The busy bees are back

Wow, it sure has been jam-packed since Tuesday. I can tell that we are on the cusp of Fall – I have more and more to do!

Wednesday was full of busy-work up at Cascadia, leaving me with a good feeling about the upcoming quarter. We have a dynamic Teaching and Learning Lead (kind of like a department chair) and I think I’m going have a good time.

The trip out to Poulsbo on Wednesday night after class went smoothly; the trip to the peninsula wasn’t as long as one would think. The HIE was a pretty shabby affair, comparatively, but no real trial; it affected Otis more than me, obviously. We got a little bit of a chance to explore old Poulsbo on Thursday evening; the ambience was wonderful and the dinner at “That's-a Some Italian Restaurant” (yes, that’s the real name). It had been a while since I last visited, and I had a forgotten memory resurface of the Grand Kirk, a totally cool waterfront church that has been converted into condos, when we encountered it on our walk.

The Institute itself was a lot more useful and interesting that I had thought it was going to be. I think a lot of the presenters recognized that most of the attendees had a significant amount of teaching experience, and a lot breakout sections focused on topics more useful than “Top Ten Tips for your First day.” I met the new faculty in my tenure-track cohort; my office-mate, a poli sci instructor, seems easy to get along with, and we three new English teachers seem to have complementary rather than competing interests.

Upon coming home, we had a spot of dinner and then watched the weird Nurse Betty, in which two eccentric hit men pursue an unhinged Kansas housewife who thinks her favorite soap opera character is her ex-fiancé and heads to California in a Buick with a trunkful of drugs. It was by turns hilarious and scary, and the great cast – including Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Greg Kinnear, and Crispin Glover – easily overcomes the inherent implausibility of the plot.

Otis had an appointment this morning but the client canceled out, so in a few minutes we are going to head out on a bike ride to LFP. I can enjoy this last “open” weekend and make a list of all the things I need to do in the next two weeks.

Otis wanted me to share this photo, capturing the cats when we returned home from dinner last night, after leaving them both inside. It proves that (a) the cats can indeed get along, and (b) I have lost the war.