September 17
I have to admit I usually enjoy life being hectic.
1979
Monday again… Such beautiful weather, too. My day promises to be all cluttered up with tiny tasks. How I hate days like that! At least I feel like I have accomplished something at the end of these chopped up days. It's the big jobs that elude me. Is it possible to focus on the routine and the extraordinary at the same time? Maybe that's why the little things seem to be so time-consuming. Today I will try to have all those small jobs done by 10:30, so I can go to the undergraduate library and get things done in reference.
Life is so complicated.
Not really, I suppose. Only hectic. Actually, I have to admit I usually enjoy it being hectic.
1986
Mom slipped back a bit yesterday, so my visit with her was far from pleasant. It's one thing to see her so miserable and have a sense of hope. It's quite another if she will never get well, but continue in this agony (and that's what it is).
1989
What a long, long day. I woke up about 7:45, Jim already at work. Breakfast and morning stuff was OK. I got a grocery list ready and we were on our way. Kiddo 2 threw tantrum #1 when we got out of Giant, after generally good trip. Tears. Screams. Impasse. When he calmed down, we headed home, hurrying to arrive in time for Kiddo 1’s soccer game. Failure – – thanks to a very long freight train in Riverdale. The game was OK, but Kiddo 2 was clearly getting tired and hungry. Tantrum number #2 hit when we got in the car. More tears. More screams, etc. Ate at McDonald's and headed to the New Carrollton library. Big error Kiddo 2 fell asleep. Library took too long; Kiddo 2 needed a diaper and wouldn't let me change him. Mom melt down #1. Dragged both kids out into the car. More screaming, tantrum #3. It got worse.
Can't wait until he's older.
Comment 2023
There you are: birth control in 161 words. Although if I had not had Kiddo 2, yesterday’s Oktoberfest would have been much less fun.
1991
Of course, all of this assumes consumer economics really does go to health and human performance. The proposed economics and consumer behavior plan would have really just four people, maybe two others. My consumer sciences proposal would have 7 and two halves. I honestly don't think either will work.
Comment 2023
The agony of academic reorganization continues.
1985
The weather is cool and my ragweed allergy is in full swing. Truly enjoyable. I just finished my morning exercises and I'm cooling down before heading for the showers; mostly I need a shampoo. I'm still waiting to hear from NEH, with my fingers tightly crossed. Also sent off the book prospectus to yet another publisher. This time it's Popular Culture Press. Just hoping something pans out. Last night I spoke up in Baltimore and took Kiddo with me. She had a wonderful time being the center of attention. In her Polly Flinders dress, she looked every inch a little lady. They missed her in her corduroys and T-shirt that she wore all day. I have another talk on Thursday night, a meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday and the ice cream party on Sunday. Why do I make myself so busy?
1997
How long has it been since I read “The Death of the Hired Man? It was wasted on me as a 12 year old. Then it was just a story, like listening to a radio play. But this time I noticed the dropping of each rounded word, and felt myself in Warren's place, and in his wife's, and in Silas's railing at the boy “daft on education”. I feel that a door is opening to me this year.
Comment 2023
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
‘I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’
Read the whole thing. It really is wonderful.
2014
Great day of teaching! I really felt like I connected most of the time, despite having a hellacious sore throat that got worse all day. Maybe all that talking? Now I feel feverish, though the thermometer says 97.7. But that's just me.
2020
Finally! At last! Six months late, we are on our way to visit Katie in Sonoma. Neither fire, nor plague, nor any other impediment will stop us this time!
Comment 2023
We moved from our house to a nearly retirement community in the middle of March 2020. The plan (don’t I love my plans!) was to take the train out to visit our friend Katie in Northern California, while the movers came, packed up everything and unpacked it in the new place. We would come back in ten days to our new home. But there was this new virus creeping across the country, so we re-scheduled the trip for the end of May. Surely everything would be back to normal by then! We moved on March 19, two days after everything at Riderwood shut down. Dining rooms closed, activities cancelled. Two months of meal deliveries and Zoom, and we re-scheduled the trip for late July. The virus seemed to be taking a little break by June, but then California was on fire, so we re-scheduled for mid-September.
It was a wonderful visit; almost normal.
