Week's End

And what a week it's been. The weather has been incredible, 40's and due to be 50 today. Surprisingly, I'm ready for the January thaw to end. It makes it impossible for me to get to my house because the snow gets all granular and gooshey. Last night I got stuck at the end of my driveway and had a hard time getting unstuck. I had let the fire in the stove go out so I had to start a fire. Let it go out overnight so it was 55 in my living room this morning, got up too late to start one today but it's supposed to be sunny and I have good solar exposure so I'm not too worried. Just tired of not having winter: the sooner you get on with winter the sooner it will end. Pretending it's spring is just a waste of time.

Monday I went to Elizabethtown, the county seat of Essex County, to show off our new bookmobile. Glad-handing the county legislators, thanking them for their support. Didn't know who voted in favor of us and who didn't, so I felt sort of foolish thanking each one for his/her support, but did what I had to anyway. They were suitably impressed (or at least pretended to be) and I was charming when others on the staff were silent. What's with that? I'm not part of the bookmobile team, but I introduce strangers to our staff, etc.

After our stint there we went to lunch, then the director and another staff member and I stopped en route to the library to see the director's new home, a house she's renting in a "neighborhood" (you have to use the term loosely here--a neighborhood has at least a 10-mile radius) I used to live in, on a road I really wanted to live on, about .2 of a mile from the breeder I got my 2 dogs from. When we pulled into her driveway the dogs in the kennel exploded and barked for a really long time. I decided I sure wouldn't want to live next door to that.

Tuesday I spent the afternoon at the AuSable Forks library, weeding her adult non-fiction. From astronomy to cookbooks. Next week I go back to weed from craft books to history, then I'll be done. I actually found a book on space travel published before we landed on the moon--that's the example I always use when I do workshops or consulting on weeding criteria. I should have asked to save it for show & tell. After the weeding I spent half an hour talking to the director, who had a malignant melanoma removed in December and goes back in 2 weeks to have her lymph nodes removed. The melanoma was in a awful place--her gynecologist found it, if that's a clue.

Wednesday I went to Westport (on Lake Champlain) with 3 others to barcode that library's collection. They have a big (by our standards) collection, but she had lined up a bunch of old lady volunteers to help so we had quite a troupe. We got a whole lot done and they had a really good hit rate, meaning their stuff is in the data base. There's not that much left to do, mostly stuff in their juvenile collection (which is the ugliest part of the whole project) and all the fiction that's shelved in high places but she wants us back next week, so back we will go. I was surprised to see that the lake isn't frozen at all, completely open there. Lots of years by January there are fishing shanties on the ice in Westport. The weatherman on TV said we're below the average temperature for last year's January so far, so who knows.

Yesterday, mercifully I got to do some of my own work. I'm way behind with my cataloging and am supposed to be writing an ILL policy, a weeding policy I can give to member libraries when I weed their collections, buying books with the $3500 I have to spend right away, write staff evaluations due in December, finish my self-assessment due in December (didn't meet my goals for '05!), and of course write my Dept. report for December. But yet I blog. While listening to The Police.

Meanwhile at home I'm a combination of restless and mildly depressed. I saw Ken on Monday and Wednesday and will stop tonight after grocery shopping, liquor store and pet store. He's doing remarkably well this winter, not having the dark time he usually does. Of course, on Wednesday he reminded me that it was 63 years prior to that day that he buried his firstborn, who was burned to death by boiling water in the kitchen at the age of 3.

And my friend Martha had her baby! This was exciting and wonderful. Baby Eva Louise was born yesterday morning at 2 a.m. and Lin and I went to visit her at noon yesterday. She didn't look like a 10-hour old baby but rather like a one-week old, since she was a week late. She was beautiful and peaceful, and Martha looked great. Bill, Eva's father, looked very tired, however, since they had 48 hours of labor. Martha was really perky. Both grandmothers were there. I worked with Martha's mother in Providence and enjoy seeing her.

Three day weekend coming up. I have to take down my Christmas tree. It's time to set it free. It's still in great shape, not losing its needles, but I can get rid of it without missing it. I've looked at it and each of its ornaments enough times to satisfy my holiday needs and am ready to get the living room back to normal. I'd like to be able to look out of the two windows it's blocking, although I suppose it's blocking the cold air from coming in too. Maybe I'll plasticize one of the windows, who knows. What I'll really do this weekend is clean--living room, bathroom. I worked on the kitchen last weekend. Very productive Saturday: dump, got gas, made tons of molasses cookies for Ken, then went to dinner with Lin and Ralph. Saw The Life Aquatic (Bill Murray) and I really liked it. Take-off on Jacques Cousteau. Subtle humor but I thought it was clever.

And now it's back to cataloging John Tesh at Red Rocks. Finished Lake Placid's opera CD's (the first batch). That was a living hell. I'm sure there are plenty more to come but at least I can do books and normal CD's for a while (I hope). I'm listening to hits of the 80's right now. This seems to make my fingers fly over the keyboard. In college we used to listen to The Stones when we had to type term papers because we could type really fast to Mick. Jackson Browne really slowed us down.

My mental state seems to be pretty variable right now. Had some very sad moments the other day, but I was listening to Pink and she took me right back to Two Rivers and the time Molly, Kristen and I spent there without Henry. Then there was the news that Angelina Jolie is pregnant and I identify really strongly with Jennifer Aniston, queer as that may be. Martha's baby doesn't seem to bother me as much, but the idea that your husband leaves you, you want to have a baby and he immediately happily impregnates another woman seems devastating to me. That was my greatest fear with my divorce, that Jamie would have a baby with another woman. I just didn't know how I would handle that. I should have known he would never really want to have children, that would mean that someone else would be the center of attention. Not being mean, just saying what I think is really true. Now he's a mayor and is basking in the glory. He's always in the paper now--had a long letter to the editor thanking everyone for their help with a crisis in Lake Placid. Two huge grammatical errors, which I immediately noticed, thank you to my father. At least I can get along with him now and I know that he wants to be friendly to me. As if I care--the real problem was that I couldn't stand to speak to him. Past that now.

Ah, divorce.

Anna and Tess

Anna and Tess
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Chances Are

Chances Are
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Lizas back yard

Lizas back yard
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Liza's front yard

Liza's front yard
Originally uploaded by woodsrun.

Better late than never...

But better never late, is what my grandmother always said.
I finally had my film developed. Lots of pictures of my cousins from Sweden in a rowboat. Pictures of Liza's house. Pictures of my dogs on the couch at Liza's house. My Christmas tree. Nothing much of interest.

Wonderland

It was really beautiful last night. On the way home from work I saw an incredible meteor streak across the sky, right in front of me, over Whiteface Mountain. It was a huge ball of fire with a long, long tail. I smile and said out loud, "How cool is that!" I like exclamations I make when I'm alone or just with my dogs.

While I was sitting in the living room the dogs were outside, on the deck and they were barking and barking their alarm barks (as in "Someone's there, threatening our safety, coming to get us, we must do something hurry hurry hurry maybe we can scare them away but please get out here and help us do something"). This went on for a long time so I finally went outside to see what noises they were barking at. It was dead silent for a few moments, then there was a soft, gentle moaning: the ice, very quietly was moaning. Too quiet to record (sorry, Molly), just the slightest hint of sound. Not another sound in the world. How lucky am I?

This morning the sunrise was spectacular. Deep orange-red rising along the horizon over trees covered in rime ice along the river. Truly spectacular. No, really--just amazing, stretching for miles. Enough to make you ache for all its beauty.

Undifference

I rung in the New Year by watching a rerun of The Shield, a cop show on FX that I often watch. The star is a chunky bald man with incredibly blue eyes. I don't know why I like the show, it's violent and has lots of swearing and police corruption in it, but for some reason I like it. Anyway, midnight came and went and there I was, in the world of Glenn Close's police station in Los Angeles. So I figure I feel ok about another year's beginning. 2005 was ok. Ken and I had a discussion about it on Sunday and we agreed that nothing particularly good or bad happened to either of us in 2005. I dealt with life, got better at some things, felt hopeful about some things, solid about some things.

I spent New Year's Eve making pea soup for Ken. He had a ham bone and wanted pea soup for his New Year's Day Sunday dinner. On Saturday I picked up my fish from his house. Of course this was complicated, but it was good because I ended up emptying the tank and putting the fish in a one-gallon glass jar while I transported the tank, pump and heater, then cleaned the gravel and tank at home, and rearranged their furniture (plants). When I put them back in the tank they were all a-twitter about the new arrangement but now they are incredibly happy and swim around like Jet Stream trailers on Route 80 in the summer time.

