Puppy on a plate
Although I don't approve of the practice, when I'm finished with my dinner I let the dogs lick my plate. I got up from my seat the other night and Tess apparently wanted to make a statement (or share her bounty with Puppy, her beloved stuffed toy recently discovered in the yard when the snow melted). Hence Puppy on a plate. There's a Los Lobos song called "Saint behind the glass" and I keep substituting "Puppy on a plate" for the words.

Sunny and beautiful today. I've already been reprimanded--well, that's a bit strong, let's just say my performance at yesterday's meeting with the correctional librarians wasn't complimented. I was told by the director what I should have said and what I should not have said, and how I should not have said what I did say. She admitted that she didn't have time to tip me off. I admitted I was not pleased with the way things went, but told her she wasn't familiar with one of the principals involved, a known liar who was fired as director of one of our member libraries and who attacked me during the meeting with some absurdly petty untruth. Anyway, water over the bridge, under the dam, etc. She told me she wants a different approach taken at the meeting with member library directors on Monday. "I'm going to that meeting?" Aren't you? "I hadn't planned on it but I'd be happy to if you want me to. Where is it?" Chateaugay. "OK, I'll go." So I guess I'll be going to Chateaugay on Monday. There are worse places to go but not many.

Hoping to have tomorrow off but still have not received final approval. Have a long list of chores that includes cutting blackberry brambles, planting things I ordered and purchased in RI, cleaning inside of car, covering garden and things you've all heard before. Want to get at it! Sat. and Sunday are supposed to be sunny and 50's so what I don't get done tomorrow I can continue to work on then. Must also address the firewood issue--it's scattered in two places and needs to be stacked and covered. I have about 1.5 cords left, maybe 2. I have to order more, want to get it now so it will have time to dry properly. Wanted to wait until the end of mud season. OK, that's done. Now I just need the money. MONEY--it's always about MONEY.

Today I finish cataloging children's books for Westport and do the old, pathetic cookbooks Schroon Lake sent me last week. They've all adopted the idea we suggested of sending us the actual items to work from. We meant videos, CD's, audios, older books, but they're so lazy they just want to send us EVERYTHING so they don't have to write up the "request for MARC records" forms. This week we got a box of current large print books from one library. Morons. Or as Mark would say, maroons.

I'm hot. It's actually hot in the building today. Hooray! I'm not wearing a sweater and I'm too warm. I got my house wicked hot last night, up to 77, and felt drugged so fell asleep on the couch. Ken came for dinner and I wanted to be sure it was warm enough for him. Of course, he came at 6 and it didn't get really warm until 8, after he'd left. Then my fire kicked in. It was awful. He had a nice time, good food (salt-free) and a nice visit. He didn't bring his SoCo so we had rum and water and he thought that was quite tasty. Even had a little bit more. Can't hate that Mount Gay. I had a little bit of a head start because I was so stressed after the correctional meeting from 3:30-4:15, plus hustling to get ready for him by 5:45. I don't handle stress very well lately. That's why I want tomorrow off--a day to myself, no trip to RI, no Sunday dinner, no cleaning the house, just a day to myself. No one at the bog for Tess to run away with.

And on to the cookbooks. Cookery, American. Cookbooks, Worthless.

Look what April showers brought
This is the bouquet of daffodils from my yard that I brought my director to celebrate her permanent appointment (the board approved a 2-year contract with her Monday night) and my pretty violas, which I got in RI at Easter. So there is life after winter in Hawkeye. We had a frost last night but it wasn't a heavy frost and everyone seems to have survived. I left the beautiful seedless watermelon I bought yesterday in my car overnight but I think it was protected enough and ill survive. I'm planning to feed it to Ken for dessert (salt-free) tonight.

The sun is shining brightly and it's a very pretty day. There are actual leaves on the poplar trees in West Plattsburgh now, and as I drive east on my way to work they are illuminated from behind. They look as if they are lighting up and are incredibly bright green and beautiful. I can't believe I'm looking at actual leaves. My landscape at home is very bleak right now and it's hard to tell whether it's November or April. I don't mind, though, because I know it's APRIL and good things are just about to come. I love this time of year. I'm finishing up with my reverse SADD and am feeling pretty good. I'm starting to think good thoughts (my mother used to instruct us to "think rich, beautiful thoughts"--I think that's what she really wanted to do herself) about the future. Anyway, I love seeing those little itty bitty poplar leaves in the morning, it's very magical.

Today is a data base day. I will finish up the authority work (I'm the authority around here: I get to decide what form of the author's name and what subject heading we use) I started last week, and I will do some cataloging. I will also put together yet another small book order. I'm trying to keep up with ordering because spring is a really busy publishing time and I'm a little behind in my spending and will not spend much in the summer when there's nothing to buy.

I will, I will, I will. Oh I always have such high hopes for a day, don't I?

Girl pussy willows
This is what the female pussy willows look like when they bloom. If you have allergies your eyes are probably watering at the sight of it. I read recently that, if you plant one of these, within a few months it would grow to be a yard high. I now feel obligated to try it. I found a sapling about 3 feet high next to my pussy willow tree. I have a lovely pussy willow tree, with three parts to it, but in the fall we had an early storm with a foot of heavy wet snow. The sap in the trees hadn't frozen yet so a lot of trees broke. The main trunk of my tree snapped. The males on the central trunk bravely bloomed anyway but I think I have to cut off the broken trunk anyway--bad to have so much heartwood exposed.

Rainy and cold today. I stayed for the board meeting last night, then went out to dinner with my friends Donna and Fred, who are on the board. We laughed a lot, especially about the previous director. I got home around 8 and the house was 59. I didn't want to start a fire so I dragged out a small ceramic electric heater and propped it up on the coffee table in front of me and huddled around it like a refugee. What a dork. Tess lay on my lap and cooked herself to medium rare. I finally got the living room up to 67 before going to bed. Tonight I will bring in firewood and kindling and get a nice warm fire going.

Ken's problem turned out to be fluid in his legs, caused by eating too much canned food with too much salt in it. I think this is quite funny because His Son Karl brought him all those cans of food and nagged and bullied him into eating them. Before that Ken was doing fine cooking for himself and eating the right amount of the right things. We don't like Karl, no we don't. Ken seemed very old and very frail yesterday. I don't want to be 90, I just don't want to last that long.

I have to meet with the librarians from the correctional facilities this afternoon. They suffer and whine a lot. There are 8 of them. My department is funded a lot ($40,000) to provide interlibrary loan service to them. We figured out that, using the national standard figures for the costs of lending and borrowing, we provide them with $82,000 worth of service. Stick that in your handcuffs, people. I'm just sick of filling requests for inmates who want everything, are never guilty of the crimes they've been convicted of, and steal or rip apart the books we borrow for them. Bitter old lady librarian. Just put a bunch of crap in front of me to catalog today, that would be your best bet.

Sometimes you want the whole enchilada
Anything is better than nada--or is it? I forgot my camera this morning, so this file photo will have to do. It's my friend Linda's Upper Camp. Her Lower Camp is right on the water, but this camp was built first, in the 1920's by a rum runner named Thwaits (the "h" is silent). He built this place first, then realized his folly and built Lower Camp right on water--literally, the building is about 4' from the water line.

