12 days of rain and still going strong

Amazing, but at least my well is nice and full. My sump pump has been running with some regularity, which is music to my ears. Like money in the bank. Icing on the cake. Creme de la creme. A full bowl of dog food. I can wash all the clothes I want to without cringing and waiting for the well to run dry. It's the simple things that make me happy. If I lived near a river I'm sure I'd feel differently, but I'm on a hill with a mere hole in the ground for a cellar.

I'm still cataloging worthless CD's. Yesterday had two highlights. The Royal Philharmonic is still hard at work, this time recording the Greatest Hits of Madonna. Yes, Like a Virgin and Material Girl with plenty of stings. Then there was The Best Darn Drinkin' Songs, which included the perennial favorite The Girls Get Prettier at Closing Time. And that's how I spent my day. Not even anything good to listen to while I cataloged them. I did listen briefly to 60's Flower Power, which included Herman's Hermits' I'm Henry VIII. That reminded me of Henry's first car, which was an old, old blue VW van. He spray painted "HVIII" across the front of it and boy did he love having that vehicle. He drove all over the East Side in it, and even let his sisters ride in it. In the back, where there were no seats or windows, but ride in it nevertheless. He was a good brother.

It rained all weekend, even though it wasn't terribly cold. I got three lobsters for dinner Friday night and ate them with Linda and Erdvilas. They were surprisingly good. According to the guy at the store they came in that morning. Lobsters you get in Plattsburgh come from Maine. Anyway it was my final evening for the year with L & E, so we said our farewells. They left Saturday morning. I spent Saturday doing not much of anything, unfortunately. I don't know if I'm depressed or just not motivated because I'm sick of drizzly gray skies. I had a nice, long conversation with my mother, who had sunshine and 60 degrees at her house. She sounded well, better than last week.

I fell asleep for just a few minutes late Sat. morning and awoke to a funny "thump" sound. Tess had gotten up on the kitchen counter, where I had left a plastic half gallon of milk, retrieved the milk and carried it to the living room. She dropped the container, spilling most of the milk on the floor and rug, and she and Chances were industriously lapping up the milk. I yelled at them both, picked up the milk container, then shrugged and said, "Well, you might as well lick up the rest of it." They wagged their tails and obeyed me. Not as much of a mess for me to clean up but now they smell like Resolve carpet cleaner every time they lie down in that spot. And, oh, isn't Tess clever?

Erdvilas gave me custody of a big carton of liquors for the winter, ones that would freeze if left in camp. There are many small bottles of assorted things, and I've left the carton on the kitchen floor. Every day Chances seems to want to try out the contents of one of the small bottles because I find a small bottle in the middle of the living room floor. OK, so I forget to move the carton to a place where she can't find it, just as I neglected to put the milk back in the refrigerator.

Sunday was rainy too. I cleaned my living room and did some laundry then went to Sunday dinner. Quiet dinner, just Bill and Ken. Ken had his wood stove cranking so it was HOT and both Bill and I got very sleepy after dinner. I had my stove going all weekend, too.

Sunday night I was watching TV, looking forward to my regular shows. It was incredibly windy outside and I was really enjoying watching the trees bend and wave, listening to the amazing noise and at 8:30 the power went out. I sat there in the dark for a few minutes, letting it sink in. There was just a bit of light from the moon through the clouds so it was very peaceful. I always know where my flashlights are, and I know where my Coleman lantern is so I'm always in good shape when the power goes out. This time, though I wasn't in the mood to read. I tried. It was really hot sitting in the living room next to the lantern, so I moved into the bedroom, where the temperature at night is about 50. I lasted until about 10 before I fell asleep. I woke up at 4 when the power came on.

Monday I went to an all-day workshop in Canton, waving hello to Jenica as I drove through Potsdam (wasn't alone, so couldn't stop). I gave a brief demonstration and talk on patron-initiated interlibrary loan at CEF. Of course I made a mistake, but I can always make fun of myself so it was fine. I got dragged away from the podium before I finished what I had to say. There weren't very many people there but it was a good group. The afternoon session was interesting, about a collaborative effort in the Albany area, but it made me realize that other regions are still trying to do what we've been doing for 15 years as far as resource sharing goes.

The trip to Canton was really pretty, especially the first part (up into the hills). From my house I drive up to Lyon Mountain, where there used to be a huge iron mine. When we were kids my grandfather liked to drive there on his Sunday afternoon drive and we'd poke through the slag (leftover) piles. Now there's a huge, huge slag pile in the middle of town. I love Lyon Mtn. because it's sort of monochromatic. The mine buildings are brown/gray and the huge slag pile is totally devoid of color--gray. There's a long row of company houses down the main drag, all identical but some painted a couple of different colors. They're some sort of stucco, which is really rare here. There's a minimum security prison in the middle of the place and a Mobil station, and that's all there is to the town. It's not really a town. My drive takes me through a place called Standish, which is just a cluster of houses, all run down. The trees were so brilliantly yellow and orange that it was as if the sky were lit up. It was so bright on both sides of the road, it was just fantastic. I love this time, the end of the color, when it's so incredibly bright that it feels as if the sun is always shining (especially nice when you haven't seen the sun for 12 days!). I always say that if my neighborhood gets too crowded--that is, if houses go up across the road from me--I'll move to the road going to Standish. There's an area there called High Banks, and from one side of the road there's an incredible view of the mountains. Of course, the growing season is about 5 weeks long.

The New Director (N.D.) is doing well. She's still reasonable and sane. I'm working with her on a personnel issue I'm having with one of my clerks and it feels really good to have someone who sees things from an organizational perspective rather than working against me personally.

And now it's on to more CD's, starting with Feng Shui: Harmony, Balance, Energy. What in the world can be on that CD?

THE DAY THAT WOULD NOT END

Is it really only 1:30? I have been cataloging (now, we're talking original cataloging here, because no other library in their right mind would have these in its collection) CD's for 2 days straight. This is a collection of 100 free, yes, free so they must be good, CD's that a patron gifted to one of our member libraries. I can tell he's giving them as a tax write-off from his company because they're all produced by the same company out of Plattsburgh. So far our favorite is "The Royal Philharmonic Plays the Hits of U2." I'm sure Bono would be thrilled to hear what this sounds like. "Desire" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" heavy on the strings. It's truly awful. So far this library has 4 recordings of "Okie from Muskogee" sung of course by Mere Haggard, 3 recordings of his great "Mama Tried," a recording of "Oops I did it again" by a kids band whose lead singer truly, truly can't carry a tune, a CD of birdsongs in the rain (never mind that birds don't sing in the rain), and 7 CD's of gospel music (so far). As I say, there are 100 and I've only done about 60 so far. Now, wait a minute, I've done 1.5 boxes and the last, unpacked box is half again as big as the box I'm working on now, which holds at least 40. I'm no Einstein, but that's going to add up to waaaay more than 100, the sneaky little snark. Gag me with a maggot.

And it's raining again, surprise surprise. The nicely stacked firewood I have, which should by rights be drying and getting ready to be burned this winter is thoroughly soaked now because I didn't cover it. I guess the sun might shine on Monday. Monday I have to give a presentation on patron-initiated requests, using our catalog. This morning I had to teach myself how to be a patron and initiate some requests. Let's hope I remember how to do it in front of an audience on Monday.

Tonight I'm buying lobsters for Erdvilas and Linda, hopefully live ones. Finding live lobsters in this town is no small task, though. I told L. last night I would do this, since we will not be going out to dinner the way we usually do. There is just too much food in her fridge to warrant spending the amount of money we would spend in a restaurant. Instead, I will treat the Midwesterners to seafood they can't get in Michigan, even though I think Plattsburgh is a funny place to buy lobster. First I will make a quick stop at Ken's because he has called me to "see how I'm doing and what I've been up to." That means he misses me and I should stop by.

This weekend looks pretty dull. I did not get the last disc of The O.C. in the mail, nor did I get any other DVD's. I have a film called Wicker Park to watch and that's it. Let's hope there's a good Law & Order marathon on. I need to go to the dump, that will kill an hour or so. Linda leaves on Sunday, I think, and I can always watch my fish. They're feeling neglected, as are the dogs. I've been at Linda's every night this week, but I have to take advantage of the semblance of a social life when it presents itself, don't I? I took Chances with me on Weds. but she was unbearably attentive to everyone there and wouldn't settle down. They have the 3 pugs, who have been cuddling me to death each night. They insist on being lap dogs, which I am not used to. When we did the crossword puzzle the other night, one of the clues was "Not a handsome dog," and we had the last letter of the 3-letter word as a G. Wasn't hard for me to figure out that the 1st two letters were P and U, but Linda was shocked to think that anyone would think a pug was not handsome. Are you kidding me? With those snouts and curly tails? But they're very dear and sweet little dogs. They just snort too much. Like, all the time.

