5/1: What I Accomplished Today

1. Off to a bad start today; I apparently wasn't feeling well, so I didn't hear my Co-Vivant's alarm go off. She needed to be up at 5 to go to a networking breakfast at 7 at which she was supposed to speak, and she didn't get up until 6:40. She got there, but it usually takes her a very long time to wake up, and since she didn't get to ease into the day, she never quite felt right. I know that's unpleasant.

2. While she was at her breakfast, and then the meeting she went to afterwards, and then her reinspect, I slept as I always do; I don't have to be up until noon or 12:30 or so, and I don't really sleep soundly until she's up because her alarm's going to go off and wake me. (To my knowledge, she has never heard an alarm clock in her life; someone else hears it and wakes her.)
I started to stir a little and looked at the clock: 10:56. Plenty of time left; roll over, go back to sleep. Had a nice little nap. Started to stir, looked at the clock: 10:57. Oh. Plenty of time; back to sleep. Dozed a little. Started to stir, looked at the clock: 10:57.

Now I knew she was upset that I hadn't gotten her up in a timely manner, and I was still half-asleep, so my mind came to a stupid conclusion: she has somehow managed to slow down time on my clock (I knew it hadn't stopped because it moved from 56 to 57) so that I will oversleep. And then my brain kicked in enough to go, "Now, that's the stupidest thing you've ever thought. Go back to sleep. Everything's fine." Rolled over. Went back to sleep. Had a good doze. Started to stir, looked at the clock: 10:58.

At this point, I had decided that something odd is happening. I checked both of my clocks (it sometimes takes two to get me up if I have to be somewhere early): 10:58. Her clock says 10:58.

Ah, I think, but she has performed this mystical time-slowing thing on all clocks in the room. So I got up and went from room-to-room checking all the clocks. Now bear in mind that this includes the clocks on the cable box and the Tivo, which she can't possibly have affected in any way, and the clocks that are so high up on the wall that, even with the stepladder, 4' 9.75" Co-Vivant isn't going to be able to touch them. It takes me fully 30 seconds of this house-wandering to realize I'm being an idiot.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I made the bed and slept the rest of the morning on top of the covers. I don't sleep quite as soundly that way.

3. Graded two sets of papers, prepped tonight's class, taught tonight's class.

4. The Dean called me; my little plan yesterday to avoid having to drive back to that campus to get signatures on the Arthur course appears to have worked, because he had it and was preparing to put it in the last person's mailbox. However, he called and told me he didn't like the outcomes I'd come up with because they were generic Literature outcomes and not specific to the Arthur course.

Now I was in the meeting that developed these outcomes. We decided that all lit courses were going to use the same outcomes with nothing specific to the course in them; that the students should become a bit familiar with the specifics of the particular course is such a given it seemed goofy to include it on the list, and without the specific, the same outcomes work for each course.

But I'm going to argue with the Dean? Not a good idea. (Well, sometimes I do, actually, but I try not to do it every time; if I disagree with him, I want him to understand that it's something important and he should try to agree with me or at least see why I'm not going along with him. You can speak truth to power if you choose your occasions.)

Now in real life, I wouldn't really care, because this isn't really that big a deal. The problem here is that the outcomes are on the form with all the signatures, and the signatures have to be on the original; if I change that original, I have to regather all the signatures, which are due at a meeting to be held on Friday, and realistically speaking, I probably will not have time to do that signature run again. The Dean suggested that I get the chair's approval for e-approvals; if I add one outcome and edit another, I can do what he'd like to have done, so I'd e-mail the amendment to the four signators and ask for approval in that venue. I don't know if the chair will buy that or not. The alternatives are 1) we just submit the course with the generic outcomes (which, frankly, was the correct procedure in the first place, but whatcha gonna do), or 2) wait a year. It doesn't matter to me; I'm perfectly happy teaching the course under the generic Topics number, but the Dean would like it in the catalog, and I told him I'd try.

5. Completed the Placement statistics for April and the Placement Newsletter for May. (The newsletter is called the Placement Reader. The people who score the tests for us are called, sensibly enough, readers. Catchy, huh?)

6. Took a look at the Assessment form to begin to think about what the Assessment criteria for Placement might be. Put an item in the newsletter asking others to give me their ideas for what we might assess and how we might assess these things. Nothing will come of the request (the newsletter generally feels like I'm whistling in the wind; I don't think anyone actually reads it, and I seldom get responses to questions I ask), but at least I asked, which was the right thing to do.

7. Didn't play much Pogo tonight; I was at the office late putting together the stats & newsletter. Tomorrow is new badge day, though.

8. We watched Janeane Garafolo do standup; it was pretty good. Whenever she has been in something, my co-vivant says, "Oh, I don't like her," but she enjoyed the show tonight, so maybe she will mellow a little on the Janeane Garafolo front.

We also watched the episode of Mad About You in which Jamie has to spend the day with her helpless father because her mother is staying with other relatives, so Paul discovers how clueless he is about the actual logistics of running his home. He didn't know that the dry cleaning got picked up, or that they belonged to the Meat of the Month club, or other such things. We both laughed a lot during the episode, and at the end, I said, "Just for the record, I know I am Mr. Magoo about the running of this house; I am utterly clueless, and very little would be accomplished if you weren't here to do it." And then that was funny, too, so we laughed about that a long time.

I can remember how to play nine classes of World of Warcraft characters, or I can remember that funny little vinegar thing she does with the laundry. My brain cells self-selected; I think the cells containing the vinegar trick ran away and joined the circus.