And my pea soup was absolutely delicious. I was mighty proud. Ken pronounced it a culinary delight (OK, so he doesn't use those words: I've never heard him say "delight," and needless to say he never says culinary). Excellent flavor, excellent texture. I also made shrimp Dejongh, a favorite of my mother's and something she made for company when we were kids. That was not a hit with Ken. Turns out the only way he likes shrimp is boiled, chilled and with cocktail sauce. No point trying to do anything else with them. I liked it, though, and was pleased with my efforts. He just kept focusing on the soup. We had a nice time together (Bill was in Boston, where he always spends New Years with camp friends).

Yesterday was a great day off. I had a wonderful day and want another one just like it today. Alas and alack I am at work. Yesterday I cleaned my bedroom. Sorted clothes. I have pants in 3 sizes: fat, not-so-fat and thin. The thin ones are on bottom of the pile, fat on top. I hope to work my way down. I have many, many pairs of blue jeans, it turns out. Apparently I am dedicating my life to the search for the perfect pair of jeans and the perfect pair of shoes. Just when I think I've found them, along comes another possibility. Anyway, I swept up a huge pile of dog detritus--2 tennis balls, 2 chew toys and the stuffed animal hedgehog that grunts that Jenica gave Chances 2 Christmases ago, along with pieces of blue flip-flop, some reed, a plastic measuring cup, 2 magazines and big dust bunnies from under the bed. Then I vacuumed the floor. This involves using the hose attachment and holding it perpendicular to each of the nail holes--and there are 4 for each section of board--because Jamie never really finished the room, never filled in the holes so they fill up with particles of things, dog hair and dust. Vacuuming the bedroom is one of my least favorite activities. REALLY least favorite activities. There is also no molding along the wall, so all kinds of stuff gets down between the floor and wall, which must be vacuumed/forced up by hand. Anyway, I filled one garbage bag with clothes for the dump and another with clothes for the Salvation Army and now feel very righteous. I rotated my futon and put a new sham around the bottom of the bed. I might actually let someone look into my bedroom now (maybe).

Today is the day the new bookmobile arrives from North Carolina. It cost $300,000 and has been difficult to get financing from the 3 counties for, difficult to design, order, get built, and get the graphics on the sides for. But it's finished and will arrive today with a police escort from the highway through town. Unfortunately the previous director has been here for 1.5 hours, wasting everyone's time because she was notified that it was coming this morning and she wants to be sure to get credit for arranging to get the 'bile. It creeps me out totally to have her in the building, and we've had to cancel a 10:00 meeting because she's been wasting the new director's time. But then, I suppose it's more important to entertain her than it is to actually accomplish anything here--NOT.

My mother and I had a discussion about the words "It is what it is." This is how Donald Rumsfeld explains away anything he wants to, especially when asked questions about the war. We decided that this is a philosophy that I try to have--accept things the way they are, deal with it, and that maybe this is not a bad way to look at life. But is this really an acceptable way to run the country? I think not, but I think I will try to have 2006 be my What It Is year.

Back to normal

Christmas was good. Liza, Mark and I always have a good time. There were some problems, which I may or may not go into but don't feel like talking about right now. There was no snow on the ground and it was 50 degrees and sunny most of the time. My mother and I went for a walk on the beach. I gave her a copy of Rockwell Kent's This is my own, which she read and quoted and really enjoyed. I was happy to have found it for her. I love online shopping. I got her a new coat, which she seemed to like. Mark and I (mostly Mark) got her a shed to store things in. This met with mixed reviews, depending on degree of sobriety.

We drank appletinis (too many, apparently) and gin rickeys (not enough). We ate lobsters on Christmas Eve (our tradition) and prime rib on Christmas (also tradition). We lit all the candles and it got incredibly hot in the living room. I slept in the bird room, where I love being with my dogs. They had a great time, especially Tess. She and Liza's dog play and roughhouse endlessly and have a fantastic time together. Chances and Tina not so much. At one point Tina had Chances nailed to the floor and was snarling at her, grabbing her by the tail, pulling on it hard. Chances takes it like a true subservient trooper. Duck and cover.

When I got home last night I could drive right to the house--there had been no "measurable" amount of snow, despite the predictions when I left. I talked to Ken, who said my livestock there were fine (he took care of my fish at his house--this involved emptying 2/3 of the water out of the fish tank and taking the tank, heater, filter and power strip to his house and setting it all up on the counter there, but he offered and I knew he'd enjoy having them there). He said he says good morning to them every day, and the day they answer he'll know he's crazy. I'm stopping there tonight to pick up my mail and visit and may or may not get the fish. I'm wondering if I should set him up with a small aquarium and a couple of fish.

Last night I read Esquire and came across an article about a graffiti artist of great reknown in London named Banksy--www.artofthestate.co.uk/Banksy/banksy.htm. His stuff is amazing. The article was about the Best and Brightest of 2005 and included two men who design new fonts which are widely and exclusively used. Way cool. Anyway, I thought the Banksy stuff was really great.

Now I'm at work and have finished reading email, checking phone messages and am ready to open the ILLs that came in the mail and via UPS and start working on the 50 or so correctional facility requests that arrived while I was out. That clerk will be back next week so I can quit doing her job and get back to the real work I'm supposed to be doing, which has piled up a mile high during the past month.

It's raining here, which means the foot & a half of snow at home is now the incredible shrinking white blanket. All the way home I pondered the magic of trading in my car for a 2005 CRV and taking advantage of the year-end eagerness of car dealers to get rid of their inventories. It would cost me at least $50 a month more in gas and who knows how much more in car payments. So no, I don't think so. Instead I think I'll just have my chimney cleaned.

The world is looking pretty good

In spite of the cold, the snow, and the pressure of impending Christmas. We had a storm on Friday, threats of ice and actual sleet and heavy snow in some places. In spite of that I drove the 30 miles to work on unplowed roads, following very poor drivers. Schools were closed so towns and the county didn't plow even the main roads very much, let alone the side roads I travel. But I made it! Only half an hour late. Guess what? Not a single car in the driveway. No one at the public library, no one at our library. Yes, we were closed, but no one called me until long after I'd left. So I came inside anyway, checked my email, paid my online bills, stayed for an hour and left to run the errands I was planning to run during lunch and after work. Actually I wasn't bummed, since it was like found time in town.

First the post office, where I mailed the Italy packages (2) and bought stamps. Second Christmas shopping, finishing up stuff for cousins in Vermont. Third the grocery store, getting stuff to cook for Ken's Sunday dinner and return $6 worth of soda cans from under my desk at work. Fourth the liquor store, wine for Sunday, liquers for my staff and Mark and Wild Turkey for me. Fifth the dump, which was a huge challenge because it's on a back road that had not been plowed at all and by now there was about 7" of snow. I made it, though, and was embarrassed to be there at all, getting a look from the dump lady like "What are you, nuts? Bringing one bag of garbage on a day like this?" Then I stopped at Ken's for a visit and a drink ("Well you're going to have a touch of the Creature, aren't you?"). Home by 1 and of course a nap. Wasted the afternoon, once I woke up, but kept my house warm. Got my car completely stuck in the bank of snow the plow piled up at the end of my driveway. This was not my regular plowman, who never leaves a pile of snow at the end of my driveway: he always sweeps it so there's no pile there. I went to bed Fri. night with the car stuck there, the hell with it.

Saturday I had hoped to get to the post office in AuSable to pick up a package that's waiting for me but it took a long time to get the car unstuck and I didn't start early enough. Shoveling and rocking and more shoveling, but finally I did it. Got to town 15 min. after the post office closed. Oh well, went to the hardware store and got a new tow rope for my car (just in case...) and a new door knob for my bedroom. The good kind of champagne from the liquor store, and cheesecake makings from the grocery store, which I forgot to get on Friday and our Christmas party at work was coming up. Whew! My car had so much snow packed against the axles that it vibrated really intensely when I went above 45. Swell. Home to install the new doorknob, so now I can latch the door against Chances' invasions during the day.

Sunday I cooked for Ken--he wanted Cornish game hens, with mashed potatoes and gravy, of course. We planned an exit strategy for my fish tank--he's going to take care of the little darlings while I'm in Rhode Island, and rather than putting them in a goldfish bowl, he wants the whole aquarium at this house. Has a spot all picked out on the counter where they'll go. I'll empty half the water out of the aquarium to transport it and fill it up again once I get there. He's very excited about having them there, which is very sweet. "But what if one of them dies?" I don't think we need to worry about that, we certainly know they can be replaced--I'll give you the net to scoop out the dead body with.

Monday I got confused and thought our work Christmas party was Tuesday so I had not made the cheesecake I was supposed to bring. What a dolt. I had planned to leave at noon, using my Use it Or Lose It time, which I will now lose because there isn't really a time I can take it. I had to stay because we had our huge luncheon and Secret Santa. I hate Secret Santa. I had left my S.S. gift at home, but luckily I had the presents for my cousins with me so I could just rip the label off of one of them and give it to the van driver instead of my cousin. Worked out well, I thought.

