It's finally summer here, without being extreme. Sunny, warm and very nice. I took the dogs to the vet on Monday night--took the boy on Saturday for $100 to pronounce him healthy and wise. He's cured of whatever his problem was and is just fine. Monday was girls' night and the two behaved very well. Chances has lost 9 pounds, much to the delight of all in the office. Tess only weighs 45 pounds, which surprised me. She was the belle of the ball. I saw my friends the Guckers there, whom I haven't seen in a few years. The joy of going to the Keeseville office is that you never know who you might see there. It was a real joy to see them, we used to spend a lot of time together and Robin was a great source of support and love during my dark, dark days in the mid-90's. I waited for their appointment to end--their young golden retriever has what might be giardia (beaver fever) from drinking out of streams while they've been hiking in the wilderness. Who knew dogs could get this? Anyway, we went out for dinner afterwards and had a really nice time. So good to see them again.

I've done review of performance characteristics for both of my staff members with the director--we sit in her office, the staff member, the director and I and I review what I've already told them and what I've written about them. It seems pretty stupid and repetitious to mee but I asked them about it afterwards and they liked it so I guess that's the format that works. Today I get my performance characteristcs done by the director (like having your palm read by an evil prophesisit), which makes me extremely nervous. She's not to be trusted so I'm prepared for the worst. This is the first time we've ever done anything like this at the library so it's all uncharted territory and could go either way. I only said GOOD things about my staff, hoping to set a good example, and have checked with other supervisors--they did the same.

Last night I went to the cemetery to see Henry's headstone. I thought it would be very emotional and a deep experience for me but it really meant very little. It's just his name in stone. I dug a spot for them to put it permanently and will call them today telling them that. It's just sitting on the grass by the big monument right now. I also, finally, planted all the geraniums (22 of them) that I've had at the house. The blossoms have been rotting from all the rain we've had and the plants look pretty scrawny so it's not exactly a beautiful showing for the crowd that will show up in August. Maybe Mark and Liza can jazz it up next week. I took Chances and Tess and the ran and ran and ran. Boy did they run--as far away as they could in that cemetery, which is pretty far in that place.

After the cemetery I went to visit the Camerons, who are renting Bill's camp (formerly Ken's camp). This is the man who took a course from Spaulding at Rockford College. They're here for 2 weeks, come every year and love to have Ken and me come as often as possible for dinner. I missed dinner (intentionally, wanted to get to the cemetery) but had a nice visit with them. We talked a lot about dog antics--not that many people you can spend an hour talking about that with, are there.

I didn't really have a good weekend, spent too much time sleeping. I always get nervous about that, take it as a sign of depression. I find no comfort when people say "you must have needed it," since I rarely do anything to exert myself. I don't get much sleep during the week, though. Saturday it poured and poured, but cleared up enough for us to sit around the camp fire at Linda's one last time before she left on Sunday. Then we had a nice dinner and of course the obligatory alcohol--whiskey, wine, scotch, rum. boom, boom, boom. All in moderation, thank god. Sunday we had a nice Sunday dinner with Fred and Joe (Ken's nephew, who travels all over the world with his job, much the way Henry used to but even more) so it was more festive than usual. Then I went home and slept all afternoon. This was after having slept most of the morning in the boat house, watching the mountains emerge from the morning haze. At least I stacked firewood for half an hour in the evening. Phil Cameron has offered the services of his two grown sons and himself to stack my 4 cords (now 3.5 cords) this weekend. Although I really, really hate to have people help me with things, I'm toying with the idea of asking for their help. It would be so simple and would take no time at all for them to do it. It just seems so lazy to have someone else stack your firewood--it's your responsibility, after all. And I truly HATE having people do things for me. Truly.

I thought my book group met tonight but just called Lin and she's sure it's next week. Whew! First of all, I haven't quite finished the book (Zadie Smith, White Teeth), second of all I've double-booked tonight and am due to cook for Ken so can't go to book group. He's all excited about tonight and has bought special food just for the occasion (ok, so it's only macaroni salad and baked beans, but for him to do that is really a big deal), so I can't cancel him. He's psyched. We're having hamburgers and will enjoy a touch of the creature before dinner. He's got this really good brandy that someone brought him. Maybe I'll buy him a bottle of good whiskey on my way home--he tried to go to the liquor store yesterday but was there too early and they weren't open yet.

So today I'll catalog some more videos--it's and endless stream for me. The member libraries take whatever donations they get to add to their collections, plus they buy the castoffs from the local video stores. It's really the biggest pile of junk and I can't believe what they call a collection, but they haven't asked my advice about collection development (yet) so I do what I do. The water temperature of Silver Lake is reported to be 75 degrees. There's no water in the beaver dam at the head of the lake, according to Phil--he was there on Monday and said it's just mud now, no water. Nature has a way of changing things.