My mind is too delicate an instrument for me to play. The chimney cleaner was supposed to come at 9. It was 46 in my living room because I couldn't let the fire burn all night or have a fire this morning because he was coming. So I took a shower, cleaned for company coming to dinner tonight (they invited themselves, I certainly don't want people coming to my house tonight) and waited and waited and waited and got hysterical. It was -18 last night, -20 the night before. Finally I called his service, got a real person who told me he did indeed have me scheduled for 9:00 this morning, relieving some of my stress. She didn't know where he was or why he hadn't come but would try to get in touch with him. He called, barely in range, to say that he'd been there at 9 but my driveway isn't plowed and he didn't think he could drive his van in it, and he didn't know if it was my camp or what so he left. I intoned, whimpered, came close to crying, said he could have at least walked to the house to tell me he was there and was leaving so I wouldn't have waited and worried and wondered. Told him my Chevy shitbox rental makes it up the driveway and that he had told me before that he could get his van up my driveway when we talked about it originally. Made him feel bad enough that he said he'd come back today (after I told him the temperature in my living room) and would do the job even if he had to carry his stuff up the hill. So he's doing it while I'm at work. He kept saying he'd build me a fire but I kept saying that wasn't necessary--geez, I don't want the guy to feel THAT badly! I just feel apart, though, when he didn't come, then when he was going to come--I can't handle this stuff, it's all too much for me.

I cleaned out the freezer, which doesn't work, and took a look at the refrigerator's contents--it sort of works. It's full and will have to be addressed soon but I didn't have the fortitude or enough garbage bags to deal with it today. I have to buy a new refrigerator when I get back from RI--another arrangement that must be made with a delivery van that may or may not make it up my driveway. More conversations with people about how complicated it is to get to my house. Not to mention the $600 it will cost. But at least they'll take the old one away.

So by now I'm hysterical and have to go to work. But at work is a message telling me that my car is ready to be picked up (hooray!) and all I have to do is pay the $250 deductible. Oops, I forgot about that part. shit, that was my travel money for RI. Well, unfortunately I'll put it on my newly-freed credit card. So now I've made arrangements to pay for the rental car at 2:30 and have them take me to the repair shop, which is about 5 miles away. So I can manage some things fairly easelessly. Goodbye shitbox. I bent the key last night when I opened the trunk--it was frozen shut and I forced it a bit.

It was -15 when I got to Ken's at 7 last night to delivery his birdseed. He was beside himself with worry about me, had been expecting me much earlier. Well, I had many errands to run. So I had a quick drink, steeled myself for a cold house and frenetic dogs, and went home. The house never really got warm, only up to 57 in the living room. This sucks. I finally turned the heat way up in the bedroom, turned the bed on and shut the door. It was very cozy by morning but nowhere else in the house was and I had to get up. No pipes froze, nor did the pump. This is a good thing but will cost a fortune in electricity.

My union rep brought me an article about a bipolar woman who was fired because she had outbursts with fellow employees and "difficult work relationships." She sued, saying the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, and won. Reason: her inability to get along with co-workers qualifies for ADA protection. So it's a fine line. You want to be given the benefit of your disability, but then you want to be treated like everyone else--only you can't be, because you're different and not so capable of acting like everyone else. sucks, don't it? You have to impose the same standards of behavior on all employees, which in CEF's case doesn't happen.

So now I'm killing some time until I drop off the rental car and will add holdings for Ticonderoga. It's pretty slow here, not many people around and little activity coming from member libraries. If the sun would shine, that would be nice. It was 2 degrees when I left home, but at least those degrees were on the right side of zero.

-20 when I left the house this morning. That's cold enough, but it's supposed to be even colder tonight. I have an appointment to have my chimney cleaned tomorrow morning, which I desperately need to have done. I hope the guy doesn't cancel--I had to cancel once, to meet with the library's attorney.