Because I didn't take the afternoon off I did not have a chance to cook for my book group, so I had to buy something to serve them. Hated that. I had made meringues on Sunday, at least. Coolest of all was that we got to eat the giant apple I got for my birthday. That was vastly entertaining and very tasty. They came over at 6:30, I was barely ready because I'd worked late so didn't get home until just before 6. Lin came early, knowing I could use help. She's certainly a good friend and I wish I could find her a job. We had a good book group. Martha needs to have her baby soon but she will and it will be wonderful. We all enjoyed being together and actually did talk about the book, but briefly. It was a Janet Evanovich, which we read to give ourselves a break during December. This month's book is an Adirondack book, Sweetwater. I think I'll put together a list of a bunch of Adirondack fiction, that will be good for work as well as book group. I know there are a bunch of titles out there and it will be a fun project to do. We really enjoyed the last Adk. book we read (except for the lesbian sex--I thought that wasn't really necessary. Let's see what kind of sex this book has).

And now it's Tuesday and tomorrow is my last day at work. Having trouble getting motivated. I'm off to Rhode Island for 6 days. I found someone to plow my driveway, but his truck is huge and he doesn't like the "cramped" space by the house. It's big enough for most people's trucks, he's just plowing with a truck that's not really meant to be a plow. It's also not really fit for going up my tiny little hill and he got stuck when he first started. I'm really happy to have a plowman, but he said he didn't know what he'd do if we got a big dump. Well hell, that's when I'll really need him. We'll worry about that when it happens. I've decided my motto is "I'll deal with that later." I'm going to design a crest that says that in Latin and put it on my wall.

I talked to my ex-husband yesterday. He'd left a message (called at 11:00 a.m. on Friday--now tell me, did he really think he'd be able to speak to me?) asking if, by any chance I had his passport. Well guess what, I did, and I was even able to find it. I figured out that he probably has a chance to go to the Olympics, and I was right. As mayor of Lake Placid, he might get to go. I called him yesterday (wasn't going to call him on the weekend when he was home with the Little Woman) and we had a nice conversation. I asked him if he would please pick up his passport at Ken's house and visit with Ken for a while and he said he would. Lin says he'll never do it, but I figure that, since there's something in it for him he just might. Lin says he's just way too important for that. Jaime had this fantasy that Anna would be his interpreter--I love the way he's always assumed that everyone in the world wants to do whatever he wants to do. He was very disappointed to hear that she's in Milwaukee. Anyway, we had an ok conversation but when I hung up I realized that we ran out of things to say and stayed on the phone just a little too long. I think he wants to have a relationship (as friends) but I'm not sure we have anything in common except our past and our family. I don't care one way or another but if we don't have anything to say to each other it'll be a pretty boring relationship, won't it.

And now I have to finish my year-end self-assessment. I didn't complete my goals, humble though they were. I have to report to our new director, who can't evaluate me anyway because she only started in October. She was my Secret Santa and knit me a beautiful blue and green scarf out of wonderful Italian wool. It matches my blue jacket, which she planned because she said she knew what color my jacket was. What's that? A thoughtful director who notices things about other people? I don't know how to deal with that.

This mornings headlines, and it's not even April Fools Day:


Reversing Its Stance, Ford Will Advertise In Gay Magazines


Drug Dealer Names Police Dog In Lawsuit


Woman Killed In Crash After Husband Chokes On Coffee


Parents Outraged After Teacher Says There's No Santa Claus


I guess it's a slow news day.

House Supports Ban on Torture

For some reason this headline just struck me as incredibly funny. Hooray for our legislators, they don't favor torturing people. Maybe they'll feel the same way about killing people someday, too.


-14 this morning, up from -17 yesterday. No frozen pipes or pump today. Last night I got to drive without headlights, by moonlight to my house. I can see the lights on my outdoor tree from almost half a mile away, through the forest. Way cool.

I like friends

Who know you really well. My friend Barb gave me a really cool present for my birthday. When I was at my mother's for Thanksgiving, Mark and I were looking at the Williams Sonoma catalog and came across this giant apple with a reported girth of 17". It was dipped in caramel, then chocolate, then rolled in nuts. We were fascinated by it and wanted to try it really badly but of course it was too expensive and we couldn't justify ordering it for ourselves. We read the description of how they get the apples to grow so huge: they put paper bags around the individual apples as they hang on the trees (if you choose to believe this) until they're ripe. When we went to the WS store, Mark said "I want to see that apple!" but alas and alack, there was no apple in the store.

Well guess what Barb got me for my birthday? A giant apple dipped in caramel, covered in chocolate and rolled in nuts! And I never told her about the WS apple or anything. Aren't good friends a thing of wonder. When she gave me the bag she told me it had to be kept in the refrigerator until I opened it. I carried it in from the car with Tess' nose attached to the bag the entire way, so I knew it must be good. Book group is meeting at my house on Monday night so I have something cool to serve. As Barb says, I'd never be able to eat this whole apple by myself.

Barb also gave me a windowsill herb garden--flower pots and seeds, etc., ready to plant. I suspected that if I left the box on the dinner table Chance would have to take a closer look and sure enough, when I got home last night the box was on the floor with a corner nibbled open. Apparently Chances is not interested in tarragon (fortunately).

Mick Jagger was right

When he said "You're so god damn cold." I had my union party last night (which included management this year, which I didn't approve of, but was outvoted on so what can I say. There were a record number of people there--everyone who works at the library system, plus a few spouses, and we all had a pretty good time) and didn't get home until 9:00. Outside temp was
-10, indoor temp was 54. The light bulb assigned to keep my pump and cellar pipes flowing had burned out so my pump froze. I found this out when I flushed the toilet and didn't hear the welcome sound of the humming pump below. Swell.

I had made plans for an elaborate heat-source set up this year. My cellar is a hole, 8' X 8', accessed through a trap door in the bathroom floor, down a ladder. I bought cinder blocks to put the heater on because the crushed stone on the floor is too wet, due to the holes in the sump pump's hose, which rotted the chair I used to use to put the heater on. Fine, except I never took the cinder blocks down the ladder into the hole. I bought a heavy new extension cord too, and put it in an unknown place when I cleaned for Sunday dinner. These are not things one wants to ponder at 9:00 when it's 10 below. I retrieved the cinder blocks from the trunk of the car, found the extension cord, plugged in the heater, found the other heater I have and started cooking the cellar (slam the door and walk away from the whole thing, my favorite part of fixing winter plumbing problems: set up the solution and wait it out).

Had to bring in huge amounts of wood to stoke the fire. While I was doing that the ice on the lake was talking, making the most wonderful sounds. Like short bursts of a jet plane's roar. I loved it and stood on the deck for almost 10 minutes, with no sound but that in my world. The dogs love being outside in the winter, roaring through the snow, but their initial contact consists of moments when they lift one paw at a time high off of the ground surface because it's painful due to the cold. Last night Tess stood in the woodshed with one hind leg elevated way high, trying to figure out her next move. Three minutes later she and Chances were galloping around the yard.

I got the fire roaring, sat next to the thermometer and watched the temp. rise by degrees to 67 AT LAST. Cuddled under the down throw Jenica gave me for Christmas a few years ago. What would I do without that? I have to wash it frequently because it gets a really heavy dog smell--Tess sleeps under it and on top of me, while Chances sleeps on top of it. We're a very cuddly bunch in the winter time.

The pump finally came on at midnight, but wasn't completely thawed until 1:00--it wouldn't come up to pressure, kept running and stopping so I had to shut it off for the extra hour until the temp in the cellar got warmer. I don't like going down into the cellar at night like that, even though I carefully prop the trap door open, sometimes I worry about its slamming shut. How many days would I be down there for before someone would figure out where I was? My friend Barb would know exactly where I was, but who would know to ask her? When I first went down there last night I had just come inside so I was wearing a down jacket and boots and was very pleased with myself.

So now I have indoor plumbing, a fire in the stove, cranberry bread and coffee at my desk and must face the odious task of original cataloging of probably 50 classical music CD's for Lake Placid. I've finally familiarized myself with new subfields: m, n, p, and r. The opus numbers are imporant, and it's crucial to know whether these are concertos or rondos. Whatever rondos are.

