details

First, to answer  many questions about my new stand-up desk, which of course is a stand in for a real stand up, I picked it up on Amazon. It was on a slightly better sale last week, but it is still on sale -- $55. (Price of a real stand-up desk: $1300, and you can't readily take that baby with you when you switch rooms or venues.) Link to it here. Do I use it? Yes I do! Not for hours on end, but I am one who works in spurts and it's great for a spurt here and a spurt there.

Breakfast. I baked granola and flipped pancakes. For the aromas. For the fun of it.






Other details: my little girl and her fiancee passed through Madison today! Why? Well now, they are moving (for work reasons) to Minneapolis. I am now the parent of a Wisconsin babe and a Minnesota chick! Does that make me an Upper Midwest mama or what?! We came out to meet them for a fast food lunch on their drive through. Terrifically fun to be with both daughters, suddenly, just like that, for a fleeting moment.






Still other tidbits. The mice. Well now, quite suddenly we have become landlords to a flock of mice refugees.  Unlike some other good neighbors who take in the poor, the sick, the homeless, we're brutal with our new arrivals. True, we feed them a good dose of peanut butter first, but then -- out they go!

Yesterday, we discovered the extent of their quite sudden immigration. We found that they had been stockpiling (in our absence?) kittie crunchies under the couch pillow!
And so there we are, late at night, stripping the couch of its covers (for the laundry machine) and picking out handfuls of crunchies.
What are you doing with those?!
Giving them to Isis.
They're contaminated with mice!
Gorgeous, Isis eats mice. He wont care.
Ed is a man of reason.

And another detail: in cleaning out some kitchen cabinets (I get into spells of wanting to purge and downsize), I came across an old pack of walnuts. Magnificent walnuts, purchased impulsively when I was in the walnut region of France. But I'd forgotten about them and now, glancing at the date, I see that they had expired back in 2012.
Don't throw them out! I'll eat them! -- this is a typical refrain from Ed when he sees me throwing out dated food.
But after he takes a bite, he agrees: they've lost their oomph.
For the opossum  then? I ask. In googling his eating habits, we learned that an opossum will eat anything. Sadly, the life of this animal is short -- just a few years. Might as well enrich his with French walnuts.
Isn't that a bit too many?
He'll store them!
Or we'll attract other animals. You know, he's so well fed that he's starting to reject morsels of Isis food.
Walnuts are better than cat food!
And sure enough, a few minutes later, our welcome squatter (as opposed to the poor mice) goes at it. Every last nut. May his tummy be fine after such a feast!






One more detail: many have asked if I will keep my email address going forward. There's a double yes, in that as you may have noticed, Ocean uses my gmail address, not my university one. But in fact, it all streams to one place and because I have (just this week!) been granted an "emerita" status, I am able to keep my university email -- so yes, you can use that, or gmail. But, for those who used my address from days when I maintained my own website -- that's over and done with. So, only gmail or wisc.edu. I love to hear from you -- in comments or in email! (I have yet to figure out how best to respond to comments -- I assume no one goes back once they post their reflection and so I typically respond in the next post text or not at all. This isn't because I'm smug and unappreciative -- it's because I assume we all move forward and very few of you ever look back.)

A big day of many bits and pieces. It's all in the detail, isn't it?