I know this is easy to say because we just won the final regular season series against them, but dang, the vibes in the Dodgers/Mariners games this weekend were just so enjoyable. The players on both teams seemed happy to be there, Mariners fans seemed like a devoted but warm crowd.

I want to watch more movies this October, please recommend me your favorite lightly spooky films. I am a horror wimp (seriously), so really I'm just chasing vibes here, not gore. I totally enjoyed The Haunting at Bly Manor and was into Sinners, so that's kinda the range.

Nothing like some glass pumpkins to bring a moment of joy.

Dinner with the WWI seminar was great, they enjoyed the food & the very non-rationing appropriate cake, & we had a great discussion of Journey's End. They're a smart, fun group, & they were so happy to get to do this even though it was also extra work on their part. I forgot to take any pictures.

Finally the Dodgers are playing an afternoon game that I can watch while lesson prepping AND they're actually giving Yamamoto run support? What a Thursday. (David Jones is gonna be fun to teach tomorrow. 🖋️📚💙)

contrarian take: Levellers 4ever

Menu planning for Friday's dinner for my WWI students, and I think I'll do kedgeree (though I'll use Mary Berry's recipe rather than the rationing book one, because the biggest difference is curry powder & eggs), & a vegetable gratin using the ration recipe. Maybe also parkin, using the book recipe.

I also joked to my WWI students today, apologizing for all the reading packets I'm giving them, because no anthology really covers the depth/breadth of what I want us to read, and one of them goes, "Well, Dr. Fredericks, it sounds like it's time for *you* to edit an anthology."

When my student from East Texas found out my dog is from a Waco shelter: "I knew I liked her! I'm gonna bring her some barbecue."

On the less-great side of things, though, I think the dog has a UTI. Sigh. To the vet in the morning! She is overall perky and cheerful and has a good appetite (we had a long walk with much sniffing after work and she devoured her dinner), so I'm cautiously hopeful it's just something minor.

To counter the complaining from this morning, one of my seminar students came in for office hours this afternoon to discuss paper topics & said, "this class is my favorite thing I've taken here so far." Since it's a brand-new class I'm teaching for the first time, that felt fantastic to hear.

Love to wake up to an email from a student accusing me of unfairness for holding them to the time limit on an in-class quiz because they can't write fast due to sports injuries to their hand. Children! If you need an accommodation, you have to communicate that need!

I don't like Blake Treinen anyway but of COURSE he blows the razor thin run support that Emmet Sheehan's excellent outing received. Good grief.

Today's small accomplishment: driving to a proper city to buy frames for these seven prints. When will I hang them? NO IDEA. But they're ready to be put on a wall, and then I got to have fantastic Asian food for lunch.

I have several classes I have to cancel due to upcoming medical stuff & my WWI seminar is making up a couple of these sessions by having dinner & a discussion of R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End at my house next week. The students are pretty stoked about this (and though it's extra work, so am I).

The semester hasn't *really* kicked into gear until you get an email from a student with the subject line "I have the plague :( ". So anyway, my semester is really cooking now!

Just having a nice lil time in the hammock outside playing a video game and watching the Dodgers dominate.

Okay, timeline cleanse. 🖤 Everyone who sees this post, quote post 5 things that make you happy: 1. Perfectly cool mornings for walking the dog 2. Watching baseball on the porch 3. When my sister texts with pictures of her kids 4. Bumblebees blissing out in gardens 5. Baking some ~little treats~

Idk why Steinbeck has to come after the "surely this writing object will fix me" crowd (from beyond the grave!) like this. (Via the Paris Review.) 📚💙

My tidying strategy, as a messy person who hates tidying, is just to put on a record and put things away until both sides have played and you know, it does help. I even got an item I've needed to mail for THREE MONTHS packaged and addressed!

And now the Dodgers off to a blazing start too, which is nice because I am just feeling like rubbish over here.

on a lighter note, thanks to the mutuals/people I follow who posted about Tiny Bookshop, & also the RL friends who made sure to find me & say "this is the MOST Elizabeth-coded game" because I have put in several hours on it this week & I love it.

I feel this piece so much, especially this panel.

This Tigers-Yankees game was so tense until the 7th inning and now the Tigers are just beating up on them so hard I almost feel bad.

COVID vaccine experience in MI: the Walgreens pharmacist asked me to confirm that I had an underlying condition and added "I don't need to know what it is!" So I said yes and the appt proceeded. If you're in MI, go get yours while you can.

oh, I want it *now*

One student to another as we boarded the bus to return to the college: "Can we not sing sea chanties and stuff on the way back?" AMEN

If I could do all my runs on a trail that borders a tree-lined river, it might fix me. Okay, it would not. My September reads also probably won't fix me but I'll keep trying. 📚💙

Hello from Stratford (the Canadian one) where I am just watching plays and drinking coffees.

both Dodgers and Tigers really yanking my feelings around tonight, good grief

Tanner Scott continues to stress me out but Will Smith's walk-off home run was *beautiful*.

New album by The Beths? happy weekend to ME. youtu.be/vU0Q8DKWhQk?...

Chuck and her dog bestie remain the cutest, calmest part of any weekend.

I am always kinda nervous teaching a text I've never taught before, but my WWI Brit Lit students were *delighted* by the first half of The Thirty-Nine Steps and we had such a fun chat about it. I also gave them cake, and that never hurts.

I dropped my iced coffee with 1/3 still in it, my scone was RAW in the middle, and I didn't eat lunch until 2 pm, but you know what? Actual classes themselves were fine and I think I've got some fun students to work with. Coming back from sabbatical overall a success.

Got all dolled up for freshman convocation then came home & reassumed my true form.

Watching baseball/reading on the porch during a passing thunderstorm which is truly one of my all-time favorite things.

The office is tidy again, just in time for the semester to hit it like a freight train.

Just the happiest little pollen-coated bumblebee in this rose of Sharon this morning.

Pre-semester things: Me, today: "Okay, I've got this reading calendar done, just one free day where I can maybe squeeze in one more poet...oh...oh no...I LEFT OUT AN ENTIRE NOVEL ON THE BOOK LIST." It's fine, it's fine, we're fine, everything's fine.

Had my last iron infusion today. Now, I know that all regulars at any establishment get labeled with their distinctive quality/feature & apparently mine at the hospital/infusion center for the last month has been "cute outfits."

My lovely next door neighbors brought over vegetables from their garden for me and the bone from their Sunday roast for Chuck, and she is just in heaven right now.

1. This is hilarious 2. Sometimes when I send shit like this to my non-PhD friends, they also find it hilarious, but then other times, they get a little worried about my mental health (fair)

Chuck and I stayed overnight at a friend's place over the weekend and this was my favorite moment of Chuck making herself perfectly at home.

It's warm & humid outside & my brain is bad today, so it's books & baseball indoors today, and wow, that first inning from the Dodgers was something.

1. I read a historical romance that, near the end, had a character declaring their intention to create a Bloomsbury group, some 50 years before the actual Bloomsbury group came into existence. 2. Instantly, terminally jarring to see a pre-mid-19th century (non-American) character saying "okay"

Well, goodnight, says Chuck.

I've only flown into/out of there like twice, but honestly the Palm Springs airport is a cute lil experience. It's not huge, the design is cute and retro, just a solid little regional airport.

Getting poked with needles a lot lately, so what's a couple more if I also get something cute to show for it?

In today's small good news: I think the iron infusions are working because I did an interval run today & despite the 98% humidity, never got that feeling like I wasn't getting enough air. It was slow, sure (have barely run this summer at all) but felt so much better.