After the Bicentennial

I watched a tribute to Johnny Cash on PBS last night--an old show, filmed before he died so that he came on at the end and sang, along with June. He looked awful, said it was his first time on stage in 19 months. He was old and puffy and truly had something wrong with him but his voice was wonderful and true when he sang about Folsom Prison. The performers who sang were all great, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews (who sang "Long Black Veil," which we used to listen to when I was a kid, sung by the Kingston Trio), Lyle Lovett and of course Kris Kristofferson, who sang a duet with Trisha Yearwood of a song deeply embedded in my past, "Sunday Morning Coming Down." This was the theme song for my pack for a while during the second half of the 70's, and at the time I thought it was cool. Now I see it as a very depressing song, especially the following:

'Cause there's something in a Sunday

That makes a body feel alone.

And there's nothing short a' dying

That's half as lonesome as the sound

Of the sleeping city sidewalk

And Sunday morning coming down.

Basically the song is about an alcoholic who's alone, and at the time I was living with an alcoholic who'd just ended his shotgun marriage and was a career waiter, embroiled in the lifestyle that that entails. I'd never been exposed to that life before and, being in love and naive thought it was interesting and cool. This man was charming and intelligent but was of course wasting his talents. He had a 4-year old son who stayed with us 2 days a week, another experience I was ill-prepared for.

The country was in an odd way too, facing a recession, just recovering from Vietnam so we were dealing with a peacetime economy for the first time in decades. There were no jobs for people my age. At first I was a Kelly girl, then I got a job at Rhode Island Trades Shops School, where "Auto Body Technicians are always in demand." I worked 4 nights a week. Finally I was lucky enough to be a librarian in my first real job, making a whopping $9,000. We had a hard time identifying an enemy other than the Soviet Union until Iranians took Americans hostage, then we couldn't figure out why they did that (Why would anyone dislike America?) but middle America knew they had to hate Iran. We were coming down as a country from the high of celebrating our Bicentennial, which we'd been psyching ourselves up for for several years. Did it live up to the hype? In some ways, I suppose. Jenica was born, that was the best part of 1976 for me. I spent 7/4/76 on a campground in New Hampshire with my pack, watching fireworks reflected in a small, calm lake with a relatively small crowd, drinking a lot of beer.

We listened to odd music, since there wasn't that much music that was really good to listen to. Kris Kristofferson, who we got to see live with Rita Coolidge, when they were married to each other. Fleetwood Mac, who we also got to see live early in their career. These crazy people liked Tom Waits and Leon Redbone, so we saw them live too. I thought that was a really boring concert. At the end of it Tom Waits brought out an easy chair and TV and started watching the TV to convince the audience that the show was really over. We listened a whole lot to Elvis Costello, the bright spot in it all for me. Who else were we going to listen to? Wham?

I bought my first new car, a 1975 Fiat 128. Three of us living in the same house had Fiats, of which there were many in Rhode Island, for some reason. They were wonderful cars (still are) and I adored mine. I paid $3000 for it. It was great in the snow, invincible, but only had 2 doors and you had to lift the front seats all the way up to the windshield to get into the back seat. And of course the real kicker about Fiats was that they wouldn't start if it rained really hard or dipped below 20 degrees. Needless to say that was my last Italian car. But there aren't many cars I've enjoyed driving more than that one.

I had my first dog, Megan, a 90-pound female who looked like a beautiful black golden retriever. She was an incredibly sweet dog I got when I graduated from college in 1974. Her mother was a golden retriever and her father was a Lab/husky/St.Bernard mix owned by someone I was in love with in college. She sort of had the best of all breeds and lived to be 14. I got my second dog, a mutt who wandered in to my night job as a puppy with a broken leg during a blizzard on Valentine's Day. I named her Solo and she became Megan's best friend. She was my first dog to get hit by a car and killed (Megan had been hit by a car and broken her jaw earlier, but that didn't phase her, probably damaged the car: it was at night and I never saw the car). I adored Solo and mourned deeply for weeks. It was after that that I got my first Lab, Jestr, whose name was an acronym for my boyfriend's and my initials. Ah, sweet love.

And that, my friends, was me during the second half of the 70's. Brought to you by Johnny Cash.

Zero and Snow

You wouldn't think you'd have both of those so early in December, but oops! there we go. It was 0 on Monday morning, 3 on Tuesday morning, and snowing heavily this morning when I drove to work. I got behind a snow plow driving so slowly it didn't measure on my speedometer, on the part of my drive that's so twisty and windy that it's impossible to pass. Then I got to the good road, and after a while came upon someone driving a Dodge Durango (SUV, AWD, invincible tank meant to be driven in conditions like this morning's) and going 22 mph where the speed limit is 55 and the road was clear. I wanted to pull up next to her, roll down the window and scream an offer to swap vehicles, since she might as well have been driving my Civic. But of course I couldn't pull up next to her because there was too much oncoming traffic, or else I could have passed her. So my 40 minute trip to work took more than an hour, but since I was planning to be an hour early I wasn't late.

I ran errands at lunch: Walmart errands. Got presents for my friend's son, who was born exactly 50 years after I was. I had already bought 2 Wiggles DVD's for him but he needs a vroom vroom toy as well. I bought new lights for my Christmas tree--half of the old lights I put on it were burned out when I plugged them in last night. What? A broken Christmas tree? How many things are going on about this damn tree? This weekend I'm planning to stretch 200' of extension cord from my floodlight socket out into the woods by the end of my driveway and decorate a tree with 300 small white lights so I'll be able to see it when I come home (my new floodlight fixture comes on at dusk and goes off at dawn, when it's turned on: pretty fancy!). After my seasonal shopping I went to the grocery portion of our store and got some groceries. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Walmart has my favorite:

Pink Lady apple
This is a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Lady William. It's sweet and crisp, and good in salads and pies.

So I got some of those, lots of Romaine, cheese and some good Lean Cuisines, the Mexican kind that only Walmart has. Then I came back to work for the second marathon meeting of the day and now I have to spend 1 1/2 hours looking up bookmobile stops for individual patrons so we can do a mass mailing on Monday to let them all know that the bookmobile is now too dangerous to drive so has been taken off the road and there will be no service until we get our new one in January.

So I must go.

OK, here goes, tagged by Molly

10 things that make me happy

1. Sitting on the boat house porch at night by candle light
2. Watching my dogs gallop side by side like horses pulling a chariot
3. Lying in my bed in the morning sunshine, staring into space and thinking about nothing
4. Being with my family
5. Driving at night in the winter with no headlights because the moon and snow are so bright you don't need them
6. The feeling of sun on my skin
7. Pulling into my driveway and driving up the hill: the moment my house comes into view
8. Standing in the middle of the lake in bright sunshine on a dead calm day in the winter time
9. Swimming way out into the lake when the lake is dead calm in the summer time, especially at night
10. My tea rose bush in full bloom: I've had it for 30 years and even though it's just a thing, it's been with me everywhere I've lived.

Way to go, J.Crew, welcome to the rest of the world. It's not really fair that we think dogs and cats should be treated better than other animals, but I guess if it helps promote more compassionate treatment of animals, what the hell. Anyway, watch out for any fur product that comes from China, that's for sure--if you insist on buying and wearing fur.



J. Crew to stop selling products that contain fur

CLOTHING CHAIN MAKES MOVE IN WAKE OF COLORFUL PROTESTS
By Paul Rogers

Mercury News

In the wake of a series of colorful anti-fur protests outside shopping malls and stores in San Jose and other cities around the nation, clothing chain J. Crew has announced it will stop selling fur.

``It was for business reasons,'' said Owen Blicksilver, a J. Crew spokesman. ``Fur was a very small part of the product line. Less than 1 percent of all products that J. Crew sells have any fur.''

The announcement was hailed as a victory by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the group that led the campaign.

On Oct. 12, three women wearing flesh-colored leotards and tights lay in a pile on the sidewalk at the entrance to Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair in San Jose for an hour. They were covered with red paint to depict blood and surrounded by placards featuring anti-J. Crew messages and depicting skinned animals. Motorists honked and shoppers snapped photos.

PETA staged similar protests in New York, Santa Monica and other cities after J. Crew included jackets and hats with coyote, rabbit and mink fur in its fall line. Many of J. Crew's competitors, including the Gap and Banana Republic, don't sell fur.

PETA officials noted that some of J. Crew's fur-bearing garb is made in China. Their Web site features a graphic video shot by a German filmmaker in a south China market where cats and dogs are crammed in cages, thrown off trucks and subjected to broken limbs. Chinese fur sellers bludgeon and strangle dogs, cats and other animals with wire nooses, PETA says, then mislabel their products and sell it to American and European clothing companies as coyote, rabbit or fox.

``There's a world of suffering in every bit of fur trim,'' said Heather Mills McCartney, a PETA celebrity spokeswoman, in a statement.

``But J. Crew has finally adopted a `no fur' policy that will save countless animals and send a strong message of compassion throughout the retail clothing community and beyond.''

