where have I been?!?!?

good question. It's been awhile.

I *thought* I was going to write about my excitement and overall headiness of meeting my favorite author: Tom Robbins, then I decided to keep that to myself. (shrug) who knows. I was very excited, I got my picture taken with him (see above) and then I planted a smooch on him. He's 72! I didn't care...have you read his stuff? Hot damn.

Every time I think of writing I'm away from the computer - in the car, in bed, in the garden...then when I'm on the computer I don't even think of logging into the blog and, well - that's it. My niece Amy came out to visit me for a few days. She's 23 and I discovered that we are very much alike. We have a lot of the same interests, similar thinking patterns, opinions, habits, etc. The visit was very revealing - and I'm happy to discover that she has a good head on her shoulders (it's the Flannery blood pumping through her veins...).

I'm teaching one summer class - I had exactly five days off between the end of the spring semester, a marathon grading session and the start of the summer session. Five days!!! In those five days I spent time with my niece and needless to say I was not in school mode when I had to go back. Amy went to the first class with me and observed me in action in the classroom. I got a positive verdict. =)
I decided to change things around AGAIN for this class - got rid of one assignment and substituted a few other things I call "in-class musical descriptions" in lieu of a formal written paper. So far so good with the new idea - I'll elucidate further when I'm sure it's going to work or not...
It took me a good two weeks to get into school mode. The college terminated it's subscription to turnitin.com - which is the plagiarism detection system I've been using for years - without notifying anyone. Nice. We are now using a similar system through Blackboard - because it's free - called SafeAssign. There are all sorts of issues with using the system - glitches in uploading and error messages due to unsupported browsers...really?!?!? It's been quite the pain and the Educational Technology Department on campus knows me well at this point.

Since I don't get paid in the month of June (it sucks) I've been on a spending lock-down, but if John really wants to do something he'll pay for me - he's a very nice boyfriend. =) We've been venturing out to some shows - the latest was the Jimmy Herring Band at Cervante's last weekend. I'm very glad I went - the show consisted of all re-worked jazz tunes such as a funky version of "Speak No Evil" and a ton of Jeff Beck. The encore was "No Quarter" and was one of the highlights of the show. We had a Monday date-night last night and John took me out to dinner at Sushi Den - the best sushi in all of Denver...but otherwise I've been sticking close to home: puttering around in my garden (the Anaheim pepper plant is NOT happy and one of my dahlias is being eaten by something...), reading books in the sun, grilling on the itty-bitty charcoal grill, wandering around the neighborhood (aka: going to the bookstore) and soon to be venturing to the mountains and meadows for hikes. I have a good pair of boots (thanks Lindsay) and I've been itching to get out in the woods for a different type of wandering but the weather has NOT been conducive to such activities...such as the funnel cloud down the street on Sunday. Yes - the storm sirens went off and I admit I got a bit nervous. John ran outside to see what was going on (any where else people run to the basement and take cover - here everyone on the street ran OUTSIDE to look at the sky...) and called for me to come out and take a look. It was eerily quiet - no birds chirping, no wind, everything was very still. I walked off the front porch and took a look up: swirling multi-layered clouds overhead. Black and many shades of gray. Some neighbors were pointing down the street - lovely: a descending funnel cloud - a few shades lighter than the blackest black cloud in the sky. The swirling was hypnotizing. The air felt weird. Everyone was quiet. I became very uneasy. I went inside and turned on the TV - tornado watches and warnings were issued for different areas - but the storm was moving to the northeast (away from us) and that was good. Suddenly the wind picked up, rain started to fall and then it stopped just as quickly. I went back outside - the temperature had dropped considerably - and looked west: blue sky. (sigh) One of those days!
The severe weather has lasted for nine straight days and I'm not really enjoying the hail - and neither are my plants. Today it didn't rain - but was sunny and in the low 80s. Tomorrow: more storms...