It rained steadily from Sat. afternoon until last night. I cleaned house because I hosted book group yesterday. I put my big ivy plant outside so it could get washed off and it just looks really happy sitting on the deck, as if it really belongs there. It can't stay there because it'll get sunburned, but it spends its summers outside on the birdfeeder platform. I also planted my violas in a pretty hand-thrown dish that broke and is glued back together so I can't use it for anything else. They look really pretty. The house is about as clean as it gets. I even dusted. I washed the top and front of the fish tank and the platys about had heart attacks. I've never seen more nervous fish (that's not true: trout are the most nervous fish there are, you can't show them your shadow or they're gone).

I'm thinking of taking Friday off, if it's sunny because I really need to pull blackberry brambles and cover the yucky garden bed that's gone to hell with wild oregano/marjoram, where I'd like to put in a few tomato plants and maybe some cucumbers.

Now I have to meet Ken to take him to the doctor, then I said we could go out for coffee, which he interpreted as going out to breakfast, so I guess I'll be away from work for at least an hour & a half. Well, you do what you can to make people feel good.

Beauty and beast
This is my new haircut, fresh from the beauty parlor. And the beauty portion of the program is a flower called squill. I planted some bulbs about 10 years ago--I think I got them free with an order of daffodils and didn't know what they were. Here they are, all these years later, blooming away. They're about 5" high and very fragrant, but you have to lie down on your stomach to smell them.

Another banner day here, sunny and 65. Our van driver is wearing shorts today. I'm waiting to hear from Ken because he was going to try to make an appointment with his doctor. There's something wrong with his legs and I encouraged him to have the doctor look at them. He wouldn't really go unless I agreed to go with him. It seems like small thing to do to help a very nice man.

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

What Time Of Day Are You?

The only thing I don't like about cooking for friends is the cleaning that goes with it when I have them at my house. When I entertain at camp it's generally clean so I can just cook and let everyone visit while I play hostess. Yes, I like being the hostess while everyone enjoys visiting with each other. I guess I do start and end my days by looking inward, though I never thought of it that way. "Quiet contemplation" would be more like it--I like to lie in bed an stare into space. As for making people happy, doesn't everyone like to do that?

Look out world, I'm coming

Below is a list of titles to be reviewed in Library Journal’s May 15, 2006 issue, organized by subject as the reviews will appear in the magazine. The list includes pertinent publisher and bibliographic information for your convenience.

Prentice, Jessica. Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection. Chelsea Green. 2006. c.368p. index. ISBN 1-933392-00-2. pap. $25. COOKERY

This is from an email alert I get from Library Journal every 2 weeks telling me what's going to be reviewed in the next issue. What they don't say, however is that I wrote the review of this book. Not the first published review I've had--I used to write reviews for Public Libraries all the time, but LJ has a much wider circulation and is actually used for collection development by lots of librarians. This is the second review I've submitted to them, but I didn't give the book a glowing review so maybe that's why they published it so maybe that's why they're publishing it (they didn't run my first review, of The storm gourmet, which was a strange little book that told you to gather up the grapefruits from your neighbor's lawn in the event of a weather emergency so you could feed yourself).
Anyway, look for me soon in a library near you.

Two of my favorites
This is Ken and Duncan. Duncan is a former camper who now owns (with another former camper) one of the two camps that's just below my house. This is a copy of a picture taken by David (another camper) last year on the porch of our camp, when I had Duncan and David come for Sunday dinner. Duncan and David come every year, along with some other men for "Workfest," a long weekend in the spring to get the camp ready for the summer. They are all incredibly cute in the way they interact with each other. I love being around them and the way they allow me to be sort of an honorary member of their group. I don't share their history as a camper, but I share their history of the lake and I remember lots of stuff about their camp. We used to sit in our canoe on the water and watch and listen to their dances on Saturday nights. Who knew it was Linda and Bill who were the emcees for those dances, whose voices I was listening to announcing "Now the next dance will be Ladies' Choice!" Anyway, of all the men who come Duncan and David are my favorites. They are both incredibly cute and wonderful and are really nice to Ken. They appreciate him in ways I really like to see. Plus they appreciate me in ways I like to be appreciated. They make a special visit in the late fall, just the two of them, pretending that it's "Extreme Workfest," but they never really get much work done, they usually just have a really good time. David has his own business in computer graphics something and he once took a picture of Duncan and Bill sitting in the living room of Duncan's camp and put Bush and Rumsfeld's heads on the bodies, with a small framed photo of Cheney hanging on the wall. It's really funny. Last year he made us all t-shirts advertising Hawkeye Spring Water with a picture of the woman who owned the boys' and girls' camp (long dead) and an incredibly complicated description of the spring water (non-existent) you could buy. He's very clever. These men are all married or I would be chasing them around the block.

It's another beautiful day. Today I will finish cataloging things like a 1969 book on karate for boys and a 1972 book on stage makeup for the Tupper Lake library. And these are leftover from their "massive weeding project."

Have a nice day, Tess

This is where Tess spends the day while I'm at work. She doesn't seem to mind a bit: when I say "Get in your cage" she runs around the corner and goes right into her cage. When I come home she's sitting in her cage, watching me come in the door. Lots of times Chances will sleep in the cage when I'm at home. It used to be Chances' cage and before that it belonged to Dexter The Very Bad Dog.

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside. A wonderful day. I can't believe April is nearly over. I have yard work to do and housework to do. Book group is meeting at my house on Sunday and I need to clean a lot before they can come. Even if they are my good friends there's still a limit to just how much mess I'm willing to expose them to.

Last night Ken told me that Friday night Rush showed up at his house with a handful of ice that was the last ice on the lake and a bottle of bourbon. They put the ice in glasses and poured the bourbon over it to celebrate Ice Out. The ice went out on 4/14/06. That's a little early. I saw the lake in the morning of the day it went out. You all saw a picture of it. Ken was very excited to have me home. He knew exactly what time I arrived in Hawkeye on Monday because his neighbor had seen me drive by. This was not good because I was planning to tell Ken I got home too late Mon. to call him, when I really got home at 4:30. Instead I told him I was really tired and that's why I didn't call. Well, that was pretty much true, but I still feel guilty for not calling him. Not very guilty but a little.

I took my car to the dealer this morning so I could pay them $340 to check the belts and hoses and top off the fluids. I suppose they'll do some other stuff, but this is the 30,000 mile check up and it seems to me they don't really do much to it. Rotate the tires. I asked them to get the caked on mud off of the bottom of the car. He said they'd wash it for me, and he wrote on the work slip "remove caked on mud." Then this really nice but extremely talkative kid gave me a ride to the library. I know pretty much his life's story now, and he's coming to pick me up when my car's ready this afternoon. He has a 13-week old chocolate Lab named Duke. And an aunt named Christine who lives in Arizona. And two beagles. I don't know their names.

I had a dream last night that the ex-husband of my cousin Elsa changed his name to Sergio and liked to be called Serge. He was managing a CVS (drug store) and was doing very well. In reality he's a photojournalist who does marginally well and lives either in London or Germany now. I really wonder where this dream came from, I haven't thought of her or him in a while.

What wonderful and zany things will I catalog today?

My Easter Trip
by Betsy Rogers

This is how I started my trip: by going to camp to see how much ice was left on Good Friday morning. There was only a little bit at the foot of the lake and a little bit at the head of the lake. The mist in the picture is over the ice. When I got up at 6:30 there was a heavy fog/mist over the whole lake. It was really cool. Figuratively and literally.