Luckily the rental car started. Guess Chevys are as good as Hondas that way. Let's see how it does when it's colder. I called the Auto Barn this morning and they gave me the best present ever: my car is basically finished, just needs an alignment (which I asked for, since she smacked me in the front), which will be done either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Either way, the car will be ready for me tomorrow afternoon. I cannot believe my good luck. Something is finally happening the way I want it to! I was all set to upgrade the rental to a more bearable car for my RI trip but no, I won't have to. Hooray for me! Now I just have to manage my time and tasks to get ready to go.

Schedule goes like this: just realized I didn't get a gift for co-worker who always (for the past 20 years) makes me a present. Must dash out in zero degree weather at lunch time to get something appropriate for her. Wonder if she minds that I get her an ornament every single year because I can't think of anything else to get her. Last year she gave me a patriotic wooden Santa holding a banner that said "Let Freedom Ring." And she's known me for 20 years.
Negotiating session tonight from 3-5. May/may not have time to mail presents to aunt & uncle & cousins. Had to re-wrap 2 shirts because dogs unwrapped them entirely while I was out yesterday. I mean, really: came home to find 2 flannel shirts sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by scraps of wrapping paper. How childish can my dogs be? I suspect Chances Are because she really likes to unwrap presents. I left the present my staff gave me on the table and the corners were nibbled on while I was in the shower. Tess, on the other hand, took the bottle of rum off the table and out of it's decorative cloth sac while I was in the shower. She did not open the bottle, merely examined it and found it to be unacceptable for her consumption.

So tonight I have to go shopping after the negotiating session. Groceries, wine, Christmas presents, dog food and birdseed. Drop off 50 lbs. of birdseed at Ken's. Have a good stiff drink while I'm there. Visit with friend from Baltimore who's staying with him for a few days (making him even more nervous--his son & family are visiting after Christmas and he's hysterical about having his house be clean and in order for them).

I told Ken I couldn't have dinner with him Weds. because I was going to RI, so we'd do it Tuesday. He said "For a change, let's have it at your house, so I can get out of the house." Swell, said I, I'll have to clear all the wrapping stuff off my dinner table and tidy up the living room. Now it turns out that Ann, Woman from Balto, and Bill will be coming as well. So I REALLY have to tidy up. And where will I put my wrapping stuff, since I'll have to wrap presents right after they leave, so I can take all stuff wrapped to RI,as we are having Christmas with Kristen, Jenica, the girls as soon as I get there? Well, truly, if these are my worst problems I have it pretty easy. It's all a question of logistics. And I do like to have my house in order when I go away, it's so much nicer to come home to that way. But having 3 people for dinner the night before I go away for a week in the winter is not my idea of fun. I could use the evening to finish my Christmas shopping and get organized.

And in between there's work. My clerk is in the throes of the breakup (maybe) of her marriage. Her husband has decided he doesn't lover her anymore (he thinks) and he doesn't want to be married (probably). Only over the weekend he decided that yes, he has some problems and could probably use professional help to deal with them. So now she feels just the slightest glimmer of hope. He sounds exactly the way Jamie did and I can't tell if it's helpful to her to keep saying that every time she quotes her husband and the quotes could be coming from Jamie just as easily. Honestly, it's eerie. They bought a huge camper last year--she thought they were in agreement about it but now he says he didn't want it, really. That's exactly what happened with Jamie about buying the Honda. He said that was what finally convinced him to leave: he felt he was forced into buying the car when he really didn't want to. I knew he was shallow, but really--ending a marriage over a car? Anyway, these people have a 5 year old son so their situation is a lot more complicated, and her husband is more of a jerk (if that's possible) than Jamie.

This morning Jackson decided he'd poop in the house while I was at work rather than go out in the cold to do it on the ground, thank you very much. No, I said, you can do it the same way the other 2 do. At least I didn't have to worry about letting all 3 out at once, there was no way they'd run off together in this weather. The girls sit down, putting their tender paws in the air proclaiming that the ground is too cold for their pawpads to touch. Tess will stand on 3 feet, shaking her 4th one the way a cat does when it gets its foot wet. Sorry, can't help you, you're too heavy to carry. Meanwhile, I got my hands wet carrying snow-covered firewood, and when I touched the metal door handle my hand started to stick to it. Well, I'm not THAT stupid, I let go before my skin could really stick to it. I'm stoopid enough not to wear gloves or mittens, not stoopid enough to get my hand stuck to my doorknob. It takes 30 minutes to get frostbite, although Ken says you'd be dead by then if you didn't have warm clothes on.

The lake froze over last week but we don't know how thick the ice is. Not very, is our guess. We got 3" of powdery snow yesterday afternoon. When it's this cold the snow is incredibly fluffy. The temperature dropped 30 degrees between noon and 6 p.m. My refrigerator is nearly completely broken. The top part of the freezer doesn't freeze, so I put the contents of the top shelf in a cooler on the deck. Guess I don't really need to worry about stuff staying frozen. I needed ice for tonight so I just filled an ice tray and put it outside. Didn't take long, did it, to get ice. Nice, clear cubes.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

http://www.quizdiva.net/bt/linguistic.jpg">>You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Warmed up a bit today, from the -2 of yesterday. It's winter, though, no denying it. Lots of snow at my house but I've made my tracks up the driveway so the car can get to the house. I had to cancel my chimney cleaning yesterday morning so I could meet with the library's attorney to discuss settling my disciplinary case. I rescheduled the cleaning for next Tuesday instead. The meeting went well. The attorney, who is ordinarily a royal bitch, was very compassionate and we talked about my bipolarism. She said I needed to document it in the workplace so that when I was treated differently I could claim that perhaps I was being discriminated against. Said she used to work with a mental health facility prior to her present life. I'll talk to my psychiatrist about it, since naturally it makes me feel more vulnerable having it on record here, yet it also makes me feel protected for just the reason she said. Anyway, their offer is a good one: a written reprimand, to say anything I want it to say, basically, which will be in my folder for a year. If I "behave" for a year, it will be removed from my folder and destroyed. If I don't "behave" it will stay in my folder and I will have waived my right to grieve it. So if I have the letter say that I told someone they weren't a cripple, and I misbehave according to their standards, then I have a written reprimand in my file that says that and how stupid does that look? Anyway, I think she believed me when I told her that I have disabilities so I am very careful what I say to people about being disabled and did not call anyone a cripple. It was an emotional meeting for me and I told her that I needed to be treated the same way others are treated and I don't believe that is the case.

So that was Weds. morning. Monday and Tuesday were spent with people from the Unified Court System, some from New York City and others from the County Courts here, doing training of our member libraries and me on how to provide legal referral. The training was excellent but it was exhausting and time consuming. We've been picked for a pilot project (because of my friendship with someone whose connected to the Court System, who runs the Rural Legal Resource Center) and it's really a big deal. They were all very intense about it and our librarians were really excited so it went really well. The people from NYC were totally intense about being here, so far from civilization.

We've had three negotiating sessions so far, working on our contract. They seem to go pretty well until the end, then our rep and the library's attorney get into it at then end and the rest of us sit there and squirm. We had 11 proposals, they had 26 (no surprise). They want to take away some things, we want to add. It'll be a pretty long process. The night of our first session, a week ago, I left the session at about 5 and was driving through the intersection near the library on a green light and was hit by a woman who ran her red light. This was nasty and really made me angry--my new car, big damage to the front end and hurt my hand as well. I drove the car for a day then on Friday took it in for an estimate and they told me it wasn't drivable. Now I'm driving a tiny Chevy Cavalier that totally sucks. They don't know how long it will take to fix my car, Honda front ends are hard to get here it turns out. I'm going to RI on the 22nd and it seems doubtful that it will be fixed by then. Rats.

