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.