What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

It's going to rain for the rest of our lives
We seem to have gone from one meteorological extreme to another. Hard to believe that a week ago I was roasting in the sun on my deck, then sitting in a cool breeze warmed by the sun on the boat house porch. It's rained for 6 days and the forecast is for 6 more days of cloudiness with a chance of rain each day. Yikes. I wanted to cover my wood pile last night but discovered that I had given my tarp away. Then I remembered the time I gave it to Ken because I was sure I wasn't going to use it. Well you can't be generous and use the things you give away at the same time, can you.

Columbus Day weekend was much quieter this year, which would have been nice if I'd made good use of the time. Instead I spent the weekend on the couch watching DVD's of last seasons "The O.C." and other worthless things on TV. I wanted to stack my wood but my belief is that it's not a good idea to stack wet wood because then it will stay wet and will take much longer to dry. I did sort my t-shirts, producing a big pile for the Salvation Army and a smaller pile for Erdvilas, who said he wanted all the x-larges I was getting rid of. Now I can actually see what clothes I have on the shelves in my bedroom. There are more piles of clothes screaming for attention (sometimes so loudly they keep me up at night) but I will get to them. I will leave hidden the pants that are 1 and 2 sizes smaller than I am currently wearing in the hopes that I will lose enough of the 20 pounds I gained back after I lost 40 pounds two years ago. Miracles happen, don't they?

Linda and Erdvilas arrived Saturday for a week. I have spent a lot of time with them, enjoying their company a whole lot. Last night Linda and I did the NY Times crossword together, laughing the entire time. It was great. Doing crosswords with another person is fun but tricky.

Saturday afternoon there was a cocktail party that I didn't have to host. It was supposed to be on the porch of a camp owned by a former camper, at one of the nicest camps on the lake, but he had it inside instead. There was a big crowd, bigger than the crowd I would have had at the party I was planning. I had a really nice time and liked being with all my friends there.

Sunday night was the fancy party for Bill's birthday at Plattsburgh's best restaurant. One of the highlights was that I got to sit in the new MiniCooper owned by one of our friends. She offered a chance to drive it but for some stupid reason I declined. Now I wish I had driven it. Anyway, the party was nice but not spectacular. Twelve of us, all very good friends, some of whom have known Bill for 45 years.

Monday night Linda cooked dinner for Rush, Annie and me. We had a great time. Rush loves being with his Hawkeye friends, taking a break from being a Congressman, so he is always in rare form. Annie loves being here so she is always warm and loving. It was a nice evening.

Last night Linda cooked dinner for Ken, Bill and me. Our usual Weds. night fete. We had a nice time and I ate too much but did not drink too much.

I had the first fire of the season in my wood stove on Saturday. The temp. in my living room was 59, and though I wasn't really cold in the morning I knew I would get chilled eventually so I set about starting a fire. Well, it turns out that when I had my last fire in the spring I just shut the door to the stove and left it. So I spent 45 minutes cleaning the ashes and stovepipe before I could light the fire. But now all is set for the season. I know the stovepipe from the elbow to the top outside is ok because I had it cleaned last winter and it's the kind that doesn't need to be cleaned often. So I had a fire, a good warm fire, and it got to be 75 in the living room and the dogs were panting like mad. It stayed warm all weekend. Last night I lit another fire because when I got home from work it was 56 in the living room.

Tuesday we had a reception for our new director from 3-6 and I stayed for the whole thing. It was really nice and drew a good crowd. Lots of member library directors and a few member lib. trustees came, which was great. The N.D. is very nice and so far seems fair-minded, with some new ideas that are ok and will work out for us. I had a long meeting with her yesterday about my job: what I do and how I do it. She said I had a lively personality. That's one way to put it, isn't it. So far we've had a lot of nice conversations about many things. And I'm not nervous about saying the wrong thing, or revealing too much, or making myself vulnerable when I talk to her. What a novel situation to find myself in with a supervisor.

The perfect day
is what I had yesterday. I took the day off, knowing it would probably be my last (no, really, my last) chance to enjoy autumnal warmth at camp. Weds. was Bill's actual 60th birthday so Fred, Ken, Bill and I went to dinner at our new favorite restaurant, had a really nice time together and ate too much food. After dinner I fell into a stuporous sleep on the couch. When I woke, late at night I took the dogs to the boat house and slept there with the doors to the porch wide open. Unheard of in October. It was wonderful. I woke yesterday morning to a sunny haze and three loons parked in front of the boat house. It was fantastic. I spent a couple of hours sitting on the porch, drinking tea and reading. The dogs loved it, I loved it. The lake was like glass and I had the world to myself. I went to the house for a couple of hours of reading in the sun on my deck, but it got too hot (too hot! in October) so I went back to camp and spent the rest of the day on the porch. I'm reading our book group book and enjoying it, although I was struck by how poorly the first part of the book was written and thought that was really interesting. The guy used the word myriad 4 times in 50 pages.

I went home at 4:30 and spent half an hour stacking firewood like a good girl. Very proud of myself, it was hot and buggy and I didn't really want to do it.

Last night I syphoned out half the water in my fish tank and replaced it with fresh water. The danios survived and zipped around like mad fools in the new water, but the platy hid behind the filter for about 1 1/2 hours afterward, totally traumatized. Later in the evening the orange fish relaxed a bit and was swimming around--whew!

So today is Friday, and this weekend is Columbus Day weekend, when lots of people are in the neighborhood. Linda and Erdvilas come tonight, Rush and Annie will be here, and I found out today and another couple who are bought a camp a few years ago will be here as well and are having a cocktail party on Sat. afternoon. Joe and Martha will be here and our really good friends the Neals will be at Bill's camp. Plus another couple. So I'll be busy keeping up with everyone. Sunday night is the big party for Bill in Plattsburgh, the final (I hope) birthday celebration.

And now I have to get going. I just spent half an hour on the phone with my college friend Doug, who lives in Connecticut. He and I agreed that if we ever won the lottery and had millions of dollars we would give each other a million. And he told me I should figure out a way to have a well drilled this fall. I have air in my water lines, somewhere, which may mean trouble with the foot valve in my well. This could mean big problems this winter, or it could just continue the way it is. Life is full of crap shoots, isn't it.

I talked to my mother last night and she said "At least it's quiet in your neighborhood now that everyone is gone." Oh no, I said, the people in the camp below my house are here for the week, and next weekend is Columbus Day, one of the busiest weekends of the year, and Linda and Erdvilas will be here for a week after that. I can't (well, shouldn't) complain, these people are my best friends and I thoroughly enjoy their company. They are wonderful people. I just need to get my life in order, to clean my house, finish stacking my wood, get myself primed for winter.

The weather doesn't help--it was nearly 80 yesterday, sunny and HOT. I hosted, and cooked Sunday dinner at camp. I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn off the cob and apple crisp with whipped cream. Fred, Bill and Ken were there for dinner, with four more joining us for dessert. It was really great. The four who joined us for dinner were the people from below my house, former campers who've known Ken, Bill and each other for 45 years or more. At one point all of them were sitting on the porch visiting and having just a wonderful time together and I felt so fortunate to be able to host a great event like that in such a great setting.

After dinner I cleaned it all up and sat on the boat house porch for a bit, reading and dozing. Heaven on earth. There's a bit of color in the mountains, but very little when you consider it's already October and we're usually just past peak at this time.

Last night I made honey cake, trying out a Martha Stewart recipe. It's for a potluck luncheon we're having in honor of our New Director (N.D.), who starts today. She is very, very nice. I don't know how the cake will taste or even why I decided to make it. The batter tasted sort of good but mostly just interesting. You're supposed to put carmelized pears on top of it but I'm just putting Cool Whip on it instead.

Friday night I had dinner at Linda's camp with Marykay and her son Eli and their two dogs. Eli adopted an 8-year old female dog who is probably a cross between a Lab and a chow. She is a wonderful black dog with a purple tongue. I love that tongue. We had a nice evening and I enjoyed myself. Linda called while I was there and it was great to hear her voice. I wanted to talk longer to her but M. was tapping her foot because dinner was ready at that exact moment and you don't let her dinners get cold, apparently.

