HKC: Notes from the dark

The cat-claws-in-toes alarm went off a little early today, and even though I snoozed it, I am still here in the early dark - and clutter. Winter always involves more stuff than other seasons, dunnit? There’s hats and scarves and gloves and stuff all over, adding to the piles of portfolios (of which more later). The house is cold, but I am warming it up; it’s been getting pretty chilly at night, and they’re talking about it dipping down in the twenties tonight. Winter’s definitely here!

Anyway, this ragged quarter has come to a raggedy close. The College had a late start on Tuesday as a result of the flooding up north, so my only class that day was canceled, but I didn't make as good use of the at-home time as I could have. I had my last Antioch class that night, and it ran to the very last minute with all the stuff we still had to do.

Wednesday was a fairly easy day at school – just last-minute catch-up in my 101 sections (along with an impromptu piano recital in the morning) – and the rest of the day was consumed by Otis’s birthday (see prior post).

Thursday was my last class at Cascadia, and it, too, was jam-packed, since the Tuesday session had been cancelled. At the end of all this period, I had developed four stacks of 20-25 portfolios to review, one from each class, so of course the next order of business was to go to lunch. We had a good decompression session with a gang from school, although everyone seemed a little punchy.

Otis had a writing group Thursday, with a little home-baked birthday treat from Kris-10. Here’s Otis doing her best Rachel Ray impression:

Thursday night, Otis was deep into her writing, so after a quick dinner of leftovers, she dove back into her work and I took off to look for some technology. As I have mentioned, my laptop went from high-tech tool to paperweight in a matter of minutes when the logic board fried out. I can put the entire purchase price back into it to revive it, or I can start making new choices. One of the options I am considering is a super-phone: a mobile that will let me surf the Internet and blog and stuff (I used a Sidekick back in the day when I was in transition from Spokane to Seattle and it was pretty cool). So I took off for the T-Mobile store and played with some stuff – the new Sidekick, the Blackberry Pearl, and the Wing. It was more interesting than exciting: I don't think the technology is quite where I want it yet, although the Wing will do Word, Excel and PowerPoint as well as email and Internet browsing. The situation is still unclear.

Friday I went onto campus to clean up and get some grading done; once again, productivity was lower than planned, so this weekend will have to show some results.

Last night was the public celebration of Otis’s birthday, and public it was! We took over a big table at the teapot and filled it with Dingo, Johnbai, Soapy, Neds, Kris-10 & Rye-N, NatDog, and Stella! There was much food and convo; so much so that when the meal was done we moved the feast downstairs to Remedy Teas, replaced K & R with Sylvio and O, and continued over teas and goodies (including toast tartare for me). Otis, resplendent in red, grew more and more colorful as the night went on, adding a scarf of socks (from Dingo) and a newly-knitted hat (from O) to her ensemble. The gang was great and the birthday bash closed with a bang.

Here's some of the goofiness: