While waiting in the psychiatrist's office I took a test in Time magazine about how spiritual I am and it turns out that I'm empirical and not into self-transcending. big whoop. I don't get so involved in doing things that I lose track of time. I don't give of myself completely to improve the world. I don't believe in miracles (well, not really). Boy do I sound like a cold, hard person. But I do love spring flowers and get lost in their beauty. It didn't ask me about the persona of animals and whether I believe they have as much of a "soul" as humans do. But since I don't really believe humans have a soul (as defined by most people) I guess that would be irrelevant. I just believe that animals exist as completely as humans do, that their lives have as much meaning as human lives do. Then why do I eat meat? Well, because I get hungry, I like the taste of some of it and it's a simple way to get protein. I don't know why Americans are so barbaric in the way their treat livestock, why they believe it's ok to treat animals so inhumanely (I like the application of the word inhumane to animals, it only emphasizes how little value we place on the life of anything that's not a member of the human race).

But I love my dogs. They are great in the morning, when the alarm goes off. They have their drowsy period, it doesn't last as long as mine does--which is a good thing on work days. This morning Chances was lying next to me, totally parallel, sound asleep. She never does that. Once they both started to stir they did their usual, which invoves nudging me a lot in the face with snotty wet noses. Tess has her vantage point, Chances has hers. They're both so excited and eager to be rewarded, having them in the morning is just so gratifying.

So today my goal is to actually write the documents I've been assigned to work on. Procedures for automating a library. How to determine what percentage of your collection is in the data base. What steps to take to barcode your collection. How to convert your holdings to machine readable format. I'd much rather continue with my clerical tasks, they're way more fun, but that's not really what I'm paid to do. Besides, I'll get caught one of these days, when the director asks me for the documents. There is some accountability in my job. Not much, but some.

The best autumn ever
The weather this fall has been phenomenal. We just had another banner weekend, temps in the 50s and nice autumn sunshine. Granted, the sun is low in the sky and shadows are long, but the air has such a unique quality to it that you can't help appreciating the change of seasons. It's more like November than October, the leaves are nearly all gone. Only the aspens--the poplars and quaking aspens, big-toothed aspens, of which we have a few, still have leaves. They make a gentle rustling sound in the wind, very nice to hear. I love November, when the woods become silent once again. It's interesting to me that the poplars and aspens are the first to get their leaves and the last to let go of them. What a tenacious tree, yet thought of as trash, having no value for furniture or firewood, just used for pulp in this area. In our family we have a romantic thing about the rustling of poplar leaves, both the visual and audio effect of them. They're beautiful against a deep blue sky.

So I had a good weekend, was outdoors-productive to the point of reading outside yesterday afternoon until I finally said "I don't have to be outside anymore, I've done enough of that to feel satiated!" I cleared furniture off my deck and stored it for the winter, removed my screen door, put up window boxes I'm going to plant spring bulbs in (I bought those great bulbs in RI, now I just have to buy the dirt), moved stuff out of the plow's way, inspected the area in general, and sat in the sun and read that damned book I'm valiantly plugging along with. We're up to 1399 now in Greenland and almost to chapter 3, "Love." Chapter 2 was "The devil," and has been very bleak, lots of death by starvation, vomiting, some murder, young girls too ugly to find husbands, starving livestock, depleting numbers of seals, etc. Let's hope love heals all. I'll never finish it by Thursday night's discussion but I'll work on it.

Had dinner with Lin Saturday night at my new favorite restaurant. Ralph is off hunting and fishing so we were free to stay as long as we wanted. We had a really nice time, had fun talking about the book and about life in general. Food was good, mood was good. She's working hard but has a new job that is less physical, about which she has mixed feelings. Me, I'm too old to have a physical job, wouldn't know how to deal with it.

Last night I watched Jon Stewart on 60 Minutes. I never watch that show anymore but wanted to see my boy Jon. He didn't disappoint me, was definite in his assertion that his is NOT a real news show, it's fake news and shame on the media for taking him seriously. No, they're not really broadcasting from Baghdad. Steve Croft did a pretty good job interviewing him, tried to laugh when appropriate but didn't really get the humor. Today's Washington Post online had a good article about Jon. My but he's getting a lot of attention since he trashed Crossfire last week. What a cutie.

Saturday night I was half watching SNL and there was pathetic Ashlee Simpson, lip-synching her music. When her second song came on they put on the wrong music and started to play the song she'd done earlier. She's such an unprofessional twerp she walked off the stage and later blamed her band, claiming they started to play the wrong song. In fact, they played the right song, it was the dub of her voice that was wrong. I was thinking about her this morning (gives you some idea of what my morning drive to work is like) and realized what a huge difference among performers there is. Others, more professional, who take their craft seriously would never have walked off the stage on national television. But of course, they would have been live--wouldn't they? Maybe I'm not realistic. Anyway, Jenica and I watched an MTV or VH1 something on her and she's a twit of course.