I left Friday at 7:45. Rhode Island has embraced spring completely. Liza has daffodils in bloom and her forsythia is way in bloom. The redbud is in bloom, wild cherry (also called fire cherry) is in bloom, shad is in bloom. PMJ rhododendron (my least favorte magenta color) is in bloom. Magnolia trees in bloom. It's very, very pretty and was nice and warm while I was there. We had a good visit. We went plant shopping so I could get some pansies. I ended up with 2 six-packs of violas, one a beautiful dark red and the other a brilliant yellow. I will put them together in a small pot on my deck for now. Liza gave me a pot of pansies in bloom. I got to have a long conversation with my sister and another with her daughter. That was really nice: they both sounded great. Anna is a real peach and sounded really wonderful. She's getting ready for college and will be 20 later this week. I can't believe she'll be 20 (and neither can she). Liza, Mark and I had a lot of fun together. I love sleeping in the back room at my mother's house. There are skylights above the bed and I can see the stars and moon as I lie there. The dogs were pretty well behaved but Chances ate the chocolate candy that was shaped like carrots and some chocolate eggs as well. Then she puked up a bunch of little tin foil bundles, each one separate as if her stomach had unwrapped each piece of chocolate. That made me laugh. I bought 10 leashes at the Dollar Store. Those should last a while (Tess chews leashes really fast when I turn my back unless I hide them and I always forget to hide them).

When I got home my daffodils were a whole lot higher. My tomato seeds have started to germinate and my cosmos are 1.5 inches high. My asters are just coming up. Maples are in bloom more. I saw from the register at the bog that my friend Rush was here for the weekend. Now I'm off to Upper Jay to barcode more books, taking 4 laptops and 4 people. It's a beautiful day.

Our beach walk on Sunday in the sunshine. It was a beautiful day and the ocean was a perfect blue. It's a little turquoise in these pictures but that's the camera, I think. There weren't very many people. These are the people Chances decided should be her people for the day. She walked with them instead of with us. She swam in the ocean for the first time and did get washed along by a small wave. My mother turned her back on that, she hates it when the dogs swim in the ocean. Tess was very well behaved on her new restraining device (leash).

This is what's left of the pavillion. There used to be walkways on either side, extending out so you could walk or wheel your wheelchair along the beach and look out over the beach and at the ocean. There was a big storm in the fall that washed them away and they took down what was left of them. It looks pretty funny this way, I think. There wasn't much beach left in front of the pavillion but now at least there's a little beach left. This is where we have our dinner beach picnics in the summer, so it's very important to have a beach!

Flowers Mark arranged for a job her has--he takes arrangements to a satellite campus of URI every week, plus he does it for weddings, meetings, receptions, etc. We weren't sure what these were for but we think they were for a wedding. They just told him they had to be orange.

Mark and Liza preparing the Easter meal.

And the Easter table. We had ham, mashed potatoes and asparagus. Our traditional Easter meal. I told Mark the roses reminded me of the color of my sister's room in the first house we lived in in Rockford (Ill.). Notice the forsythia bush (huge) in bloom outside the doors.

Protection Alley
This is the view from the chair in front of the director's desk. I have spent countless hours staring at it. It really is called Protection Alley. There's a bar at the end of it called The Monopole. They used to serve the best hamburgers in town and I'd go there with one particular sales rep for lunch every time he came. Now they don't serve food anymore. It's a college bar. Anyway, I used to stare out the window at this view every time I got called into the director's office to be told what an awful person I was. There must have been an imprint of my tightly-clenched butt cheeks in that chair. Now I look a the director instead and she usually tells me what a good job I've done or we discuss each other's ideas. I haven't looked at the view for several months. It's a surprisingly urban view for a small town like Plattsburgh, which is why I always liked it--it's such an anomaly.

It's cloudy and gray today, supposed to rain this morning. I have a terrible sinus headache, so bad that my whole body aches. I got a terrible night's sleep, having fallen asleep on the couch at 9:30, gone to bed at midnight and got up at 6. Didn't have to be at work until 9 but got here at 8:15 anyway--nothing else to do, having watched the morning news, showered, played with the dogs, watched the snail climb up the front of the tank, made my sandwich and fed the birds. Today I will force myself to catalog the dregs (how many dregs can there be? you ask yourselves).

Yesterday I sent in my NY State taxes for 2004 and 2005. I owed $250 for 2004, which is why I filed an extension last year. I get back $150 for 2005, so should have filed them much sooner. Anyway it's done. I will get a bill for penalty and interest for 2004, about the amount of the refund for 2005. I'm an asshole about these taxes but have straightened out and will not make the same mistake again.

I had strange dreams last night. First I was an integral part of Law & Order: SVU, pairing up with Elliot (where was Olivia?). We were just starting to have an affair. We got his truck stuck in the mud, but not to worry, he had 4WD and got us out. Oh to have a man with a 4WD truck! His young daughter (never mind that on the show his children are now nearly adult) would have nothing to do with him but I convinced her that Daddy was ok. She also called my friend Fred on the phone. Molly was with us too, serving boat drinks. I love it when my television life overlaps my real life--yes, I know I watch too much television. Then my dream switched to Montreal and I was with Bill and Fred. We got stuck in the raging waters of the St. Lawrence River but this time Bill couldn't rescue us because his car was washed away while we watched helplessly. Yes, I have a vehicle fetish. I'm going on a trip tomorrow and will be driving my car that still has mud impacted on the undercarriage and vibrates tremendously at high speeds and needs an oil change. I feel as if I'm betraying it by driving it 700 miles in this condition. I'm not sure what the part about Elliot was all about, except that I think I slept though SVU while I was on the couch last night. These dreams had a lot to do with the headache I woke up with this morning, I'm convinced. It was like sensory overload.

Last night I had dinner with Ken but I left early because he stoked his fire and it was so hot that I was sweating like mad and I just couldn't stand it. He was very disappointed that I left at 7:30, but I was starting to feel ill and he wanted me to read Time magazine while he read Adirondack Life and I just couldn't, I just couldn't. It was so hot. I went home, where it was nice and cool.

I've hooked up with the Music Genome Project at Pandora.com, where you compile a list of your favorite musical artists and songs and through the magical work of algorithms and computers you listen to music that sounds like them, as well as the actual favorites once in a while. It's interesting and a nice change from LAUNCHcast, which is starting to play my same favorites over and over. The nice thing about Pandora is that you can stop the song if you don't like it.
And of course it's free.

I'm listening to Sue Monk Kidd's The mermaid chair while I drive now. Some people liked it, some didn't. They said it was weird and not like her earlier stuff. I'll see for myself, I guess.

Found out you can shop from Ikea online. Very exciting! But shipping is outrageously expensive. I ordered a new lamp for my bedroom, more candles and some really cool glasses. 18 glasses, a combination of wine and drinking, for $9.99. Can't hate that action. Maybe that's why shipping is so expensive. I'm doing a shopping binge, which is a symptom of my manic phase. Time to stop. I only buy things on sale or things that don't cost much, but the total ends up being too much. At least I don't go totally crazy when I'm manic and try to save the world, I only spend a few hundred dollars.