9. Speaking of which, I worked on my level 20 Human Mage. No ding tonight; kind of a bummer.

10. Tonight's BigFishGame looks like another three-matchy. No, thanks.

11. I changed the toilet paper roll in the front bathroom when I got up. I also cleaned the trap in my shower.

12. In the interest of public service (and because the very idea has just been making me giggle since I thought of it), I have decided to give some of the many extremely useful recipes that get me through the week.

Cinnamon Toast
Take two slices of bread. I like Orowheat's Country Potato, and my Co-Vivant likes Wonder. Any sort of bread will do.
Put the slices in the toaster. Set the toaster for the setting you like (we usually use 3 or 3 and a dot on a ten-point scale). Depress the lever.
Get out a knife, the cream cheese, the cinnamon, and the sugar.
The first time you make this, you will have to make sugar and cinnamon. Sometimes the store sells this, but it costs a silly amount of money even if you happen to live in one of the few stores that still sells this. Put one teaspoon of cinnamon and four teaspoons of sugar in a little Tupperware bowl with a tight-fitting lid. (Once the cinnamon smelled much too potent and I had to cut it with five teaspoons instead of four, but four is usually right.) Stir this mixture up.
By now, your toaster has probably popped. Put your toast slices side by side on a paper towel.
Use the knife to spread a layer of cream cheese on each slice. You want cream cheese, not butter, for two reasons: magically and mystically, cream cheese is simultaneously richer-tasting and less fatty than butter. (Frankly, this doesn't sound right to me, but I lack the Dairy Knowledge to counter the less-fatty claim of Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese.)
After you have a nice layer of cream cheese on your toast, sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on one slice. Then sprinkle it less vigorously over the other slice. Pick up the first slice, which will probably have extra on it, and tilt it around until the cinnamon is well-distributed. If there is still extra, shake it onto the other slice of toast.
Pick up the second slice of toast and tilt it around until the cinnamon is well-distributed. If there is extra, shake it onto the other slice of toast. Continue this until you like your cinnamon distribution.
If there is still extra cinnamon, shake it onto the paper towel.
Now put your two slices, cinnamon sides touching to maintain warmth and help promote rich creamy chewiness, onto another paper towel; the first one has cinnamon on it. Use the first paper towel to put the remaining cinnamon back into the Tupperware bowl and seal tightly.
Eat the toast.

Here is a dessert I made up.
Ingredients:
5 Keebler Grasshopper cookies
3 Kraft Marshmallows (if you must use the generic, be sure they are extremely fresh)
Optional: one half (two quarters) of a Honey Graham cracker

Procedure: Take two of the cookies and place them bottom-side-up on a surface. On each of these two cookies, place a marshmallow.
If you have half a graham cracker, break it in half (Honey Grahams have a perforation) and put a quarter graham cracker on each of the two marshmallows on top of cookies.
Then cover the marshmallow with another cookie.

Eat the extra cookie.
Eat the extra marshmallow.
Eat your two little sandwiches.

These could be called Faux S'mores. To my knowledge, they aren't, but they could be.

One more recipe. This is what I had for dinner today.

At Costco, buy the Chinese Chicken Salad package. They usually only carry this in the spring and summer. It is in the deli section with the cheese and the lunch meats and such.
Then go around the corner to the cold room with the produce and buy either a bag of shredded lettuce or a three-pack of lettuce heads.
When you get home, get the Ziploc bowl that you put the popcorn in; it still should have a lid. From your Chinese Chicken Salad package, take out a package of meat, a package of crispy noodles, and a package of nuts. That will leave you one of each of these for the next time. There are also two packages of dressing; you are certainly welcome to put this on your salad, or at least to put it in a bowl so you can dip your salad into it, but I don't usually eat salad dressing.
Open the three packages (nuts, chicken, noodles) and put them in the popcorn bowl. (That doesn't mean it has popcorn in it; it just means, when we have popcorn, this is the big Ziploc bowl we put it in.)
If you bought a bag of lettuce, open it and dump in enough lettuce so the bowl is almost full, leaving yourself just enough room to mix things up a little. If you bought a head of lettuce, portion it however you like to portion your lettuce (shred, cut, rip, section) and, again, dump it in so the bowl is almost full, leaving yourself just enough room to mix things up a little.
Mix things up a little.
Put the lid on the popcorn bowl. Depending on the lettuce, this will stay good three days or longer. (I don't know how much longer because this never lasts three days for me. I like this.)

Variant: if you are eating low carb, discard the crispy noodles. Shame, though. They're tasty. Maybe you should send them to me so you're not wasting them.

Three helpful, original recipes.

Maybe you can help me out with this one: when I was a little girl, my mother used to make radish sandwiches--just spread butter or margarine on a slice of bread, slice a radish or two, arrange the radish slices on the bread, either cut the bread in half and put half on top or put on another slice to make a sandwich. It was really delicious--refreshing in the spring and summer, with just a little bit of kick. I sometimes still have radish sandwiches (which my Co-Vivant considers unacceptably deviant behavior), and sometimes I make them with butter or margarine, and sometimes I make them with cream cheese. (I love cream cheese. I also use it for potato chip dip.)

Anyway, it seems to me there has to be a way to make this into a really delicious, petite, stylish appetizer for gatherings. The last time I hosted book group, we bought some little bread thingies at Costco, and I spread on butter and topped it with a slice of radish. It wasn't enough radish, but putting on more would have messed up the aesthetics. I don't know.

Okay, I think that's enough Suzy Homemaker tips for one night.