Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues

This semester has been a bit on the crazy side. (Sorry, Kristi) I normally teach 2 or 3 classes each semester so it’s not that it’s too much work, but I’ve become accustomed to teaching purely virtual with maybe one remote session thrown in. This time I had three remote, which means I have to actually be on the computer and act like it’s a real classroom. (It’s not, it’s my dining room, my students are in their homes in whatever state of dress is convenient and no one really knows if they’re even actually there because we can’t ask them to turn on their cameras.) M/W was two classes, one at 11 and one at 2 and for some reason that made perfect sense to me at the time, I scheduled office hour at 1.

Teaching people face to face is exhausting. I know, I’m not out there in the heat laying bricks, but sometimes I think it would be less tiring to do that!

Also, I was offered a summer class that I haven’t taught in years. The book for this class, for all the accounting classes actually, is horrible. I have yet to have a student tell me they’ve been able to get any knowledge from these texts. So instead of just reading the text and writing lecture notes, I’m spending hours online searching for better explanations and examples of concepts that are complicated enough without making the students pull their hair out (and give up). The slides provided by the dept chair are no help. I teach using the PowerPoint as my backup, jumping off points, outline of the course sort of. I put a lot of information into the slides and the students seem to appreciate it. I just finished redoing his slides for the first chapter, the content went from 7 slides to 28. (He likes to be minimal, he told me. I like to be loquacious.)

Meanwhile, it feels like the world is continuing to go to Hell in handbasket, very quickly. Apparently there was a huge dump of documents from Pfizer the other day, but we were all distracted by someone leaking a document from the Supreme Court. My thoughts on abortion are pretty well set – I’m old enough to remember when the only method of birth control available was the rhythm method (we called people who used that “parents.”) I find it really hard to believe that anyone has to resort to abortion instead of taking precautions to avoid getting pregnant in the first place. ((I know there are exceptions, but as Bill Clinton (and I never thought I’d agree with him on anything) said, abortion should be legal, safe and RARE.))

My favorite meme of the day said “if you could wear a mask for two years, you can wear a condom when having sex.” If you don’t want to get pregnant, do something about it before it happens. Abortion should not be a form of birth control.

And, whoever broke the trust of the Court, and broke their promise to not reveal any documents, etc, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This, to me, is far more serious than January 6th, which was basically a bunch of jackasses taking selfies. Except for Ashli Babbit, and we’re not supposed to talk about her.

And how do you all feel about the Ministry of Truth? That woman looks like the woman in Hunger Games, and that’s all I can see. I’m way too outspoken for this nonsense, so if you suddenly don’t hear from me, I’m probably in a re-education camp somewhere. SEND YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, I picked up the Wonderful Wallaby and got back into it. I had gotten to the “fuse the pouch” section and froze, then got busy, and finally got that part done the other night. I think my gauge is messed up, though, because I’m very quickly adding the sleeves to the body. We shall see, this is an experiment and it’s not expensive yarn so I consider it a learning experience.

Maverick turned 4 last week. There was a pawtee at daycare and he got a president from his best buddy Oscar. I suspect he’ll be blogging about that at some point, when he isn’t so busy with digging holes and trying to get into the woods. Meanwhile, Mommah has been reading and buying more dog books. We’ve started playing a bit with scent work, I ask him to touch the pouch with his nose and he gets a treat. After about 5 touches, he looks at me like, “are you seriously that stupid that you can’t figure out that’s the pouch?” and walks away. He’s a lot of fun to train, that one.

Maverick is blogging again

He’s fine, really

He’s such a drama queen.

Anyway. He really is fine.

But if you use a collar, and your dog pulls, be aware of neck injuries.

PSA for today. 🙂

I haven’t blogged in a while, because as others have said, I just don’t know where to start anymore. The world has gone barking mad. Abso-fuckin-lutely barking mad.

Here in my little kingdom, Covid has been over for a very long time. It’s rare to see more than a few people in a week wearing masks. The only thing we really hear about it are those whiny ass commercials ‘Don’t you worry now!” (Fuck you, I’ll worry if I want to)

We don’t hear much about Ukraine, just enough to go “Hunh?”