I started closing up the boat house yesterday afternoon. Phase one. Empty the refrigerator (just in time--Jim and Jamie shut the power off on Friday, naturally without checking the contents of our fridge), strip the bed, start organizing the stuff that will get mushed into the bins. Will it all fit? It seems as if there's more than there was last year. Only one way to find out if it fits, and I'll try to do that this weekend. I just didn't have the motivation to do it yesterday, even though it was warm. I guess I'm too used to closing camp when it's cold and miserable and I have to wear a down vest. Can't do it when it's sunny and pleasant. The dogs had their swim and I glanced at the 12 dark yellow trees among the purple of the naked ones on the far shore. Very satisfying for all. My there was a lot of foodstuff there--I sampled the Hawaiian Punch juices left by the O'Neill-Rogers people. Boy are they awful. I can see why kids love them. I now have 4 kinds of beer and a year's supply. Will bring the rest of the liquor home the next time, save it for next year. Can make no promises about how much will be left. I do like Kaluha in my coffee, but then I don't drink coffee at home. Like to sip tequila but don't much drink alone.

I like Jenica's comments about walking across the library while unbuttoning her pants. I just did the same thing here at work. I always start unzipping as I approach the bathroom, and always leave the stall door open, can't stand the tiny space created by a closed door. We have a small staff and it's usually ok, but I have to hustle to slam it shut when I hear someone come into the bathroom. I always leave the door open at home and am amused by friends who live alone and do the same when they visit me. Force of habit. Of course, there are friends who don't shut the door tightly and have the dogs bash the door open to see what's going on and say hello, as they always do when I'm sitting on the toilet. It seems to be their favorite time to attempt communication with me. As near as I get to eye level, which is all fine until Tess wants to jump onto my lap. No, no, no. They love to do that "go round and round and round" thing against my shins.

Got to talk to Molly on Saturday, that was a treat. She always calls me before I call her. I'm poor at gauging the time difference. I can remember when talking to her on the phone was traumatic, the sound quality was poor and it was just a reminder that she was far, far away and unavailable. Now I see her regularly and the phone calls sound local and we're easy and relaxed with each other, familiar with each other's lives and routines. I can picture her home and city, the view from her windows, the weather in the summer, the sky, the sulfur smell that's sometimes there, her patios (including the one where the laundry hangs, which gives me the willies to stand on).

Not much going on this week, just a few things. Appointment with psychiatrist tomorrow. I'll be sad, will be glad I went. Thursday is the book group, looking forward to that, will be glad I have that. Will have a hard time deciding on our next book, especially after this one! We have a union breakfast on Thursday to hear what the members want us to ask for at the bargaining table this year. We're ready to start negotiations, contract expires in Dec. blech.

What a beautiful day. 50 and sunny and the air is pure autumn. So much autumn, full of rotting and molding leaves that I had a raging asthma attack, but I can still appreciate the beauty. I got to sleep late, until 8 this morning because I had to stay home for the familly trust conference call at 9. I awoke to the smell of dog poop. Chances is having some sort of intestinal problem (again) and has been pooping in the house for the past few days. Man oh man does it smell foul. This is a small bedroom we're talking about, folks. Of course, when she poops in the hallway during the day it stinks up the whole living room too. Oh well, I cleaned it up and sprayed it with my current favorite, OdoBan, opened the window wide and voila! good as new. Had the conference call, during which we forced ourselves to talk for 20 minutes even though we had little to say. Then the dogs ran away. I called and called after a while. Jackson returned but the brown girls were gone. Finally a man knocked on my door to tell me that he was with a group of schoolchildren from Plattsburgh (he's the bus driver) and my dogs had gone in the bog with them. Swell. I was due to leave for work soon but felt obligated to make an effort to get them. They weren't due out until 11:30, I was due at work at noon. I ended up walking all the way to the top of the bluffs (hence the asthma), where I found the group of kids, maybe 2nd graders, all very excited and very cute, just finishing up lunch and posing for pictures, and my dogs mingling happily with them. The teachers explained that the dogs may have had a snack or two and had loved being part of the group. I gasped that yes, I'm sure they did, they love climbing the bluffs with people and they especially love children. Tess came right to me but Chances hid and had to be dragged over to me. pig. Anyway, I made it down the path and home and got to work 45 minutes late. I'd say the walk was pretty but I didn't really enjoy it--it was faster and farther than I wanted to go and I couldn't breathe very well and I was aggravated by the dogs. But it's a beautiful day and the woods are still very pretty. That's a long walk, though, nearly 3 miles I think. I prefer the bog part of it, just a mile.

My week has been quiet. Working away on data entry and weeding. I've rounded the corner on the final row in the stacks, still in the S's but making progress. I finished the batch of 400 or so of the free CD's we decided to make records for. That turned out not to be so hard after all, just time consuming. Such an interesting batch of stuff! We didn't do records for all 3,000, just the ones we sent to our automated libraries. Now I'm back to working on Schroon Lake's collection (you know, doing the work a clerk should be doing, but not complaining about it). I find it pretty relaxing but hard on my back.