Oh to be redeemed

Of course, I could only be redeemed here if I were a bottle or a can. This redemption center is right next to a church, though. The sign under and behind the big sign says "Touch lamps $9.99." Modern technology comes to the North Country.

Today's pick

The Saranac River, on my way home. It's running April high. It looks cold, not full of hope and good things to come.

Sign of spring

I drove all the way around the circle of my driveway this morning. Haven't done that since probably December. I (obviously) drove to the house last night. I bought 20 lbs of dog food and had tons of stuff I needed to unload besides that, figured the mud was semi-soft. I'm not known for my patience when it comes to snow or mud. I did all right, barely sunk in. I cleaned out the car but did not wash the mud or dog snot from the interior. Perhaps tonight. There is still mud stuck to the undercarriage, it still has palsy but not as bad at 60. The dogs didn't seem to bark as much when looking out the window--maybe they find it reassuring to have the car there, I don't know.

I got home late last night, not until 6:30. Stayed here late, cataloging & visiting. Took a long time shopping at PetSmart (dog biscuits and squeaky toy as a hostess gift for Rhode Island, plus a neat pond plant for Liza's Easter gift). Did no outdoor work at all, disappointing myself. Got a good fire going, though, nice and hot. Have found a cache of good dry wood. I feel like a dump picker when I go through my wood, trying to find the good stuff. It doesn't help that there's a rotten old box spring lying in the middle of my wood shed.

Today I will spend the day cataloging crap for Upper Jay. It's mostly old books, cookbooks from the 70's, essays of Emerson, poems of Shelley, the American girl series published by Scholastic. Very yawn-worthy but I will plug myself into some music and it will be peaceful. I have had a large Turbo from Dunkin Donuts so I am ready to go. I had my blood drawn this morning and next week my doctor will tell me if I am still alive.

This is what sisters should look like. I couldn't resist posting this. Five points to anyone who can tell which is which. Oh no, wait--I already told you who has the blue collar. And you know who doesn't like the silver box that flashes bright light. She looks really irritated and ready to bolt from the couch. In fact she did, right after I took this picture.

Picks o' the day
Good day sunshine! or, What a difference a day makes. Crocuses don't like it when it's dark and cold. They opened up yesterday, when it was warm and sunny. This is the only patch of crocuses I could find in my whole yard.


Learn to read
It would be good if I could learn to read the clock. I kept dozing this morning after the alarm first went off at 6:15. I finally opened my eyes & glanced at the clock, sure that it said 6:30. Well, no, it said 7:15. Not good for someone who needs to leave at 7:20 at the latest. So I hustled the dogs out the door, in the door, fed them, kicked them out again, in again (second trip is the poop trip, first trip is just the pee trip, then they eat--hey, we all have our rituals). Got ready, left by 7:40. Not good, not good: new boss has a real thing about people who are late. She thinks they're dissing her. Well, it's sure nothing personal, I'm just one of those people who often has trouble being on time. I've been really good since she started, though, and have rarely been late. I snuck in the back door at 8:18 and she was none the wiser. One clerk is on vacation (the judgmental one) so it wasn't so bad after all. I more than make up that much time every day so it's not a question of giving the organization my pounds of flesh each day.

I just finished writing a personal recommendation for a friend. Those are hard to write. Who wants a personal recommendation, anyway? Those always sound fake. I did a good job, I thought. I came up with two examples of how this person was reliable, kind, supportive, blahblahblah. She desperately wants this job. This is a worthless recommendation anyway, she's supposed to bring it with her to the interview. Those are the ones you know don't count for anything. But it took me a long time to write, that's for sure.

A beautiful day today, sunny and warm. Yesterday was sunny and cool, only 50. It was 18 when I got up at 7. I built fires both Sat. and Sun. mornings. Not easy, my stove is smoking like crazy and doesn't get very hot. This is really a drag. I keep waiting for fire season to end, but that won't happen until May. I can't have the guy come to clean the stove pipe until mud season ends. One thing always depends on another, doesn't it. Anyway, Saturday was a wasted day except I cleaned the fish tank. That drove the fish into a frenzy and the snail into a death-like state. The fish recovered immediately, but the snail didn't recover for 24 hours.

Yesterday I was incredibly industrious. Spent an hour in the morning trimming the dead stalks from my rose bush, as well as cutting the blackberry brambles (my worst horticultural enemy) out of it. That was fun but I got stuck by lots of b.berry thorns. Bush looks skinny but better, really. I don't know how many blooms it will have this year. It's spreading out into the lawn now, which is better than having it die but is quite strange, really. After Sunday dinner (I was careful not to eat so much that I would be unable to function) Ken insisted I stay after Bill left, then he promptly fell asleep. I watched him sleep for about 5 minutes, then woke him to say goodbye. He insisted I stay and talk for another 10 minutes. I got home around 3 and worked on my driveway for an hour. I hate raking the driveway, but if you drive on it during mud season this is your penance. It's drying, which makes it hard to rake, and I'm not very strong anymore so it was real work. I did an ok job, not very good but better than nothing. Have repaired the major ruts, but it will not be a smooth driveway to drive on this summer. It will be dry in a couple of days.

After that I did a wonderful thing: I planted seeds. I planted tomatoes, cosmos (two kinds) and cleome. Tonight I'll plant 3 kinds of asters. I've got them in these mini-greenhouse flats and they'll take 1-2 weeks to germinate. Very exciting. Some of them will be up when I get back from RI next week. YAHOO!

Today's picks
Mud season. The tracks are on my road--someone apparently had the same thought that I did in my driveway. If you drive on the side it won't be as bad as if you drive in the middle. They too were wrong. The mud will dry and those tracks will stay there until next year.
The wallow is right in front of my house, where I got stuck last weekend. I'm not sure when I will be able to drive to my house again. One week? I'm off to Rhode Island next Friday and will most likely have to pack the car from afar, although it's supposed to be dry for the next several days. Right now my car is full of things I can't stand the thought of transporting up the (albeit small) hill to the house from the end of the driveway: potting soil, soda, dog food, stuff that's bulky or heavy. I'll have to face this before I leave, there's no room for the dogs in the back seat. Today I will take the car to the car wash to try for removal of the caked-on mud on the undercarriage. It still shakes with palsy at speeds over 50. Plus there's still mud on the window on the passenger's side. How the mud got all over the dashboard is sort of a mystery to me, but at some point I'd like to clean out the inside as well.

Gray day. Like, totally gray. But it will get above freezing and the last of the snow should melt. Later today and tomorrow it's supposed to rain. This is good for snow removal but extends mud season. Generally mud season lasts for most of the month of April. Before the town fixed my road I had to walk half a mile to my car in the morning and half a mile to my house in the evening, packing in all my stuff (including 20 lb. bags of dog food). I was 10 years younger then and though it romantic. Now I would think of it as exercise and be resentful but would force myself to enjoy it in an asthmatic way.

This afternoon I go to Keene Valley for a celebration of National Library Week with the bookmobile. We've done this twice so far this week at other libraries with incredibly dismal results. I'll be there from 4-7 and I bet we'll be lucky to have 10 people show up. Keene Valley has a very small winter population, about 500 people I think. My friend Karen, the director there is a storyteller and she'll be the entertainment. I like listening to her tell stories, she's really good.