I had a negative dog experience over the weekend. Saturday was a gorgeous sunny day and I was sitting in the sun in my yard reading. Dogs went bluff-climbing with strangers, but Chances came back. Tess did not, was gone for hours. I had to leave at 4 to go to a dinner party for Bill's birthday in Plattsburgh, transporting Ken. Tess wasn't back yet and there were 5 cars at the bog, signaling a lengthy visit for her with strangers. The dinner party was nice, good food and excellent view because the house is on Lake Champlain. When I got home Tess was waiting outside the door, as I had hoped she would be. There were two voice mail messages, however: one from someone who had Tess at the Beach House, more than a mile from my house, and had climbed the bluffs with her. He said he was trying to find my house. The second call was from an unidentified woman, most indignant, who said that I was not taking good care of Tess, that Tess is a very nice dog and that either someone was going to steal her, or she was going to be hit by a car, or someone would sue me because she was bothering them. Then she said that she understood my last dog was hit by a dump truck, so I'd better take better care of Tess, and hung up. Well, I have to admit she was right on all counts (except the part about being sued). So I have to take better care of Tess. I can't let her leave my property, and I certainly can't let her climb the bluffs with strangers anymore. I have worried about her being stolen when she disappears for long periods of time. Sometimes I'm not a good dog owner, I admit. I would mind very much if anything happened to my little Tess.

So today is the first day of a new era at work. The era of Ewa (pronounced Eh-va). It's an adjustment and everyone here is very quiet today. I went into her office and said good morning, welcome, we're happy to have you here and we think it's really cool to have a car with Alaska license plates in the driveway. She off to Elizabethtown this morning with our Account Clerk, who will no doubt try to indoctrinate her and convince her that he is indispensable and always right. But so far she seems to like me. And it's a gorgeous, sunny, warm and wonderful day.

FISH MYSTERY SOLVED
I figured it out, and my suspicions were confirmed by the nice fish person I finally found at PetsMart: the water was too cold. I watched the last danio succumb on Tuesday night. He just kept sinking. So now I have a heater. This aquarium thing is very complicated, but now I have a community tank. Well, I like to think of it as a community. I'd like to have one more fish but I'll wait to see how this goes for a while. I have 2 zebra danios and one coral platy who is bright orange but who will grow some yellow as it matures. They are pretty happy but not as perky as the others were. But now we know why: the others were swimming quickly, trying to stay warm. The water needs to be 78-82 degrees. It was 67 when I put the heater in yesterday, not it is a toasty 79 degrees. The platy hides in the plastic plants too much to suit me and the danios aren't as zippy as I'd like them to be but at least they're alive!

It was really cold this morning, and very dark when I got up. I awoke, glanced at the clock, which said 6:30, normal rising time. Very dark, I thought, must be extremely cloudy. I sniffed one quiet sniff. Tess came tearing out from under the covers and Chances attacked my head. They're light sleepers in the early morning hours. And it was early morning, 5:30 instead of 6:30. How do people fill the hours before work when they have more than 20 minutes to get ready? I took a very long shower, did the dishes, ate yogurt, fed and watched the fish, watched CNN and still left for work almost half an hour early.

It was so cold that the deck steps had a thin coating of ice on them. Unsuspecting me slid down them, twisting my arms backward and bruising my back and butt badly. But I didn't break anything, just suffered a lot. There was a coating of ice on my windshield for the first time this fall. Inevitable. This weekend it's supposed to be 65-75 both days. YESSS!

Tonight I'm having dinner at Linda's camp with a friend of hers/ours who has been staying there all week with her son. Tomorrow night I'm having dinner in Plattsburgh at the home of Bill's good friend (the head of the Health Center at the college) for the first of 3 celebrations of Bill's 60th birthday. Sunday I'm cooking Sunday dinner at camp. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes with apple crisp for dessert. I'll see if Duncan (I'm crazy about Duncan) and Sue (this time he brought his wife), who are in camp just below my house want to join us.

I have many errands to run before I can get to dinner tonight. I've had errands to run every night this week. Last night I got my hair cut. Every time she cuts my hair now she darkens my eyebrows (I have such blonde eyebrows that they are virtually invisible). As she was rinsing them out she said "Want me to shape them? Yes, yes I think you do." So she did, with hot wax. What an experience. Sure, women start doing this in their teens and twenties, but I'm almost 53 and slow to develop in these ways. Now my eyes look bigger (she says) and I'm none the worse for the wear. I like her, she's very nice. Older woman, been cutting my hair for quite a few years now, understands exactly how much time I'm willing to spend fixing my hair in the morning. None. She lives way out of town too, at Chazy Lake, which has a higher elevation than Silver Lake does and a shorter growing season. She knows just enough about my life without knowing too much. She was really sweet when I was getting ready for my ex-husband's wedding, making sure that she did all she could to make my hair look its best.

Today is Old Boss' last day ever. Although I can't believe my good fortune, I'm still unsure. New Boss is joining the staff for lunch today, New Boss is buying it for us. We're having a staff-prepared potluck for N.B. on Monday, her first day. We left the sign-up sheet in the kitchen, and my theory is that O.B. saw it and decided she would beat us to Lunch With N.B. by buying us all lunch and inviting N.B. today. That would be so much like her.

Your Personality Type
You are an optimist who is often more focused on the past and the future than the present moment. You have an active imagination. You have good hunches and intuitions and people notice that.

Your Motto
"I want to discover the truth in life."


How You Work best
You work best in cooperative, harmonious environments. Competition, a rushed pace, and a strict format for communication don't work well for you. Your strength is your open-mindedness. Your Achilles heel is that you are sometimes too hard on yourself.


Your Life Situation
You are not fully satisfied with your current life situation.


hmmmm... I'm not? Well, I'd like my house to be cleaner and better maintained, but I really like where I live (it's where I
always wanted to be, and I like my job a whole lot. What's left?

C+

You tend to notice the big things in life... But the details aren't exactly your forte

How Observant Are You?

Well at least I get credit for noticing SOMETHING.

Your Animal Personality

Your Power Animal: Eagle Animal You Were in a Past Life: Whale You are active, a challenger, and optimistic. Hard-working, you are always working towards a set goal.

The Animal Personality Test

OK, I'm optimistic, and capable of working hard. Do I work towards a set goal? Yeah, if you count getting through the day peacefully and finishing the pile of opera videos or high school yearbooks that need to be cataloged. I don't think I like having been a whale. Why couldn't I have been a dog? or a tiger? something that at least walks on land.

Hurricane in an aquarium
I don't know what's going on but they're all dying. Yesterday morning I had 2 danios missing. I finally found the corpses: they'd been sucked up to the intake of the filter and were stuck there, ack, ack. This morning the tetra was gasping its last fishy breath and one of the remaining danios looked very iffy. Another danio was missing but when I started poking around with the net it appeared, very perky. Maybe it was laying eggs, as they are rumored to do often.
I am mystified. Why do my fish die? Maybe I'll just stare at the emptying tank for a while. I'm still missing one dead danio. There's a possibility that Chances empties bleach into the tank during the day--the dogs are very jealous of the fish.

Weekend report
Weather continues to be amazing. Warm, warm, warm. Yesterday I was walking on a path at camp and I said to myself "I can't believe I live here. I am incredibly lucky that my life turned out this way." I feel amazingly fortunate to live where I do, to do what I do, to have what I have. I like my life.

Saturday was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. I called my mother in the morning and had a really nice conversation with her. She was busy getting ready for a function that she and Mark were doing but she was happy to hear from me and we really enjoyed visiting with each other. She is a very nice person and I love her very much. After that I sat in the sun, as I promised myself I would, and read a book. I'm reading The memory of running by Ron McLarty, which I heard good things about. I've listened to McLarty read books on tape a couple of times and really like his delivery. Does this make him a good author? Apparently is does because I'm enjoying the book, even though it has a very depressing character in it. More than one, actually: I guess all of the characters are pretty depressing, and the premise of the book isn't exactly cheery. Hmmm, yet I'm enjoying it and so far haven't been depressed by it. Must be I truly am in a good place.

After the sun got too close to the horizon I made the grape jelly I've been meaning to make for a week. It is delicious. I made 6 jars, a big batch. You're not supposed to make big batches, the jelly shouldn't jel the way it did but I got lucky. I used apples from my tree for pectin and I had a nice time making the jelly. This time I didn't stand over the kettle for the hour it took to cook the jelly, I watched TV and checked on it from time to time. Sensible in my old age. I threw out some jelly I found from 1992. Mountain ash jelly, made from the berries of mountain ash trees because the woman Jamie bought the land from told me that it would be delicious. It was NOT delicious, it was bitter and tasted like crap. I gave her a jar and she pretended it was wonderful. I also threw out a jar of rose hip jelly, made from rose hips Liza and I collected on the beach in RI. That was better, but didn't have much flavor and didn't jel very well (didn't cook it long enough). Moral of all this: you can make jelly out of anything.

