Pumpkin!

It’s officially Fall. I know this because I just had my first pumpkin-flavored coffee of the year. Before you know it there will be apple fritters and then it will be the bleak midwinter.

I am recovering from trying to complete the first Calc 2 exam of my online course. “Ick” does not sum it up. We were told outright we could use books and notes, but not other people. It was “based” on “problems like those you’ve seen in your textbook”. Based on them in the same way that DeathMetal is based on The Beatles.. or possibly Balinese atonal compositions.
So it took me several hours to do 14 questions (or give up on one from each section which we were supposed to do all but one of each). Then I copied it over for (relative) legibility, as we can scan it and then send it as an attachment. Except that the receiving site said the attachment was too big, then wouldn’t accept seven smaller attachments of one page each. Today being Sunday the doors on campus were locked and I couldn’t get to the professor’s office to drop it off, so that will have to happen tomorrow.

On to writing up the Organic Chemistry lab! We extracted caffeine from tea we brewed. That lab made me want scones, but we couldn’t drink the tea, and they wouldn’t let us keep the caffeine either which is a pity since I could have used it. On the bright side I seem to have synthesized caffeine which is purer than the pure caffeine they gave us to use as a melting point control.

We had a party last night. I’m referring to it as the “house lukewarming” since we’ve been here for 2 months, and we have set up house no fewer than 7 times in the last 18 years, not including this one. (My personal record is 4 1/2 years in one place, my goal is 8: not in the nursing home.) Suffice it to say, friends came over and food and beverage happened. People even took us seriously when we said “PLEASE! No more stuff!”.

So now what I really want to do is go get more pumpkin coffee. And maybe a pumpkin muffin to go with it. And pumpkin ice cream from Gannon’s to keep them company. And some apple pie ice cream so the pumpkin doesn’t get lonely..

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