Tomorrow I will do something really cool: I will plant seeds in the mini-greenhouse planter things I bought at Lowes. I'm looking forward to this because I love playing in the dirt and playing with seeds. Last night I looked at the forlorn window boxes I put up under my living room windows last summer. That experiment was a dismal failure. The petunias did not thrive and looked awful almost from the beginning. Maybe I'll try nasturtiums this year. It'll have to be something that can bake in the sun. I think I could bake bread in those windowboxes.

Chances continues her rebellion. Maybe she pays closer attention to the news than I realize and is upset by what Scooter Libby is revealing. Apparently yesterday I didn't latch the bedroom door tightly, and as some of you know one of her favorite acts of revenge is peeing on the bed. She must have done it early in the morning because it was the smallest puddle she's ever come up with. Of course it soaked through the bedding but it didn't hit the mattress pad. What a rat. Luckily I noticed it right when I got home so I could wash the sheets, duvet cover and comforter before going to bed. I told her she was bad but I didn't tell her I wasn't speaking to her--I just didn't speak to her. She went in the other room and sat by herself. Lucky thing the weekend is coming and I can spend some time with her, apparently she doesn't like it that I work outside of the home. Well parrrrdon me for earning a paycheck!

And now it's on to catalog some storytelling and meditation CD's. zzzzzz.

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"I can pass this guy."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Oh dear, not reassuring at all

Pick of the day

The Home Office. This is where I work. Italy has a much better attitude towards public buildings and what they should look like, landscaping, courtyards, etc. I remember when we planted the spruce tree in front: it was about 7 feet high. My friend Dan planted it, after digging it up from the then-director's front yard. When I contemplate it I think I should plant a tree like that at my house so I can mark the passage of time by its growth. We planted 25 spruce trees, Jamie and I, along the edge of my property. There are 3 left now. They were 6" high then--about 11 years ago. They are now 3' high. Maybe I don't want to mark the passage of time this way after all. Or else get faster-growing trees.

Still cold, still snow on the ground at my house, but it's melting and has settled. Someone with big male feet walked up to my house yesterday. I hate that, really hate that. He parked at the end of my driveway and walked right up to my house--I could see the tracks in the snow. Then he walked partway around the bottom of the circle of the driveway. I have no idea who it was or why he was poking around my house. Not the electric co. meter reader, that's computerized now. I always think I should put a sign up at the end of my driveway, No Trespassing, or Private, but then I think a) that is unfriendly and b) it just calls attention to the fact that there's a house there.

Dinner with Ken last night. I tried to explain what a euro was. I spelled it out for him but he has trouble picturing things, he needs to see them written down. He kept calling it a "zero." I decided maybe that was a better word for it anyway. E-U is just a complicated combination for Amerians to grasp.

Last night I stopped at Lowes to buy Ken some drill bits (so he could take off the walls of his wood shed: a sign of spring that has been delayed "until this cold front goes through"). While I was there I bought what I really wanted to get: planting supplies so I can plant my seeds, which came from Burpee yesterday. Can't wait, can't wait. I got special tomatoes for Ken this year, a variety that should yield bigger tomatoes. I've always supplied him with plants I get at the nursery that yield early but smaller fruit. He never complains and is grateful, but when his brother-in-law gives him the huge tomatoes from his garden I can tell Ken wishes he could compete. This year I scoured the Burpee catalog for just the right kind and ordered Steak Sandwich, which is determinate (doesn't vine) and yields big tomatoes in a relatively short period of time. Now let's hope I can get the little buggers to grow fast enough but not too fast.

I love the way a dog will let you know of her dissatisfaction with her lot in life. When I got home last night, right smack in the middle of the rug in front of the door was the demolished can of yummy fish food I had ordered online (you're supposed to give your fish a variety of food because "Just like you, fish like variety in their diet!"). Apparently Chances liked it as much as the fish did. The fish were thrilled by it and gobbled it right up when I gave it to them, but I didn't hide the can well enough and Chances found it on the counter. Whenever she's bad like that, she leaves the detritis right in front of the door. The day before it was the empty bag of Russel Stover chocolate Easter eggs (my she has good taste, doesn't she). Last night I told her I wasn't speaking to her (I've read several times you're supposed to banish bad dogs for half an hour--as if they can tell time), then greeted Tess profusely while Chances suffered incredibly on the couch. Finally, about 7 minutes later I told Chances I was again speaking to her. I never saw a more grateful dog. My god she's a sensitive thing. So easily wounded emotionally. She clung to me the rest of the night--love me, please love me, don't you love me? you do love me, don't you? Even positioning herself between Tess and me in bed, which she never does. Yikes. Don't punish that dog again, she'll have a nervous breakdown.

Today's picks

February? March? No, I forgot...it's April.

The picture with the sun looks like a shot from Ideals magazine (who remembers that one?). The other one is looking down my driveway from my deck. Silver Lake Mountain later emerged from the fog.

Doctor Knee

I had my follow-up appointment with my orthopedist this morning. I had to wait more than an hour to see him. That's unheard of for me--none of my doctor's keep me waiting that long. He spends a lot of time with each patient, however, and has a lot of patients. He will give you a very detailed answer to any question you ask. His answers to my questions were: Yes, the cartiledge in my knee is torn but not only slightly. No, there's not much that can be done about it. If I want to I can have surgery but all he would do is "trim it up a bit" and that wouldn't really fix it much. What I can do is see him when it starts to hurt more and he will give me more cortisone shots. I should continue to take an anti-inflammatory. There isn't really one that won't upset my stomach but maybe I should take a lower dose than the 600 mg. of ibuprofen I have been taking, trying a dose that will work. He will give me Celebrex if I want, but since there's been a link between that drug and heart attacks we both agree I do not want to try that. Good-bye doctor and thank you for your time.

We got about 4" of heavy, wet snow at Silver Lake yesterday. Much less than the 6-15" predicted. How can you predict 6-15"? Which will it be, 6 inches or 15 inches? I'd say that's really covering your ass, wouldn't you? Anyway, it sucks to have snow on top of mud, that's about my least favorite thing on the ground. And it's cold. It really perked up the dogs, though, they played swap the spit with each other for about 2 hours on the couch last night, after being outside for an hour. Tess finally stood in the yard and barked non-stop for 15 min. before I called her in, reassuring her that the boogey man had indeed been scared off. Who knows what she's barking at when she does that but it seems to be high sport to her.

I just got a call from my friend who's the director of the regional network. He wanted to tell me that he just got a new puppy. He described her to me: her father is a boxer and her mother is a slut. From his description of her physical attributes I said she sounds like Mr. Potato Head of the canine world. He's very proud of her but hasn't named her yet. He's only had her since Friday and is discovering what I discovered with Tess: we have completely forgotten what it's like to have a puppy. They get into everything, they pee and poop all over the place, and they chew on everything. He said he got to work today and noticed she had ripped a hole in his pants. I don't envy him the trials and tribulations of having a puppy but I do envy the joy of watching and cuddling a puppy. Jenica and I had a lot of fun watching Tess grow up.

It turns out that the land for sale near my house is only a lot, 144' x 155', out on the hardtop (half a mile from my house). Asking price is $12,000 can you believe it. I don't know who owns it. Realtor is not sure you can build a house on it but they're trying to make sure the buyer will be able to. Give me a break. My friend Fred thinks Stewarts should buy it and put a convenience store there, since he retires this summer and will be spending his summers there. I said maybe I should sell organic produce and the Sunday NY Times. Or my friend's horrible boyfriend could have a bar there. Or maybe it just won't sell because who in their right mind would pay $12,000 for a lot that size that maybe you can't even build on?