I had an ok weekend among all of this. Saturday was relaxing enough. I did some work around the house and worked on Christmas projects. Liked that. Sunday I went to Sunday dinner, where Bill was in need of quiet comfort because one of his freshman hung himself in his dorm room Thursday night so he'd spent all day Friday with the kid's parents. Of course no one had a clue why the kid did it. Anyway we had a nice time together. Then I went to Martha's open house, which turned out to be a really nice thing. Book group people hanging out, too much food but lots of nice conversation and an actual social gathering. And my birthday. Nice long talk with Liza and Molly.

And that's my life in a nutshell. I'm ok, feeling hassled but keeping my head above water. The checks from my closing came in so that means my mortgage is paid off and I paid off 5 credit cards. Now I only owe about $2400 to anyone beyond the $50,000 I owe on my house and I don't have to make a mortgage payment until February. Lots of breathing room. Feels nice to relax a bit about money. I can actually live within my means.

Dogs are fine. I thought that, with all the snow we have they would stop roaming (and they did, for a few days) but at 11 the other night I got a call from the people they like to visit a mile away, on the hardtop. They had let Chances inside so I had to drive there to pick her up. No sign of Tess or Jackson, but no bodies in the road either. I drove down the road looking for them and when I was driving home, ahead of me were the Spooners in their truck with Tess running behind them. That was how they decided to take her home. She loves to chase cars, which I really, really hate, but they thought it was a funny way to get her home. I called her, she came to me, I thanked them very much for taking such good care of my dogs (I lied--good care would have been to put her INSIDE the truck to drive her home). Jackson came home half an hour later. So no more letting all three out at once, no matter how cold it is outside. It is really nice of them to call me when they have them, and they do care about whether my dogs get hit by a car.

So now I'm preparing for Christmas, more or less. Can't say I'm overwhelmed by the spirit but I'm getting into it a little bit. We had our staff party and our union party here. Staff party was ok, we all cooked something and we did Secret Santa presents, which I hated. Union party was better, we went to a restaurant. No more parties for me. Moving on to the next thing, getting the right number and kind of presents.

I suppose I'm not insulted that I have no imagination. When we were kids and our father wanted us to paint with oils a whole lot I had great trouble coming up with something to paint. No imagination. When we would drive around the Illinois countryside Sunday afternoons with my mother and our drawing pads I could find things to draw, there were landscapes all around me. Mostly it was silos and farmhouses, though.

I'm stumbling about these days, fussing through the charges brought against me. Have met with my union rep, who says we wouldn't meet with them on the 15th, as they have demanded. "Why would we? It's not part of the grievance process and there's nothing they'd say. They'd just get you riled up." So that's a relief and also means I can keep my 9:00 appointment to have my chimney cleaned. Naturally I keep thinking about the things the director and her attorney are saying I thought and did, wondering if there's a kernel of truth to any of it--yes, I did speak loudly, and maybe I did say fuck, but she called someone fuckface repeatedly, and called me "fucking brilliant" at one point, so apparently some people get to say it and some people don't. Most of the things she's saying make me incompetent and bad are things that other people do or did at the same time I did, which I guess is my only defense: that others do the same thing and don't get punished. I hate it all.

But I had my closing and the mortgage is now in my name. The debt is mine, all mine. Only a 15 year note, not intimidating. Funding doesn't come through until tomorrow, apparently, but my first mortgage payment isn't due until February. If that can really be true. That's what it said on the paper I signed. That means I have several hundred dollars coming with nothing to commit it to. And Christmas is coming. This is a first for me. I can't believe my good fortune. And I don't believe my good fortune so I'm not spending much.

It was zero the other night, cold enough to be called winter. And there's plenty of snow at my house. I finally put my lawn mower in the shed, it's winter home at the bottom of my hill. Pushing a lawn mower through 4" of snow is really, really the pits. It just doesn't go. Note to self: don't let that happen again. Put it away BEFORE it snows. I bought a bottle of $20 champagne for Sunday dinner to celebrate my closing. That was fun.