Friday night I bought 3 more fish, against the advice and with great disapproval of the fish man at PetsMart. I got 2 more danios and an orange tetra. That's really too many fish for my aquarium. They were fine all weekend but the danios didn't really swim in a school the way I had hoped. This morning I could find only 2 danios. WHERE ARE THE OTHER 2? Did they jump out of the tank, through the 5" hole in the front of the hood? I searched and searched the whole tank and could not find them. The 3 remaining fish were swimming innocently, happily around in Cheshire cat fashion.

Yesterday I hosted but did not cook Sunday dinner. We had 3 extra guests, Joe and Martha (Ken's nephew and his wife, much adored by all) and Fred. It was warm, about 70, so we ate on the front porch at camp. It was wonderful to be there. The living room was so cold that the mirror over the fireplace was fogged up and the glasses in the pantry were all fogged up too. Pretty funny. Bill and I worked in the kitchen together. I got there early, around 11, in case I needed to start a fire so we could eat inside. That meant I could sit on the porch and read my book for a while. After dinner I cleaned out the refrigerator in the boat house (left the beer and soda in it), then sat on the porch there and read for a while. May not be able to do that again. I'll have my Columbus Day cocktail party there, though.

And now I'm at work, happily cataloging books for Willsboro and Saranac Lake. I have to prove that we converted 4,000 "old" titles to machine-readable format in 2005. We get reimbursed $1 for each title we do, or $10 for each title that I have to do original cataloging for, up to $4000. I have to write the final portion of the application for the money, plugging in the actual figures. I keep putting it off, shame on me.

Today it's raining and raining, supposed to get up to 2 inches of raining. Given the state of things on the Gulf coast I suppose I can't really complain.

Ahhhhh...I didn't have to go to Akwesasne today to train member library directors. No one signed up for the training, possibly because the site is on the St. Lawrence River, on the border to Canada, possibly because the topics were really dorky. At any rate, since I was out of the library two days this week, it was fine with me to be at my desk today. Wednesday we went to Port Henry (on Lake Champlain and the home of Champy, the Lake Champlain monster that is like the Loch Ness Monster) to barcode their irrelevant collection. My hands were black with dirt and dust when I worked on the balcony collection. The balcony is one of those beautiful, wood floor places just wide enough for one person, with brass railings. The books, however, are horrible for a library, nice for someone who wants to impress people who are easily impressed by books in a den. We had a good day of barcoding. Ate lunch in a really funky tiny Mexican restaurant that seats about 12 people, new to the former mining town of Pt. Henry. The waiter was about 70 years old, wrote our orders out completely, no abbreviations, took forever to write them down, said each word as he wrote it ("twoooo soffffft tacccos, onnne Dietttt Cokkkke"). The food was incredibly mediocre and we decided that Taco Bell was better. But you have to try these things.

Yesterday I went to Canton to a regional committee meeting. I like these meetings, the people in this region are universally nice. I traveled with the Director of the Plattsburgh Pub. Library, who is nice and is also interesting, and with a woman I have known for 17 years, someone I really like. That made the traveling good, lots of stimulating (and anti-Bush) conversation. The meeting went well, we discussed automation projects, data bases, retrospective conversion of bibliographic data (anybody know what that means?), correctional facilities and their problems accessing the regional catalog, and something called federated searching. I love that term. What it means is that you search, say, your library's online catalog, and the you click on a tab for an online data base and through the magic of software your search will automatically be transferred to that data base or data bases. This is really cool--no need to repeat your search! Very expensive, say $30,000 if you have a proprietary system, as we do. But a girl can dream.

It has been hot here, nearly 80 for most of the week. Today it's only supposed to be in the 60's, with frost warnings for tonight. The season of sleeping in the boat house may have come to an end. I won't close it, though, until after Columbus Day. We have our cocktail party on the porch there. My cousin Jim left a voice mail message asking if I still wanted the water left on and for how long. There is still hardly any fall color yet, amazingly enough.

Dinner with Ken on Weds. was nice. He loved the idea of having me buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store on my way home so we had that, some cole slaw and his favorite: canned creamed corn. I loved creamed corn as a kid, probably because it has lots of sugar. We had a nice, companionable evening. He has finished stacking his firewood and is in fine shape. He found someone to cut down the dead pine tree that was threatening the power line and his garage so he was really happy.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny and 65: just about the perfect day. I can sit on my new deck and read, read, read. I have been conscientious about stacking firewood, doing 6 wheelbarrow loads a day. This takes half an hour. I'm not sure when I will finish stacking the 4.75 cords I have to do (if ever!) but I can see some progress being made in the pile, plus of course there's the nice stack I'm creating. I have no other plans for the weekend, just watching hours of O.C., this really stupid TV show that I have a DVD of.

I bought 2 new fish this week, zebra danios, which are incredibly cute and are school fish so they swim around together. While I was cleaning my goldfish bowl, though, I broke it, so I had to buy something new to put them in. I bought a 5-gallon aquarium with a charcoal filter and a light in the hood (now I have "fish in the 'hood"). I have spent the last 3 nights watching these incredibly cute fish darting around the tank. Tonight I'm buying 2 more danios and 2 other fish, maybe barbs, maybe tetras. I want something really colorful. The danios, of course have stripes, horizontal ones. This is way cool. They only cost $1.29 apiece, pretty cheap entertainment.

We got our retrospective raises this week. Mine was $700 after taxes. It's committed, however: I owe at least that much to Steve for the deck. He's coming by tonight to give me the bill for the balance of what I owe him. Rats. I've been fantasizing about putting in a wall at the back of the downstairs and making a room out of what I call the library. I don't know why I want to do this but I'm really enthralled by this idea. Last night I stood there and stared at the incredible mess of stuff that's there now, envisioning a bed in the room, thinking about how much less my electric bill would be if I could close off that part of the downstairs. We'll see. This may just be a phase.

And now I move on to the work portion of the day. Cataloging cookbooks for Tupper Lake.

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.

You are a Self-Discoverer

You're not religious, but you've created your own kind of spirituality. Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine. You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion. You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

This is no surprise, no surprise at all. Except for the spiritual part.

I like Maureen Dowd. Here's what she had to say today:

President Bush continued to try to spin his own inaction yesterday, but he may finally have reached a patch of reality beyond spin. Now he's the one drowning, unable to rescue himself by patting small black children on the head during photo-ops and making scripted attempts to appear engaged. He can keep going back down there, as he will again on Thursday when he gives a televised speech to the nation, but he can never compensate for his tragic inattention during days when so many lives could have been saved.

He made the ultimate sacrifice and admitted his administration had messed up, something he'd refused to do through all of the other screw-ups, from phantom W.M.D. and the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo to the miscalculations on the Iraq occupation and the insurgency, which will soon claim 2,000 young Americans.

How many places will be in shambles by the time the Bush crew leaves office?

Given that the Bush team has dealt with both gulf crises, Iraq and Katrina, with the same deadly mixture of arrogance and incompetence, and a refusal to face reality, it's frightening to think how it will handle the most demanding act of government domestic investment since the New Deal.

Even though we know W. likes to be in his bubble with his feather pillow, the stories this week are breathtaking about the lengths the White House staff had to go to in order to capture Incurious George's attention.

Newsweek reported that the reality of Katrina did not sink in for the president until days after the levees broke, turning New Orleans into a watery grave. It took a virtual intervention of his top aides to make W. watch the news about the worst natural disaster in a century. Dan Bartlett made a DVD of newscasts on the hurricane to show the president on Friday morning as he flew down to the Gulf Coast.

The aides were scared to tell the isolated president that he should cut short his vacation by a couple of days, Newsweek said, because he can be "cold and snappish in private." Mike Allen wrote in Time about one "youngish aide" who was so terrified about telling Mr. Bush he was wrong about something during the first term, he "had dry heaves" afterward.

I've got my life back
I love my friends and I love summer, but I breathe a sigh of relief when the last person leaves in September. Last night I got to go straight home, take care of details in my house and have an evening of domestic bliss with my dogs. They liked it, I liked it, and it was what normal (for me) life is like. Wednesday night I'll cook dinner with Ken, but last night and tonight are for me.

It's hot here, too hot for September according to most people. I'd like to have cooler weather, temps in the 60's so I could stack firewood without getting hot & sweaty. I do not like to sweat, it's one of my concessions to girly-girlness. I know I talk endlessly about stacking firewood but it's an obsession here in the North Country for those of us who burn wood, especially this time of year. I like handling my wood, I like seeing the progress when the size of the wood pile diminishes and the stack of wood grows. I like counting the number of wheelbarrow loads it takes to move wood from one place to another. It's all very satisfying, like putting money in the bank, only it's money that can only be spent in one place.