Since I finished cataloging the topographical maps I had to do for Saranac Lake (and before they send me 20 more to do) I'll move on to the next project. I just have to decide what that will be. Clip art DVD's? Toys for a grant? The toys are truly boring--a set of multi-colored, wooden building blocks. Totally unimaginative. Another toy is something I can't even figure out, some sort of bucket thing that demonstrates the principles of physics to children. And people think catalogers are boring!

You scored as Psychology. You should be a Psychology major! Psychology 100% Theater 83% English 75% Journalism 75% Linguistics 67% Sociology 67% Philosophy 67% Biology 58% Anthropology 58% Mathematics 50% Engineering 50% Art 33% Dance 17% Chemistry 0% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

At least the rating for Chemistry is accurate. Dance, well that could have been lower. And yes, Molly, we can't be Psych majors. I took this test earlier in the day and scored higher as a theater major. Anyone who knows me knows about my theatrics. Could never make a living at it, but goodness knows I'm a drama queen.

Daily Picks

Chances, embarrassed by her vanity is urged to model her new blue collar.

Foresight, Lack thereof

Foresight is something I never had. I'm a "ready, fire, aim" person and always have been. I'm better than I used to be, which I think I owe to Ken. He's very deliberate and is an excellent role model. My lack of foresight impacts my life in big ways and small ways. There's a hole in my kitchen ceiling because, several years ago drops of water were coming down from the ceiling next to the refrigerator. I made a hole in the ceiling to find the source. That was really stupid: there's no plumbing there so of course there would be no leak there. The water was leaking from the shower drain and was just rolling down a floor joist to the lowest point.

Here's a small way my lack of foresight has made a difference: I bought new collars for the dogs. Chances had a purple collar; I bought her a pretty blue collar. Tess had a green collar; I bought her a purple collar. Granted, I ordered these collars online and they were on sale so my choices were limited by size and choice of color. Here's the catch: the dogs look remarkable alike, and at a glance it's often hard for me to tell them apart. The surefire way for me to distinguish them was by the color of their collars. Last night I was sitting next to a dog with a purple collar. The dog who used to have a green collar, not the dog who used to have a purple collar. I just feel that someone more clever than I would have known that it would be a stupid idea to get the other dog a purple collar, since this would lead to confusion over which dog was wearing the purple collar. Somehow I just feel that this defines my life. It's all about a purple collar.

Bad news when I got home last night. What I've long feared has happened: the land across from my house is now for sale. I have to call the realtor to see how large the lot is and how much it's listed for. I can't stand the idea of having a neighbor and have always sworn that when that lot is sold I will sell my house and move to High Banks, a place where no one would ever want to live because the growing season is about 6 weeks long. Now that the day seems near of course I reconsider. I like where I live--I like being able to walk to camp, seeing Whiteface in the winter, being near Ken and my large seasonal social circle. We're all making plans for our colony of retirees in the not-so-distant future. I can't really leave that, it's far too appealing. But a neighbor? Or more than one? I truly cringe at the thought.

When will I learn?

Who was the wise librarian who said that only a fool drives in mud? Oh, wait, that was me. Saturday morning I loaded up the car for the dump and started to turn it around near the house. I thought I was being clever, avoiding the big mud pit in the center of the driveway and driving only on the edges. WRONG IDEA. I got stuck, stuck, stucker. Ended up in mud up to the axles. Of course it started to rain hard as I was trying to get unstuck by putting pieces of carpet under the tires. That worked well on the left side but not on the right side. So I went inside and called AAA. The good guys who always used to come, who have pulled me out of the mud twice before, are no longer AAA. The new good guy was busy, so they had to send the real assholes from Keeseville (Keeseville is the equivalent of Boogerville). It took them 2 hours to arrive, they drove past my driveway and I had to flag them down as they went by it the 2nd time ("I never knew there was a house up there" duh). They got their pulley stuck and had to borrow a screwdriver, which they then pounded to a pulp with their wrench and got covered in black grease as they used it to take their pulley apart. When they finally yanked the car out, one of them said to me "I'd better drive it out" (the unspoken was "Little Miss--you're too stoopid to know how to do this without getting stuck again"). Well anyway they got it out, wrapping their cable around my maple tree, hooking the chain to the rear of the car, pulling the car sideways first, which created 4 huge, 2' deep holes in the mud. As he left he told me my car might shimmy from the mud that's stuck to the bottom. I told him it already did (from before). I'm sure they didn't think much of me, but I thought less of them. So I'm a fool and my driveway is now closed. It's the worst it's ever been, solid mud from top to bottom. But I got to the dump. The passenger window is covered in mud. I hit every puddle I could, trying to rinse the mud off of the brakes. Did pretty well, too.

Yesterday was a better day, sunny and 50. I got up at 6:30--Daylight Savings does strange things, doesn't it.

Signs of spring:
*Daffodils are coming up, now 1.5 inches high
*Juncos have arrived at the bird feeder
*I heard woodcocks the other night (the males fly straight up, about 50', making an amazing chirping sound with their wings, then dive straight down to the ground--this is what they think is sexy to the females)
*The dogs took their first trip up the bluffs with total strangers
*I read in the sun, sitting in my chair in my yard yesterday afternoon without wearing a jacket
*I only have small fires at night and let them go out before bedtime
*My favorite maple tree has buds on it
*My pussy willow tree has pussy willows

I'll ignore the part about being stuck in the mud.

Snail Indy 500
I have the fastest snail on the planet. Yes, I know we thought he was dead, but on Friday he was in one corner of the tank, then 15 minutes later he had crossed the equivalent of the Oregon Trail and was in the opposite corner of the tank. All weekend he went round and round the tank and up and down the sides. What a slithering (disgusting) speed freak. He's not a very good window cleaner, though, because there are 2 algae spots at the back of the tank he keeps missing. How can I point these out to him?

Pick of the Day

This is Molly. I've driven past her 5 days a week all her life. She's about 3 or 4 now and is very lonely, ever since they sold her mother. Her mother was a draft horse, her father a giant mule (is there really such a thing?). She was really interested in me when I took this picture because it was 5 p.m., her dinner time, and she thought I was going to feed her. Sorry, Molly, I just wanted to take your picture. I wish they'd get her a pony or a goat or something to keep her company, she's really very lonely.

Listening to Hang on Sloopy. This makes me much happier but my hair still looks funnier and now the space between my front teeth shows.

At least I finished the abridged audio books and looked at all 732 new records we've added to the data base in the past week. And boy, have we added some zingers, myself included.

Now it's time for me to start on the book order. I'm way behind on that one. Oh, stop grinning like a fool. You look stoopid. Just because it's Friday afternoon.

Trying to figure out why someone in a member library would make a CD of folksongs an [electronic resource] instead of a [sound recording]. Do we really need to make things more complicated than they really are?

I look like my mother. My hair looks funny.

