Bruce Springsteen sighting! Went to the Lake Placid horse show on Friday, took the day off to go with two friends, I love going to that horse show. It has some of the best horses and riders in the world. Bruce Springsteen's young daughter rides in it and every year he and Patty Scialfa go to Placid to be with her while she competes. Although my friends and I spent 4 hours at the show, wandering through the barns, petting the soft, soft muzzles of the $100,000 horses, watching 70 horses jump fences and admiring the most Labrador retrievers collected together in one place since the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, we only saw Patty, not Bruce. Last night, however, my other set of friends who are in camp now, went out to dinner (the postponed trip to Tail O'The Pup) and I declined the invitation to go. Who did Linda sit butt to butt witih? BRUCE, of course! His kids were eating their first lobster so she heard the entire discourse on how he eats a lobster. She said it was really cool and that he looked great, is a little short and they were driving a black Lincoln Navigator. So there you have it, my missed Brush With Greatness. But I had a great day at the horse show and really enjoyed my friends and the horses. God the horses are gorgeous.

The rest of the weekend was busy, so unusual for me. Saturday was the road cleanup sponsored by the Hawkeye Conservationists. We met at the bog, got our garbage bags, and wandered down the hardtop (called the macadam by the Rogers family and some members of another generation), picking up bits of garbage. I was with Linda's and my friend Mary Kay and my elderly friend Doug. We had a lot of fun. There were a dozen different kinds of wildflowers, a million deer tracks, a deer bed (no, not queen size, just a spot where it went round and round in the grass, tamped it down and slept for the night--right next to the road in the tall grass, go figure), and about 100 cigareet butts. The dozen or so of us who were picking up garbage were stunned at the number of cigarette butts and were also stunned at how little garbage there was. We expected more beer cans (we only found 2 in the 1/2 mile we covered) but were pleased not to find more. After the clean-up we got together for a cook-out at the President's camp, a big expensive year-round place down by the island--we've been there before so it wasn't one of those "oooh, I can't wait to see the place" gatherings. Their name is Ruder and their Lab's name is Kanga. I just love that. Anyway it was really nice, lots of people there and I always feel so good when I'm with them, part of a nice group of people I count as my friends. That took up most of the day. I spent the rest of the afternoon dead-heading and fertilizing my flowers, then we had a huge thunderstorm. I went out for dinner with Mary Kay to the Hungry Trout and had a delicious trout and JUST 2 drinks. It's much cheaper when ony 2 of you go and you forgo appetizers and bottles of wine. We had a really nice time and it was absolutely beautiful.

I slept in the boat house so I could be there Sunday morning for Bill's planned breakfast on the boat house porch. I made the coffee and he furnished the goodies. We had 6 people there at 9:00 and we had a great time. They arrived by canoe from Linda's and we all enjoyed the quiet morning, sparkling water and good food. It was really nice. Bill's idea was that it must be really nice to enjoy your morning coffee on that porch. Of course he's right, we all know that. After that I had a little time to clean up before it was time for...Sunday dinner! Of course, more food. That was fine, it was good to see Ken. We had a nice time, Ken, Bill and I, eating barbecued pork and potato salad and raspberry pie (my favorite). Back home for just long enough to debate with myself whether I should stack firewood or go down to the dock to read. Guess which I did? Well, I have to finish my book club book by next Wednesday! So down I went to the dock, where it was of course wonderful. The dogs all swam, even Jackson, who has discovered that he does indeed like to swim. Tess loves to swim. She and Chances swim out to greet everyone who comes to visit in a boat.

I had a phone message when I got home last night from my friend saying that Chances was at her camp, having been chased there by the neighbor with a broom. That was late in the afternoon. I thought it was pretty funny. By the time I got the message Chances had been with me for hours and all was well. I was glad she'd been chased, maybe it will cure her of the desire to visit with the neighbors. Of course, she'll always visit Harriet and George. George said Chances can outrun the old guy with the broom so I don't need to worry, but Harriet was worried because the man was being mean to my dog. I have good friends.

Anyway, I spent time hanging out in the boat house, how lucky am I to be close enough to be able to do that? Read in the cure chair, washed the dishes from the morning, took the trash to my house, tidied up a bit. What a nice place. Decided to sleep at my house last night, after much debate with myself, since I had to get to work this morning. When I first got home, at 7 last night, I looked at my bedroom and said "I'm not sleeping there," but as the night wore on of course I changed my mind. By 11 it seemed like too much work to transport myself to camp. I sleep there during the week when it's hot at night, and last night it was in the 50's and pleasant at home. This morning the brown girls stuck around the house (oh that Milk Bone training is finally paying off! Thank you Spaulding for teaching us the value of positive reinforcement) but Jackson wasn't home when I left. I think he just hides in the bushes until I leave so he can spend the day outside.

So today at work we have a union meeting in the afternoon to discuss the board's new offer about this payroll thing. They counteroffered something on Thursday while I was off at a member library's annual meeting. I'll find out what the offer is today. Supposed to be something good. This is after we wrote a letter calling them cold and callous (I didn't write the letter--I let the rest of the staff go crazy with a computer and write whatever they wanted, I just signed it, along with all the other members) and indifferent to our "more than 100 years' combined service."

And now I must decide whether to catalog some boring videos and children's books or work on the final quarter of my annual goals (one of which I wasn't able to accomplish: weeding the fiction), which I have to turn in to the director before she returns from Mich. tomorrow. Guess I just answered my own query about what I should do next, didn't I.