I'm trading an old wood stove that I have for some grapes. I hope the stove is still good, it's been lying on its side next to my driveway for many years now. It's rusty but since it's iron it should be all right. My friend Julie has an oil furnace and wants to put a wood stove in her kitchen. I mentioned that I had one I'd love to have removed from my property. Bingo, a deal was struck. She has some delicious grapes on her arbor that the mother of the previous owner brought from France (the Coneheads, in unison "We're from France"). So it looks as if I'll be making grape jelly this week. Haven't made jelly in a few years, will feel good to get back to that I think. It's fun to make, watch the natural jelling of fruit. I'll use a few apples from my trees for the pectin to help it gel. Some people use commercial pectin, but the flavor is much richer if you don't. Takes a lot longer, but tastes better. And that's my cooking tip for today.

Speaking of cooking, I wrote my first review for Library Journal recently and got an email from the editor saying she was doing the final editing. The book is The storm gourmet and is really a hoot. It's supposed to be recipes you can use when you've been caught in a storm and you're without power, living off of the contents of your pantry. One task assigned in the book is to pick up the grapefruits and avocados that fell from the trees during the storm. Another funny thing about the book is that a key ingredient in some of the recipes is rose water. Which we all keep in our pantries, right? But I gave the book a half-decent review, because some of the recipes were ok, and it's probably my nature to say something nice ("If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," thank you Mother). I did mention that many of the recipes would be of limited use to those of us in the REST of the world.

I have tons of green tomatoes on my plants. I only grew cherry tomatoes this year, I've given up on regular tomatoes. The dogs have discovered the plants and bury their heads in the plants, chomp chomp chomp. I've always had dogs who love tomatoes fresh off the vine. I yell to them "Stop it! Those are MINE!" and they'll stop, but as soon as I turn my head Tess is back in the bush. On Sunday Jenica said "I hate to tell you this but there's a big tomato branch in the middle of your yard." In the MIDDLE of my yard? That's not where the plants are.

Steve finished my deck on Saturday. This is a monumental event. It's beautiful and huge. No bigger than the previous one, but does not have all the crap on it that the other one did. Looks wonderful and hopefully my retroactive raise money will be enough to pay off the rest of what I owe him for it. I think the total cost will be about $1100-1200. More than I'd intended. Of course, there's $75 in there for repairs to his saw, which I ran over with my car.

Sunday Jenica and I had a really nice dinner at Linda's with Bill, Ken, Fred and Bill's "ward," a 21-year old from his neighborhood who has 4 children and does work for Bill (we call him "the boy from the 'hood"). As usual, it was a good meal and lots of fun. The only problem was that it was an hour later than usual and Linda, Erdvilas and I were invited to a big meal next door at Roger Douglas', which was supposed to start at 4. Less than 2 hours after we finished our meal at Linda's. It was painful. We didn't go to Roger's until 4:30, but Linda and I were struggling. Erdvilas, apparently can eat any amount of anything at any time. There was wild boar sausage, deep fried turkey injected with Cajun seasoning and deep fried roast beef from the cow that Roger bought, which was injected with some kind of seasoning, and lots of other stuff. Dessert was two kinds of apple pie and cheesecake. I drank a lot of beer but didn't get drunk for some reason. It was actually a really nice party with people I don't usually socialize with. Roger's sister Laura and her husband were there, as were some people from up the lake (who aren't generally very sociable to me). Roger and Laura are the children of the lake's villain, who pillages and plunders the lakefront with plans for development, cottage rentals and his campsites. Roger, however, has a completely different attitude about the future of the lake and hates what his father is doing. I adore Roger, think he's the cutest thing in the world. He's my plow man and neighbor. He gets a kick out of me and takes very good care of me as well. He's Linda's caretaker.

At this party there were 3 pugs, 1 golden retriever, my dog Tess, 1 German shorthaired pointer, 1 shit zhu and 6 children. We closed the gates on the deck so the dogs wouldn't run away. Not everyone there was crazy about dogs but they were very tolerant. I got to talk with Roger and another person about hummingbirds and when you should stop feeding them (never: they'll leave on their own--it's a myth that, if you don't stop feeding them they won't leave), the white fawn I've seen twice (it's doomed, according to Roger, but he won't shoot it because it's bad luck), the number of wild turkeys in the neighborhood ("There must be 250 turkeys within a 2 mile radius"--an exaggeration, to be sure, but there are TONS of them around), and the mallards that someone has tamed enough to eat bread out of your hand (they waddled all the way up the hill to where Jerry was working on his camp, to quack at him to feed them. Jerry and Roger both said the ducks will migrate in spite of being tamed. I still have my doubts about that.). I had a really nice time but felt totally sick to my stomach from the food.

Our new director starts soon. We all agree that the Old Director (OD) is taking the approach that if you're of no use to her you're ripe for abuse by her. I spent the day with her at a systemwide meeting and she was charming and presented a wealth of information. There are some things she knows a great deal about (including emotional torture). New director arrives in the area next week but doesn't officially start until 10/2. Boy oh boy that day can't arrive soon enough!

It's amazing to me how busy Labor Day Weekend is at Silver Lake. I was busy from Friday night right through last night. Friday I went out for dinner with Linda and Erdvilas, to one of their favorite restaurants in Wilmington. We had a nice time, the food was ok but I had an absolutely undrinkable drink. This pleased Erdvilas a lot, and me, since I could compliment him on his bartending acumen even more. After dinner I had a GOOD drink at Linda's camp and toddled on home.

Saturday was a beautiful day. I spent the morning doing road clean up with the Hawkeye Conservationists. We got a lot of garbage and had a successful time doing it. It was sunny and bright. There were enough volunteers to cover the nearly-6-mile stretch of roadway we are committed to, and we filled several garbage bags. I got "caught" picking up garbage in a friend's driveway: he told me later that he saw someone with a garbage bag in his driveway, but as soon as he recognized me he went back to his breakfast. I visited with Annie in the afternoon--she and Rush were here for the weekend (since Congress was in recess). Steve was at my house all day, working on the deck. It's almost finished, all that's left is the small bit that will tie in the side door and the front deck, plus the little deck in front of the side door. Of course, this could take weeks at his pace. Anyway he got a lot done on Saturday, less after I ran over his circular saw. My friend Ann from Baltimore came for a quick visit as well, since she and Kathy left on Sunday.

Saturday night was the Main Event: a Vodka Tasting Party at Linda's. This really was an amazing thing. It was Bill's idea and he brought his 3 close friends from work. Erdvilas had lined up 7 small glasses in front of each of the 8 chairs around the table. First we tasted 7 different vodkas at room temperature, then we tasted each of them straight from the freezer (the way vodka is meant to be consumed). It was a blind test, even E. didn't know which was which. We discussed odor (vodka is not supposed to have any odor), flavor, smoothness and overall impression. Everyone had a favorite. Prices ranged from $12 a bottle to $40 a bottle. We had food with the frozen round, the type of food that E. had ordained to be appropriate to accompany vodka (smoked trout, salmon pate, tapenade, etc.). Much discussion, a great time. Small sips, not enough to get anyone drunk. The final determination was that the most expensive vodkas, Grey Goose, Plantation and the new French vodka made from grapes (inexcusable, according to E.) were no one's favorites. The cheapest (Smirnoff) also no one's favorite. His favorite, the harsh Stoli, no one else liked. Bill and his friends all preferred Absolut. I preferred a Polish potato vodka that costs $13 a bottle. Mostly I'm not a big vodka fan but over the years E. has taught me to appreciate it. He then made us 2 martinis to pass around, one gin and one vodka. I do NOT like gin martinis but am developing a taste for vodka martinis. As usual a slave to fashion.

The tasting was followed by a delicious dinner and lots of good conversation. A really nice group of people.

Sunday morning, another beautiful day, I got to spend relaxing at my house before Sunday dinner. I hosted Sunday dinner on the boat house porch, with Bill providing the food. Cold chicken, potato salad and cole slaw. Rush and Annie were at my house visiting in the morning and helped me make brownies and set up the b.house. We had a great time with everyone, L & E, Bill, Ken, Rush & A. Jim (cousin) stopped by and had tea with us all after dinner. He was there to see cousin Elsa next door.

After dinner Elsa insisted on having a dog play date with my dogs and the 13-week old choc. Lab puppy her visiting friend had brought, so we walked to my house with Janis Joplin the Puppy and Elsa's awful Jack Russell terrier mix Midget. My dogs were first more interested in eating apples from the wild apple trees, but eventually got really interested in Janis and played long and hard while Midge made awful barking and growling sounds. I finally had to ask Elsa to leave, I had dinner plans at 5.

