It was 36 this morning--guess autumn is here at last. Very pretty morning but man is that cold. Jackson has taken off the last two mornings and will spend today again wandering the neighborhood. The weather is beautiful, sunny and clear, so who can blame him. He doesn't seem to get into much trouble.

My new car is supposed to be coming tomorrow. They'll deliver it to work. It's all pretty complicated, and yet simple. I'll sign all the paperwork when they deliver it, the salesman is setting up all the insurance stuff today, I think. I'll give them a check for the down payment,using the money I'll be getting from the insurance company (which I haven't received yet) and they'll hold the check until I tell them it's ok to cash it. Games, games games. I'm looking forward to having the whole thing settled. I enjoy driving the Toyota, but it does cost $2.50 a day, and I do need to get on with things. I want my own car.

Dinner last night with the Holts and some friends of theirs plus Ken. Friends of Annie's from medical school and their 2 kids. Their 15-year old daughter was hysterically funny, an anarchist who loves to argue about morality and the immorality of government, the uselessness of everything. She wants to live in a society that's based on morals--you know, like an Islamic nation. I tried, stupidly, to convince her that it would be hell for her as a woman, but she's 15 and reminded me of me at that age. The 2 kids go to a Friends school so have a unique outlook and education. She wanted to know what I like to read--she reads early Greeks, Spanish poetry in Spanish, plays, pretty much nothing published since around 1800. Needless to say we didn't have much literary discussion. Oh yeah, she has read Jorge Luis Borges. my god. The son sat next to Rush and looked at him the way Jackson looks at me when I eat food, just short of drooling. The kid adores Rush and hung on his every word. It was cute but even Rush got tired of it. "Rush, what do you think of.... Rush, what about.... Rush, do you know about..." All night long. Anyway we did have a nice evening. They're getting ready to start work on their garage, which is phase one of the building of their year-round house there.

I met with my union lawyer yesterday morning. This is action on my grievance against my director. My hearing is the 21st, so it's finally coming to pass. The lawyer is really good, I was impressed. He asked questions, got background, listened to my version of what happened, and really seemed to understand me. Told me what to mention, how to enhance my story, what we would be trying to do, and what might happen as a result of the arbitrator's decision. Basically we can't lose--she wrote a letter of reprimand without due process. Only an arbitrator has the authority to approve that. The arbitrator will either tell her she has to start all over again, or, maybe after determining that the letter she's written has no merit, turn the hearing into a hearing on the case itself. There won't be any disciplinary action as a result, just a letter in my file at worst, and the letter she has now has stuff in it that she has no proof of, just wandering accusations. He's going to subpoena Julie because there's one paragraph where she accuses me of trying to undermine the assessment process we were working on at the time by talking to Julie a lot and calling her on the phone. Julie will deny this, since it's not true. The letter is just a rambling bunch of crud.

Got a phone message last night from "Kathy." Want to join us for dinner? Took me a while to figure out it was Kathy Perry and that they are in camp. So much for my plans for having a quiet weekend in camp by myself. Surprise! Friday night I'm having dinner across the lake with Bill and Connie. Saturday I guess I'm going to the Holt's. Linda wants me to have dinner with her one night while her friends the gourmet cooks are there this weekend. eat eat eat. Not a way to lose weight.

Now on to catalog books for Willsboro. We were supposed to do a workshop of collection development on Tuesday but no one signed up to come so it's been postponed . YES! This means I might be able to go back to the chiropractor after all. I'm trying to go every week. I have muscle spasms that he's working on, plus other stuff. It's coming along. I also have to do a big adult book order today and tomorrow. Haven't been keeping up on that, am sort of out of the loop on what's hot these days. Get with it, lady!