Daily photo
This is what I see as I near the end of my journey home. The trees are turning the reddish purple that comes with early, early spring. That's Whiteface, the ghostly specter in the distance. It's still got plenty of snow on it, but there are some bare spots as well. That's Douglas in the foreground, with Catamount off to the left. Jenica has climbed Catamount, much to the horror of the Rogers family. Dan Webster's sister died falling off that mountain when she was a child, so family lore dictates that no one in our family should ever climb that mountain. My brother, of course saw that as a dare and took his daughter up the mountain. She did not fall to her death and neither did he. I learned later that Dan Webster and his sister were bushwhacking, not on the trail and needless to say had gotten very careless.

In answer to Molly's post, they don't mind if we put pictures on our computers here at work, they're very tolerant. I don't have much to post: dogs, mountains, mud, ice. I do need to buy a computer for home, though, but my Internet connection at home will be dial access and thus too slow to do me much good. I'll delete pictures when I'm through with them, they won't live on the computer: that would be abuse of privileges. I'll have prints made of the ones I want (if there are any--that is doubtful so far).

Peaceful day facing me. Director off visiting libraries, staff due to head to Chazy at noon to barcode the collection. The library there is too small for all of us to fit in all at once so I'm staying behind (ostensibly to catch up on work that piled up while I was in Boston). Let's hear it for peace and quiet! Temp to reach 70 today. Can this really happen? Perhaps I'll actually go outside, walk to the bank instead of drive there on my way home. I'm looking forward to the weekend (now there's an understatement that's painfully obvious). My time then is my own, except for the 3 hours on Sunday that I donate to the Laundry family.

I wanted to buy an answering machine because the cost of voice mail was raised to $5 a month. Can you just buy an answering machine without a telephone attached to it? Not in this town. I looked in the two most likely places and ended up buying a new phone last night for $30, with an answering system. I liked my old phone, but changing the message on this is painfully easy. As I was making up the message Chances started to bark so it sounds as if I burped just before I started to speak. Cute or gross? You be the judge. I can at least give my old phone to my mother so perhaps my sister and I can have a conversation with her that won't be full of static and beeps.

And on to abridged audio books for Peru. They seem to have an endless supply. Mack Bolan abridged? The Exterminator series is bad enough in print, but abridged audio? My god will the horror of library collections never cease.

Oh yeah, snail is dead, algae eater is dead. Bad mojo from my "community tank," I fear. No tolerance for those who are different.

A Picture A Day
I can now load images from my camera onto my computer. So here are some pictures. I'm looking forward to taking pictures of my daffodils. That will mean I will have daffodils to photograph. I could take pictures of mud right now, but that doesn't seem too interesting. Thank you for your comments on the snail. I'm not sure it's alive anymore, but it was when I put it in the tank. What killed it?

I pass this house on my way to and from work every day. I like the little trim along the top of the porch. It's a sweet little house, probably all the house I would really need, but I like my big, cluttered and over-filled house. This house really appeals to me, though. It looks very Midwestern.

She should be named Garbo

Tess does not like flashbulbs. She takes her (my) glove and goes under the couch, where she hides until I take the flashing silver box away.

Late March, Hawkeye

The Boat House ice on the left is the site of the Dog Dunkings. This is Silver Lake Mountain as it looked yesterday. That's shade on the left, not to be confused with dark ice, which signals thawing.

Home again home again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No dumb question, just dumb people

These remind me of Molly's students' gaffes. Right now the public library listserv is playing silly reference questions. My contributions were 2 questions I got when I was in at the Providence Public Library--people wanted 1) a photograph of Jesus, and 2) photographs, not drawings but real photographs of dinosaurs. Since I've been here I've been asked (by the inmates, of course) for 1) information on UFO sex missions (don't know if he wanted to go on one or thought he had been on one already) and 2) true stories of werewolves.

Here are some from today, following a thread that included a request for books by Hemingstein, books on the Ottawa causes (Iowa caucuses) and large print audio books:

* The guy who put his library card into the floppy drive and told me that he couldn't get on to the internet.
* I am looking for a book called, 'dummies for beginners'.
* I had one once of someone looking for info on the hemlock maneuver - you kind of get a different outcome from what he wanted which was the Heimlich maneuver
* Your Hemingstein reminded me of the kid who asked me for a copy of Ivanhood. (I wonder if that is the sequel to Robinhoe??)
* I always tell everyone about the lady who asked me if I had music for "Cats". She really should have laughed when I asked her what instrument her cat played...

Well, sometimes you feel bad for making fun of the patrons, but then you realize that you have to laugh because otherwise you'd end up getting really frustrated by your job, and we don't want to look at our jobs with great frustration, we want to enjoy them.

and more:

*I also had someone ask me if Martin Luther King, Jr freed the slaves.

*A guy I know had these two from the same woman - he was working @ Barnes and Noble:
-"Is there a sequel to The Diary of Anne Frank?"
-"Who is that Jew who invented the atom?" (She meant, of course, ALBERT EINSTEIN)

*My favorite remains the high school student who asked me if we had a copy of "How to Kill a Mockingbird."

I think this discussion is going to go on for a long time: these people seem a little obsessed with the way people ask where the bathrooms are.

Pumped up knee

I went to the orthopedist this morning. He was pissed that the PA at my doctor's office scheduled an MRI rather than an x-ray (his receptionist had tipped me off to this already). He is a really cool doctor, pretty cute and very straightforward. He sent me down the hall from his office for an x-ray right away--apparently there are a few orthopede's right there and they share the equipment and staff, so it can be done right away. Way cool. I walked the x-rays back to him and he looked at them with me. There are my bones! (no tumor) There's my patella! No bone rubbing on bone. He thinks there may be some worn out cartiledge, but nothing very serious. His suggestion was a shot of cortisone into the knee as a first step, wait 3 weeks to see if that does the trick, then maybe surgery but he thought surgery was not the next step (no pun intended). He carries vials of cortisone around in his pocket, which I thought was pretty funny. "Pretty common technique, huh." Oh yes, I do this a lot. So first he gave me a shot to numb the knee, which felt as if someone was trying to make my reflexes react, very strange. Then he took this really, really long but very thin needle and stuck it halfway into my knee, behind my kneecap. It really didn't hurt, which surprised me. I told him I'd always heard that cortisone shots were very painful. "Depends on where they are and how they're done," he said. " I always numb the joints first, and large joints are easier to do." So I like him and go back in 3 weeks for a follow-up. Meanwhile the place is crawling (again, no pun intended) with people with walkers, crutches, in wheelchairs--a really depressing place to go. And an incredibly busy place as well.

So that's the knee, pumped up on steroids.

Back from Rhode Island last night at 6. Got there on Saturday around 4, left home at 9. Stopped at the outlet stores in Lake George in search of a small, covered casserole for Liza's present. Guess what? They don't make them smaller than 1.5 qts. No, really, they don't. Except, as Mark discovered, at Williams Sonoma, for $58. So I got her one anyway, just to give her a covered casserole. I went to Pfalzgraf, Corning and the Gap (no casseroles there, just a good sale on camisoles). Stopped at Target in New London. NOTHING.

Sunday we spent hanging around, visiting with each other, a nice day. Mark and I went grocery shopping in the morning to get food for the dinner we were to cook. Lamb chops (I hate lamb but Liza likes it and never gets to have it), asparagus, baked potatoes, petite peas, ice cream with chocolate sauce. She picked it all. Mark's sister and her new boyfriend (the catalyst for leaving her husband) came so that Lance (who would ever be attracted to a man named Lance, but he seems pretty nice and is a contractor) could take measurements to fix the basement stairs and look at the two windows that need to be replaced. Marilyn was pretty hyper and talked a lot, even (or maybe especially) with 2 glasses of wine in her. They finally left and we cooked and ate dinner.