Went to the chiropractor and had him snap my neck. I know, crack, not snap. He's working on my sciatica, but there's only so much that can be done. My trip to RI wasn't as bad for it as I expected it to be but I sat on my jacket as a pillow to tilt my pelvis a bit and that seemed to help. I had some muscle spasms in my shoulders which he worked on. I asked him if acupuncture can help tinnitus and he said it might, depending on the cause. Then he got all excited about my hearing and tested it with some hearing forks. Says I have some hearing loss through the air but my hearing through the vibrations in the bones is ok. That's what I would expect with my tinnitus. So I should go to an audiologist. I'm sour on them because the one I used to go out with in RI was such a jerk--but that was 20 years ago and I should move on, huh. As I said to the chirop., I'd just like to hear what silence sounds like.

I got my house so hot one night with the stove fired up that I had to open the door and cool it off. It was Weds. and I was headed to Ken's so I knew it would cool off some by the time I got home but it was pretty funny. Turns out it had been a sunny day and I had left the fire going when I went to work, so the combined effect must have been a strain on the poor dogs. Ken is fine. We had a nice evening together. Ham steaks and macaroni and cheese, plus green beans. He proudly bought Oreos because he's decided those are my favorite cookies. I suppose they are, but I really like good homemade chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal raisin cookies are good too.

I've been feeling pretty good this week. Liza and I had some good Henry time over the weekend. Talked about him, thought about him. He's everywhere in that house for me, as he is for her, and we talked about that. We cried but we also laughed, as we always do, and she talked about her feelings more than she sometimes does. I liked that. We talked about how much we love each other, just so that we would both know. We talked about whether she should sell her house and buy something near me but I said I thought she should stay there for as long as she can--it's her home, it's where she likes to be, Mark lives there and she'd have to live alone if she lived near me (but where it's warmer). We talked about her sister's situation--Alzheimers and moving to a retirement community but incapable of getting rid of anything that she's collected over the past 40 years. We laughed about being in that situation ourselves. I think we both felt better at the end of the weekend, and we're looking forward to Thanksgiving, when we'll have a little more time together.

And now I have to get to work, if only for a few hours. This weekend is supposed to be really nice, 50's and sunny. I hope to get some winter prep. work done. Remove the screen door, finish stacking firewood (I only have about 4 wheelbarrow loads left to do, then I'd like to move some of last year's wood into the shed), put the mower away, put the furniture under the deck, here's the big one: close the boat house. yuck. big job. I can't do camp by myself so Jim and Keela will have to do that one. Sat. night Lin and I are going out to dinner, which I'm looking forward to. We'll go to Rustique, my new favorite restaurant. I won't feel obligated to take any long walks, I just did that.

"Your Intellectual Type is Word Warrior. This means you have exceptional verbal skills. You can easily make sense of complex issues and take an unusually creative approach to solving problems. Your strengths also make you a visionary. Even without trying you're able to come up with lots of new and creative ideas. And that's just a small part of what we know about you from your test results. "

This comes from http://www.tickle.com, where you can get your free IQ test. Let's just say that my IQ isn't what it used to be and that I never believed algebra would help me in my adult life, but now I see that it would help me score higher on internet IQ tests if I'd ever learned it in junior high school. But they put me in that teach-yourself program and I was incapable of learning it on my own so there you go.

I went to RI for the weekend. We had a good time, really enjoyed being together, Mark, Liza and I. Liza told me all about the Rankins--I mean all about the Rankins. They're impossible, and having an impossible time packing up the things from their home of 40 years. Like, they're refusing to deal with it in a rational way. I had to talk to both of them on the phone on Sunday, which is a strain on me because they're not kind to my mother so naturally I don't care much for them. It's hard for me to feel sorry for them for many reasons, but mostly I'm protective of my mother. Anyway, we did other things that were fun, and we spent a lot of time sitting in the living room having nice visits. We ate lobsters, clams and mussels and we went shopping a little. Yesterday morning we went bulb shopping and found tons of wonderful bulbs. I'm thinking of putting up window boxes under my living room windows and putting spring bulbs in them, figuring that they'll come up and bloom long before anything else does, so I bought some crocuses, tete a tete daffodils, something else new, and then some indoor bulbs that are hard to find but smell delicious and Liza and I always used to give each other. I left yesterday at noon so I could be in Keeseville by 7 to pick up Jackson, who had been boarded at the vet's. It was a short trip to RI--I'd only been there since Sat. afternoon, but it was good to go. It's hard to be in that house, Henry is everywhere for both Liza and me, and we talked about that. We agreed that every time we look out our windows we think of him, when we look at the vistas he created with his chain saw. His living legacy.