Sunday night I had 3 dinner invitations and accepted one with good friends I don't often get to see. He's a glass blower from the Finger Lakes region, she's a nurse/teacher. They have 2 camps; hers is one of the cabins from the girls' camp, his belonged to his parents. I had a a great time with them. His 2 adult children were there, along with 2 friends of theirs. We ate, laughed a lot and sat around a huge campfire for a really long time. I got home around 11:30. A really successful day but exhausting.

Yesterday was peaceful. I spent most of it by myself. Some time at home, watching morning news of the New Orleans situation. Rush's sister Jane lives in New Orleans and is still in her house, with no water or power and struggling to get by. She will be evacuated probably today or tomorrow and will fly to NJ to live with Rush and Annie until she can return to her house. Her neighborhood was not flooded. Anyway, I got to spend some time on the dock in the warm autumn sun yesterday, and swam in the still-warm lake water. It was heavenly. There are hardly any boats on the lake now and it was almost silent. Just the loons. My dogs were peaceful and I read Wicked, the biography of the Wicked Witch, the book our book group is now reading. Others will perhaps enjoy it more than I am but I'm working on it.

Last night I ate with L & E and E. cooked a wonderful meal. We had filet mignon cooked to perfection, with Bernaise sauce and wild mushrooms picked by Linda. I drank vodka martinis. We sat around the campfire after dinner and enjoyed each other and the moment immensely.

Today I am back at work and my life is returning to normal. I have only one dinner invitation for the week (so far) and will be able to spend time at my house. I have a lot, lot, lot of firewood to stack and I should be working hard getting things ready for winter. There is something wrong with the pump/water system at camp and I must report this to Jim. I spent hours watching news of New Orleans voraciously over the weekend, nearly all the time at my house was spent in front of the television worrying about displaced and dying people, fretting about their futures. And, I must admit, feeling fortunate that hurricanes are not natural disasters I have to worry about.

I'm by myself in my department today, one of my favorite times. I've spent the morning cataloging stuff for the Champlain library. Nothing very interesting, and it's about to get less interesting as I dive into their videos. Only a few dozen, though, not a big collection. I've been watching videos of New Orleans, looking at satellite images of the city, reading news stories in between my work. Still incredible. And amazing that the authorities didn't think of the 100,000 people who didn't have cars or other transportation to get out of the city when everyone else could be evacuated. America is such a class-oriented society.

I spend a lot of time cleaning up our data base, making sure all the subject headings are spelled right and are uniform. This morning I changed all the subdivisions relating to Egypt so they match are are correct. Some of the B.C.'s had spaces between them, which results in the computer filing them in a different place, thus separating them from the rest of the pack. I need to do work like this for every author and subject heading in our data base but there is no methodical way to do it, so I do is as I come across the problem, one by one. In some ways it's the most rewarding part of my job, like herding little ducklings back to the rest of their flock.

I love being surrounded by my friends, my very good friends, and having my own house and my own boat house to retreat to. My bubble, my space, when the visiting is over. I had a great time last night with the 6 people at dinner, really nice conversation, jokes, good food, catching up, political discussion, and I saw Rush on the way home, but when I got home--there I was, in my own space, alone and quiet. I like that very much. Tonight I will make at least 2 stops on my way home, one to deliver the NY Times to Linda and one to deliver some books I promised I would pick out for the hostess from last night. She likes having me be her personal librarian and I don't like the pressure but do like testing my readers advisory ability.

Should I sleep in the boat house tonight? One of these nights I have to spray the huge wasps' nest hanging on the side door of my house so that Steve can attach the side to the front deck. It wasn't cold enough this morning, they were already busy flying around when I got up this morning. It has to be 50, I think, or maybe just night time. Last night when I walked past my apple tree I heard something moving in the brush. Shined my flashlight and there about 3 feet from me was a huge porcupine eating apples on the ground. We communicated for a while before he loped away. "Stay away from my dogs!" was pretty much all I said, besides "Eat all the apples you want." He was cute, as porcupines go, but boy was he a big one. A little too comfortable around me, maybe. The wildlife in my neighborhood has become very relaxed around people. The deer are not so afraid of cars anymore, which is not a good thing. I see does and fawns almost every day, next to or near the road.

Chances has been eating the sugar during the day. Don't know why suddenly it appeals to her so much. After the first time she did it I refilled the sugar bowl but now I think I won't do that again. She lost the 25 mg Prednisone pills that Tess needs to take for her ragweed allergy so I'll have to go to the vet's on Monday and explain that one. Lots of luck getting them to believe me. I can't find the small white envelope ANYWHERE. I spent about an hour looking in the kitchen and living room yesterday, then vacuumed them both, to no avail. I still have the 5 mg pills that she gets weaned down to eventually, but there were a lot of pills in that envelope. Hard enough keeping track of my own meds, don't need problems with the dogs' as well!

It's another beautiful sunny day here and is supposed to be nice for the next few days. I'm seeing more maples with color, though, so it's a matter of time. My wood was delivered and is screaming at me every time I walk past it. Must mow lawn, must stack wood. Get to it, girl!

Why do people say things that aren't true? And why do they say things about other people that aren't true? I'm caught in something unpleasant right now that's due to someone's apparent desire to create a problem for me. This is not unusual in my life but is usually limited to my work situation. Now it's happening in my personal life, which is most upsetting, and it's messing with my family. I need to find peace at least somewhere!

I have great peace and happiness in my social life, full of good friends and much activity. This is the time of year when there are many people, many invitations, lots of good times. Last night I had dinner with Linda and Erdvilas, who had invited two artists I really like. Sue & Terry have a gallery and used to sell my baskets, were in fact the first I ever asked to sell my baskets for me, and were always very nice and encouraging about it. They had their kids with them, who are no longer kids but are now in high school and are very nice people. I really enjoyed the evening and wasn't even the last to leave, as I usually am. Linda asked me to get the wine, which is a huge amount of pressure to put on me because E. knows so very much about wine and is terribly critical of others' wine choices. She said to get something Italian, so I did, and he was very pleased with my choices. I got a red from Sicily and a white from somewhere else that was a different type of wine I'd never had before. Whew!

Tonight I'm having dinner with a couple from California. He's written (and published) several young adult novels and is very quiet. She's very nice and is a former camper. Her brother owns the camp where they're staying and is one of "The Boys." Ken and Bill will also be there as well as the women from Baltimore. I actually turned down a dinner invitation the other night, retreating to my home for some privacy. Saturday night there's a dinner and vodka tasting at Linda's with some of Bill's friends. Sunday is Sunday dinner at Linda's and a pig roast at a friend's house. I'd like to skip the pig roast but it's a woman from my book group and we try to be supportive of each other so I should go. We'll see.

My friends the Holts may come this weekend and may stay with me. I haven't heard back from them, but they left a message a few days ago saying they were coming and needed a place to stay. I left a message saying they were welcome to stay with me and they can stay in the boat house. Now I have to figure out something about the food. I don't know who, if anyone will be in camp. I don't have much money for groceries but will have to get supplies enough for breakfast and lunch, and will need to figure out something about dinners. Would be nice to know how many meals and which ones, wouldn't it? Or even if they're really coming.

I've been watching videos on my computer here at work about the mess in New Orleans--BBC has the best, I think, and it's incredibly discouraging and awful. Truly amazing that America is having a tragedy like this. Caught unprepared, not believing that something like this would ever happen to us. Meanwhile, the price of gas on my way home ranged from $2.95 to $3.25 last night. This game of "How high can it go" is getting pretty tiresome.

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

Well I'm certainly thankful I wasn't an only child, I loved having my brother and sister in my life. As for feeling frustrated, yes, I am frustrated, usually by my inability to fix things for myself and other people so that everyone has what they want and is happy. And by my failings. This makes my life a frustrating existence. Leaving my mark on the world? Perhaps by writing something, but most likely NOT self-help books. A record of my existence, perhaps.

Aug 26, 7:05 AM EDT

Chinese try to get chimp to quit smoking

XI'AN, China (AP) -- The handlers of a smoking chimpanzee in a zoo in northwest China are trying to get her to kick the habit.

The 26-year-old female chimpanzee has been smoking for 15 years. Her mate died recently, which caused her to smoke even more.

Now, the chimp's keepers are worried about her health as a result of her intense smoking. So, they're trying to give her milk instead of cigarettes.

She started smoking years ago by picking up butts from tourists.


© 2005 The Associated Press. All righ


Well, you know, you can teach a monkey to make a sandwich...

I had a busy weekend but managed to spend several hours in my famous telescope chair on the dock, reading, sunning and napping. Dogs were there, napping on the end of the dock in between their visits with my cousins' children's children. That was Saturday and it was wonderful. The water is colder, due to cold nights we've been having, but it was still great for swimming and dunking when my skin got hot.

