I Know, I Know

Things I haven't blogged about:

* all of the massive gardening and stonework projects Footslogger and I have been working away on every weekend this summer;

* our new fence! which should be completed tomorrow;

* the music meme. Belle tagged me for it last week and I've been THINKING about it, but not BLOGGING about it;

* our fabulous weather, which has finally turned warm and sunny;

* my disgust with James Dobson and his attack on Obama;

* why I can't get myself to work on my sabbatical proposal;

* why I luurrrvvvee my new Blackberry, pictured here:

* and how I am moving up the ranks on Brickbreaker.

All this and more, as soon as I get the energy . . .

After I wrote the previous post about what looked to be a soul-sucking master's defense and a committee chair trying to intimidate me into signing off on a horrible paper, I got another voice mail from said committee chair. On my cell phone. In the message, the chair said, "I'll be sitting here by my phone, waiting for you to call me back."

Sigh.

I knew that I would get no rest until I called the chair back, so I did. And in our conversation, I realized that this chair didn't really understand that what he/she was doing was verging on intimidation OR that we could get the student to do revisions and then sign, and that it was no big deal to do so OR that I was really not going to change my mind.

So I made all of that clear to the chair (nicely, mind you) and went to bed feeling much better about it. The defense the next morning turned out to be rather nice. We had a great conversation about the topic -- because the student is a great thinker and talker, really, just not such a great writer -- and the student was very willing to make revisions, recognized his/her shortcomings as a writer and in this paper, and all was very civilized and gracious.

In other news, it finally got warm here this weekend (yeah!), which means that we finally finished putting in flowers in our brand new garden out front:

That's silvermound, Shasta daisies, delphinium, columbines, cone flowers, and lavender in the bed. Should be really nice -- in a couple of years!







And it means that the cat mint that I planted last year is blooming nicely.







And it means that we got to go take a short walk up in the mountains.

So, a lovely day all told.





P.S. Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. Yes, we've only been married for 6 years, though we've been together for 10 -- and it feels as though we've always been together. We celebrated with our beautiful walk in the mountains and a breakfast out.

Can You Spell Intimidation?

Tomorrow morning I have a master's defense. The paper is not so good, and will have to be revised substantially before I will sign off. The ideas of the paper are great; there are some good sections, but at both surface and deep levels, the paper has problems.

Today I have received two voice mails (one on my office phone; one on my cell) and two emails outlining why I should sign off on the paper. From the student's advisor.

The latest voice mail asked to meet with me face-t0-face for thirty minutes this evening so we could talk about the student's paper.

WTF?

My response:

I will not return the phone calls. I will not meet with the advisor face-to-face. I will not sign off on the student's paper, I expect to see substantial revisions before I will sign off, and I plan to have a frank conversation with this advisor after the defense is over about the attempt to leverage my signature.

Annoyed, to put it mildly.

Birthday Gifts

Yesterday was my birthday (Dr. Bad Ass is now officially 46 years young) and Slogger went nuts with kitchen appliances, which is cool since I love me some cooking.

Here's the haul:



A food steamer that also serves as a rice cooker. Last night I cooked salmon in it -- tasty! And since we're now on an extremely low-fat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol diet, this will help with the low-fat part.




OK, so the ice cream and frozen yogurt maker isn't so closely connected to the healthy diet. BUT it will make some yummy desserts, and what is life without dessert? I've been looking up gelato recipes to try those out.




This slow cooker is bigger than my old one, so I'll be able to cook a whole chicken in it, or a big pork roast. It's got latches on top, which makes it handy for taking to parties, etc. The spoon is a bit of a cheesy addition, I think -- it's a rather flimsy plastic spoon that doesn't do much for me.




So I spent my birthday at home, recovering from vastly overeating Italian food the night before. Slogger was still feeling the aftereffects as well -- probably from the saltiness of the sauces and the amount that he ate. He got home from work yesterday and took a two-hour nap.

So today it is back to the office, to get some work done on revisions to my program report and to get started writing my sabbatical proposal (also a book proposal on my sabbatical work). But first to the treadmill . . .

Photo Meme

So I tried to do a photo meme some time ago, but got extremely frustrated with formatting issues. Here comes Madame Meow, with this lovely and easy idea. So charming! And here you go, me in a nutshell, or, um, a photomosaic...

Here are the instructions if you so wish to do this in your own blog (or just for fun):

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

_____________

1. What is your first name? Doctor
2. What is your favorite food? Grilled salmon, currently
3. What high school did you go to? NMHS
4. What is your favorite color? yellow
5. Who is your celebrity crush? George Clooney
6. Favorite drink? Raspberry Mojito
7. Dream vacation? Backpacking across Europe
8. Favorite dessert? Pecan pie
9. What you want to be when you grow up? My mother
10. What do you love most in life? The woods
11. One Word to describe you. Dependable
12. Your flickr name. Bad Ass Turtle

Thank you to the following Flickr people:

1. French Doctor Who Poster, 2. Grilled salmon, 3. north mesquite HS, 4. A quest for the most perfect yellow yarn..., 5. George Clooney in Dolce e Cabbana, 6. raspberry mojito..., 7. Vienna, Austria, 8. Pecan pie., 9. My Mother: 25th Anniversary Tribute (2006) by Stephen B Whatley, 10. A Stream in the Woods, 11. Elderly, yet Dependable, 12. Bad-Ass Turtle

oops

So Slogger and I decided we would go to this "Italian Night" at a local coffee house -- the word on the street is that the food is quite fine, so we made reservations for 7:30 tonight.

Slogger got off work a bit early, so I called the restaurant to see if we could shift to the 5:30 seating. "Sure," the young woman said. "I'll write you in."

You can see what's coming, right?

We showed up at 5:30, only to find that the young woman who assured us a seat had misread the crowded reservation sheet. The owner assured us that we could come for the 7:30 seating, and that the restaurant would pay for our dessert. So we headed home, and I've spent the last hour fulfilling my NCLM commitment (whew). In a few minutes, we'll head back.

We've often complained about the lack of Italian food in High Plains City, so this had better be good!

Loner is So Not a Bad Ass

I just left Loner at the vet, where he is having his shots and the ABCESS ON HIS SHOULDER cleaned out. See, there's this big orange cat in our neighborhood? Who is about twice the size of Loner? And who -- when challenged to a fight -- will gladly whoop Loner's ass every time?

Short version, Loner got a nasty scratch on his shoulder that got infected and was even starting to smell nasty. So I called the vet this morning and got him in -- he may have to stay overnight if he's a "slow waker."

NOTE: That's Loner on the right, and Marty on the left,
all curled up in Slogger's comfy chair.

Oh, and did I mention that I had a dentist's appointment this morning AND a doctor's appointment? A new doctor, since I haven't actually had a doctor in town for the last four years. This one took one look at my blood work and said one word: Lipitor. That's right, Slogger had the heart attack, and now I'm on Lipitor.

Bummer. Where's my Jack Daniels?

UPDATE: I picked Loner up and brought him home. He's got a big shaved patch, a wound in the middle of it, and he's loopy as all get out. But he's ok. Will he learn not to fight? Um, no.

Yard Work Weekend

So exhausted. Will post a complete list of jobs done tomorrow, along with a few pics. Needless to say, I'm going straight to bed.

After I finish watching Star Trek: First Contact. Gotta love the Borg. Not to mention Jean-Luc. Bald is beautiful, baby!