Apparently the laptop has been real all along but will the contents mean anything? How can 50 so called experts swear it’s a myth when they know full well it’s not?

Classes have started. “Submit all homework in Excel” was explained the first day, as well as how to obtain a free copy of Microsoft Office 365 – it’s not actually free, it’s part of their tuition, but do we expect them to know that? (I actually tell them that and they’re pretty astonished. Hey, all that shit you think the college is giving you? Remember that fee you pay? Yup, you’re paying for that shit whether you use it or not.) Fast forward to first homework assignment due – “I did this on paper, can I just take a picture with my phone and submit it that way?” How about no. “But……..” How about “NO?” Sigh

Maverick has chosen to forget everything he ever knew. Every. Bloody Thing.
Dear Maverick. The price of booze has gone as high as gas. Mommah can’t afford to drink as much as you’re making me do lately. Please get your shit together again.

I have enrolled in an online training course. It’s either that or strangle him and I love him so that’s not really an option. Pray for me.

Then there’s the slap. I kinda don’t care except everyone else seems to. My thoughts, and only mine – If I rolled my eyes at a joke aimed at me, my husband would laugh even harder. If my husband stood up and stalked towards the joker, I would have been yelling, “What are you doing?” If my husband had slapped said joker, I would have not been in my seat when he returned, I would have been leaving the building. If he felt I needed protection from words, he would have left that up to me. If he felt I needed protection from bodily harm, get out of his way.

I don’t think children need to learn about sex and gender in kindergarten. I think if you’re teaching that to children, you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck is wrong with you? Can we please let kids be kids again? It’s not bad enough we shoved them into masks and told them if they acted like normal kids they were gonna kill grandma for two years. Do what you want but leave the kids alone.

I should be grading homework but I seriously need a TA. I hate grading homework. I suppose I could just not assign it? Nah, the powers that be wouldn’t be impressed. Sigh

Back to work

I had a gift card, I was left alone, and I was in a hurry. So yes, I spent more than the gift card, but that’s a given, isn’t it? One of my dearest friends gave gift cards to Books A Million this year for Christmas. We went to the local store to use them, I picked out 3 books which were definitely going to cost more than the card, but, as I already stated, that’s a given. The clerk rang them up, I handed over my credit card, then realized, as the transaction was completed, I forgot to hand over the gift card.

Sigh

Another trip was necessary. We needed to go to Hobby Lobby – that’s also a given at least once a week, I think they pump something into the air at the store that slowly causes you to go into withdrawal if you’re away from it for more than a week – and to Petsmart and there’s another BAM in that area, so off we went last night. I had a meeting with a student at 7:30, so after picking up the Maverick at 5:30, off we went, dashed into the bookstore, found 3 titles on the sale rack and one that just looked interesting inside – and their cash register is right next to the rack of Tarot decks so I will be going back there soon because one can never have enough decks – and then to the other stores, and made it home, in the wind and rain, in time to meet with the student, who only wanted to tell me he won’t be taking the next level course. Thanks for letting me know.

Then we settled down to some reading and news avoidance. Watching the “news” is an exercise in futility these days. I have no idea what’s really going on. I think there are maybe 10 people in the world who actually do and they don’t think the rest of us need to know why bombs are being dropped and why gas prices are sky high and why people in the greatest country in the world are deciding if they have enough money to buy gas and groceries – if they can find groceries – for the week.

We’re lucky. We have enough. My hoarding genes are working in our favor these days. We won’t run out of anything for a long time. Maybe by the time we do, I’ll have figured out why the hell the world went to shit in such a short amount of time.

Meanwhile, let’s go Brandon

What a month was February. I feel like it just started yesterday and now it’s almost over. February is my most hated month, followed closely by January. (Yes, I know that January comes before February, but not on my most hated list.) We normally get slammed with snow in February. We get through January, think we’re almost done with Winter and February says, “hold my beer.” We got back to back blizzards here in 2010, and then a few years later we got about 3 feet of snow in one storm, also in February.