Friday night I ended up at a friend's camp on Union Falls, one with probably the best view of any camp I've seen. Whiteface, the end of the bluffs, tip of Silver Lake Mountainn bluffs in the distance, Catamount and Douglas. I showed up as a surprise, which thrilled Peter because he's invited me at least 4 times and I've either been unable to come or haven't wanted to come (last time I was in my jammies). I met the people who live in the really nice house about 2 miles down the hardtop and had a nice long talk with them. They were as excited to meet me as I was to meet them, which is such a nice feeling--someone knows of you and wants to meet you. I had a long visit with Dennis, who is the caretaker for the big girls camp at the end of the lake and lives there intermittently in the winter. Linda and Erdvilas were there (which is why I was there, I tagged along with them). There was some strange man who was building a house in the woods for a friend and was living in the house while he was building it. Linda said he had his sights set on me but I must be really out of touch because I didn't notice it at all and I even gave him a ride back to his car later on. I spent the evening trying to figure out where this house of his was being built. Anyway it was really nice to be there and I enjoyed myself a whole lot.

Saturday night I had dinner with my cousins, ones we have avoided being with for the last several years. There sons are now 15 and 12 and are turning out to be very nice people. The parents are actually almost pleasant except I had to sit on the porch with the mother for 45 minutes after dinner, in the dark strugglingg to stay awake while she told me all about the seminars and workshops she attended earlier in the summer, learning how to teach Spanish better and hearing an incredibly detailed description of the project she did comparing male vs. female treatmentt of romantic tales in early Spain. yawn. Anyway they are always very nice to me and very welcoming and I like their sons. Yes, family, faint in surprise, I like those boys now, they are nice.

Sunday dinner was at Linda's and was delicious. It was grilled lamb chops, which I don't normally like, but she had marinated them and they were really good. Fred joined us but Bill was unable to be there. We had a really nice time. I went home, hung out, read a really awful nasty letter from my mother, got depressed and sad, then got invited to dinner by my cousins from across the lake. Nice surprise. They have two children, a 2 year old and an infant. Kelly, the baby, slept the entire time, but Kyle was running around and very busy all evening. I had a good visit with Tom and Sheila, whom I hadn't spent any time with earlier in the summer, and who are good friends.

So, whew! what a weekend. I got next to no housework done. I watched Kevin Costner's The Upside of Anger last night, which wasn't bad but sure wasn't very funny. He's aging well, though.

And now I'm back at work, cataloging Jack Nicholson Cult Classics, a 3-video set that includes the 1961 version of Little Shop of Horrors. Is there someone in Saranac Lake waiting to watch it?

It's a beautiful day
I went for a ride at lunch, to run errands, and picked up my pictures. Mostly they are pictures of my cousins' children and their children (these would be my first cousins twice removed). There are some very nice pictures of some very nice children. They will go in the camp photo album, and in 10-15 years these children will really enjoy looking at them, as we all enjoy looking at the albums my mother put together over the last 40 years. I didn't take any good pictures last year, nor did I put together the collection from 2003. I need to do that, and to put these in the album I have. We have a picture taken each year of the family meeting (as my brother said, some families have reunions, our family has a meeting) and I include that in the album as well.

Last night my friend Linda had her annual campfire party. It was unusually big this year because more people were around for it. Some of my favorite people were there, and I sat in the middle of the gathering, next to the fire, surrounded by my tribe of friends, feeling very happy and very much part of the group. A nice group. Among them is a woman who used to date Christopher Reeve. Yes, Superman has been to Silver Lake. Two of her daughters and her niece put on a musicale for us, selections from the show Oliver! It was totally wonderful and sweet and reminded me so much of my sister and me when we were that age, around 8 and 10. They sang and acted out about 4 scenes. This was one of the musicals my father really enjoyed, and he used to play it for us when we came home from school for lunch, every day. When we left the house he would quote the play and say, in a British accent "I shall be waiting for you hear when you get back." It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how much he enjoyed feeding his daughters their lunches every day.

Anyway, I had a wonderful time at the campfire, and after the 35 or so people all left, Erdvilas, Linda and I sat around the embers and reviewed the evening. The little girls who put on the play were the same ones who had my dogs last year, and one of them said to me "Tessie visited us the other day, she swam out to our float with us and stayed for a really long time." I didn't say "Yes, and I cried my eyes out with worry while she was gone." I just said how nice they had been to her. But the evening was truly special and made me realize what great friends I have and how much I like being part of the community I live in. I'm not sure I could stand it all year long, though, but I sure do enjoy the summer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny. Sounds like a dock day to me. Better vacuum the living room, clean the bathroom and finish the laundry tonight! Ken said he had the liquor bottles out and ready for me last night, but I never showed up. I got my hair cut instead, and honestly I can't stop there every single night, I have to have my own life. I told him I'd stop tonight.

I tried to pick blackberries last night but the deer had eaten them all in one spot where I pick. They nipped the branches right down. On my way to Linda's there was a doe and fawn standing at the edge of the road, just standing there, not even swishing their tails. It was a stand-off, me in my car and them. Their ears were huge and they refused to move. Finally little fawn flipped its huge white tail, as big as the tail on a dog, and leapt into the woods. Its mother waited until it was a safe distance away, then followed. They were really pretty. But they've eaten all the blackberries!

Steve worked on my deck yesterday. He has the front finished, but has come to a grinding halt on the side and stairs connecting to the mud room door because there is a huge (2-foot wide) paper wasps' nest in the corner of the door. Very dramatic. I don't know when they built that, sometime in the past few weeks. He said he would spray the poison into it if I bought the stuff and left the can on the deck. Yeah! for him, I'm too short to have a stable grip on the ladder and spray at the same time.

I must finish stacking my firewood this weekend too, since Ken wants another load, Linda wants a load, and I need another load. There's no place to put my load until I clear out the spot where the first load was dumped. Then I'll have to stack the whole SECOND load! And soon, too. Winter is approaching.

Liza's space

Liza's space
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Molly's space

Molly's space
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Liza in repose

Liza in repose
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Molly at work

Molly at work
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Tess

Tess
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Molly's new glasses

Molly's new glasses
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

What my life is like
Right now it's very dull. The most striking things I've dealt with this week are:
I was late for work because I didn't think I had to go to work on Monday so I went back to sleep
I got the wrong size coffee this morning at the store because my eyes deceived me and I picked up the wrong cup
I spent an hour yesterday trying to establish an authority record in the data base for a new series, but needed to delete the record for an old series that had the same subtitle, but couldn't delete that record because the records with the new series had the title of the new series attached, etc. Catch-22 with Horizon.
I almost forgot that I have an appointment to have my hair cut today and am supposed to go berrying with a friend instead: SCHEDULING CONFLICT, OH NO!
My dog's ragweed allergy is acting up and I took her to the vet for prednisone. I saved $22 because I diagnosed it correctly myself so all I had to spend was the $6 for the pills and she didn't need to see the vet (although he came out into the waiting room full of people to see where the hair was missing from her scratching)
I had to spend MORE than $22 to replace the purse she subsequently chewed the straps off of the next day.
I have been cataloging videos, old rotten videos for one of our libraries ALL WEEK long and it is very boring. very boring. The days are dragging on and on and 7.5 hours has never taken so long to get through.
Tonight my friends and I will sit around a campfire together and drink a lot. I am looking forward to this.
Everyone at work agrees that Pat Robertson is a fool and should not be Secretary of State, even though we would save a lot of money and could balance the budget if he were.
I turned on the heat in my living room night before last because it was really cold. This may be the earliest I have done that but I doubt it.
The dog peed on the bed in her sleep the other night. A big, wet puddle that I put my foot in when I stretched out in my sleep. It was the same night that I dreamed my mother, my sister and I were going to Paris together.


All of these things make up my week. I am not being forced out of my home in Gaza. I am not in danger of stepping on a land mine. I am not being threatened by a hurricane. I do not have a dog that bites me or other people (my friend with the therapy dog had her dog lunge, teeth bared, at another friend's son recently. We all secretly giggled because Ann is so proud of her therapy dog). I do not have a son serving in a war I do not believe in (although I still do not believe in the war). And, as usual, I do not have cancer.

