Yesterday was just another day on campus. I thought I was going to walk at lunch with my colleague, but I found out too late that she was working from home to then go to the free organ concert at Lutheran Cathedral of the Midwest. Somehow I had hurt my back, so I was walking like a little old lady. I left a little early to catch the bus, figuring it would take me extra time to get to the stop, and indeed I got there just before the bus arrived. Then I just came home and chilled. I do have to note that this morning I bent over to get something off the floor, and there was a loud "clunk!" in my back, and then everything seemed to be fine. Something similar would often happen when we played tennis and I'd bend over to get the ball. Who needs a chiropractor when you can just bend your woes away?
Today my colleague and I went to the Horticulture greenhouse over our lunch break. I had already taken her to the Botany greenhouse, so she asked me what the difference was between Botany and Horticulture. I said, "Botany is where you study the plant and say, 'Oh, it grows this way,' and Horticulture is where you tell the plant how to grow." She said that was a good explanation. We saw a blooming amaryllis, and she was taken with its beauty and said it reminded her of another flower, but she didn't know the word in English. I told her once I was talking to someone else whose native language was Chinese, and when I said I liked Baroque music, she didn't know the word but she put it into some app on her phone, and it gave her a Chinese word she knew so she said, "Oh, I like that kind of music too!" So my colleague tried putting "amaryllis" in her translation app, but apparently she didn't know the Chinese word it gave her. So she put the Chinese word for the flower she was thinking of into the app, and it gave her the English word "daylily." I can see that. She said in China they eat daylilies, but you have to dry the flower because it's toxic if you eat it fresh. I did not know that. I know a lot of flowers are edible, but I noted that in this country people seem squeamish about eating them, even when they are put on pieces of cake or whatever so it's clear you're supposed to eat them. People always think I'm weird because I do eat flowers. Rose petals are delicious.
After work I caught a bus right outside my building to take me to where I could catch the B bus going south, but I saw it go by while waiting to cross the street. I started walking down Park Street until getting to a stop just before the next bus was scheduled to arrive, and indeed it did come two minutes later. I went to Rich's house, and we had bao (dumplings) for dinner, then we prayed a rosary. He drove me to Blessed Sacrament, where some people had paid to have a fancy Italian dinner but I hadn't even known about it in time to sign up. You could attend the talk on Biblical archaeology for free, so we did, and the speaker (who works on a dig in Israel) related the different eras to the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ that is chanted at the Christmas Midnight Mass. It was so interesting! I thought Travalon might be interested too, since he loves history, but he went to a high school basketball game nearby and then picked me up afterwards. He said he'd like to go work on a dig where King Arthur might have lived. That would probably be a lot safer than the dig in Israel right now! In fact, the speaker said they are not going over this summer but are going to write about what they found last summer. The dig is not too far from where the war is, so I'd say that's a wise decision.
Famous Hat
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