It is quite possible I have made a serious vocational error

After a Friday evening meltdown over my job, I tried to spend the rest of the weekend gardening rather than grading, although (at the Viking's sensible insistence), I also did some job searches.

It's not that I dislike teaching. It's that I dislike teaching high school. High school is full of fiddly little tasks that vex me -- lunch duty and interim reports and detention slips and all that crap. I come home at the end of the day exhausted, too tired to write or think. I want to do research again, real research with dusty Latin texts and cranky microfiche readers. So, I am back to the H-Net Job Guide and have a resume on monster.com and hoping beyond hope that this time, maybe, I can get an interview at the university level.

Being reasonable, the job market for academics, especially ones with degrees in medieval history, sucks rocks. I am not going to hold my breath on a dazzling new position. But even if nothing comes of looking, feeling like I'm taking action makes the unpleasant realities of my professional life a little more bearable.

So, the garden. I got my two new azaleas in the ground on Saturday. Sis borrowed my bulb auger, so I didn't get the crocuses or chionodoxa planted. Sunday, having not the sense that God gave a goose, we went to the fall festival at one of the local nurseries. I was going to be good -- the only thing I wanted was a bulb for Fritillaria persica (which, at $7/bulb, was pretty expensive). But then the Viking came wandering around a corner with a packet of 'Queen of the Night' tulips in his hands.

'These are cool,' he opined.

OK. 'Queen of the Night' is pretty nifty. And tulip bulbs are not too expensive. I guess we can do that.

Then he found the display of irises -- well, of the rhizomes at any rate -- and ooh'ed at a germanica hybrid called 'Interpol,' which is a deep purply black shade (or at least the photo implies it is such a colour). So we picked up one of those. And some 'Trick or Treat Mix' pansies for the front. Bless the lad, he can't resist purple. Must be a Calontiri thing.

My father's beloved Cubs have won their division championship. Can it be that 'next year' has finally come?

verso - recto