It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Another priceless sunny day with fantastic color coming along. Still not peak but working toward that. I had to drive to Akwesasne, the Indian reservation, which is on the St. Lawrence, to do a "quick version" of the 3 hour workshop I've been doing on collection development. I forgot to buy gas this morning and was driving there with another librarian, oblivious to the yellow light on the instrument panel until we got to Fort Covington ("The Fort"). God what a fool. Anyway, I got gas, squeezed 440 miles out of the tank of gas, which means I must have really had NO gas left in the tank, it was a nerve-wracking few miles after I discovered I had no gas before we found a gas station in the middle of nowhere. So I get to the reservation only to discover that they called me after I left to tell me not to bother coming, there wasn't enough of an audience for me to do the presentation. So I wasted pretty much my whole day: 1 1/2 hours up there to speak to an audience of 2. Then I had to stay for lunch (potluck: last night I made apple brownies. This morning while I was brushing my teeth Tess took them off the counter and ate them all. I bought a $10 chocolate torte at the best bakery in town). Then I had to stay for their discussion of fundraising. Then I had to drive home with the director, but fortunately another director I like very much rode with us. I took the scenic route home, over the mountain (and through the woods) and it was very pretty. Went through Lyon Mountain, where we used to go with my grandfather when we were kids, looking for slag from the iron mine there. And now it's pretty much time for me to go home. I had to cancel my chiropractor's appointment this morning and my sciatica is killing me. Have to drive to Canton tomorrow for all-day training. Oh boy! Sitting in a hard chair all day after driving for 1 1/2 hours! Yahoo!

So I had an ok weekend, not terribly productive but I did get my rug cleaned. I bought the neatest little rug shampooer. You have to get on the floor to use it, it's only for small jobs but is very useful for someone whose dogs pee on the rug. I cleaned my living room rug, which has never been cleaned. Man oh man was it filthy. Then I cleaned the two bathroom rugs that Chances peed on. Now they don't smell like pee anymore, nor does my living room. It smells like clean rug. I'm happy but it took forever and was tiring. Not something I'll do often, but I imagine I'll do lots of spot-cleaning, thank you Chances. What's up with these dogs? They seem to have stopped throwing up but now Jackson pees and poops on the floor every night. It's not as if he can't hold it, he holds it all day from 7-5. Last night I let him out at midnight, and when I got up at 6, there it all was, in the same spot. I fantasized about having him put to sleep, telling the vet he can't control his bowels anymore. How nice it would be to have just the brown girls. I'll call the vets for advice, see what they say. I can't live with this, that's for sure.

Yesterday I went to camp. The far shore is really pretty but not yet peak. Unusual for the last weekend in September. Plenty of reds but still plenty of green as well. It was sunny and warm. I wanted to borrow camp's wheelbarrow because mine is missing a bolt--but camp's has a flat tire. This sucks. I was all set to stack firewood yesterday, but with no wheelbarrow I can't move the wood from site A to the wood shed. That was that. In the afternoon two people brought my dogs back from the bog. The guy brought out his cell phone and said he wanted to call the number on their tags but he couldn't get any cell service. Give me a break. They said, very dramatically that the dogs followed them ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. Big whoop. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was probably the third time that day they'd done that. Anyway they were nice people who were concerned about having the dogs get home ok.

I've been thinking about Henry a lot. Yesterday I walked on the path he made to the crest of my hill, which has the view of Whiteface he knew I should have. The view is getting overgrown now, but the path is still there. I walked past the brush pile he made for me to burn and felt so sad. He had great plans for my land and my house. This morning I cried most of the way to work. I miss him very, very much. I called Liza when I got to work and had a nice talk with her. She seems as if she's trying hard to not be so depressed (JoAnne threatened her with antidepressants and that did it--shape up, Liza, or else! so now she's trying to feel better. who knows). I'm going there in a couple of weeks, which will be nice for all of us.

And now I have to stop at Loews to try to find a bolt that will fit my wheelbarrow so I can start moving my firewood. This is getting to be way too much for me to think about but I have to get it done. Maybe I'll have to buy a new wheelbarrow. It's a real pain in the neck transporting it home, I have to have it bungeed, sticking out of the trunk. But I do the things I have to do.