Monday I got up really early to take Mark's car to the garage, then came home and fell asleep on the couch for hours while Liza watched her old sitcoms. Companionable, but worth driving 350 miles for? Well, when I nap, I really nap. Molly called, which Liza really liked; Anna called, which Liza really liked. She had already talked to Jenica. I kept expecting to hear from Henry. Will we ever get used to this? It seemed very sad. Anyway, we had a bottle of champagne and Liza opened her presents. Then we got all gussied up and went to the Shelter Harbor Inn for a $200 dinner. It was great and we love that restaurant.

Yesterday I slept pretty late (geez, I must have been tired), spent the morning visiting with Liza. Had a good time with her. Left at noon, my usual time. Trip home was fine, not much traffic. Started snowing (of course) as I got near Silver Lake. Almost all of the snow had melted, and the ice had gone out of the AuSable River. Wowie jet! That's actually right on time, it's usually out by St. Patrick's Day, it just seems early. Anyway, the house was 52 in the living room and the fish were fine but wondered where I'd been. I built a fire, turned up the heat, turned on the pump and discovered there was water in my well (flush away!). My sump pump ran last night--the frost is going out of the ground, creating ground water. Not much, I think, but some. I will conserve but I have water.

Bare ground didn't last long: by this morning we had 4" of powder on the ground (as if it would be somewhere else). It might melt later this week, if the sun comes out, but it's not supposed to be very warm.

And I was supposed to go to AuSable Forks to weed this afternoon but I cancelled the trip because my knee feels very tender and when you weed you crawl all over the floor, squat, stand up, squat, etc., and I just didn't feel like doing that today. I felt like a real wimp, but I rescheduled for Monday. She was very understanding. She's recovering from surgery--had her lymph nodes removed as a preventive measure because she had a vulvar melanoma. Awful. The lymphnodes were clean so at least the cancer hadn't spread.

And I just ran off 6 plastic canvas patterns of Easter-themed projects for a bookmobile patron. I have the strangest feeling that I did this last year for this woman. If I were better organized I would keep a file of plastic canvas patterns for each major holiday, but they're always available, thanks to Google and places like Mary's Crafts Page. This patron lives in senior citizen housing, and if I ever got organized she'd probably die and I'd never need the patterns again. That's been my experience with vertical files in the past.

Our automated system is down due to server errors so I may actually have to work on the weeding policy I'm writing for our member libraries. Ack, ack.

High and dry

It's so interesting to me how people react to bad news. I came to work today and announced that my well had run dry. One clerk said "Oh no! That's terrible, what are you going to do?" The other one said "Are you sure it's not your pump? It's probably your pump. I bet your pump is broken and you'll have to buy a new one. I used to hear about this all the time, you know." Her ex-husband sells pumps. A dry well, believe it or not, is definitely the lesser of two evils.

Yes, when I got up this morning my pump was running solid. Not good. When I flushed the toilet the tank did not fill up. When I turned on the faucet nothing came out. I know what that usually means. And it makes sense, too--I was down in the cellar hole last week to shut off the heater and the hole where the sump pump lives was dry. It's never dry. That means there's not much ground water. This is really strange, since my sump pump has been running all winter, but then there's seldom an explanation for what goes on in nature (in my opinion, anyway). So I'm dry. I always have about 7 gallons of water available in various containers, so I could get ready for work, but I neglected to fill the dogs water bowl last night. I did clean the fish tank, partly emptying it & refilling it, so they have a sparkling clean house. When I run out of water like this I have to laugh because the dogs drink nearly a gallon a day and I begrudge them that.

Anyway I'm going away for 4 days, and if it really is the well it should replenish itself during that time, enough for me to flush and shower often enough to live an ok life. I've been through this lots of times, almost every year for a stretch. I'll go to the laundromat, which is a drag but can be done easily after work (I still have an impressive stash of quarters, as if I knew this was coming). My laundromat has a TV and is clean and comfortable.

Today it's still spring. I went to the dump on my way to work, got rid of 1 bag of trash and 1 bag of garbage (yes, there's a difference). I like to compliment the dump lady on her truck, it makes her smile a big, wide smile. It's a beautiful Ford F150 Super Cab, dark silver like my car. Really nice truck.

It's rainy today (now I'll monitor every drop of rain). We didn't get enough snow this year to help the groundwater so I can only hope for a rainy spring. I'll set up my rain barrels now--I can use that water for flushing. Ah, life in the wilderness.

Today I'm devoting time to member library discards because we're running a file for the regional data base next week. This is utterly mindless work. I'm actually doing the nonfiction that I weeded from the AuSable Forks library. Too queer. I've been informed that use of the word "queer" in this way is a totally Midwestern thing, never done in the East.

Dating Strengths	Dating Weaknesses
1. Sense of Humor - 85.7% 2. Confidence - 72.2% 3. Flirtiness - 62.5% 4. Independence - 57.1% 5. Friendliness - 50%	1. Temper - 87.5% 2. Appearance - 77.8% 3. Financial Issues - 54.5%

Dating Strengths Explained
Sense of Humor - Men are attracted to people with a good sense of humor. Be sure to put yours on display! Confidence - You are sure of yourself and confident of your abilities. Displays of confidence go a long way when attracting a date. Flirtiness - Flirting is a good way to break the ice, and you are a pro at it. Being flirtatious will open up many dating opportunities. Independence - Your strong sense of independence comes in handy while dating. You are not held back or tied down; you are free to pursue your interests. Friendliness - Your friendliness makes you approachable and fun to be around. A wide circle of friends also works to your advantage on the dating scene.
Dating Weaknesses Explained
Temper - You need to work on controlling your temper. Don't let your anger get the best of you. A calm and rational persona is important when dating. Appearance - Devoting a greater effort at making good first impressions is a must. Try to be fit and develop a style if you want to catch a man's attention. Financial Issues - Your financial situation is not in good shape, and this does not bode well for you on the dating scene. Try to get on top of your financial difficulties.
Dating Strengths and Weaknesses Quiz by Dating Diversions

Yeah, we all know I'm funny and don't know how to manage my finances, and everyone knows about my temper.

Your dating personality profile: Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate. Stylish - You do not lack for fashion sense. Style matters. You wouldn't want to be seen with someone who doesn't care about his appearance. Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love.

Your date match profile: Practical - You are drawn to people who are sensible and smart. Flashy, materialistic people turn you off. You appreciate the simpler side of living. Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things. Intellectual - You seek out intelligence. Idle chit-chat is not what you are after. You prefer your date who can stimulate your mind.

Your Top Ten Traits 1. Liberal 2. Stylish 3. Big-Hearted 4. Adventurous 5. Intellectual 6. Wealthy/Ambitious 7. Sensual 8. Practical 9. Funny 10. Shy

Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Practical 2. Adventurous 3. Intellectual 4. Big-Hearted 5. Conservative 6. Outgoing 7. Athletic 8. Stylish 9. Traditional 10. Funny

Take the Online Dating Profile Quiz at Dating Diversions

Stylish? Well, I do like the Eddie Bauer, L.L. Bean look