This year we had next to no snow – so far. I do not trust March. But fingers are crossed that the pattern continues. My mother always said that the first storm of the year sets the pattern and I don’t believe she’s often been wrong.

Not much is going on in my little kingdom. Maverick is going to daycare most days. He was home on Friday because there was meant to be ice, which didn’t really happen, but he would have been there alone so he stayed home. Consequently his weekend has been all akilter. He doesn’t do well with schedule changes.

The world is a hot mess. I have no idea how much, if any, of the “news” is real but it does strike me that a whole lot of “conspiracy theories” are being proven true. How about those useless masks? I realized the other day, after hearing the term “new normal” for the first time in a while, that was my first red flag. When I heard, a few days into the first (and only here) lockdown, that we had to get used to the “new normal,” my hackles went up and all my witchy senses went on high alert. You don’t call something “normal” unless it’s gonna be around forever and “15 days to flatten the curve” is a far cry from forever. (Or so we thought, longest 15 days of my life)

There’s something that’s making my witchy senses tingle about Ukraine. I’m not sure what it is, and probably will never know, but something smells funny. Am I the only one who thinks so?

Meanwhile, I have a class to prep for tomorrow. Because in spite of all the world going spinning off into who knows what new catastrophe, we must teach accounts recievable and uncollectible accounts, and ratios – because if the nuclear button is hit, those things will be very useful to know. And I have a tower of TP so I’m not going to worry!

and you can’t have it both ways

I’m not a fan of Whoopi Goldberg. I used to be. I still enjoy Sister Act – it’s one of the movies I’ve seen a bunch of times that hasn’t yet been ruined for me. ((((I have limited tolerance for repetition of anything, but my husband, that wonderful man, can watch the SAME. FUCKING. SHOW. ((or movie)) EVERY. FUCKING DAY. ((((and sometimes more than once in the same day))) until I pray to the Goddess that I will never ever have to see that particular bit of drama every again)))). (It doesn’t work, by the way. See previous posts about MASH)

I digressed. I think Whoopi used to be funny. I don’t care for her politics, so I don’t watch the show that she hosts. Wow, that was easy, I just change the channel. She doesn’t really impact my life.

However. Apparently she said something extremely stupid the other day. Like none of us have ever done that before! She explained herself later on some talk show that I also don’t watch because hey, that channel changing thing? It’s pretty amazing. Was she sincere? I don’t know.. I teach, I’ve dealt with student excuses forever, and I’m also a grandmother – I know the “say you’re sorry so you don’t get in trouble” routine. She seemed sincere, but she’s an actress, so there’s that.

I never heard of this Joe Rogan guy till he got Covid and got over it by using (OH MY GOD! HOW DARE HE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Ivermectin and HCQ and Vitamin C and I don’t know what all else. HOW DARE HE GET OVER COVID WITHOUT GIVING ALL PRAISE TO SAINT FAUCI OF THE VACCINE THAT DOESN’T WORK?????????????????

Well. He obviously needed to be cancelled. Seriously, who could even question that he needed to just STFU and slink off to his dank cellar and be re-educated?

And along came Whoopi. Damn it, she needs to be cancelled too!

But wait. You don’t think Rogan should be cancelled? Then how can you support cancelling Whoopi?

(The more I type “Whoopi,” the funnier it looks, by the way)

I don’t think you can say it’s okay to cancel only the ones you don’t like. Call me crazy, and many have, but that just doesn’t fly with me.

my review is up at

https://theprincessreads700286035.wordpress.com/

I read a lot. A LOT. My husband says I always have my “nose in a book.” Well, my dear Bear, it’s preferable to having my eyeballs glued to the TV, so hush. (He teases me, but I’ve heard him tell his friends that he relies on my research abilities and “If she doesn’t know something, she’ll find a book about it and learn as much as she possibly can.” )

I read fiction. I read nonfiction. I read a plethora of dog training books because they fascinate me.
Currently, I’m on a mission to read more classics, and to knock down the out of control TBR pile.