It was cold when I got home--the house was 50, and it took about 4 hours to get it up to 64, with a fire and the heat on. Tess was thrilled to be home and to be with Jackson again. It turns out she just adores him. She started wagging her tail like mad when she saw him. She wanted to go to bed at about 9 but I didn't get in bed until 1. It was 27 last night with a heavy frost. We're done with whatever semblance of early fall we had. I'm making a commitment to fires now, burning the first load of wood I got in June. I'll have to work with last year's wood--it's like an orchestra, working with the 3 wood piles I have. First we hear from the string section, then percussion, then winds.

And now I'm back at work, getting ready to gear up for the week. The director leaves this morning for the rest of the week for the statewide library conference. There was a board meeting last night, and if she's planning to pursue her charges against me presumably she would meet with the board about it in executive session. I was wondering if she would do that, but there wasn't a quorum last night so she didn't have an opportunity to do that if she had intended to. So another month goes by without my knowing what she plans to do. I'm hoping that her feedback from the board president is that it would be too expensive to go forward, since they've already spent a fortune in legal fees and still have no paper in my file.

I just had to speak with a member of the AuSable Forks library board about automating their library. He was impressed with how much I knew and how well I expressed myself. "How long have you been here?" Twenty years. "That's all? You know so much!" well, geez, I hope I do. to the director: "Where did you find her?" Director: "I didn't have that pleasure." As if she would have hired me. Well, maybe she would have, who knows.

A day so near perfection
was yesterday. I stayed home--it was 60 and sunny, golden sun and the bluest sky it knows how to be. The leaves are moving past peak but the forest still glows with yellows and oranges. We're into the raining of leaves phase of autumn now. I made sure I went to bed at a decent hour, took a pill so I got enough sleep, and set out to enjoy the day by being productive. I paid bills, walked them out to the mailbox with the dogs--all 4 of us thoroughly enjoyed the walk. I love walking with happy dogs, it's such a pleasure. I stacked 8 wheelbarrow loads of firewood and can see the end of this process. About 4-5 more days and I'll have the load all stacked. Not bad, not bad at all. I admired my newly painted coffee table. It was supposed to be burgundy, according to the paint can, but it's really more of a berry color, too purple really, but at least it's not green anymore. I dumped out my flower pots and took them off the deck railing. I'm not looking at dead plants anymore. This cheers me up a lot. A LOT. I tidied up around the outside of my house just the slightest bit. I sat in the sun in a chair and read for 1 1/2 hours. I did not allow myself to read Newsweek or Vanity Fair. I made myself read The Greenlanders. This is a good book but it's a saga. A real saga. We're in Greenland and there are a lot of people with really weird unpronounceable and very long names so you can't say them to yourself as you read. They have horses, sheep and cows and hunt reindeer into pits to slaughter them. They each have their own spoon, which they carry around with them in a pouch, and since there are no trees they have to barter livestock for lumber. As soon as you become attached to a character he dies. It's very well written, and I'm on page 135 of 581. Leave it to Jane Smiley, who has to be one of the most versatile writers ever.

I went to Ken's for dinner and he had cooked pot roast, only this time (at last) he got it right and actually cooked it long enough so that it was tender and tasted good. I had Southern Comfort (I bought him a bottle because he likes it) and reminded myself that I don't like SoCo. We watched tv for a while but I left there because it was really boring pre-debate stuff. I went to Linda's and ended up watching the debate with them. I didn't want to but there it was, right in front of me. I needed 2 drinks to get through it and even then I was still sober (Bush has a sobering effect on me, apparently).

So I had a good day and I felt good. No despair, no deep unrelenting sorrow. The warm sunshine helped, the beauty of my homeland helped, my dogs helped, and it all made me feel good, just good. I can do this.

I just finished a marathon meeting, 3 hours long, the last 20 minutes of which was spent with the director conjecturing about what we could raffle off to the staff to get them to raise money for a new bookmobile. I started to go to sleep. We were all looking at each other with pained expressions on our faces: has she gone completely mad?

My weekend was good, a combination of nice, easy, enjoyable time and driving dog marathon and sleeping dysfunctional blob. Saturday I had a vet's appointment for Jackson on Westport (an hour away) so I took all three dogs for the ride. The appointment cost me $45 and was more like therapy. I took a urine sample, discovered there's nothing wrong with him. David said it sounds as if his peeing is territorial--there's something outside that's making him feel threatened and makes him feel a need to prove that the house is his territory. This is one big reason I don't like male dogs. There is something out there, the girls bark long and loudly when I leave them out. Last night I was up late and heard something that sounded like a bobcat, but that could have been my imagination. or not. Anyway, after Westport I went to Port Douglas to feed Julie's 6 cats while she and Kevin were in northern Canada camping in the wilderness. Then to the grocery store for last-minute supplies, then to the cemetery to pick up the pots an clean up Henry's gravestone and stare at it a bit. Then to Linda's to say hello and firm up plans for the evening. Then home, 5 hours and 100 miles after I started. The foliage is now spectacular, peaking this weekend. The colors are amazing and brilliant, bright oranges and yellows with a few reds. Truly beautiful.

