On Thursday, I had my last meeting ever of an executive committee that I’ve been on for almost 7 years, shared governance at the University. I’ve hit term limits, so couldn’t stand for re-election in the spring. Since it was my last meeting, at the end we went around the zoom and everyone said something nice about me, what a good member of the committee I’d been, how I’d set a standard they all followed, how important my contributions were. I felt like how my mom always said she felt when she went to teacher conferences for me and my brother and the teacher would say what an asset to the class we were and such a team player and other kids looked up to us … “are we talking about the same kids here? My children?”. “Who me?”
So that was a nice thing for that day – but it’s been kind of a sh**ty week. Or maybe not unreservedly sh**ty, but definitely many good things offset by other not-so-good ones.
It’s the virtual ALA conference this week (see overleaf, the opening-the-exhibits-session with Amanda Gorman, Loren Long – illustrator and collaborator with Gorman on a picture book, Change Sings, and Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress) and though I’ve attended a few things, I am missing the immersiveness of the in-person event. I mean, I got to listen to Stanly Tucci talk about his new memoir/cook book, while getting a bunch of grading done, but I think it would’ve been more fun in person.
I have this pain in my left side (that I complained about before) I hope I just pulled something a week ago Friday, volunteering at the food pantry, and it’s not a sign of something more serious. And doing things that I don’t think should tire me out so much make me feel done in.
Even now, I’m having trouble getting motivated to write this. Think I’ll go fold laundry and finish later or tomorrow.
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So, OK, now it’s Sunday morning, actually early afternoon, actually late afternoon. We’re having We had a baked-goods only Sunday brunch, because friends visiting from Oregon are coming for dinner.
We’re having Samin Nosrat buttermilk-brined roast chicken, Ovens of Brittany Wild Rice Salad, Deb’s potato rolls, and Victoria sponge that didn’t seem to rise quite right (see below) but we’ll eat it anyways. With homemade strawberry jam on the inside, and whipped cream on top.
Compare to this one I made in 2018 for Harry & Meghan’s wedding
For our all pastry breakfast, we had this cherry Danish loaf, a King Arthur recipe I’d been wanting to try for awhile. They call it cherry blossom coffeecake. Mine looks very different than the recipe – I think my tea loaf pan is as long as the one King Arthur uses, but narrower, so the bread is much taller, more loaf- than cake-like.
We also had scones and apricot jam bars that I made on Thursday, no pics of the scones, but here’s the jam bars.
Epicurious recipe. I used an old jar of apricot Bonne Maman preserves I found in Mark’s fridge, and Lyle’s Golden Syrup rather than agave or maple. And unbleached white instead of oat flour, because I’d already used the food processor for the scones and didn’t feel like cleaning it again.
I’m not sure how much Mark likes them. I had class on Thursday evening and we ate them warm for dessert, after, with ice cream, but he hasn’t had seconds on the bars as yet, preferring the scones (which is of course his right, and completely understandable).
Friday I made BBQ tofu sandwiches with coleslaw – something I’ve made often, (Based on a recipe by Bryant Terry, Spicy Barbecue Tofu Triangles from Grub, a book he co-wrote with Anna Moore Lappe) that might be one of this week’s original recipes for CSA. We had oven fries to go with.
I got my new computer set up, at least partially – writing on it now. It’s a green iMac. Monday evening I set all the files to transfer from the old iMac to the new, and biked off to some of the Make Music Madison performances. I got to see half of Honor Among Thieves perform in Chris’s front yard, right by where the Waterfront fest would’ve been if we had it this year. So, live music, seeing friends, people crawling out from isolation – that was one of the good things. Some of my west side neighbors had also biked over, and I nodded hello, but they seemed more occupied with other friends they knew better than me, so we didn’t really talk. A week later I’m still wondering if I muffed that social interaction. So, that’s one of the less good things.
When I got home, Mark & I ate some of this year’s dad’s day cake. Then, later I ate almost a whole bag of gummy bears while babysitting the computer file transfer that took until almost 11:00 PM. I was so sugared up, I didn’t sleep very well, and felt even more crummy on Tuesday morning, plus feeling like now there’s tons of old files, broken applications, garbage to sort though on the no-longer-pristine new computer. So that might be the most not good thing…. well, aside from the physical pain and guilt.
Tuesday morning I went downtown to meet someone at Memorial Library with seven boxes of books to donate, and treated myself to a coffee at the downtown Colectivo – where it was actually too cold and windy to sit outside for very long.
Tuesday evening we had a reception at the Chancellor’s – again by virtue of my serving on shared governance – it’s right up the hill from our house. It was outdoors, but un-masked and in-person, appetizers and drinks, and kind of fun. And the last one I’ll go to since my time on that executive committee is done.
And I guess that brings us almost back around to where I started, Thursday, with that last meeting and the imposter syndrome of the title. Even though I feel like I’m leaving tons of stuff out, and complaining too much, I think this is the best I can do for now. I’m in the mood where I look at older blog posts that are more detailed and all I can do is shrug and say, “I used to be more interesting”, and promise more later.