Home again home again

It's been a while, but here I am. Went to Boston, had a good conference. Lots of programs, mostly good ones. Lots of walking. Our apartment ended up being a grotto, a full story underground. Only had 3 small windows, 10 feet above the floor. Julie's and my first reaction was to hyperventilate--"How will we stand not having windows?" We adjusted. I gave her the bedroom, I slept in an alcove where the head of my bed was tucked under a beam that barely allowed me to sit up. Julie called it my coffin. In spite of it all (or because of it all) we laughed a lot and had a great time together, as we always do at conferences. Our apartment was on Beacon Street, less than a block from the Common. We had to walk a mile to the conference--no T stop anywhere near us. Very bad for my knee, which is now an issue again, but it was fun to walk in a safe city and enjoy being outside. We ate delicious clam chowder for lunch twice and had an expensive dinner at Legal Sea Foods (OK, my drinks cost nearly as much as my dinner did). The first time I ate at Legal Sea Foods was with my sister in the mid-70's. LSF has come a long way.

At one point I was walking into a session, late, and there was a gray-haired woman walking out alone--no one else around. It was my friend Mary Frances, whom I've known for 28 years and see every few years or so. She's now at New York Public, fresh from Louisville. It was great to see her and we spent 1 1/2 hours doing the exhibits together and visiting. We can pick up where we left off no matter how many years go between our visits. She's in great shape, doing better than she has in a while. This is the job she was meant to have--Deputy Director for Public Services. She said all she does is have meetings and administer. She has nothing to do with public service.

I also saw a woman who used to be director of one of our libraries here, who moved to Houston and got her masters degree, inspired by us librarians at the System. She is now working at a public library system in central Mass. and says she loves system work and it's the best kind of work to do. I love system work too, but there's nothing like working with the public, either. Anyway, she glommed on to me and wouldn't let go. Twice.

I went to a great session on Google Book, something I didn't know much about. Turns out there's tons of stuff that's been digitized and loaded onto Google already, but, by their estimate only 25% of the books printed have been done so far. They've done all the books in the public domain (pub. prior to 1923) in 5 research libs. and nearly all the books currently available for sale by major online booksellers (you can't get full text of these, only 3 pages surrounding your search terms). The other 75% of what's published in English needs to be dealt with. Some people have interesting dreams, don't they?

I boarded the dogs while I was gone--got them into the best kennel, my friend Joan's. She said Tess is a wonderful dog. I took them the night before I left, and was struck by a deep sense of melancholy when I got home. I think it was more about Henry than missing my dogs, but I felt very, very sad. I got home Friday night and couldn't pick them up until Saturday morning, so was prepared to feel sad and alone, but surprise! It was incredibly peaceful and quiet and I loved having the house to myself. They were thrilled to be home, but as Cesar the Dog Whisperer (on Natl. Geographic Channel) says, dogs live in the Now, they have no past or future (he also says they don't worry about how they're going to die). When they got home it was as if they'd just been for a short ride in the car.

Yesterday I went to camp to check out the buildings and the ice. No trees on any buildings, but no open water, either. I was hoping the dogs could go for a swim, but instead they both fell through the ice. That was totally terrifying for me. It was in front of the boat house and not over my head, so I probably could have gone in to get them, but luckily they were able to pull themselves out ok. First Chances went in, dragged herself out slowly, then Tess went in and scrambled out. I freaked out, have heard too many stories of dogs drowning and not being found until spring. I wanted to check on the last cabin, and while I was doing that Tess went BACK out on the ice--she just wanted to run on the ice, she loves to do that, but I screamed at her enough so that she went back on shore about 50' later. I hustled them on home. Scary business. I hate going through the ice things, it's one way I really fear dying.

I bought myself a digital camera and am having fun learning how to use it. Unfortunately, in order to load pictures on this computer I have to load software and the office nerd has blocked everyone but her from loading anything on our computers. She's out of the office today so it will have to wait until this afternoon or tomorrow. I have pictures of the dogs (of course) and the ice.
It's mud season now. I drove down to the Holt's the other night--Rush called to say they were going to tear down the cabin that sits where they're building their house and I wanted to check out the progress. Cabin is now a big pile of rubble. I almost got stuck in the mud. VERY nearly did. That is more humiliating than getting stuck in the snow. Any fool should know not to drive in mud. The road past my house is now completely torn up and impassable. I can only take some credit, but boy did I do a number on it. Deep ruts. My driveway is getting messy and I should stop driving on it for a while.

I watched Walk the Line on Sunday. What a great movie. I really enjoyed it and found the music to be very moving. I love Johnny Cash, it turns out, and would have preferred hearing him sing, but Joaquin Phoenix did a great job. Too bad it was Phillip Seymour Hoffman's year too. Now I have Brokeback Mountain to watch. It's supposed to rain on Saturday so I guess that's what I'll do after a dump run. The weather now is spectacular and I'd love to be home cleaning up my yard. No sign of my crocuses yet but my primroses are just poking up.

I had to buy an algae-eater for my fish tank. YUCK I can't stand them. I had my choice of 3 kinds. One grew to be 5" long. NO WAY. I got a little one, about 1 1/2". He's not bad but I can't stand things with sucking mouths on the bottom. I finally figured out that the brown stuff that keeps appearing in my tank is algae, growing because the tank sits in the sun part of the day (when I'm not there, of course). I also bought a snail (Ken couldn't believe I paid money for a snail). I'm not sure the snail is still alive: how can you tell if a snail is dead?