Ken had been having trouble with his foot, it was swollen, painful and worrisome. He collected pieces of advice, I offered to take him to the emergency room, contemplated that this could be the beginning of the end, a circulatory problem, etc. He soaked it in epsom salts, finally took off his socks to show his nephew how much more swollen the right foot was than the left foot. Nephew number two looked inside his boot and discovered that there was a fork in it, unbeknownst to Ken. Guess that explains the discomfort, huh. Ken of course blamed my dogs, saying the carried a fork from the floor by the sink, where we must have dropped it, over to his boot and dropped it in there. Fat chance, say I, but who's going to argue with him. Now all he says is "But you know you can't listen to a man who walks around with a fork in his boot." I'm just relieved that there's nothing wrong with him.

Tonight is book group. Jacob have I loved is the book. A young adult book about a twin sister who always resented what her sister the singing star got. Can't say I can relate to that, fortunately. My sister DID get the pretty pink curtains in her room on Rome Avenue, but her rat chewed them and then they weren't quite as pretty. Besides, I never liked pink. I hated my room, though, but someone has to have the icky room, and when we moved to the next house I got a nice room.

Yucky weather, just as it should be in December. Can't complain. Saw Dr. Rubin today. He's worried about me because I'm being treated so poorly at work. Thinks I should consult with a lawyer and investigate charges of hostile work environment. I looked into this before but the laws are pretty specific about how badly you have to be treated. He says this situation is doing real damage to me. swell. I'm gaining weight, this much I know. I just read results of a study that says if you get 6 or fewer hours of sleep at night you're more likely to be obese. And there I am, getting 4-5 hrs. a night. hmmm.

You are a spelunker. You are
practical, but seek adventure and have a desire
to see things first. You do tend to lack
imagination, though.

What Seeker of the Unknown Are You?
brought to you by

THE LETTER arrived by courier last night as I was getting in my car. Handed to me personally from the library's lawyer's office. It contains many pages of charges against me, mostly that I spoke in a loud voice (well, yes I do, I suffer from a hearing loss and tinnitus) and a number of other "charges" that would make you laugh if you didn't know they were levied against me. They're asking to suspend me for 5 days without pay. My first thought was that it would be lovely to not go to work for 5 days, especially now when I have meetings and will be on the road for the next 2 weeks and have trainers coming from NYC to do a workshop for me. Kick me out now, PLEASE! I'll go visit my mother for another while and we'll have a good time. I'll have the money because my closing is tonight so it's not a financial hardship. But of course I have to look it over more closely and decide whether I want to grieve it or not. Some things are better just to give up on and surrender to the goons. But this one, well it's just full of so many things that have been exaggerated and made into lies. All that happens is it goes into my file. Or I fight it and it costs the library money and grief and maybe some of the charges are dismissed. Haven't spoken to my rep yet, he's not been available today. Will see him on Monday.

And it's cold today, and snowy. We spent the day --all day, doing our planning process, the assessment portion of it. Kevin, Julie's husband was our facilitator and he's a master. Knows a million methods for doing this sort of thing but in the end he had us draw fish on the wall. The head was our issue, and the bones were elements and ways of dealing with the issues. Not as grand a method perhaps as it might have been earlier in the day. I put big lips on my fish. Everyone else followed his example and had a big square head for theirs. Honestly.

So now I go home, shopping en route, and have my closing (if FedEx has delivered the papers as they're supposed to). Can't wait can't wait. The bright spot (and it's a big one) in my life.
I need to see if the ground is frozen because I still have bulbs to plant (oops). I may try to move the bed upstairs to the floor by the window, setting up my winter sleeping quarters. This would be a lot of work in terms of getting everything away from Tess, but it might be worth it. I'll buy bird seed on the way home (when I buy Chances' new collar--to replace the one Tess just chewed) and start feeding the birds. Late this year.