O Christmas Tree

Yes, that's right, I have a Christmas tree and it feels good. My mood, not the tree. On Saturday, when it was cold and windy, very windy, I took my bow saw and wandered around the house. I almost gave up, the stand of balsams I was sure would yield a good tree ended up having only really skanky ones, but then I saw one that was ok. It was hard to get to, had 2 downed trees on 2 sides, but I got it, cut it down and dragged it to the deck. Turns out it has this great curve in it, really cool, like a quarter of an "s." I love it. It's pretty sparse, as homegrown balsams are. Yesterday Bill and Ken came for Sunday dinner and I had Bill help me move the loveseat to make room for the tree.

After they left I brought in my tree stand, which hasn't been used for at least three years, sprayed WD-40 on all the screws and put the tree in. It has a very small trunk so this, coupled with the curve, presented a great challenge. Since it's sparse, though, it's light and wasn't hard to put up alone. Now it's done and will have dried for the mandatory 24 hours by tonight so I can put the lights on it and decorate it tonight. Yea me! Chances may knock it over, since it stands in her sentry point in front of the window facing the driveway, where she watches for my return each night. But perhaps not.

I cooked Sunday dinner yesterday, which meant I had to clean first. The bathroom needed a good scrubbing and vacuuming, but worse: I had to organize my shoes. That effort was not wasted; Ken said this: "I thought I had a lot of shoes..." I reminded him that the collection was not only my winter shoes, but my summer shoes as well. He was not impressed. I was supposed to cook salmon in my clay pot, and you start the process by soaking the unglazed lid for half an hour. The bottom of the pot is glazed on the inside. I wasn't paying attention and soaked the bottom, so couldn't cook the fish the way I intended. This made the meal much less exciting. I roasted the brussels sprouts as an experiment. I liked them but I could tell by the fact that there were 4 left over that Bill didn't like them as much. I used the last of the tomatoes from Ken's garden, which were practically tasteless (as they become when you store them in a paper bag) but were very exciting to Ken. I made apple crisp with whipped cream, always a hit. I used the Rockwell Kent plates, which I love using, and used the RK teapot to serve the coffee from. It was a nice meal and we had a good time. I had a grackle at the feeder, which is a rarity. I showed it to Ken, whose reply was "You have one?" He always has better birds than I do, due to the edge effect location of his feeder. I'm in the woods more than he is.

Saturday night I watched Monster (Showtime had a FREE MOVIE weekend), which was painful to watch but was really an excellent film. Charlize Theron is really a good actress, isn't she. I had to mute the shootings, but I thought she did a masterful job and was glad I saw the film. Unsettling but good to see.

My mother called last night while waiting for my niece Anna to get there from Milwaukee. Poor Anna got to O'Hare too late to catch her flight to Providence (deja vu from this summer) so had to catch a later flight. She's visiting Liza this week. Those airlines have it in for Anna, but at least this time she didn't have to spend the night or fly to Cincinnati.

Cold today but due to get colder this week. We had snow Friday and yesteday, must have about 5" on the ground but it's fluffy powder. I guess that should put me in the holiday spirit, huh.

A new look

It's getting close to my birthday so I decided to make a change. I'll have to change my profile after the 12th. I was thinking last night, while talking to Ken (who's 91) that I'll probably have to wait until I'm 62 to retire, but that's only 9 years from now, and 62 suddenly doesn't seem so old. We were talking about people who die shortly after retiring (like my father, who died 3 years after retiring, and who didn't really enjoy his work situation for the last several years of his career). Ken knew someone who drew one pension check before he died. We concluded that the dead people couldn't really be resentful or mind that they didn't have a long retirement, since they were dead. OK, that helped with my constant worry that I will die shortly after I retire and never get to enjoy the retirement that I've been looking forward to for the last 30 years.

Then we talked about Christmas trees. I had been thinking about getting one on Saturday, actually paying money for one. I've done that twice before, and I figured that if I bought one in town I could have Bill help me put it up when he came for Sunday dinner. I mentioned buying one to Ken last night and he was stunned. "How much would you pay for one?" Maybe $20. He couldn't believe it. "Why wouldn't you just go out your front door and cut one?" Because that's a pain in the neck. So we talked some more, I told him we always used to cut down 40-foot balsams & take off the tops for our trees, and that I had cut down smaller trees by myself since I've lived alone (I've concluded that it's truly easier to pay money for a tree). I thought, at the end of the discussion, that maybe I really would cut my own tree, maybe just a small one this year. Of course, in the light of day this morning I feel completely different and want a bigger tree, a nice one I wouldn't find on my property--all the trees that are 8' high are skanky looking. Plus we're supposed to have 6" of snow, which makes getting a tree in the woods both more difficult and unpleasant. So we'll see what happens on Saturday. Maybe I'll skip the whole thing until next weekend. Or for the whole season. My living room is small and Christmas trees are big.

And now I have a meeting that's set to last an hour to see what reports (that might be useful) we can pull from our automated system. I love statistics, it's just a matter of making them relevant.

A single pink ray

Shooting straight up into the northern sky was what I saw this morning on my way to work. It was very, very pretty. I don't understand what that ray was doing there, but the outline of Lyon Mountain was crisp and clear against a pink-sky background and the mountain was a gorgeous shade of blue. It was beautiful and I felt very lucky to live here, where my commute allows me to see things like that. It was 62 this morning, a record-breaking temperature. Although it's wonderful to have it so warm, it feels very freaky. We're due lots of rain today and there are flood warnings galore due to melting snow. My snow melted yesterday, thank you very much.

My sump pump continues to pump. It must have the equivalent of 150,000 miles on it now. There are pinhole leaks in the hose so it sprays water all over the place every time it comes on. I have to take the hose off to measure the size of the opening in order to get a replacement hose (they have to cut the replacement hose to the length I want--the whole thing is very intimidating to me), and it will take about two hours just to get the hose, which means the pump can't pump for that long, which means the cellar will be filling with water all that time and so the snake will be swallowing its tail. Or maybe it's all an excuse so I won't have to deal with it. After all, I re-wired the floodlight on my deck, what more should I have to do in the name of Responsible Homeowner this month? I bought a new fixture to replace the one at the foot of the stairs, which has been a bare bulb without a globe for more than 10 years. Now I just have to re-wire it. Purchasing is always the easy part, isn't it.

Thanksgiving, let's see. Trip to Rhode Island was fine. Not much traffic. Listened to Robert James Waller (OK, I know, I should be embarrassed, but it wasn't total crap, and not even that bad) on the way down. I think it was High Plains Tango. Lots of stuff about a guy rebuilding a house, which was the most stimulating part of the book. Listened to Anita Diamant's latest book on the way home. Yes, of course that was way better. About the North Shore of Boston in the early 1800's. This after having just listened to Myla Goldberg's Wickett's Remedy, about the flu epidemic of 1918. Oh baby I'm just crankin' them out. When you drive 60 miles a day just to get to and from work there's plenty of time to listen to books. Lucky thing I work in a library.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was nice. Very quiet. Three of us at the table. I had told everyone that my morning would be like this: I would get up at 7:30 and my mother would be cooking celery and onions for the stuffing, even though we wouldn't be eating until late afternoon. Guess what time I got up? Guess what my mother was doing? At least I know what to expect from my holidays. It seems to be really hard for my mother to cook Thanksgiving dinner now, not surprising, since she's almost 80. So we cooked it together and it took most of the day. We had a good time. Mark was at work until noon and we started eating around 2. I made the most delicious daiquiris, using Key lime juice in the silver cocktail shaker that belonged to my great-grandfather. I ate so much that I felt truly ill. Mark and I took my dogs for a really nice walk at dusk--all 4 of us enjoyed it a whole lot.

We went shopping in real stores on Friday. A huge Barnes & Noble, Williams Sonoma and a catalog outlet store that Mark really likes. That was more than Liza wanted to do so then we went home. We had a good time and Mark liked it a lot. We have a tradition of going Christmas shopping together on Friday so it was important to Mark to do that. Liza doesn't like it, but I need to get to some real stores, so what the hell. Saturday we all did nothing. I read all day, finishing the book our book group read this month. I had listened to it last year and really liked it so it was fun to read it. An interesting perspective, like seeing the movie then reading the book. It was Ann-Marie MacDonald's The way the crow flies, truly an excellent book. So much about my childhood in there, The Bay of Pigs, duck and cover, early 60's stuff. From a Canadian perspective.

So book group met last night. Good time for all. Martha is very pregnant but not done yet. Another month to go. We're all enjoying her pregnancy immensely. We had a few presents for her last night, including the most wonderful, soft and colorful bunting that Lin made. I knit a blanket. I love knitting blankets and other baby things. We had a good discussion of the book and lots of fun talking to each other.