So far this year, I’ve finished 6 books. (I count audiobooks as “read” because I think it’s just stupid if you don’t.) Two of them were audiobooks, the others were “real” books. (If you don’t count audiobooks, do you cound e-books? Hmmmm?)

I keep track on Goodreads and in this super fun planner Peachy talked me into buying. (She’s also a very bad influence when it comes to books, half my TBR pile is her fault.) (And I love her for it)

She gave this beautiful copy of A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle – this was one of my favorite books growing up and I’ve read it several times. Last night I decided it was time to give it a revisit, and I’m loving it as much now as I did when I was 13. My best friend had her own bedroom in the attic of her home, and I so envied her that room. Meg Murray was my hero, as a gawky, unpopular, homely kid, she gave me hope that it would all work out someday. (It did. Note to teenage self, he will find you and your dreams will come true just when you think they won’t.)

I’m reading Meet Your Dog, by Kim Brophy

The subtitle says it’s game changing and I have to agree. I’ve learned a great deal about why dogs do what they do, and in a way that’s letting me change my perspective about why Maverick does some of the things he does, and my reaction to those behaviors is changing as well. I’m seriously loving this book.

Today I hope to finish listening to this book:

I love this series, the characters are great, the author is wonderful, I’ll be looking for book #9 as soon as I’m finished with this one. (I couldn’t get the audiobook site to open, so the link goes to Amazon, sorry)

I’m also reading

I can only read a few pages of this before I get so angry I have to go do something else. I’ll do a full review when I finish this book.

Also reading:

This takes place near where I grew up, and very close to where my sister currently lives. It was a Kindle First Reads so I grabbed it, and it’s actually pretty interesting. An unsolved murder will always get my attention, and one connected to Twin Peaks, and with local connections, yeah, I’m in.

I haven’t decided on my next audiobook. Up next on the TBR pile are A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (thank you, Kristi), Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and The Tenant of Windfell Hall. That should carry me through February! (Maybe!)

I braved the driveway to take Maverick to daycare because he does not care if it’s snowing, or blowing, or whatever, he must get a walk or go to play. Walk was out of the question, the local parks don’t plow the paths – and I don’t expect them to, the roads are far more important. Maverick disagrees. So the Bear plowed the driveway and I only slid a little going out and a little coming back, and only had to sit for a minute in the car when I got home till my legs stopped feeling weird.

I have an appointment at 1 and I’ve been debating all morning about rescheduling. I’ve decided to go because at this point, the slush is melting and the wind will dry up the mess and I just want to get it over with. (I have a minor medical thing that needs checked every year to make sure it’s still minor.)

It will no doubt be a shock to my system to have to wear a mask. I picked up meds for Maverick last week – his allergies – and the vet is now requiring them again. I pulled the one I carry for this sort of thing out of my purse – chuckling to myself that I have no idea when that baby was last washed, but it’s all theatre so slapping it on my face will make someone less terrified – and very shortly, had to turn around and pull it down. No, I can’t freakin breathe. Perhaps because I’m constantly congested at this time of year (another reason to love winter) so put something over my mouth like that’s a good idea. Thanks, Lord Fauci. (By the way, if you have an IPhone, you can make certain words trigger an emoji in messenger. I won’t share what “Fauci” triggers. But my friends find it amusing. )

Classes start this week. I had a long talk with my dean about some of the things I’m hearing from students, she is absolutely the best boss ever. She messaged me later about taking on an upper level class for the second half of the semester. This is something I have wanted for a long time. When I started teaching accounting at my college, we had one class. A couple of years later, we added the next level. I taught both, Principles 1 and Principles 2. As time went on, more classes were added and I think I taught all but Governmental and Tax – I seriously hate Tax and know next to nothing about not for profit or governmental accounting. Then the college hired a person who was intent on teaching the upper level courses and for many reasons, she was given those courses. It didn’t really matter that the students didn’t like her and didn’t do well with her, she checked off many of the diversity and inclusivity boxes and that’s a huge thing in academia these days.