Saturday night I had my cocktail party on the boat house porch. Erdvilas was the bartender, after saying he couldn't do it because he injured his back (of course he injured himself--he always injures himself when he comes here, that way he can't do any work). When it came down to it he couldn't have anyone else tend bar, though, so he did a superb job. Record crowd this year, 13 I think--the porch was full, SRO, all chairs full. The view was amazing, everyone drank and ate a lot and had a wonderful time. It was really warm, so different from the year we all bundled up and I served hot cider. It was 60 out and the far shore just glowed from the leaves. We had a great time. I love those people. After the party we went to Linda's for Thanksgiving dinner, turkey with all the trimmings. Our usual evening. People wanted to know where Jenica was and were sure she had been there for the past two years. I went home and was unable to sleep, finally taking a pill and getting to bed at 3. This is not good.

Sunday I got up late and spent the day mournfully on the couch, watching tv and dozing. A totally wasted day. I was pretty much miserable and miserable with myself for succumbing to it. I had high hopes for a productive weekend, long list of things to accomplish. The weather wasn't bad but it was cool and I couldn't get the house warm. Didn't matter, I really didn't get up until nearly 3 in the afternoon. Truly I hate that. I had dinner with Annie, her brother and their mother. That was nice. They had been at my party, rookies to the event, and had really enjoyed it. We had a nice evening together. Rush wasn't here, he's busying campaigning. She said it looks pretty good for his reelection, although sometimes she wishes it didn't look so good and she'd have a husband instead of a Congressman. She's awfully good about it. That night I slept better, felt better, was more normal.

Yesterday I got up at a normal hour and had a productive day. It was cold, only up to 43 all day. The house was 58 until I built a fire in the stove, then I got it up to 70. I cleaned the bathroom, tidied the living room, painted the coffee table (again), went to the boat house to retrieve my liquor, looked over my bills (groan) and did a few other productive-type things. Amazing what a difference a day makes. I went to Linda's around 4:30 and spent the evening with them, in front of their fireplace with 4 pugs and Chances, sipping bourbon and eating leftover turkey. We had a really nice time. At one point E. went outside for a walk (god knows why but he claimed it was because he couldn't stand the music we were going to play) and we listened to a bunch of 45's that Linda had bought for $1 each. Steve Miller Band, Ferry Cross the Mersy, Hang on Sloopy, Under the Boardwalk--just a fine bunch of stuff, we thought. It was really a nice evening, the kind of time that Linda and I have built our relationship on and love to share. He mixed us after-dinner drinks that were layered, his forte, and we visited a bit before I went on to Ken's to deliver some turkey soup and say hello to him.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, only got about 3 1/2 hours sleep finally, and that was fitful. By the time I realized I couldn't sleep it was too late to take a pill because I knew I'd have to wake up soon. This sleeping pattern sucks, but I'll get it straightened out. Meanwhile, I had my bed turned on to high and Tess was under the covers heating it up even hotter, which certainly didn't help things AT ALL. It was so hot. Then she woke up when I turned the light on and crawled out from under the covers to sleep halfway on top of me. What's with her? She has to be in contact with my body at all times while sleeping these days. Maybe that's her version of Jackson's peeing. I like it but the other night while I slept on the couch I woke with a terrible sinus headache because she'd been sleeping on my head.

So anyway I started reading The Greenlanders, the book our group is reading this month. What an undertaking. So many Scandinavian names! So man characters! So much death! But it's good. I'm not sure how far I'll get by our meeting, it's 500 pages after all and I just started it. I'll do my best. It's interesting, life in Greenland in probably the 1600's, something like that.

I stacked not a stick of firewood all weekend, but am planning to stay home tomorrow and commence stacking. I stacked Friday night and am in pretty good shape, confident that I will get it all in the woodshed soon. I'm burning the wood I bought in June and stacked in July. It seems fairly dry, not completely but at least it burns.

Molly send me an encouraging and supportive email. I am having a hard time and I am pretty aimless right now. Who knows why, and who knows what would help. I mourn specifically, then once in a while I just feel generally sad. But mostly I just miss my brother. I need to look to the future, she's right, I need to plan my life. Planning my life at this point in the calendar always consists of getting ready to make it through the winter, emotionally and physically. I feel too crippled to plan anything about myself. Then I have days like yesterday, when I feel cheerful, capable, ok, sort of gingerly happy. I know I'm ok, fragile but surviving. I have some very dark moments at night, which is why I really need to establish a normal sleep pattern (aside from the obvious reason that exhaustion is not a good thing). That's a good project for me, a good plan. It's sort of an assignment that my psychiatrist gave me. I saw my internist last week. His assignment is for me to lose weight. Oh sure, easy for him to say. I gained 8 pounds in the 3 months between visits, 7 months prior to that. Too much Honey Nut Cheerios he things, but my good cholesterol is up. I think I can have a life plan that revolves around losing weight and gaining sleep and reading The Greenlanders.

