Warwickshire Dreamin'

Gainesville

Monday, Monday. Very quiet on campus, which in general is nice-- however, the flipside is that a lot of the usual things are not open or are minimally functional. The small store near Little Hall that usually has some decent food (as opposed to snacks) was in snack-only mode, so no lunch. I've made sure to get one all ready to pack for tomorrow.

I will definitely take Wednesday off, since I need to go in next Wednesday-- there will be tours of the new building over the next few weeks, but I want Bill to be my guide, and that's his day. Will take the rest of that week off as part of my week per month pre-retirement vacation drain. Since I cashed out vacation before entering DROP, I can't do it again, so it's use it or lose it time.

We didn't get home until nearly 7:00 again, so dinner was a not very interesting Plan B. I do like the way I did the pre-sliced zuchini/yellow squash, though: browned some chopped onion (one of Sandy's) a bit first, then added the squash slices, with the heat fairly high. The onions were dark and flavorful, and the squash partly browned but not mushy.

Good going on the Nordic, Mom! I hope you can keep this up-- it's probably the best thing you can do for yourself. And I'll bet that's why your appetite has improved too, and the fact that even peas taste good to you... :-)

And thanks again for the diligence on the Baby Book-- that genealogy stuff is priceless. I hope Chris is paying attention and can chart it all out for us.

Towels just came out of the dryer, and I folded and put them away. Got both bathrooms and their floors scrubbed tonight also. Always good to have that out of the way for the week.

No word from the Ford dealership today-- we were expecting a call from them about what is available from other dealers. Not a good sign.

No time for any reading tonight. A new issue of the semi-annual scholarly journal IJOCA hit the library shelves today, so of course I commandeered it. Read a great article about the death of Raven in Terry and the Pirates. It was part of a whole section on the treatment of death in comics, and was the only article not obsessed with super heroes.

Also, I saw a CFP for a conference on movie advertising that sounds like something I could do a paper on-- those movie ads in the 40's comics pages I find so fascinating. And the conference is in... England! Next February 25. I immediately checked with our local kids to see if would conflict with the UF comics conf-- it won't! Next year's will be March 3-4, plenty of time to get back, and probably deliver the same paper. It's at the University of Warwick, just outside Coventry and a stone's throw from Stratford-Upon-Avon... oh be still my heart! Bill is not thrilled by the idea of the long transatlantic flight, nor the thought of sailing the North Atlantic (the QE2 is his idea of how to get to Europe) in February. It probably won't work out, but it's a swell dream. I've been dying to visit England ever since my Sandman studies got me so involved in English history. I've not been to the UK except for a touchdown at Heathrow on the way back from Italy one time, and that doesn't count. This chance email will give me many happy hours of fantasy travel both online and in my books.