However. I’m not sure if she’s no longer there or if they’ve finally woken up, but my current dean is very interested in me teaching these courses, and that makes me very happy. Since the panicdemic started, I haven’t been on campus. I don’t want to be on campus. She’s totally happy with that because it makes me available for her – she’s in charge of virtual classes.

So I will be prepping a new class like now. Also on the table is getting serious about dog training. I have a million books (don’t scoff) and access to tons of videos and I just need to actually do the work. This dog of mine is way too smart, and knows how to not only get what he wants, but how to push all my buttons, and then make my heart melt, all in the space of about 15 seconds.

So there may – or may not – be another storm this coming weekend. There was a local group of “weather weenies” who accurately predicted a huge storm several years ago, a storm that every other group missed. They made the local papers and the news, and it went right straight to their heads. It also made them forecast crazy totals for pretty much every storm after that one, and then go back and edit posts or delete them completely to make it look like nope, they never said that! Someone mentioned them the other day so I checked out their page, and yup, still at it. For a storm that was predicted to be 8 inches at the most, and then only in the higher elevations, they were predicting 12 to 18 inches. As it became obvious they were totally wrong, the posts with those numbers disappeared. However, people had taken screen shots and were posting them in comments. Today, the whole page has mysteriously disappeared. I recently read 1984 again. (Highly recommend if you want a view of what’s happening to us now) I couldn’t help thinking of it – those posts and that page went into the memory hole and that’s that! What’s amazing to me, and probably shouldn’t be considering the world today, is that this group STILL has a loyal following. They haven’t gotten a storm right in years, but these people RELY ON THEM TO KEEP US SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn, that sounds familiar. I wonder if Dr. Fauci works for them?

The weather fearcasters are saying we’re going to get snow on Sunday. They’ve been saying this for over a week, the snow total has gone from 20 inches on Monday to 9.5 inches on Monday, to 2 inches on Monday and 5 on Sunday.

The National Weather Service posted that people should refrain from posting model runs and snow maps before today because things change so quickly in the world of weather. (See above)

Several people commented on that post, and on posts from other weather pages, that they need to know at least a week out so they can be prepared.

I live in Pennsylvania. That’s that sort of rectangle shaped state in the northern section of this great country. Here’s a fun fact. Pretty much every winter, at some point, it snows in this part of the country. I grew up in Upstate NY. It also snows there, pretty much every day all winter long. At some point in December, depending on how cold it is, we rotate clothing, putting t-shirts and shorts away and pulling out the Cuddl Duds and turtle necks. An extra quilt goes on the bed, coats come out of closets and we locate the boots that we happily shoved in the back of a closet around March of the previous year. The Bear makes sure the truck has a full tank of gas, that there’s gas for the snow blowers, puts the mower in the shed and pulls out the shovels. We make sure we have kitty litter for the sidewalks, salt for the places Maverick can’t reach (salt is bad for puppies) and we have an extra bag of bird seed. I check on our Chewy orders, have to make sure we have extra food for the kid. All of this and more we do for Justin. (Y’all know Justin. Justin Case.)

Unless you moved to the north from Florida about a week ago, you ought to know that all this should be done – every freakin year. Yes, there have been years with no snow (those were the best!) but it’s rare, and I’ve yet to see a year with no cold weather.

So if you aren’t prepared more than a week out, you’re a nitwit.

I went to the grocery store this morning. Friday is my normal shopping day, but I went early because I knew that everyone would be out buying up all the milk, eggs and bread. (I’m grateful that I was able to get all of the above, because we needed them, not because we might get snow.) The store was a zoo. I saw more masks than I’ve seen in a long time, that’s really weird, it didn’t take long to get used to seeing faces again. (The saddest part of my day was seeing a child of maybe 4 years old wearing a mask. How the hell are we going to convince these babies that faces are meant to be seen?) I got most of what was on my list. I saw a lot of empty shelves. I muttered “Let’s go Brandon” more than once.

The most recent update has us at 1-3 inches of snow and then turning to rain. To me, it’s a total waste of Mother Nature’s time to snow and then rain and wash it away. Just bloody well rain and get it over with. So hopefully everyone is totally prepared for WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!! a week out.