No Paczki & Cyborging

 

• We had ~5 inches of snow overnight last Thursday.  Since I did not have lectures to give on Friday, I spent the day, Friday digging out, and then cyboring my work (lecture preparation, exam preparation, etc) from my home office/den. 

• Saturday and Sunday were busy with all sorts of non-relaxing, but important tasks.  Cleaning was but one of many things worked on.  With a big conference coming up relatively soon where I have ~8 research students presenting at.... my time and availability are going to be unfortunately quite TIGHT for the next few weeks.  I was feeling a bit of anxiety about this during the weekend..... because I KNOW how desperate and needy the students can be when it is their FIRST real, big research presentation, and no matter how hard I try to have them get everything in order in advance.... they are always in panic mode the several days before the conference.  

• I ran my 11.1 miles this Monday morning.  

 

Oh, I am not sure what I am thinking about this, but..... I have gotten talked into attending a "Men's Retreat" that our Diocese is holding this upcoming Saturday in a nearby town.  

In a broad sense, the idea of a Catholic Spiritual Retreat is very appealing to me.  This would be especially true if it were Capuchin focused.  But, this is a retreat put together for our Diocese, and:

1.  It COULD be very good, and very spiritual and a great learning experience.... and would be helpful in my growth in my Catholic faith.

2.  Or, it could be a common...... "group talk session" of no substance and will just be someone posing a discussion question and letting people yammer about whatever pops into their head until conversation dies down and another question will be asked, and so on.  These sorts of retreats.... hell, a lot of work meetings and other meetings are just like this..... are just an amorphous, talk session where folks simply yammer.  If  it turns out to be of this type, I will be both disappointed and annoyed to have wasted a whole day.  

* * * * * 

With Wednesday being Ash Wednesday, we will be busy as expected with Ash Wednesday Mass in the evening.   Very sadly as my wife is trying to show some progress in the regulation of her Type II Diabetes…  before her doctor's visit in about a week and a half.... I will not get to eat any Pączki this Tuesday.  Nor will I get a slice of a King Cake on Tuesday.... I am doing this out of a respect for and solidarity with my wife.  I think this will be the first time I forgo Pączki on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday since I was perhaps three years old.  I sincerely hope my wife sticks with what she is doing at the moment regarding her Diabetes.... she has been very compliant for three days now.  

* * * * *

I was giving an exam earlier this morning to the group of students who had a cancelled class period due to one of the U's delays in opening last week.  I was sitting in my seat in the classroom,  daydreaming about a beautiful scene of being somewhere warm, with a gentle breeze. I was lounging outside in a wooded area on a blanket with my back resting against the trunk of a massive tree.  I was sitting there peacefully, smoking my pipe and enjoying the quiet notes of nature around me.  No whirr of electronica, no banging doors, no clackity, clackty-clack of keyboards.... just quiet, with an occasional rustle of leaves or a peep from a bird or two.  It was such a vivid daydream, that I could taste all the delightful flavors of the whiskey tinctured burley leaf on my tongue,  I could feel my brain quiet and my neurons relax from the flood of the pipe smoke's gentle infusion of nicotine.  I watched peacefully as the smoke would gently waft away and dissipate into the atmosphere. Particles of smoke occasionally were being struck by a ray of sunlight in just the right fashion to create a tiny, ephemeral, shimmery reflection.  

This daydream felt so very real, so beautifully vivid, and the tastes, smells, sounds, and visuals all felt as if I were truly experiencing them.  It was serene.  I was so focused within these thoughts and within these experiences that I must have been somewhat in a "trance" state, for it was not until a student came up to me..... and NUDGED me a bit, that I broke out of the experience into reality again.  

It was beautiful while it lasted, however.  I wish either my dreams at night would return to allow me to regularly have that sort of experience regularly, or I wish I could find a fun and comfortable way to return to my pipes within the way life is in 2022.  Either would be wonderful.... and BOTH would be the "cat's meow" so-to-speak.  

 PipeTobacco