May did not start out fortuitously. I was so slow getting going in the morning that I couldn't finish my breakfast and had to take my coffee in a travel mug... which leaked all over me. I forgot to grab an umbrella, and it was raining so hard that I got absolutely soaked on my half a block walk to work from the shuttle stop. My shoes were especially wet, so I took them off and put them over the vent in my office. Nobody said anything about me walking around in my socks, and by lunchtime the shoes were dry enough to put back on. I walked with Hardingfele in her building, and we didn't walk steadily enough for me to get credit for a workout. Both she and Seabird complain that they are walking more slowly now that they walk with me, and other people are leaving them in the dust. I don't know what to say about this. I have never been a fast walker, even in my prime, and now I'm like a little old lady. I keep reading articles that say this means I'm going to die an early death, and to try to speed up. Yet they also say people who slow down and smell the roses live longer, so who are you gonna believe?
The mushroom light in Hardingfele's office isn't so much iridescent purple as it is purple on one side and dark blue on the other, as I realized when I inspected it today. Here are photos.
There was a Nordic party this afternoon for the graduating seniors, so I chatted with some faculty and grad students and had a couple of Nordic treats. Then a grad student gave me two pieces of cake she had made for her class, one a citrus cake and one some sort of typical German cake with custard and almonds. The citrus cake was falling apart, so I just ate it, and then I didn't feel so great after all that sugar. Travalon and I can split the other one tomorrow morning over coffee.
This evening I joined a Zoom "grief circle" for climate change, and we were supposed to have a pen, a journal, and a candle. I had Travalon grab the green mushroom light for my "candle," and then we were supposed to use five prompts to write about our grief, but when I got put into a breakout group with three other women, we all realized we had less grief and more anger. However, we do grieve the fact that honesty and integrity aren't valued anymore. When people at the highest level of government are corrupt, greedy liars, and people - Christians! - admire them, it feels like honesty and integrity have no worth in our society. The craziest thing about this group, though, is that the facilitator is someone I beat years ago in an election for Staff Congress. What are the odds of that? One of the newer regulars from Night Prayer was there too, and one guy from the Care for Creation group at the church we are going to now - he's the one who sent me the invitation.
While today was a rainy day, and the flowers have already been blooming for a week, I did feel like this DuoLingo lesson I got today was fitting for May Day:
You just never know when the flowers will bloom around here. The year Travalon and I got married, I had chosen May 10 because I thought that's when the crabapples should be in bloom, but they were barely budding, and we had to have our photos taken in front of the magnolias. This year the crabapples started blooming in late April, so they'll be done by May 10, I would suppose.
Here is a photo of a crane that Travalon took yesterday.
And a red-winged blackbird.
Anna Banana II is coming to town in two weeks, and she wants to go to Horicon, so watch this space for more bird photos.
Famous Hat
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