At first, but now – when I started writing this, Saturday, Groundhogs Day – all of a sudden we’re thawing.
I got back last Sunday around 4:00 in the afternoon. The kids had already had a snow day on the Wednesday prior, and more snow was on the way. The airlines sent me a bunch of messages that I could change my flight, and I bit, leaving Seattle at 5:30 AM instead of 1:30 PM.
And of course, the snow was not nearly as bad as predicted. I went out on Monday morning and shoveled about 6 inches, with snow blower help from the Rev. next door, then went to work. School was canceled, but given the prediction for bitter cold the next couple of days both Rach & I predicted that MMSD would be sorry they’d closed Monday.
And, Madison Schools stayed closed until Friday – they kept pushing back the exams – and even UW-Madison closed Wednesday, and they almost NEVER close.
In spite of the cold and snow, my first week back was surprisingly not terrible. The iSchool graduate students were requesting their practicum placements for summer by Friday, so I had lots of emails with requests attached to put into a spreadsheet, and several meetings with students to talk about placements. I had the normal amount of committee meetings, and two retirement parties. My online class had a meeting Monday night, while my face-to-face class Weds. was canceled due to cold, so I had to do a little rejiggering of that course content.
On the food front, I helped serve the pantry meal on Tuesday morning – it was lightly attended due to the cold. Terese made a potato and Canadian bacon hash that we served with eggs to order, and blender Hollandaise. I made oatmeal – Terese had organized a bunch of toppings, nuts and dried cranberries and jam, and I found some brown sugar and butter pats and made fried apples. I had my oatmeal with butter and apples – yum.
I also helped with the Eat Smart Guides Sicily dinner Thursday, when it was starting to warm up.
The day off Wednesday was a gift. I started the day by baking rolls with some of the leftover oatmeal from the breakfast.
Oat rolls in the pans
Warm oat rolls for Wednesday brekkie
I got a bunch of recordings made for my online course, and the Froscia, Sicilian ricotta pie, was all baked and cooling by 8:00 PM instead of like 10:30 if I’d done it after work.
Ricotta pie – Ed Chwae’s house-made ricotta – delicious
Plated & ready for chocolate crumble topping
Al & Emma came over for dinner Friday night, and we had pasta with smoked salmon we imported from Seattle for them as thanks for cat sitting, in a tomato cream sauce, and leftover Christmas cookies for dessert.
The other big thing happening this week is the Lake Mendota Statue of Liberty came back, for Winter Carnival. She’s an inflatable now – I think I kind of prefer the old one.
The Statue’s return got me rooting through old pictures on Friday night, and I scanned a bunch, both the statue, winter 1979, and some pics of me visiting my brother when he lived in the Castro in SF, fall 1978.
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And along with the warmup it’s now light after 5:00 – this is what it looked like walking home Friday Feb. 1.
