Friday Fragments

--It's been a good week, but I haven't slept as well as I do some weeks.  My spouse has been watching the Democratic National Convention, which has interrupted the early parts of my sleep, as I would wake to vigorous cheers and such.

--I did not stay awake to watch Hillary Clinton's speech, but I woke up occasionally.  I liked her approach, the we are in this together, and we can be brave, and we will do this.  Well done!

--I had tea with one of my writer colleague friends yesterday.  She asked if I was sending out my memoir to agents or publishers.  We agreed that August isn't the best time to do this.  So I'll wait until after Labor Day.  

--This week, I did come up with a pivotal plot point for the short story I'm writing, one of 3 that I'm carrying in my head.  Hurrah.

--On Wednesday, the head of Culinary brought student-baked biscotti to our meeting.  They were fabulous, with hazelnuts.  Oddly, no one else wanted any, so I had biscotti on Wednesday and biscotti yesterday.  It took me back to the mid 90's, when I was doing a lot with low-fat cooking to try to control my weight.  I would make biscotti because they were so tasty and so low in fat--but what a chore, with the slicing and the extra baking. 

--Still, maybe I'll make some biscotti this week-end, just for old-time's sake.  I wonder if I still have those recipes; there's probably one in the Moosewood cookbook that was dedicated to low-fat cooking.

--I had a great walk to the beach with a neighborhood friend yesterday.  What a treat to walk and talk.

--Our campus pastor from decades ago was in town and dropped by to see my spouse.  It was a great visit for him.  It's amazing to think that those relationships formed long ago are still strong.

--We have set up our various online energy meters.  Yesterday our solar panels generated 26.7 kilowatt hours.  Sadly, we have been averaging a use of 40-45 kwh a day.  We do have room for more panels, but we will wait to see what our non-peak month energy use looks like.

--It's also interesting to see how our energy use has changed now that we have no one living in the backyard cottage.  We still have to run the air, and we've kept the fridge plugged in and running.  But I think that we're saving $40 by having the cottage vacant--no one taking showers or using the computer or cooking.

--I'm guessing that computers use far more electricity than I once thought.  But I know that the big energy hog is the AC.

--I have spent the week reading Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters.  It's a book that envisions an alternate history, one where the Civil War didn't happen, where 4 states (NC and SC are combined into Carolina) still have hard-core slavery--it's a slavery that looks a lot like the lives of 3rd world garment workers in our current history.  It's a great book, and I wish I had time to read it in one fell swoop.  Maybe this week-end . . .