lunabee34

1. Okefenokee: Heavy and Precious by Janisse Ray
in The Bitter Southerner
You can also click just under the first picture and scroll down to hear Janisse read the article.

I am an enormous fan of Janisse's writing, and this is a wonderful introduction if you have never read her work before. The photography is exquisite as well.

2. The Irresistible Blueberry Farm by anagrrl
SGA
Lorne/Parrish

anagrrl wrote this for me after a delightful conversation in which she revealed that the actor who plays Lorne has starred in numerous Hallmark movies, one of which is called The Irresistible Blueberry Farm. LOL

1. Fiona is home from school today because we had six inches of rain last night leading to flash floods.

2. In related news, our roof is leaking in three places. But it is the best case scenario for a roof leaking. Nothing has been damaged, it can be fixed relatively easily and not super expensively I think, and I believe it will be fixed in the next few days. I am very grateful for all these things (but also super annoyed, not gonna lie; sometimes I do fantasize about strangling the guy who sold us this house).

3. This past week, a couple teensy frog buddies have been chilling out on the window of the study. I smiled every time I looked up from grading and saw them.

4. My colleagues and I presented virtually at an international conference on the scholarship of teaching and learning on Thursday; our panel went very well although it was sparsely attended. However, this was the worst run conference with the worst communication of all time. I will never ever have anything to do with this conference ever again. And it was $200 for an online conference, WTF. I got an email demanding payment before I got an email confirming my proposal had been accepted (at which point I sent a snarky email to the coordinator that I wasn't about to pay that much money without an official confirmation that I was an actually a presenter and suddenly they were able to communicate with us in a much more timely fashion when money was on the line LOL.) Thank goodness I got funding to cover it. If you're interested, PM me and I'll tell you who to avoid.

5. Fiona needs glasses, but she barely needs them; the optometrist said she only needs to wear them at school to look at the smartboard. The eye exam was like a Monty Python sketch, though. Apparently, the RX is determined mostly by pictures they take of your eye now, and the whole, "Is this better or worse?" with the different lenses during the exam is just to confirm/fine tune it, and thank goodness because Fiona just bombed the eye exam. IDK what her deal was, if she was afraid to get something wrong or what, but she pretty much just read all the letters wrong every time, and the doc would look at me like, WTF, and I was all, IDK, and it was absurd. But she has the most adorable little tortoishell glasses that'll get here in a couple weeks, and hopefully her eyesight won't deteriorate any further for a good long while.

1. I got a letter from misbegotten with lots of stickers in it! And I got a book package from executrix with several old issues of Parnassus in it; I've been reading the most delightful article on epigrams. The writer has (appropriately) a nice sense of humor. Oh how I adore academic writing that is not lifeless and impersonal.

2. My neuro prescribed me a migraine rescue drug, finally! It's a long process with him, which I completely understand; he only does one drug at a time so that it's clear where any adverse effects are coming from, and Monday we were finally at the rescue drug stage. Y'all, my insurance will not cover this drug at all, and it's 900 motherfucking dollars for only a small number of doses. So that is a hard no thank you. I have called his office and asked for something else but not heard back yet. Also, now that I'm taking 200 mg of the monafidil he wrote the RX for the 200 mg pills, and the pharmacy has to do the preauthorization thing all over again which is just bullshit. I was approved to take the 100 mg pills, so I don't get it. Also, they cost me 50 cents, so they're not expensive.

3. All spring was a dearth of hummers, but in the last couple weeks they have started to come back, not in the numbers of last year, but at least a few. I love seeing them at the feeders and at the butterfly bushes.

4. We just made the first payment on Emma's fall semester. *cries* Y'all, we are so stupid. I mean, it's going to be fine, but I wish we had done more financial preparation for this. I'm glad we're going to be able to just pay for her education without her having to take out loans; that is a luxury and a privilege that I am deeply grateful for. But also we did a really shit job of saving for this, and it's going to be a financially stressful year (I mean, we could not have predicted totaling the car, the brickwork on the house, or all the medical expenses, but still). Thank goodness for Zel Miller and free tuition. Well, it won't be the first time we do a better job with Fiona than Emma the guinea pig. LOL

1. Trip home was excellent. I hate driving, but the drive there and back was great: no traffic, no rain, and I didn't get lost! I know that's ridiculous as we've been making that drive for 13 years, but I constantly second guess myself.

