Friday, Sweet Friday

The end of the week. I've already felt that it was Friday once so far this week, so it's nice to finally have the day arrive. I woke at 5 this morning, which was very strange for me, but I went to sleep at 10:30. Unheard of. Can't explain it, it just felt right. I never go to sleep much before midnight so it was very strange but the dogs loved it. They would have me go to bed at 9 every night.

I let the dogs out at 5 and climbed back into bed, my warm, wonderful bed. I love lying in bed, where it's peaceful and I can look out the huge (4'x 6') window that opens my view into the forest and mountain. This morning I read the book my book group is reading, which is a wonderful book that I adore, even though Bad Things are going to happen. The dogs may have been flinging themselves against the front door, asking to be let in, but my bedroom is at the back of the house and I mercifully couldn't hear them. They usually run around to the back door, which is next to my bedroom, and REALLY fling themselves against that one, but this morning they were enjoying themselves doing whatever they were doing so I had complete peace in bed. I loved it, I savored every moment.

And I figured out my lifestyle change, painfully obvious to my dense self. I can be so slow to understand things about myself. The change in bosses is such a major change in my life, it has altered everything. I get to work half an hour early, my ride to work is completely different. I see different people--I sometimes see the people who live out by my mailbox, who walk down my road at 6:45 each morning. I chat with the guy who's fixing the coffee at the store and there are hardly any school buses on my route most days because they're not on the routes yet. I'm not in a mad rush to get ready for work. When I get to work I have peace throughout my day. The biggest change, however, is that there's someone who's paying attention to the work I'm doing, who asks me to do something and then follows up, remembering that she's asked me for it. Yikes, that's different. "Did you get that information yet?" Um, I'm waiting to hear back from them. "I think you should include another library in that project." Oh no, not them. Well, OK, if you say so.
She's a good director, though, and I don't mind telling her what I'm doing because I don't fear retribution or having the project taken out of my hands or being criticized, chastized or reprimanded. There's not a list of sins I've committed on the director's desk, waiting for me when I walk in the door. So yes, I am having a major change in my lifestyle. My traveling is very real.

Last night one of my friends was on the national news. It's one of the women I went to school with in Rockford, a member of the group who gathers at our reunions. I saw her in July. She runs a smoking cessation program at Harvard Medical School and ABC's news last night did a special on smoking in honor/memory of Peter Jennings. So they interviewed Nancy, and there she was, in my living room, talking to me. She looked great and sounded great. I was fun to see her. On Sunday night my friend Rush was on 60 Minutes, being interviewed by Ed Bradley, but I missed it. He (Rush, not Ed Bradley) called me afterwards to talk to me. Why didn't he call me before? So this week I feel very well connected.

I met with my clerks earlier in the week to start the outline of our department's Policy and Procedures Manual. Man oh man what a nasty job that is. Luckily this part, the interlibrary loan portion, is mostly procedural and they have to write it. Yeah for me. I'll have to write up the policies, though, and I suppose the Director and Board will have to approve them. Won't they be surprised when they hear what our policies are? The director freaked out when I told her that we spend about $1200 a year on one bookmobile patron's OCLC ILL requests for old mysteries. Now we're apparently contemplating a policy of not borrowing fiction on OCLC. Yeowie is that ever a radical departure.

I spent most of the week cataloging videos for two of our libraries. One library had current releases, which everyone else had bought on DVD's (what is with these libraries? This place refuses to make the "leap" to DVD's, another library refuses to make the leap from books on tape to books on CD's). The other library naturally had a bunch of crap that was boring and painful to catalog and took forever. I listened to music, Peace Out Radio, which sometimes causes me to type in rhythm to the music, but makes the cataloging much less painful.

Last night I couldn't get my house warmer than 59 degrees but for some reason it didn't bother me. What is with that? I had a hot flash in the middle of the evening, watching TV, but that didn't last long. I had the dogs next to me on the couch, but they weren't on top of me. I can't believe I was really comfortable at that temperature. All I was doing to keep warm was knit but that seemed to be ok. I can't imagine this tolerance will last much longer, somehow when it's -10 outside I need to have it closer to 70 inside. Right now, though, when it's 70 inside I can't stand it.

On to work. Today I was thinking I might try to tidy up my desk. The Director made a face when she came to me the other day with some papers she wanted me to file and keep track of. Uh-oh.