I have to meet with the director and my union rep to go over the charges, and the day she's picked for that is the exact day and time I've scheduled to have my chimney cleaned RATS RATS RATS. Well I can work around these things. The stove seems to be working ok and gets plenty hot right now. The creosote crinkles a bit, not good, it's burning, but I doubt it will burn all the way up the chimney.

Supposed to warm a bit this weekend. It looks a lot like December right now, some snow on the ground.

Some good, some bad is what's going on with me. The good parts are these: so far, no letter from the director re: the "incident" of '03. Would she have given it to me by now, more than a week after the board meeting? Perhaps, but we have to remember that she's only been at work a couple of those days. I speculate, however, that she had the letter written long before the board met and was just waiting for them to give her their blessings. I'm hoping for the best. Sign that I'm in the clear: she called my colleague and friend Julie into her office the other day with a list of things to discuss. They were all criticisms of ways Julie had behaved and ways she had (or had not) done her job. This is the behavior we see when M is not allowed to take measures against one or the other of us. So for me this is a good sign. We congratulated me and I consoled Julie. Other good part: I have the closing on my refinance scheduled for Friday night at 6:00 at my house. This is a truly bizarre time and place, but since they have no office and have to send someone here from 3 hours away, this is what's up. They wanted to do it at 5 but I'd like to go grocery shopping after work and have a little breathing room so I asked for 6. I can't believe this is happening, but so far it looks real.
Bad things: my stovepipe is malfunctioning. I figured it was the elbow outside clogged with creosote (after spending a horrible night in a smoke-filled house with no fire) so last night I took it apart and discovered that it was, in fact, the outside elbow filled with creosote flakes (big ones) that had fallen down the 25' of chimney. I shoveled it out (shop vac not working right, either) and lit a fire. It smoked a bit but finally caught a good flame and then functioned admirably. The whole thing makes me nervous but the house doesn't get warmer than 65 without a fire in the stove. I called two chimney cleaners, neither was home. Left a message but had to go to a meeting last night. One had left a return message, one had not. Adk Chimney people, who left the message, said they'd call me today. So far not. I want to get it cleaned as soon as possible but scheduling will be a problem unless they'll do it on the weekend. I'm booked here at work, between meetings and road trips, pretty much through next week. I've never cleaned the outside stovepipe, sort of thought I didn't have to because it's triple-walled and smooth and I thought you didn't have to. WRONG was I. At least now I'll be able to pay for it.

Other bad: snow. Some this morning, making the roads awful all the way to work. They didn't plow or sand at all. Other drivers thought this was catastrophic and drove 25 mph. That was overeacting, the roads sure weren't that bad. It rained all day here in Platts., let's hope the same was true at home (but often it snows there while raining here--yikes).

So no bad is very bad, but the good is really pretty good. I tidied my desk today, in prep for the tour we'll be having on Monday as part of showing off community resources. It may not look good to other people, but the piles are much smaller (three garbage cans worth) and their tidy piles now. I found some good stuff, but mostly found lots of stuff that was old and worthless. Lots of professional journals I never read that are now too old to be relevant. Computers in Libraries from 2003.

And tonight I cook for Ken. He has asked that I only bring one dog, rather than the 2 brown girls I've been bringing. "Would you do a favor for me? Would you?" Won't tell me why until I get there. I dread whatever it is he's going to show/tell me. I just hope Tess didn't chew something precious of his. Usually it's the wastebasket in the upstairs bathroom and I can clean up the mess before he finds it. Guess not this time. So Chances will go because he likes her the best. Poor Tess will spend the evening in the cage, after being there all day. But what can I do. Last night she was in her cage from 6:15 to 9:15 while I was at the library in the Forks at a meeting. If she didn't chew seat belts she could come along!