Just fine, I guess. And you?

Lots of questions came up at the all-campus convocation yesterday but the one I had most trouble answering was "How was your summer?" So simple! I thought about saying something like "I certainly don't recall poking out the eye of Poseidon's son, but I must have done something to make him angry." But then people would want to talk about the new Odyssey film, which I haven't seen.

My summer was....complicated. I submitted three essays to various publications and I eagerly await a response (story of my life). I waited, sometimes patiently, to find out whether I would be teaching a certain course this fall and then scrambled to write the syllabus, which ought to be done today. I presided over a whole mess of meetings and took care of logistics for more meetings. 

I found mold in my office, started packing up books to move them out and found more mold, left empty boxes in my office for a few days and found them damp and sagging, and now await the results of the deep cleaning that allegedly made the building where I'll do most of my teaching inhabitable.

I dealt with one disaster after another at home: a flash flood, falling trees that knocked out power, a less damaging flash flood, and a third flash flood that may leave my driveway unusable for the next week. The resident Mr. Fixit has promised to leave a ladder down at the edge of the bridge to enable us to clamber up and down as needed, but I don't relish doing all that clambering in teaching clothes, much less walking across the silt deposits in my best shoes. And I don't mind parking my car at the edge of the road while there's no rain in the forecast, but it's parked on a spot that was under several feet of water two days ago. If the storms start up again, I'm leaving.

I drove my son to Columbus for chemotherapy and treatments and tests, cooked toddler foods when he couldn't swallow solids, did everything in my power to make his life more pleasant, and tried not to fret about his prognosis (which is good! Really!). But cancer is a topic not easily introduced into light table banter at a festive event.

In fact my whole summer was a bummer, and who wants to spread a dark cloud through a crowd of (mostly) happy people? We have a lot to celebrate on campus: record-setting fund-raising, good news from the accreditors, a really great group of new faculty, and, best of all, my impending retirement. So I put on a smile and say "Fine," which is enough for most people. For those who really want to know more...ask Poseidon.