( trip details )

2. The one downer of the trip is that I had the worst migraine I've had in a long time and spent a couple of days in bed. Fortunately, I had a neuro appointment yesterday. I am going up on my modafinil dosage and starting topamax which prevents migraines. Of course, it also can cause glaucoma and make your blood acidic, so here's hoping I don't go blind or have kidney failure. *crosses fingers for success*

3. Fiona had a dentist appointment yesterday, and Josh had to take her since I was going to the neuro. I wasn't thinking about it and just assumed that it was a routine cleaning. Imagine his dismay when she came out to the lobby with her face all stuffed full of gauze! I had forgotten that this was the appointment to have two teeth pulled (her teeth are all kinds of jacked up; she's had some teeth pulled before to make room for her grown up teeth). Fiona wasn't phased in the slightest, but Josh was a little OMG. Whoops! My bad.

4. A yearling doe meandered about the backyard yesterday afternoon for quite some time.

1. I got my first birthday present of the year, a Margaret Atwood novel from amejisuto! I am one step closer to a complete collection. Thank you, sweetie!

2. Yesterday we saw the hawk on the ground with a snake in its mouth. It was very cool to see it lift off with that snake dangling down.

1. Emma's graduation is next Saturday, and all our family is coming (both sides), many of whom will be staying here. So the past few days have been a whirlwind: deep cleaning the house, going through all Fiona's toys and clothes and culling, beautifying the yard, going to town yesterday to get Emma a dress and shoes and get her hair done. I am annoyed that I had to buy her a dress and shoes she will never wear again, but at least I found a cheap one at Old Navy that I will take from her as a housedress when the ordeal is over. I cannot wait until she can get out of this puritanical place. The world might end if she wore slacks under her graduation robes, am I right? *eyeroll* And next week is going to also be a whirlwind: more cleaning and yardwork, finish revising my conference paper, conference admin and set up, getting a few assignments set up for a student who took an incomplete and then grading them, Josh getting his summer class ready to go, running the conference Thursday and Friday, and then everyone shows up on Friday afternoon a few hours after the conference is over. *faints*

2. Most of Emma's teachers have been on the continuum from lackluster to crapola (for the latter, exhibit A is her AP Environmental Science teacher who spent all year only teaching them twice a week because he doesn't know how to use the internet to teach and primarily talking about baseball and right-wing conspiracy theories; she took the AP Environmental Science test Friday, and we may as well have dug a hole, thrown the exam fees in and set them on fire, but I digress). However, each year she's had at least one teacher that she really clicked with. One of those teachers is retiring this year, and he unexpectedly gave her a very nice pen as a gift. She was so touched. It's unbranded, so I don't know much about it, but it's metal and decorated with a floral pattern all over, and it came with a refill (which is super handy). It was so nice to see her so happy.

3. Fiona got super into Mother's Day. It was utterly adorable. She gave me a spa day (brushing my hair and rubbing lotion on my feet and arms). It made me feel so loved; I am smiling right now just thinking about it and how proud she was to do something to make me feel good.

4. So much nature observed. We had a friend over to dinner this week who is an avid birder. She was able to identify most of the birds for us. While she was here, we saw downy woodpeckers, a tufted titmouse, black capped chickadees, wrens, cardinals, and the coup de gras: the indigo bunting! Now there's a female indigo bunting in the yard, too. *excited* Yesterday, a family of pileated woodpeckers was messing around for forever in the side yard; they are huge. And we've got the hummingbird feeders up, so they're hovering in front of the window all day now.