And now I'm settled into work. Cataloging, dealing with the two piles of donations and problem books that are on my desk. The director wants me to amend and edit the list of relevant collection development websites she emailed me last week. I didn't realize that's what she wanted me to do with the list so I ignored it. BIG mistake.

I think I might actually put up a Christmas tree this year. It's been 3 years since I've had one. It's an incredible amount of work to do by myself, and usually no one ever sees it. This year, though, my friends in book group will be coming to my house so at least someone else will see it. I have to move furniture to the back of the house to make room for the tree, and a tree is heavy to haul in and put up alone. I love looking at the tree, though, and I have a whole lot of ornaments that remind me of my life and how I've lived it. Tons of ornaments from when I lived in Rhode Island, which is the time I consider I became an adult, from ages 22-31. Lots of things my friends and my mother have given me over the years too. And let's face it, a tree with lights on it just looks really pretty. I may even run an extension cord out to the tree in the woods that has lights on it, who knows. Hell, let's have Christmas at my house this year!

Run for Cover!

We're supposed to be having a big winter storm today but so far all we're getting is rain. They had predicted 8-12" of snow, now it's down to 5-8" (more in the mountains, that's me). Let's hope we get the 5", I can handle that. The drive home will be "slippery and wet, with rain changing to sleet." Swell, 30 miles of sleet and frozen road. I can take my time, I'm never in a particular hurry to get home. Tonight I'm having dinner with Ken and I can always go there first, leaving the dogs for later. They'll survive--as my mother always says, dogs can't tell time.

I took all the junk out of my car that I don't want to take to my mother's in Rhode Island tomorrow, since it's likely that I won't be able to drive to the house after it snows. My plow man is notoriously reluctant to plow. I think he plows me out of pity and doesn't like to do it at all. Last year he only plowed once, and that was when I called and asked. The rest of the time I parked at the end of the drive and walked to the house. So I figure I'll be packing the car one item at a time, which will be fine, since I'm only going for a few days. Mostly I'm taking clothes and dog food. I leave in the morning--it's a 6 hour trip and I'm usually on the road by 10, taking my time in the morning. That's what's nice about traveling alone, you set your own pace. Sometimes I leave at 9, sometimes at 10:30--who cares? I have to stop at the post office to pick up a package that's too big to fit in my mailbox. Wonder what that is?

There will be 3 of us for Thanksgiving, our usual crowd. We do have a good time. Mark has to work until noon so Liza and I should have a nice morning. Unfortunately, it's supposed to snow in RI as well, so my dreams of retreating to a warmer climate are dashed. It's only going to be in the 30's here. I'll have to leave the heat on in the house (ca-ching). At least the fish will be warm in their heated pool. My stove has been smoking when I open the door, which is driving me crazy. I had the stovepipe cleaned last year so it shouldn't be that bad, but I may have to have it cleaned again when I get back. I'd like to know who is going to pay for these things! I still can't stand the idea of winter but I suppose, since it's the 22nd of November (happy anniversary, John F. Kennedy) I should expect snow, cold, wind=winter. I'm just not acclimated quite yet. I like November a lot and am not ready to give it up. Sometimes we get a lot of good weather out of December, too.

I read the Natl. Weather Service's long range weather forecast for the Northeast recently. There's a good chance that our winter will be below, at or above average. The government really likes to put itself right out there, doesn't it.

I wrote my first article for Wikipedia. It's about Rasbora heteromorpha

I'm so happy

I'm not the president of our bargaining unit anymore. We had a meeting today of our newly-formed health insurance committee, made up of reps from management and the bargaining unit. All went well, swapping information, good feelings all 'round, lots of camaraderie, etc., until the newly-elected president presented two proposals that suggested maybe management should give something to the unit members in return for the decrease in benefits (i.e., increase in amounts for co-pays and prescriptions--by quite a healthy sum) for one of the two carriers we are bound by the contract to have available. Well, first you could have heard a pin drop, then you could hear the shit hitting the fan. I was so happy not to be the bearer of that request, I sat there quietly, saying nothing for a little while and just listened to the back & forth-ness of the exchange. The newbie kept looking at me. Management wanted to know what we wanted them to do with the two proposals next: the president of the unit didn't know. Well YEGADS! you never go into a situation like that unless you have an outcome in mind. Anyway, I offered a more cogent explanation of proposal #2 and mgt. at least understood the rationale for our request. We left the meeting barely on speaking terms, but at least they understood what we were asking for and why. And I felt so happy that someone else was making demands and being scoffed at and being called selfish and demanding. Whew!

Other than that this week has been uneventful. I have 4 of the fastest swimming fish I've ever seen. I'm trying a new kind: rasboras. They are "hardy," according to the salesperson at PetsMart. Why didn't they tell me about these fish before? Anyway, I have 2 harlequin rasboras (who are very cute, with red fins and big black triangles on their back halves) and 2 danios, and the 4 of them seem to race each other around the tank constantly. Number 5 fish is my dwarf coral platy, bright orange and yellow, who seems to be intimidated all the activity and liked it better when there was just one danio and him/herself in the tank and it was serene. This fish hides a lot, coming out once in a while to swim with an attitude across the tank. I'm not sure it's really relaxing to watch the others, they swim so fast.

I spent Tuesday afternoon weeding the non-fiction collection in the AuSable Forks library, the library my ancestors were involved in the governance of. There's a picture on the wall there of one set of board members, and there sits my grandfather and his sister, looking very old an tottery, but as if they could run the world. I like going to that library to work, but I always feel as if I should be more involved in that town.

We're supposed to get some snow this afternoon and tonight. First they said 6", now they're much more vague. 3" maybe. It was incredibly warm yesterday, about 65 at home. My house was very warm. I had a fire in the stove overnight and kept it going all day. Boy it got hot last night. This morning I was really late so I didn't pack the wood in the stove as I usually do, so I'm hoping there will be good coals when I get home.

I let "The Boys" drop their garbage off on my deck on their way out of town on Monday and I put it in a big plastic barrel, snapping a tight-fitting lid on it until it stopped raining enough for me to go to the dump. Tess has been fascinated by this barrel and this morning I let my guard down, wondering why they weren't asking to come in after their morning pees. Stoopid me, they/she tipped the barrel over, pulled off the top and chewed a hole in the garbage bag. If only we could channel that creativity into something productive, like an invention of some sort or a new doggie plaything, I could be very wealthy.

I spent yesterday cataloging books for one of our smallest libraries. They're coming online soon so we have to get their collection completely converted quickly. These people make me laugh and scream with frustration. They fill out forms with bibliographic information when they don't find records for the books in our data base, then we find records in other data bases and either download those records or I catalog them manually. They often take great liberties with the titles: now, honestly, they have the books in their hands. How can they NOT see what the title actually is? Yesterday I had "Elizabeth" for Elisabeth, "The gunslingers" for The gunfighters, and "The best plays of Chekov" for Chekhov: the best plays. And forget the copyright dates, I think she made those up. We can't find records for these books but I refuse to believe that no library in America (or Europe, or Canada) owns them. But we work with what we have, and I do original cataloging when I have to, gritting my teeth and listening to songs from the 60's and 70's to calm myself down. Hey, it's a living.

Well get a load of me:

The Wild Rose Random Brutal Love Dreamer (RBLDf) Colorful, but unpicked. You are The Wild Rose. Prone to bouts of cynicism, sarcasm, and thorns, you excite a certain kind of man. Hoping to gather you up, he flirts and winks and asks you out, ultimately professing his love. Then you make him bleed. Why? Because you're the rare, independent, self-sufficient kind of woman who does want love, but not from a weakling. You don't seem to take yourself too seriously, and that's refreshing. You aren't uptight; you don't over-plan. Romance-wise, sex isn't a top priority--a true relationship would be preferable. For your age, you haven't had a lot of bonafide love experience, though, and this kind of gets to core of the issue. You're very selective. Your exact opposite: The Dirty Little Secret Deliberate Gentle Sex Master The problem is them, not you, right? You have lofty standards that few measure up to. You're out there all right, but not to be picked up by just anyone. "You're never truly single as long as you have yourself." ALWAYS AVOID: The Bachelor CONSIDER: The Vapor Trail. Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating. My profile name: labrdr

3 days gone by

I love 3-day weekends but my expectations for productivity are seldom met. I had thought I would be motivated to accomplish great things at home and be a responsible homeowner during the Vet's Day weekend. It didn't quite work out that way. I feel I don't do my house justice, it needs more attention and care than I give it. Sometimes I feel my house is almost an animate object and that I owe it good care. It gives me such good shelter and provides me with a nice home and what do I do in return? Not a whole lot. The building itself could use some basic maintenance; the siding is in need of a few nails here and there and certainly it needs to be stained again sometime in the next 5 years. Since it's 2 stories, this is not a job I will do, and it will cost thousands of dollars to pay someone else to do it. I can't afford that. At least the roof is good, it's metal and should last a long, long time. I should wash the outside of the windows. I should put up some sort of skirting around the bottom. I should fix the hole in the kitchen ceiling. I should do some other things. But this weekend I did accomplish some things:

I washed the kitchen window and put plastic up on the inside. I don't like that stuff but it makes a big difference in my electric bill. I'm planning to do 3 of the 4 living room windows but I have to buy 2 more special kits for BIG windows, I only have one. I hate putting the plastic up, it's a real pain in the neck. I've put new weatherstripping around my front door.