Is it really Thursday already? I've worked and worked on Ticonderoga's holdings and have entered books and recorded books on 36 of the 75 pages (legal sized) that they've sent in to be entered. I'm a hell of a clerk, aren't I. Yesterday and today I checked new authorities for 2300 author and subject entries and 230 series. That means I looked them all over to see if the new entries in the data base were correct. What I found were things like this: people have made short records, using entries for Brando, Marlin (no, he was not a fish) and have put up to 3 authors in the author field (which is intended to be searched for a single entry--does this make sense only to a librarian?). I spent hours on this project, the whole time composing an email to all the online libraries that was both tactful yet firm about the quality of records in the data base. That is, if you MUST create short records, could you PLEASE give them at least a little bit of thought? And WHY are you creating short records in the first place? So far I haven't written the email. I'm getting less and less interested in it with each passing minute, but I really have to address the multiple authors in the author field issue. Morons.

Last night I went out for dinner. I used to look forward to nights like that with great anticipation. Not so much these days. I took Ken, we met Bill and Fred. It was nice, the food was good, conversation swell. I ate too much but had the fried ice cream with raspberry Grand Marnier sauce as before. It was delicious. Garlic mashed potatoes with gravy and delicious homemade real butternut squash to go with my steak and gorgonzola sauce. All quite good. And it was festive. And, better yet, I was home by 8:15. Cost me $50 but it was worth it. Ken liked it, the restaurant was quiet so we could all hear and participate in the conversation. He told me about the vice presidential debate, which I could not stand to watch. I think I can't stand Cheney more than I can't stand Bush. I think he's very dangerous.

Today is even more beautiful, sunny and warm than yesterday. And I'm inside, staring at a computer screen. This afternoon I have to go to a videoconference. It dawned on me this morning as I was dressing that a videoconference means that not only can I see them, but they can see me as well. Rats! Don't know how long it will last for, nor do I want to go in the first place. I'm dealing with someone who's head of one of the court systems in New York State, setting up legal resource centers in 4 of our member libraries. Again, not a project I'm keen on doing, but we can't say no to these things. I used to love doing these things but then I got old and my brother died.

I called the vet yesterday and talked about Jackson. He's a funny man, that David. He said I would need to bring both the dog and a urine sample in. I said I was hoping he would tell me I have to have the dog destroyed. He said with a laugh that I am a cold and heartless person. I said Jackson is peeing huge puddles on the floor every day and I don't know where the pee is coming from because I cut his water supply off in the morning. He said the pee is coming from his urinary tract. I said David is a very funny man and scheduled an appointment for Saturday morning. Jackson has a sixth sense and did not pee on the floor yesterday.

Last night all three dogs disappeared at midnight and didn't return until 3 a.m. Then Tess puked 5 times in the bedroom between 3 and 6:30. Apparently she ate a lot of dirt--the expensive dog food I feed her is not enough. It was really disgusting to clean up before I got ready for work, and grossed her out so much she lost her appetite for breakfast. Hope she's ok. I took Chances with us to dinner last night and while she waited in the car she ate my zinc lozenges (which are to prevent me from getting a cold). At least SHE won't be getting sick this week. So each dog has been up to something lately, no one has been excluded or ignored. What a troop.

Linda and Erdvilas arrive tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to seeing Linda (and I accept the fact that I'll see E. too), I miss her. This will be our final visit until May. They'll be here for nearly a week. The press release she's written for the EPA about gas mileage for the 2005 models is being released today so she had to stay in Ann Arbor for an extra day.

I listened to The Kingston Trio on the way to work this morning. There are very few people who can relate to this. Henry, Molly and I used to listen to them all the time in the early 60's. We'd sit by the primitive record player we had at Rome Avenue. Molly's favorite (as I recall) was Nick Shane, mine was Dave Guard. They were both pretty cute. They used to wear shirts with button-down collars and these tight pants and loafers. Anyway, some of these songs are really funny and some are just so much fun to listen to. There's one that always made me laugh about a toreador and his girlfriend--"she cries when the horns are too near." I mean really. But then they sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone and I listened to the lyrics--simple but at the time they seemed poignant. Were those simpler times or did we know we were we gearing up for something really complicated and awful in Vietnam? I can remember watching the news every night and seeing bodies, blood, shooting, jungles, and getting so used to it that it just seemed part of daily life. Never really dawned on me that those were people's sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, or that these people were being damaged by their experiences there. Ah, hindsight.

