Outages and Out and Aboutages

It has been a week of frequent internet outages.  On Tuesday at school, we lost connectivity at 1:15 p.m. or so, and it wasn't restored until mid-morning yesterday.  Yesterday morning, I had no internet connectivity at home.  I'm trying not to read anything into it.

Yesterday was an all-day meeting at the Ft. Lauderdale campus, which is not my campus.  It meant that I had to cart many things with me--no dashing back to the office to get a coffee mug or to check e-mail or just to have a break from humans.  All day meetings are exhausting for many reasons, but for me, that's the main reason.  

I saw people whom I've never met in real life, and I'm surprised by how different people can look when they're on a Zoom call.  Thankfully, I managed not to exclaim, "I thought you'd be taller!"  I saw people whom I haven't seen since before the pandemic--so many of us, myself included, have longer hair now.

It was strange to be in a big room of people for hours at a time.  Happily, it was a huge room, and we could spread out.  I left my mask on most of the day, and most of us did.  I thought, I did not sacrifice Thanksgiving with my family just so I could get COVID-19 from a room full of colleagues; I am not taking off my mask for any reason but to eat lunch.  And that's what I did, yet I still worry that I was exposed in ways that I usually manage to avoid.

It was a day of more traveling by car than I usually do, a day of waiting for meetings to start, a day of wondering if we would have bathroom breaks or if I should just step out when I needed to go.

On my way home, I picked up a framing job--the two pieces turned out to be much more beautiful and striking than I was expecting.  Hurrah!

One of them began its life as a counted cross stitch kit.  In grad school, I'd occasionally get a good deal on a sale at the craft store (whatever JoAnns was before it was JoAnns).  Back then I dreamed of having enough money to buy whatever kit I wanted.  Now I dream of having enough time--and a lamp that gives decent enough light to stitch by.