What a week it's been so far. The most boring week in the history of my career--and that's a loooong history. I became a librarian in 1977. For some reason everyone in the place has the same complaint. Maybe it's the weather (cloudy, rainy, gloomy but at least fairly warm). Maybe it's because the director is retiring tomorrow but announced yesterday that the board has asked her to serve as interim director until they hire a replacement (I must have been a very bad child and am being punished for it now). She will only work 2-3 days a week and her duties will be limited. They asked other people to do it but no one was interested. Rats! My heart hit the floor. Lub-dub lub-dub. These are the times that try [wo]men's souls. We had a big luncheon celebration yesterday, everyone brought some delicious food (except for the spaghetti part). We all felt rather foolish, since she'll be back on May 13th. I'll never be rid of this woman, she's like a booger you try to flick off your finger.

So work is not as stimulating as it might be. I'm cataloging and even that doesn't rock my world. I did discards as a pleasant diversion and that was boring. I can't bring myself to do weeding because I'm in the Holiday Collection and from there I go to the Professional Collection and puh-leeeeeeze! I can't bring myself to read book reviews because I just ordered $4000 worth of new books that are about to be wheeled over to my desk for my review before going out on the bookmobile (I hope they come before Weds., when I start my week off for gallbladder land).

I went for a tour of the hospital library today. The director came to me at 10:02 this morning and asked if I'd go in her place (I forgot to register myself). The tour started at 10. I was happy to go, had meant to go anyway, so it was good but it was long and I had to stand for 2 hours and wore the wrong glasses so couldn't see anything. It reminded me that I hadn't done any research on gallstones or the proposed laparoscopic surgery yet. We had a nice lunch in the cafeteria there, courtesy of the grant that's paying for these tours ("It's your special day, have dessert."). I sat with our former director, the man who hired me 20 years ago, who desperately wanted to be the Interim Director after M retires tomorrow. Apparently the board did NOT ask him. Anyway, after a demonstration of lots of medical data bases and websites I came back to work and looked up gallstones--causes of, removal of, types of, etc. Interesting. I feel like a much better patient now. Rapid weight loss can be a culprit. Maybe the 40 pounds I lost in 2003 caused their formation. High cholesterol can be a culprit, since these are most likely made up of crystallized cholesterol. Too little fat in my diet, or skipping too many meals can be a problem, as that will cause your gallbladder not to contract enough, storing the cholesterol in it and turning the chol. into stones. Isn't information a wonderful thing?

As for the surgery, now I'm more concerned that mine might be "open" surgery due to previous abdominal surgeries I've had, which may have caused scarring that would prevent use of the instruments necessary for laparoscopic surgery. But I always have to have something to worry about. And my internist already warned me to be ready to spend the night in the hospital. But I'm not planning to, I'm really counting on outpatient surgery, going home a few hours later. Come on, let's not worry about things we can't control. What will happen will happen so let's assume the best.

And still it rains here. Tomorrow may be sunny but the weekend most likely will not. This will be a good thing, since I need to clean my house in prep. of visits from my book group. We read The kite runner. What a good book. I also want to clean my bedroom, and have actually started that process. I must go to the dump. I must spray the huge philodendron with insecticidal soap again--that takes about an hour and requires putting a towel on the wood floor and squatting in uncomfortable positions to reach all 30 huge fronds and leaves.

Last night I cleaned the fish bowl, including rinsing off the plants and gravel. I put the guppies in a pan while I cleaned their house. When I put them back in the bowl they were thrilled and haven't stopped swimming very, very quickly all around the place. I yelled at them "Come on! It wasn't THAT bad," when they said that at last they could see where they were going. How those fish do go on.

Tonight is the first night I don't have any obligations after work. I can go home, walk the dogs if I want to (will I want to?), but will be there at a reasonable hour. I have to figure out what to cook for book group on Sunday and I have to get wine for Sunday dinner. Since the IRS doubled my tax return I have no money worries for the time being. I bought a bookcase at Lowe's last week. I need to assemble it. I can do that! I know how!