Since 2010, I’ve been organizing an in-residence orientation, or Bootcamp, for our new incoming class of online graduate students. Bootcamp takes place during the last week of summer classes at UW-Madison, which always fall on the first full week of August. One of my colleagues has started saying, “Bootcamp ruins the summer” – and it’s really true.
I looked back on my blog a bit to see what I’d posted either about Bootcamp, or around the time of Bootcamp, in years past – here’s 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. And I think that’s enough.
This year for pre-Bootcamp weekend, I made a couple of things with berries: a slab pie and some muffins. The pie was to take over to our neighbors coming back home party. It was good, just a little too thin. Since January, the neighbors have been on sabbatical with their three small children, and they had a major house re-do while they were gone. We got the guided tour and I felt very house-inferior, especially in the clean, supposedly water-tight basement, with full bathroom. I liked the muffins – they’re not my usual recipe but they’re somehow summery & blueberry-y – blueberry forward I guess we’d say now. The recipe is from Jordan Marsh, a now closed department store in Boston. I guess pretty soon no one will have memories of lunching with their mother in the tea room at the department store. I remember chicken à la king at Kaufman’s.
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- Multi-berry (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries & strawberries) slab pie
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- Blueberry muffins, a recipe King Arthur Flour calls Famous Department Store Blueberry Muffins
After the party we biked to Hilldale to see an early show of Eighth Grade. A squirmy but excellently done film – I guess no one would really willingly be 13 again, whether there’s social media or not. I doubt gossip really traveled any slower before social media, but the biggest difference is it didn’t go so far.
Before the party, I went to the Farmers Market on my own and on the early side, since Mark was still on his way back from Chicago, and made a pretty nice haul.
Farmers Market loot, 8/4/2018
Sunday morning I went for a bike ride – my cannonball path loop – and then John and Megan came to pick up their bed. And helped me move the futon up from the basement to the student’s room. I am going to eventually use that basement room for my sewing room, now that it’s cleared out. There’s lots of light, and there’s better electrical than in my bedroom, where my sewing stuff is currently. And I sure have spent plenty of time down there, sopping up the floor.
I’ll let you know how Bootcamp goes.