I put away the flower pots on the deck--but not before one of them broke from the frost (it got down to 16 on Fri. morning), and I had to bring 2 of them in to thaw out, the dirt was frozen solid even yesterday, when it was in the 50's.

I emptied the 2 barrels full of waterlogged hardwood kindling. I did not dispose of the waterlogged kindling in a satisfactory way, though: it's just piled on the ground, to be dealt with later. At least it looks better in the yard now.

I messed around with my firewood, restacking the portion of the pile that tipped over and recovering the portions of the various piles that had come uncovered. Not a great situation, since they're only covered with plastic tarps and these tarps become miserable to deal with when covered with ice and snow.

I burned a lot of trash.

I filled the bird feeder. Come on, birds! There's food now!

I cleaned the fish tank and put in the new fish. 3 of them promptly died while I was adjusting the new heater. I now have two fish: one lonely danio and one peppy orange platy. I will buy 2 more tetras and one more danio. The danios only cost 99 cents, no great loss, but the tetras were $2 each. I now have the heater set at the right temperature and the water is clear. For some reason it was very cloudy after I cleaned the tank and it's taken 3 days to clear up. Geesh, this aquarium thing just gets more and more complicated.

I cleaned out my car, including washing the windshield.

So the weekend wasn't a total loss, but I slept a lot on Saturday, which was very disappointing to me. It was a nice day, fairly warm. Friday was a miserable day, 30's all day and spitting snow. I stayed inside, knitted and watched TV mostly. Sat. I had hoped to do outside chores but didn't. The dogs had a great time on Fri., went in and out all day. They were more bored on Saturday. Friday night I went out with Lin and Ralph, to our old haunt in Keeseville. It was great to be with them again, we haven't gone out in months and months. Ralph and I ended up reminiscing about our long-ago past, 15-20 years ago. That was really nice. Saturday night I ended up at one of the camps below my house, with two of my favorite people, along with Ken and Bill. The two men who hosted us were here for the weekend, for their Extreme Workfest. It's really just an excuse for them to come for a weekend in November and test their mettle. They love being here when it's really cold so they can say they did it. We had a great time and I love being with them. We had Sunday dinner together yesterday, too.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I did my outside stuff in a t-shirt with no jacket. I loved it. I should have stapled plastic around the bottom of the house but I did the other things and felt pretty self-satisfied so went inside. I'm easily impressed by myself.

Last night it was so warm that I let the fire go out, so I had to take the time to build one this morning. The wind was really whipping, 40 mph gusts today, so even though it's warm right now it's supposed to get colder by this afternoon. I have a quick appointment with my psychiatrist then I have to go to the Black Brook town meeting tonight to show support for the AuSable Forks library (rumored to be having $2500 cut from the town budget). In between those two things I need to get my fish and put them in the tank, feed and pee the dogs and eat something, plus drive 30 miles home and 15 miles to ASF.

For some reason I relived a very unpleasant episode from the past with my former director while I was driving to work this morning. I can't imagine what possessed me to do this, it made me very sad to think about that and all the crap she put me through. Now it turns out she's here to go out to lunch with the new director and I just heard her braying laugh. ICK!! At least I don't have to see her (I hope).

And now I must catalog a whole bunch of videos for AuSable Forks. Perry Mason videos. I can just imagine the incredible demand there must be for those.

Good old-fashioned fish boil

The water in my fish tank was unusually warm last night so I turned down the heater before going to bed. Well, guess what: heater malfunction and this morning they were all cooked. Honestly, sometimes I think this aquarium thing wasn't meant to be, but I really like watching my fishies swim around. Now at least I can get the two tetras I wanted to get before, when I ended up with the big booger platy. But I lost the 2 danios I had. I have learned, however, that danios are easy to replace. They're just zippy little fish. I'll miss my dwarf coral platy but will get another one. This is a good opportunity to clean out the tank completely, the gravel is a little groaty. Last night I put in a new filter and changed half the water. I may have done something bad to the heater in the process, who knows. You're supposed to unplug it before exposing it to the air. I'm not really an ace at these things. This time I'll get a better heater, one that's not so fussy. So back I go to PetsMart tonight, invest $5 more in fish. You'd think they'd know me by now and throw themselves protectively over their tanks when they see me coming.

Let's here it for the Boy

Everywhere Bush campaigned, his candidate lost. That worked out well for the rest of us, didn't it. We had good results here too. The Democratic candidate for District Attorney won, in spite of (or maybe because of) the arrogance of the Republican incumbent. I was pleased about that. Very pleased about the governors in Virginia and New Jersey, although they were both incumbents so it's not really a gain, just staying the course. But still...I like to be an optimist whenever I can.

Having my car/horse serviced took forever yesterday, but part of that was getting an estimate on having 2 of the seatbelts in the back seat replaced. "How did they get damaged? Will it be covered under warranty?" Heck no, my dog chewed them. "What kind of dog?" Will I get a discount if I give the right answer? Anyway, it will cost $260 to replace them. They cost $75 each, and the rest is labor. I opted not to have it done yesterday but it took nearly 2 hours for them to service and wash the car. They did a nice job of washing it, though, and they tucked in the broken part of the fender that was hanging out, looking embarrassingly awful. So I drove away a winner, $100.50 poorer but feeling proud of my shiny machine.

I voted on the way home. My polling place is a former one-room schoolhouse, the cutest building you've ever seen. I was voter #95 at 5:45, which is a really high number for an off-year election. After voting I stopped at Ken's because he had his outside light on, which is sort of a signal that he expects me to stop. No, not this time--Bill had stopped after voting and the light was inadvertently left on. I stayed for an hour to visit anyway, got home at 7. The solar warming thing may have worked during the day, but it was only 56 in the living room at 7. It took forever to warm the room but I finally got it up to 70, cranking the fire up to an appropriate 500 degrees. Hooray! This wood doesn't seem to burn very hot so it takes a lot of effort, poking, bellowing (with bellows, not lungs) and arranging the draft to get a hot fire. But I was proudly successful last night.

The dogs were extreme in their "Let's Get Her Out of Bed" routine this morning. Tess hates it when I don't leap out of bed the minute I awaken, so she wants to lick me until I get up. I hate that, being licked in the face. They're not allowed to do that. She'll lick my eyelids--YUCK! Chances likes to hit me hard with her giant paws, than smash on top of my head with her butt as she does her dive and flip routine. So I wanted to lie in bed, pondering the state of the world and the cuteness of the guy who plays Dr. Shepard on Grey's Anatomy. Tess, when yelled at for licking, puts her nose 1/4 of an inch from my face and breathes at it. In and out, in and out warm moist breath. It's really annoying because I'm just waiting for her to lick me. Then the two of them sit up and stare at my head, like a pair of vultures. The are very cute when they do this, really incredibly cute, and I'd love to have a picture of it. They give me the most powerful "get out of bed" laser stares. Tess' final act of desperation is to drag the covers off of my body, which she did this morning. OK, that will do it. The hell with Dr. Shepard. Patrick what's-his-name.

And now I've just been asked to run the report I submitted to the director over, including the figures I deleted. I deleted the stuff that's not done by my department because I didn't want us to take credit for something we don't do. "Oh you're so noble," she said with a smile. But she really wants to know all the activity for the month of October, which is certainly reasonable. So I'll run the report, reformat it and make it look nice again. At least it's not cataloging classical music CD's for Lake Placid.

Another dream
Last night part of my dream was about horses:

Horse
The horse is a lucky animal in dreams, suggesting the dreamer is in control of her life.
Well, hurray for me.

But I also dreamt about blindness, someone else (who is close to me) being blind. This is supposed to mean that this person is deceiving me. This I refuse to believe. Instead, I choose to believe that I dreamt about blindness because my eyes have been bothering me a whole lot lately, probably a combination of allergies and the dryness that comes from burning wood. yeah, I like that a lot more.