5. ( book reviews of Deadly Education, poetry, Amelia Bedelia )

1. I asked a work colleague to be friends with me like a complete dork (seriously it was like I transformed back into my junior high self), and she said yes! So we've gone to lunch once and will go again next week. I'm so happy. It has been a long, long, long time since I have made a new RL friend. :)

2. I think the indigo bunting now lives in our yard! We've seen it basically every day since I reported its existence. The yard is mad with lady cardinals and gentlemen cardinals, and they are fat and aggressive. LOL I saw two red-headed woodpeckers scaling adjacent trees today while watching dishes. It was glorious.

3. I got a postcard from minoanmiss with "Quiet Girl" by Langston Hughes and one of her original drawings on it. *beams*

4. My BFF got me a vaccinated sticker after I expressed dismay that I had not been offered one either time I got vaccinated. It is now adorning my journal. <3

5. The last time I renewed my driver's license was 2013. Y'all, I just did that shit in ten minutes on the internet. I am never setting foot in a DMV ever again. The future is all Gene Roddenberry said it would be. LOL

6. I cannot recommend Fortune Feimster's Netflix comedy special "Sweet and Salty" enough. It is hilarious. I absolutely love that there's not a mean spirited moment in the whole thing. It is mostly about being gay and Southern and clueless. Emma felt seen. (She does mention weight loss at the very end, but she doesn't talk about it in terms of looks or standards of beauty.)

7. ( reviews of biography of LEL and Addicted to Heaven )

1. So the MRIs are not happening tomorrow. The authorization is still pending and is slated to be closed next Wednesday. However, the person I spoke to earlier was wrong; if the insurance denies it, I can still get the scans and pay for them myself. And the imaging center thinks it will be no problem to get me in quickly after the decision is made on Wed. So one way or another, I will soon be getting the MRIs. This is just a delay.

2. Some good things: Emma has an appointment to get a vaccine tomorrow! I got Margaret Atwood's latest book of poems in the mail from misbegotten today! Fiona and I played outside for an hour and a half (she had a half day today) and saw tiny bugs and crawfish and flowers and a wee, wee feather stuck on a blade of grass.

3. It's all going to be okay. It really is. I am going to breathe, and it's going to be okay. I cannot live at a fever pitch of anxiety. *hugs you all*

1. The canals are full of swiftly flowing water again. Yay! I wasn't sure if they would come back or not.
I am looking forward to a spring full of turtles and frogs and minnows and crawfish.

2. Today while I was watching dishes, I watched a tiny bird fly multiple times from the eaves down into the thicket, search for the perfect leaf, fly it up to the gutter, pose as if for a picture, and then disappear up the roof to presumably build its nest. It was very relaxing.

3.

Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I had forgotten most of what happens in this book, so I really enjoyed this reread and was continually surprised.

Friedman is such a good writer. All her books have such interesting and unusual world building. I think I prefer her straight up science fiction novels to this series, but I really love The Coldfire Trilogy. It's so tropey: enemies forced to work together, all the h/c anyone could ever want, plus you don't even need goggles for the slash to leap off the page. LOL



View all my reviews

4. We watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 today. ( spoilers )

5. I started watching Gibi's ASMR channel at night before bed, and I am really digging it. I don't like ASMR in general, so IDK why I like her videos, but I do. I don't like all of them; the ones where she puts on costumes and wigs and plays a character are instant cringe for me, but I like most of the others. I have discovered that my favorites are the ones where she is pretending to touch the viewers' face/hair in some way. Of her recent videos, I really liked "Doing Your Makeup Before Class" and "My Jewelry Collection Up Close." I haven't watched the videos she uploaded yesterday yet; I suspect they are not my jam. LOL

1. Check out my Shitpollst re: Great Gatsby! Robust conversation happening in the comments.

2. I have a Zoom meeting on Tuesday. I know a lot of you have been using this recently. Anything I should know about it? I am assuming it operates like Blackboard collaborate where you click on the link sent by the meeting host and then are taken into a virtual room where you use your webcam and mic to interact and there's some kind of chat function on the side. Does that sound about right?

3. ( homeschooling )

4. I decided to transition to using cloth napkins out of concern for the supply of paper goods, but I think I'm going to keep using them even when things get back to normal. I have a ton of cloth napkins, and it's so much less wasteful.