In the week

It has been an eventful week.

We bought a car. Not just any car. We bought an electric car, a Nissan Leaf. So far, it looks like it will run about 90 miles on a charge. No more belts or oil changes or gas expenses. And it's a nice car. We have driven it once. And we are happy.

The goldfish died. Mr Fish, the goldfish Jonathan won on his 9th birthday, did not make it to Jonathan's 10th birthday. But when we got back from Australia, we set up the tank and bought a new goldfish from the big box pet retailer and named it Comet. Within a week, Comet's scales were infected with parasite, probably from the pet store. In spite of all our efforts, well informed by Google, Comet died last week. There were tears. And we were sad.

I won an award from Good Old Dude's University, which included a bit of extra salary money and some money for my research. And I was happy.

We picked the nectarines, because Tim waded out through the overgrown raspberry bushes and found that two branches on the nectarine tree were broken, laden too heavily with fruit. And we were sad.

I started volunteering at Jonathan's school. I will be teaching an honors math class to nearly 20 kids two afternoons during the week, 30 minutes each session. That will be interesting. The kids are wild and crazy and noisy and distracted and, apparently, actual kids. Not fake ones. We started Thursday's lesson with some multiplication problems, and they all complained that it was too easy -- they already knew how to do this. So I asked them to do the problem with letters representing numbers -- a bit of pre-algebra. And no one could do it. Mass confusion. I think we are all going to learn a lot this semester, but especially me. And we will all be happy. I hope.

Last night I dreamed that someone spoke my name, my full name, in a very disappointed voice. So disappointed. The voice woke me up, and I felt like such a disappointment. It was heart breaking. I don't know if I felt that way because I missed a work meeting to buy the car, or because the fish died, or due to an upcoming mid-life crisis, or the fact that I only got two stars on my Clash of Clans battle for the team right before bed. But I was such a disappointment. And I still feel sad.

Classes start Tuesday at G.O.D. University. My calendar, which was so free and empty through seven months' sabbatical 2014, is now nearly colored solid with orange work meetings and classes and blue seminars and green appointments. And I've been trying to prepare all week, to get ahead! If I could only finish two articles and three weeks of course prep, I would be happy.

And that was the week.