I can't believe we're flying into the end of September. The great thing about it, of course is that the 29th is the last day for the Old Director (OD). New Director (ND) starts on October 2nd. She supposedly flew in from Alaska yesterday and may be stopping in the library some time this week. I probably won't be here, I'm out and about 3 days this week: Weds. I'm off to Port Henry to barcode their horrible, old, musty and irrelevant non-fiction collection; Thursday I go to Canton to the Regional Automation Committee meeting; Friday I have to go to Akwesasne (The Reservation) to a training workshop for our member library directors. I always greet these travels with mixed feelings: great to get out, hate to leave my work because no one does it while I'm gone. Fall is traditionally a really busy travel time because everyone in the region wants to get as many workshops/meetings/training sessions in before the snow flies. Anyway, I can't believe next week is the end of September.

The weather here isn't helping convince me that it's autumn. It's been so warm that the leaves are refusing to turn. Still lots and lots of green, very little red in the soft maples (the first to turn)--barely a hint. Jenica pointed out the faintest hint of red in my favorite maple, which is next to my driveway. It hasn't progressed much in the past week. We had heavy rain over the weekend, which usually results in loss of leaves this time of year, but nothing came down but the rain.

I had Friday off--National Day of Prayer. What a great contract we have! Every time a former President dies we get a day off, or, in this case, hurricane victims. When the President declares a N.D. of P. we get the day off. I had intended to clean my bedroom, prepping for winter, but instead tidied up in a general way, stacked firewood, watched tv, did not a whole lot in particular. Did enough to feel I was productive, though. I read like a fiend all weekend, finally finishing Wicked, the September book choice for our Book Group. It's the biography of the Wicked Witch of the West. The discussion was yesterday and man it was a really good one. I didn't much like the book going into the discussion, but we had such a good discussion that by the end of it I saw the value of the book and had a whole different perspective and appreciation of it. It was really interesting to me that two people in the group really, really liked the book. I truly enjoyed our conversation about the book, about good and evil, about characters in the book, etc. And of course, the next two hours we spent talking and enjoying each others' company. This is an exceptionally nice group of women and we are seeing each other through pregnancy, divorce, motherhood of young children and life in general. I really like these people.

Saturday I had high hopes of spending the day on my deck in the sun, reading, but it rained so hard Fri. night that there was residual cloudiness all day. I took massive amounts of newspapers and magazines to the dump in the morning (in the morning--unheard of for me to visit the dump before 3:00 p.m. on the weekend! I discovered that Young Brown Girl has been peeing on the pile of newspapers for a while, presumably since she's been taking Prednisone for her ragweed allergy. Now the back of the house smells like female dog urine (as opposed to the male dog urine smell it used to have when Jackson would pee there). DOGS! Anyway, I did sit on my deck and read, after I stacked the requisite daily 6 wheelbarrow loads of firewood. Ken came by to inspect my newly completed deck and we had a drink together while sitting on the deck, enjoying each other's company and admiring Steve's good work. While I was doing that my cousin's took out the docks at camp, including the boat house dock, sigh.

Saturday night I went across the lake to my cousins' camp for dinner. My favorites, "the boys," who are now approaching 30, were both there. One of them had his wife and son (the cutest, happiest, most joyful child on The Planet) with him. I really like that family unit, they are probably the best in my extended family, the most stable, calmest and most cohesive. Nicholas, the son, is now 3 and is truly a happy and well-adjusted child, ready to face the world. My first cousin, who is NOT one of my favorite relatives, was also there, but I was polite to him even though he has committed unspeakably rude acts against my mother.

Sunday was busy: Sunday dinner until 2:30, then Book Group in Wilmington from 3:30 until about 6:30. So much socialization in 2 days! Good for me I suppose.

And on the way to work this morning I spilled 16 oz. of triple caffeinated coffee on my lap and all over my car after taking just one sip. Responses from two males on the staff were completely negative: "It ruined your whole day, didn't it," and "Might as well trade the car in now." Men are funny. Responses from women on the staff were totally different, sympathetic and encouraging. Gender differences are funny. Jenica's blog entry about the fraternity t-shirt really struck a chord with me. When I was in college (during the early 70's) feminism was relatively young and I was relatively angry. No one would have dared put something like that on a t-shirt. It makes me very sad to think that members of either gender would think it appropriate to express that sentiment. Like racism, sexism hasn't gone away or even, apparently diminished in this country. Yes, they're young and learning, but this is something they really should have learned about before now: it's not ok to think these things about women OR sex.

And today I need to catalog goodness knows what. Audio books I think, new stuff, so it will at least seem relevant to the reading interests of the public.