At work, listening to Internet radio. Always a risky proposition. Today I read Molly's email letter, which made me feel in touch with her, made me miss her, made me feel sad. So what I hear on the radio is like a trip through my past, which I shared with a number of people. First I hear Crosby, Stills and Nash. Well, that's Howard, a special time in my life. Early college, insecurity but incredible happiness and being cherished so much by someone really wonderful. Then we have some Donovan. My sister, late high school. NOT a good time for either of us, particularly, but his voice somehow makes me feel ok right now, just makes me miss my sister. Sort of a sad sound today. Then there is a lot of the Beatles, first Sgt Pepper. That makes me feel wonderful at the sound, the harmony, the music, but it makes me miss my brother terribly. He introduced me to that music, he loved the album and thought it was a great revolution in music. "You've GOT to listen to this," he said as we sat in his room at Winthrop Lane. So that music sometimes makes me very happy because it's truly wonderful and a marvel, but it's pure Henry to me. Then we have "Here Comes the Sun" Beatles, which is what I always wanted to, and did have played at my wedding. I love that song, it means nothing but good cheer and hope for the present to me.

And now I return to cataloging crappy CD's for Schroon Lake, with Led Zepplin wailing away. That's just college dorm music.

I just spent 20 minutes visiting with a good friend of mine, one of the first friends I made when I moved here 20 years ago. She's the mother of a woman who became my best friend, half of a couple which made up the quartet of my ex-husband, myself, Brook and Dan. Brook and Dan: they lived in a one-room cabin without running water. She worked with me, part time, then moved on in her career climb until she was head of the County Youth Bureau, a very professional job. She finally said she needed more--like, indoor plumbing, and a man who had a real job and a commitment to a relationship that included real communication. We all adored Dan, who has a great intellect and sense of humor, but who keeps most of what's going on with himself inside. I've seen him within the last 7 or 8 years, spent some time with him, just the two of us, and since I don't take him too seriously we had a great time together. Anyway, Brook's mother Ann was here to see me and in the course of her visit she told me that the land next to their 40 acres was sold and the survey that was done revealed that the parcel of land their house (which is a special, owner-built home with only solar and generator-provided power) sits on is not on their property, but rather on the parcel that was sold. This has been an understandably huge and emotionally stressful deal for them. They think they can buy the land from the new owner and it will all work out but she's worried that, if they can't they will have nowhere to go. I told her they can certainly move into my house, with their 2 dogs and 4 cats. I have an entire upstairs that was built to support a second family. She was moved to tears. I always offer my house as a home to people in need: I have all this space, and it's certainly available to people who need a place to live. People I can stand to live with, of course. I told her that if they're going to live there for any length of time her husband will have to build an outside entrance and will have to finish the upstairs kitchen.

Before she came I was playing with pictures posted by my sister and my niece, trying to decide which one I want for my desktop image. First I had Molly's view of Torca, then I settled on Jenica's view from the bluffs at Silver Lake. I like to change images often, makes that part of my life interesting. I spent a lot of time on interlibrary loan this morning, both clerks are out. One is due in 10 minutes ago. I sort of enjoy ILL, but it's really frustrating here because we can only find the books about 75% of the time. I don't understand where the books are the rest of the time.

I had quite a weekend. Friday night was Big City Bingo, the 16th annual. There was a record crowd: 51 people. We play for prizes that are picked up at yard sales, donated by people, baked goods, etc. I talked Fred into picking a 5" TV set that you can plug into your car for me when he won his 2nd time. "DON'T WATCH TV WHILE YOU DRIVE!" every told me. I won't, I just thought it was really neat. Do you know how cute a 5" TV is? Now I can listen to Oprah on the way home from work. Or not. Anyway we had a lot of fun and I didn't win a single thing, which was GOOD. The grand prize was a change purse made out of a toad, front legs and head intact. Totally gross, but Jim Nadal, the winner, wore it around his neck proudly for the rest of the evening.

Saturday afternoon the Hawkeye Conservationists (shoreowners' assoc.) met at our camp, so I was the hostess. Prepared refreshments and set up the porch for them. We had about 20 people, not bad for our annual meeting. We have 75 members, which is good. All went well, uneventful, with good suggestions for programs for next year. Linda is our new president. After the meeting Tess followed someone somewhere and was gone for more than 3 hours. I searched frantically for her, including 2 trips into the bog, one going halfway up the bluffs before it got too dark so I turned around. I cried, deciding that I'd lost 2 dogs this summer. I searched the roadway for her body. There was still a car in the bog parking lot at dusk, so there was a chance she was with the people who where on the bluffs. Sure enough, after 8:30, in total darkness when I went to camp she was running down to the boat house in a frantic search for me. Of course I cried harder when I found her.

Sunday dinner was at Bill's camp, hosted by our good friends (who also put on Big City Bingo). He's a judge, they're from Mass. I like them a lot. We spend Columbus Day weekend together. Anyway, Ken made his baked beans so it was a special occasion. I stopped at Linda's first, to welcome her and deliver some fresh eggs I picked up in Peru Friday night. Erdvilas invented a new drink for me, which we call The Lost Dog, in honor of Tess. After dinner I prepared food for my book group, which met at the boat house. All 6 of us were there, discussing a book entitled "We are gathered here," about life in the Adirondack iron mine regions in the late 19th century. We had a great time and everyone liked the book and the refreshments. Stayed for 2 1/2 hours. Lin even called me up last night to tell me how great the evening was--good hostess, good food, good book, she said. I made a crab dip with crab meat that had been left behind by some camper a while ago. I didn't think it was that great. I had tons of cut up vegetables with 2 kinds of dips. Good organic juices with seltzers to mix with. It was a really nice evening. Next book we're reading is Wicked by Geoffrey Maguire. About the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

And now it's today and the day is nearly half over and I have little to show for my time. I've got plenty to catalog for Tupper Lake. Old travel books. Has much changed in Colorado in the last 20 years? I think so, but apparently they don't. We had a good laugh about "Walking Barbados" on Friday. It's hard to get a flight to Barbados, you never know where it'll be once it starts walking.

Mountain women

Mountain women
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Back at work, after a long break. Had two very nice weeks off. Spent time here, at the lake and spent time in Rhode Island, in the Ocean State. Saw a LOT of people I'm related to. There were, apparently 40 people at camp the day of our annual meeting. 20 people staying at camp for a few days, then 17 for a few more days. Then we left. I drove to Rhode Island, back to the Adirondacks, to Burlington three times, back to Rhode Island, then home. I got to be with my sister for 2 solid weeks with pretty much enough time apart. I got to see my nieces, and got to spend days and days with my sister's daughter. I NEVER get to see her and I really enjoy being with her so I loved that. She is great. Jenica and I had our standard let's-be-librarians-together time, but we got to have Drew too, which made it even more fun. We all sat on the dock a whole lot, and stood in the water to read as well, since we had day after day of broiling hot weather. That weather, however, was nothing compared to what happened when we got to RI. It was in the 90's and terribly humid when we returned there on Thursday. Too hot to swim in the ocean, I think.

Anyway, it all made me happy to be part of my family, and it all made me think of my brother and miss him very much. I am thankful to have the family I have left and I love them very much. I did not go to the cemetery but my sister took a lot of digital pictures of his grave, other graves, my mother planting flowers, etc., so I feel very connected to it all and that makes me feel good. It made me feel sad to think of going there so I didn't want to go. Next year I will be stronger and will plant flowers on my brother's grave. This year I could not.

It was raining when I got home, and I was happy to see that but I feel really bad that there is no rain in Rhode Island. They are in desperate need of rain and I hate to see that. Drought is something that really frightens me. It was in the 60's last night, very cool and comfortable. Only in the 70's today here--what I consider to be NORMAL temperatures. Very pleasant.

I wrote my first review for Library Journal today and emailed it to them. I reviewed the book The Storm Gourmet: a guide to creating extraordinary meals without electricity. It's a good book, except it's clearly written for hurricane victims: at one point the author instructs the reader to pick up the tropical fruit that's fallen in the neighbor's yard. Lots of mangos and avocados in the recipes, but some useful stuff as well.

I also sorted through 348 emails, most of them spam and online newspapers. I read plots of the last 2 episodes of Six Feet Under, since I found out last night when I watched it that one of the main characters had died while I was gone. Only one more episode left in the whole show. Didn't realize I'd been watching it for 5 years.

Got my med. situation straightened out with my doctor. He'll give me samples to tide me over until my prescription can be filled on 9/9. Guess the pharmacy shorted me the whole bunch of pills I needed between now and then--2.5 pills a day. Disconcerting.

The day has been pretty quiet, all in all. Internet was down for most of the morning so I sorted through my paper work--journals, notices, bills that have come in while I was out. Read my review book. Contemplated my August schedule. Tomorrow I can start cataloging again and can put together a massive book order, since I'm way behind with that.

I looked at a bunch of pictures from Colorado--we've all posted our pictures on the same site, accessing our images via our own emails and passwords. I ordered some prints of other peoples' pictures, some nice group shots. They were pretty cheap, about 12 cents each.

And now I'll start reading book reviews. yawn.