Today I take my car (horse) to the dealer (vet) for it's 20,000 mile servicing (checkup). It will take 1.5 hours or so and I will get to spend the time drinking coffee and reading. It means my day will last from 8 until 5, but I'm used to staying until 4:30 or so anyway, so what's the difference? I'm just taking a lunch hour today, which I don't usually do. Right now I'm avoiding the cataloging that awaits me, nagging me from the manilla folder sitting in the middle of the nice empty area in the middle of my desk. My director came to my desk this morning and said--if you can believe this "I think we're going to have to have a 'Clean The Desk Day' sometime soon." I screamed. I told her that I had just spent an entire day cleaning my desk. Can't you tell? I intoned, implored, whined. Yes, there are still piles of things demanding my attention, but the piles are so small, and the contents are easily identified. The book piles will actually disappear one of these days. Guess that day had better come soon. Anyway, that was a pretty cruel blow.

I did not stoke the stove this morning because it's supposed to be sunny today and the living room will warm up all on it's own due to our perfectly sited southeastern exposured house. Cold weather is coming. Cold is such a relative term, though, meaning temps in the 40's right now. HAH! Won't be long before we'll ache for a 40-degree forecast.

Maeve Indeed, you are 79% erudite, 70% sensual, 66% martial, and 45% saturnine.

Maeve was once thought of as a historical queen but is now considered part of the Celtic mythology. She is usually depicted as either a winged sprite, a beautiful elf, or a human woman dressed in only the finest robes. She was said to carry two tree-dwelling creatures on either of her shoulders; the squirrel and the raven, resembling her closeness to nature and mysticism. She also frequented the area which was said to hold the entrance to the Otherworld, which is now called the Cave of the Cats. Maeve is known for an insatiable sexual appetite and boasting openly of sleeping with thirty men in one day. Once she meets the hero Fergus Mac Roich, 'Son of Great Horse' who himself has a sexual appetite large enough to satisfy her, the tale says that 'She used to know thirty men every day or go with Fergus once.' So that’s good for her. :3 She is most famous as a protagonist in the story of the "Cattle Raid of Cooley", which tells of another dispute between her and her husband, the Connaught chieftain Ailill, with whom she would constantly quarrel. The Fifteen Goddesses These are the 15 categories of this test. If you score above average in … …all or none of the four variables: Neit. … Erudite: Minerva. … Sensual: Aphrodite. … Martial: Artemis. … Saturnine: Persephone. … Erudite & Sensual: Isis. … Erudite & Martial: Sekhmet. … Erudite & Saturnine: Nemesis. … Sensual & Martial: Hera. … Sensual & Saturnine: Bast. … Martial & Saturnine: Ilamatecuhtli. … Erudite, Sensual & Martial: Maeve. … Erudite, Sensual & Saturnine: Freya. … Erudite, Martial & Saturnine: Sedna. … Sensual, Martial & Saturnine: Macha.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 40% on erudite You scored higher than 10% on sensual You scored higher than 60% on martial You scored higher than 40% on saturnine

Link: The Mythological Goddess Test written by Nitsuki on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I must say I'm disappointed about the 40% erudite, and I'm puzzled about being so sexual at this point and state in my life. But I'll take it. And the martial part? Go figure.

And now

I have 40 minutes left of the day. I spent nearly the entire day clearing off my desk. This meant I took 6, yes 6 full garbage cans full of trash to the big trash can outside. Now that is full and the cleaners will be unhappy with me because they won't know what to do with the trash they collect between now and Weds., when the haulers haul away the trash. I generated 5' worth of trash today. A combination of damaged books I had on my desk that needed to be discarded, old union stuff (the detritus of negotiating 3 contracts and 3 grievances), a year's worth of Kirkus Reviews, months' worth of Publishers Weekly and various prepub stuff from jobbers, notes from an incredible number of meetings, all of my leave requests from 2003 (which had been stashed behind my monitor)and a lot of goofy papers. Among the gems I discovered were 2 really important items I'd been desperately searching for, a manual I needed to write an article about and a bunch of stuff I was happy to find. Plenty of things I could file in folders, more stuff I don't know what to do with, some gift books I will have to deal with (everyone who writes anything about the Adirondacks insists on sending me a copy of the book, regardless of what it's really about--i.e., poems--and I have to decide if we really want it on the bookmobile), policy statements for the System from the 70's that no one knows we have, about 20 outdated sample collection development and weeding policies and a bunch of other stuff. But it's all manageable now and I have a big empty surface in front of me and on either side of me. Very exciting. Part of my journey. Only the people I work with can really grasp the magnitude of this.

On my way home I'll stop at Lowes to buy weatherstripping for the front door--in the winter the draft coming through there would blow out a candle. I'll get more plastic for the windows and a plastic step-stool for the heater to sit on in the cellar, since the wooden chair got too wet and has rotted. I'll get hose for my sump pump so I can replace what's there now, that has pin holes in it so everything gets sprayed each time the sump pump comes on (at least 20 times a day). This means I'll have to take off the old hose and attach said new hose. Not looking forward to that. The joys of home ownership. I'll go to the grocery store to replace the peanut butter that Chances ate. People were impressed that she ate the whole jar, but what they were most impressed with was that she got the top off. Heck, that's NOTHING. The dogs also drank nearly a gallon of cider, which I had left on the railing in the snow to chill. They dumped it out in the snow, then lapped up the snow, like sno-cones. The pigs. Right now they're eating the fermented apples on the ground under the apple trees along the driveway, but I see deer tracks there too, so there aren't many left. I'll also stop at the orchard and get myself another gallon of unpasteurized cider. I'll go to the liquor store for wine for Sunday dinner. Then I'll stop at Ken's for a visit and I'll finally get home, to carry in 2 loads of wood and start a fire. It all seems like a whole lot of work to me. I'd rather stay here at my nice neat desk, where my chair doesn't have holes in it and my dogs aren't jumping on me.

Friday, Sweet Friday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My favorite

Jon Stewart quote for the past week:

"Oh, if only lies left semen stains."

How dreamy

So I've had two travel dreams lately, both involving an impending trip with my sister and mother. They were good, happy dreams in which the three of us were preparing for a trip. We were going to Europe in one, needed to be at the airport well before the plane left. I had a clear image of the giant plane (this may have been prompted by news stories of the battle between Airbus and Boeing on what size plane people really want for future travel: huge, seating 850 or regular size), but I wasn't prepared for the trip, couldn't find my passport, wasn't packed. Dream #2 took place last night. Again, sister and mother and I were going on a trip. Was the afternoon/evening before the trip. Much to do, laundry--which wouldn't be dry enough to pack before leaving. I found my passport, but it had expired. Would they require a passport for this trip? Sister said no (she always the source of good advice) but I was nervous. Clothes all over the place, much tidying up to be done before I could leave. I wasn't terribly stressed, but uncomfortable.

So I'm a librarian, right, I turn to the Internet for input. Here's what a Google search (good old Google) turns up from a variety of sources, listings under "dreams having to do with travel" or some variation thereof:

Companionship may include known relationships or strangers. Generally, the companionship either helps or hinders progress toward the dream goal. The effect of your companions on your travel should be interpreted metaphorically as a symbol of that person's impact on your life. OK, that's good, the relationships are a positive thing in the dream and they were helping me.

If your dream about traveling, expect some changes like separation from a close friend or a break with old habits. Dreaming about a trip usually reflects your desire to start a new life, find new places, begin new projects This one is tough to interpret--I don't think I really want to start a new life. The only thing resembling this is my new director and the onset of winter. Need to complete preparations for winter season (damn firewood), plan to build interior wall (major change in house)--what symbolic changes can I think of?

A sudden substantial increase in status and/or income is forecast in a dream of traveling for pleasure Needless to say, this is my favorite one!

To dream of getting a passport indicates an approaching opportunity for profitable travel; to dream of losing a passport suggests a depressing lack of progress due to unappreciative or hostile influences around you. Try to find a new channel or a new environment for your activities But nothing about having an expired passport. Combination of losing and getting one, I guess. I hate to ponder a "depressing lack of progress," although I still haven't finished stacking my firewood and that really does depress me. It's there to remind me every time I pull up to the house. Hostile influences? The rain. The only new channel I would find would be on the TV

So I am not good at taking advice offered by my dreams, although this morning on the way to work I was trying to think of different ways to arrange furniture around my dinner table. It occurred to me that I don't need that ugly green bureau there and if I could figure out a way to get it to the dump I should take it there. So there's a creative outlet, right there. A small chest would to, all I need is a place to put napkins, extension cords and light bulbs. A huge ugly bureau is not necessary. My goal is to buy a new dinner table, a new couch and to have my father's chair re-upholstered. I need a second income for all of that, however. I would also like a set of snow tires. And I need $300 to have my car get its 20,000 mile check-up. I need, I want, I need. My fish and my dogs are so much easier to please. They just want food, a place to poop and pee and a couple of Nylabones now and then.