With the beginning of a new semester — we wrapped the first week today — comes a whole slate of meetings. Friday is a big meeting day around here, and you can see them coming. Meetings, I mean. Sometimes, the Fridays are obscured. You can see the meetings coming. Mostly, because we have too many calendars.
So, today, I had meetings two and three of the semester. It was a faculty meeting Wednesday. Today I had a committee meeting I sit on a university-wide committee that aspires to work with students, helping them interact with other elements of the university. We meet every other week. We talk about helping students. And that is what we did today, most successfully. We also established the next two meetings, and some of the things we might work toward.
That was this morning. In the afternoon I had a sustainability meeting. It was a meeting about sustainability, but not, necessarily, a meeting about sustainable meetings. (Those usually come in the middle of the term, when we’re delirious, but not yet worn out.)
I wrote my online classes. They’ve heard from me three times this week. Usually it is twice a week. But, today, after sending normal class stuff Monday and Thursday, I sent out a campus resources email. I like this email. Shows you care. One of the great things about the university, the note starts, is all of the resources they devote to you. And then I just start listing them, with links, contact info, and details, until I’m worn out. Then, at the end, I remind them that this is not a complete list. There are always more services! I offer to help them find those things, because I care. I am also now in charge of our department’s running list of campus resources, because I volunteered, because I care.
It’s Friday, you can do a lot of caring on Friday. Monday night, Tuesday morning, all day Thursday, not quite as much.
We are bracing for weather. This is how I am bracing. I went into the laundry room and rearranged two cabinets. The idea was that the handwarmers can be right up front, right in the center of the room, and easily accessible in the dark.
I pulled the phone bank chargers from their storage space, because I had the bright idea sometime back that all of these should be in one place should we need them, or if we are packing for a trip. I got four of those. I need to grab the one out of my backpack to complete the set.
I dug out the battery-powered lantern that I bought from a closing K-Mart in 2016. I grabbed every AA battery we have to power that lantern. Next to it is a lithium-powered work light that was a Christmas gift a few years ago. I pulled out the running headlamps. I got my bike flashlight and two backup batteries for it. (Others are stored elsewhere, and I can get to them if it gets desperate.) I made a note of where a few other little emergency lights are hanging around, should we need them.
I started charging all of these, and made two neat piles on the bar. Charged, and waiting in line.
Two shovels and the snowblower are in the garage. There’s a new quart of oil waiting to be put to use. I’ll top off the gas tank in my car and the gas can for the blower tomorrow. The fridge is also getting stocked tomorrow, if there are any groceries left to be had. The university announced today — and this is no easy decision, multiple campuses in various places, a hospital, commuters, etc. — that most of its operations will be closed Sunday and Monday.
We have one thing to do tomorrow, but we’ll beat the weather back home. Winter rolls in tomorrow night. We will be getting somewhere between two and 84 inches, depending on which forecast you check, and when you look.
Here’s my prediction: this will be one of the first big clues that killing so many of our national weather resources last year was a fundamentally stupid idea.
If you’re getting bad weather this weekend, I hope you can stay indoors, safe and warm. See you Monday, when we will hopefully all begin digging out.
