many hockey games as we can fit in. The Flyers have reverted to the form that most of the Sports Knobs were predicting back in September and are currently ranked 27th out of the 32 NHL teams (hey – not the bottom!), but they work hard and are fun to watch even if they don’t usually come out on top. And every once in a while they win.

7. I’ve been following up on the Ancestry hint that I got last time and have stumbled into a good sized trove of documents relating to my grandmother’s family, posted by a guy who’s probably a second or third cousin if I read his family tree right. Of course he doesn’t know this, probably, because my branch of the family is not listed on his tree. My great-grandmother was one of nine sisters and the only one of them who was not buried in the same cemetery as the rest of the family, which means that most of the people whose research takes them through that group of sisters don’t include her. But I know she was there, so I just vacuum up the documents for my own purposes. I’m never sure if I want to reach out to the people making the trees without her – what would I say, really? – but someday I might.

8. So der Sturmtrumper has decided to make trading cards of himself in heroic poses, has he? That was his big announcement? I suppose it’s less harmful than the last one he tried, back in November. Has anyone done a dementia test on him recently? I’m absolutely serious about that, by the way.

9. My iPhone no longer backs up to iCloud because I have run out of free space and I have been so far unwilling to pay for more. I’m not sure if this is a problem or not. I will have to think about that.

10. The snowblower still works, which is a) a good thing to know and b) a dreary thing to have to find out on a Saturday morning when all you really want to do is stay inside and drink tea and watch large men chase a small ball on television for a while. Life is complicated that way.