Yesterday I spent at least two hours drawing an otter. Today (and a number of other days that preceded it) I spent a good deal more time looking for sources of research funding, with much less to show for it. Productivity hooray.
On the other hand, the weather turned magically delicious while I was locked up indoors all day, and when I emerged at 8:15pm (I'd been substitute-teaching an evening class for a colleague) it was so shockingly lovely that it made me happy in spite of myself.
Another source of unexpected good feelings was this: Snark had to get up for a few hours smack in the middle of the night last night in order to do some computer thing for a client while the rest of the nation slept. Since he would have to set an alarm and get in and out of bed exactly when I am most likely to stare appalled at the ceiling for hours with insomnia in the event that I wake up on my own, neither of us was expecting to feel spectacularly well-rested or pleasant today. But since we were anticipating it, and I knew I'd have to stay at school extra late today anyhow, we granted ourselves an extra lazy morning, and it all wound up having a rather festive schedule-turned-upside-down effect. Not so bad after all.
In other high-achieving news, we watched two whole films in the past week. I cannot recommend I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, despite my fond feelings for Mike Hodges (or at least for Get Carter) and my well documented extremely favorable opinion of Clive Owen and his handsome, handsome handsomeness. Alas. If you are in the market for a charming trifle, however, I think you will find that Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day does not disappoint. I also finally finished my bathtub reading of The Little Drummer Girl, bringing me right up to date for 1983.
Tonight we ate broccoli with caramelized onions* and toasted pine nuts, over kasha. Last week we had kasha with greens and spiced yogurt**. Both were great. I love kasha. Snark loves kasha. Kasha is delicious and easy and toothsome. It pleases both the part of me that wants to feel that I am eating something wholesome and spa-like, and the part of me that wants to feel that I am eating something savory and lavish. So why did I forget about it entirely for at least a year, maybe two? Because I am a dink, I think.
*This seems like a dumb thing to call plain old sauteed onions, and I'm a bit ashamed of myself for doing it. The point is that there are lots of them, they're cooked slowly and gently until they're very deep gold and meltingly soft, and they deserve to be called something that sounds appetizing.
**Basically, raita with no vegetables in it. Yogurt + a little salt + whole spices tempered in oil. I could eat this by itself by the bowlful, and have, but it's also great with many different wintery vegetable dishes. It's especially good and easy as an accompaniment to sweet potatoes cut into cubes or sticks and roasted with olive oil and salt.
Distinctive moments of the day included bleeding freely from a chapped lip in the middle of giving a lecture and briefly mis-hearing the School of Seven Bells' "I Am Under No Disguise" as "I am a nerd of disguise". The latter gave rise to the following dialogue:
Me: I am a nerd of disguise!
Snark: I'm sure you are.
Me: I know a great deal about disguise, because I have studied it thoroughly.
Snark: That would do it, I suppose.
Me: It's all theoretical, though. I don't actually have any practical experience engaging in disguising.
Once again I have broken my rule against telling stories where the punchline is delivered by me.
Does Vox seriously not have preview functionality? That's nutty.