There are only 5 of us at work today, and it's 5 of the good ones. This makes it a festive atmosphere. Jocularity, as Father Mulcahey on M*A*S*H would say. We all feel cooperative and friendly toward each other. Plus we get paid today. Yahoo! I can pay some bills. My car insurance went up $200/year as a result of my accident. So, since they paid out $10,000, how long will it take me to "pay them back?" A formula I don't care enough to figure out.

I got my favorite cider last night, and my favorite kind of apples. I stopped to buy them at the orchard and there was a 13 year old boy with a 9 week old chocolate Lab. They were both pretty cute. The dog's name was Joey. I didn't ask what the boy's name was but he didn't know much about puppies and was clutching the dog in the most inappropriate way, by the shoulders with the bottom half of the dog hanging down unsupported and facing out (with his pee-pee showing), the way you do for a joke (only he didn't know it was a joke). It was a nice puppy but they had bought it at a pet store. I hate that. Anyway, I was happy to see such a cute puppy but happier that my puppy is now older than a year and settling down a bit. And happy to be able to buy unpasteurized cider, since the biggest cider mill here has shut down after they found e coli. in some of the cider. So now I'm drinking James' cider, which is the best in the area and is hard to find. And I have a bag of Macoun apples, which only come in season in late Sept/early Oct. and are crisp and sweeter than Macintosh.

Yesterday passed by ok. I started it out with a bang by crying all the way, all the way to Plattsburgh, which was ok because I had an 8:00 appointment with my psychiatrist. Pity the poor girl I shared the waiting room with. Anyway, the appointment went well: he of course thinks we need to see each other soon. I compromised on three weeks (he wanted 2, I wanted a month--or later). He thinks part of the problem is that I don't get enough sleep--4 hours a night, and he's probably right about that. So I have Ambien, which I've taken before and does work well. The tv commercials for it are really funny, they involve these very attractive, normal-looking people who have golden retrievers and wonderful looking homes who wake up when the sun rises over their beds. Anyway I took one last night and got to sleep by midnight--should have gone sooner but had to wrap Bill's birthday presents and had forgotten about them.

Tonight Ken, Bill, Fred and I are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate. Going to a nice restaurant not far from home, a small one that has tons of entrees and has really good food. I guess I'm looking forward to it--as much as I'm looking forward to anything these days. It'll be nice for the 4 of us to be together, we always enjoy being together and I know the food will be good. I got Bill a small coffee maker, which he recently said he would use if he had. I also got him a pound of Green Mtn. Coffee (decaf) and some filters for it, both of which Tess unwrapped this morning while I was getting dressed. Oh how I love my dogs.

This weekend is a big deal in the neighborhood. Lots of people come and there's plenty of activity. I get Monday off (Columbus Day) and may leave early Friday afternoon to do some shopping. I'm having a cocktail party on the boat house porch Sat. afternoon before our traditional Thanksgiving dinner that night. Linda always cooks a turkey for our big group of people. The judge from Mass. and his wife, plus their son and new daughter-in-law (whom I really, really like) will be there, as well as assorted other people. I always really like this weekend but am not as excited about it this year, all my emotions are sort of dulled right now. The leaves are pretty much peak, which is nice for all the visitors.

I didn't stack my firewood yesterday, got home too late. Am falling behind, it's been 2 days since I stacked (bless me Father for I have sinned, it's been 2 days since I've stacked my last stick) and I won't have time to do any tonight. Oh dear. Well, I've got time.

Went to the chiropractor last night and got a lesson in the meridians in our body and pressure points. He's pressing on my pressure points, trying to release energy to treat my sciatica. So far it's meeting with limited success. My neck and shoulders are better, he cracks my neck every time I go there and has treated the muscle spasms in my shoulders well. I'm not sure what the treatment for sciatica is but I see my internist on Friday so maybe I'll talk to him about it.

Am having problems with Jackson lately, he pees on the floor every single day. I'll call the vet today, yes I will. I'm dreading this call. I don't want to admit defeat about this dog, and cannot afford to spend much money on this problem, but he's ruining my floor and I will not have a dog who pees on my floor (well, ok, Chances sometimes pees on the rug, but she's different, and she doesn't do it every single day).

So today is cool, not maybe as cool as yesterday. There's been heavy frost on my windshield each morning and yesterday it was 21. It's sunny and crisp, yeah, that's the word--crisp. It's nice, this autumn thing. I do like fall weather, it has a special quality to it. The foliage is certainly pretty, and it is time to move along to the next phase of the year. I need to have my wood stove worked on, and I sure could be using it now. I was 58 in the house when I got home last night and I only got it up to 61 before I went to bed. Not good enough, but having Tess lie on top of me on the couch, with Chances curled up on my feet does help, nestled under the down blanket Jenica gave me for Christmas.

