Just got an email from the Younger Son in Fulton, Missouri, just a few miles east of Columbia. They're having an ice storm. They barely got their truck moved before a limb fell just where the truck had been. Another barely missed their storage shed. I'm really glad we aren't there THIS weekend. I'm hoping next weekend will be better. Even more importantly, I hope Son and Wife will stay indoors and not try to drive on those ice-slick roads, with power lines falling all over.
Spouse's department had a Christmas dinner last night at a posh little place in one of the posh little neighborhoods. Food was so-so. Lots of extraordinary ingredients listed, but the taste didn't wow me. We sat at a table with the Provost and her husband. This is the same provost who promised to do something to help me get a full-time tt position with that university, and who never did anything. This is the same provost whose husband got his job in the marketing department ONLY because he was married to the newly hired provost. Spousal hires apparently are good business practice for the higher muckety-mucks, not for the lowly faculty. That still irritates me. I haven't heard anything from my application to that school, and I doubt that I will. My previous experience with the dept. chair has led me to believe that he's trying to create a writing department version of a dot.com, with aggressive young hotdogs whose interaction with machines is much more satisfying than their interactions with students. I am, of course, the very opposite.
Friday night, in fact, I had quite a scare. I was checking my email and the weather forecast one last time before going to bed, and suddenly, virus warnings were popping up everywhere. My virus protection saved my computer and files, thank goodness, but I'd never seen such a slam before. We were concerned that what the virus did was to erase virus protection, but nothing seems harmed. It's probably lying in wait, until I write the last page of the Great American novel. (If that's the case, then I'll never have another virus attack!) However, once again this morning I had a little scare. Both times I had been checking the weather on the local tv station's web forecast, in addition to checking email.
On a totally unrelated topic, in my usual disjointed style: I had meant to mention how bemused I was with the results of my last PAP smear. The report came back from the radiologist with these words: "atrophic cellular changes." Atrophic. Atrophy. Old. If you don't use it, you lose it. Heck, even when you DO use it, you lose it! Forgive the offensive intimacy of the description, but I could not help imagining my cervix as a dried leaf, crackled, with bits breaking off.
Since my brain seems to be in fog mode again today, I'll end here. Dr. S.
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