Post-Conference Potpourri

So, after a long day spent in airports, I returned home last night around 10:15 PM. The conference was worthwhile; all the sessions that I attended offered me practical ideas for the courses that I teach as well as inspiration for improvements that I could make. I got a lot of work done, too: grading exams, planning for my classes, and reading (quite an array, too: UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation, On a Raven's Wing: New Tales in Honor of Edgar Allan Poe, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard).

(Faithful Reader, do you recall "Airline Humor" from 2.5 years ago? Well, the flight attendant on the leg from Dickinson to Denver last week was a little punchy and threw in some funny lines during the safety demonstration. She told us that the seat cushions would double as flotation devices "in the unlikely event that we should even encounter any water between here and Denver and need to attempt a landing on it." Teasing about the highly cramped quarters aboard the small airplane, she let us know that, once the captain had turned off the seatbelt sign, we could "feel free to canter up and down the aisle.")

I returned home to a houseful of women with tales to tell of their own adventures whilst I was away. Suzanna and Abigail each played in the annual piano festival on Saturday (I missed it last year, too, while away for a different conference), and they both earned superior ratings. This means that, should they earn superiors again next year, they will have earned enough points for their first trophy. (That's how the system works: one superior equals five points; 15 points equals the first trophy; every 15 points thereafter equals a larger trophy. My sisters will know what I mean; we all collected superiors and trophies of our own through the years. My three trophies sit on our piano here at home; Cathy earned three, too; and Sandy took lessons long enough to earn four!) Susan was impressed with the musicality and precision of the girls' performances--and evidently so were the judges. Congratulations, Suzanna and Abigail!

On Sunday Susan and the girls attended church and Sunday school (of course), and then attended the monthly Sons of Norway meeting (and brought along Susan's grandma Laura), and then attended the next performance in the Dickinson Area Concert Association's series, this one by a group called Counterpoint, with whom all the blonde ladies were thoroughly impressed.

Here's our Sons of Norway lodge's banner.

Here's the cake that was served in celebration of our lodge's having been around for 11 years. (I asked Susan why they celebrated the 11th anniversary since we generally only make a fuss about anniversaries divisible by five. She figures they do it annually. Hey, it's a reason to eat cake.)

Lodge food.

The girls and their great-grandma Laura.

P.S. The blog Bacon Unwrapped features entries on preparing a pork loin stuffed with pork sausage and wrapped in bacon as well as on drinking bacon-flavored vodka. What's not to love about such a site? Check it out!