And now I'll spend the morning doing data entry, which is a peaceful way to spend time. I am enjoying this clerical stuff, it's not very challenging but I clean up the records when I need to and that requires some skill and judgment that I know the others wouldn't be using. Oh I'm just so special! And then I'll weed some more. I'm on the Si's now, moving toward the end of the fiction. The S's are very, very long. I've been in them forever. I should do some book selection, read reviews, make some decisions. You'd think I'd WANT to do that, wouldn't you. For now I'll get another cup of coffee and type in some data.

Someone just asked me how my weekend was. Not bad, actually. I went to Canton (again) on Friday for a workshop on Excel. The morning was sort of a blur--your basic improving your Excel skills, but the afternoon was great fun, charts and graphs, and we had a great time with that. I got home at 5:30, stacked firewood, had a relaxing evening. Thursday night I had my book group and we stayed at Mary Lou's house until 11:00 so I was tired. We did Mysteries of Pittsburgh this month and our basic comment was that we're all too old to be reading coming of age books. There were only 4 of us there so we had mostly conversations about ourselves, our lives, etc. We thought the book was full of unlikely events and characters until it came to me in a flash that we've all, at some point in our lives, had our lives filled with unlikely characters and been involved in unlikely events. We all agreed that was true and felt much better about the book. Our next book is Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders. 500 pages, better get going.

So Saturday was cloudy and cold. Lin wanted to go to town, since Ralph was gone and that meant she would feel free to have a good time and stay as long as she wanted. We left in the late morning, had lunch at Applebee's (I spend time with people who like rituals, we always eat at the bar, have a beer and order something good from the menu). She was kind enough to buy me lunch, since I'm totally tapped until Friday's paycheck. I spent $70 on prescriptions last week--but of course I got $1200 worth of drugs so I can't complain. Anyway, we went to Sam's Club and bought about 400 pounds worth of stuff At Sam's you never really go by cost, you go by weight. We each got 48 (not 50) pounds of dog food. We had a good time, sauntered through the store. Floor cleaner! Garbage bags! Coffee! Canned milk! And determined that we are most unimaginative when we shop there, always getting the same stuff. But that's what Sam's is good for. Then we went to Walmart and I got 2 new dog bowls for $2 each, and 8 new pairs of socks for $8. This was quite good for me, resisting the temptation of TJ Maxx, where they have the socks I REALLY want that cost more money. Anyway, I got home at a decent hour and did not take a nap, but did not stack firewood either. Instead I watched Love, Actually, which I really enjoyed. Hugh Grant doesn't have a big enough part but he is awfully cute as the prime minister, and they're all awfully British and it's a movie that's mostly happy and cheerful in which the people are appealing. I like the part where the guy who can't get laid in Britain decides to go to America, knowing his British accent will make him irresistible. He announces proudly he's going to a place called Wisconsin, then lands at the Milwaukee airport and asks the taxi driver to take him to a bar, any bar.

Yesterday I was incredibly (by my standards) productive. I sprayed every leaf and stem of my huge philodendron (with a wingspan of 6') with insecticide to combat the scale it has. Today it looks a bit droopy but hopefully it will not only survive but prosper. I put the permanent license plates on my car. I went to Sunday dinner. We had Ken's homemade baked beans, of which he is incredibly proud. He makes them about twice a year. There were 6 of us, a real crowd, and he was really pleased to have so many there to eat his product. We had a good time. I went home and stacked 8 wheelbarrow loads of firewood, then went to camp to get some stuff from the boat house and look it all over. This weekend is my Columbus Day cocktail party on the porch. Jim took the water out last week and turned off the power in the boathouse, not thinking about the food that might be in the refrigerator there. What can you do. It was a beautiful day, sunny and slightly cool. I saw my friends who are here for a week, staying just down the hill from my house. My dogs met their new border collie and Tess and Katie got along really well. Katie wanted to herd Tess and T. wasn't quite sure how to be herded but she was game for anything. Katie is a working herder, since Richard and Becky have a big flock of sheep in Maryland. Chances disappeared for an hour or so without Tess, which convinced me that someone had taken her home with them. I sat on the couch, looking out the window while hugging Tess, telling myself that this is why I have more than one dog. I finally went looking for her and found her waving goodbye to the last car that was at the bog. It was really strange that she was there without Tess, but she's been acting pretty odd this fall. I guess it's the change of seasons. Jackson slept outside 3 nights in a row, which is certainly fine with me. My friend Julie just reported to me that she lost 2 cats last week (she still has 6 left) and we tried to figure out what might have killed them. Fisher, I think, but perhaps a coyote.

What I didn't do over the weekend was paint the bathroom door burgundy, but I can do that this weekend. I'd like to strip the coffee table too but that's a pretty involved process for me. There will also be lots of people visiting this weekend, which may be just too distracting.

This morning while I was in the shower Tess knocked the cast iron skillet off the bureau by the dinner table, breaking a pottery plate in the process. Now what was it about the skillet, which was in a plastic bag that appealed to her? I could hear the crash all the way upstairs in the shower. When I called her she came upstairs, wiggling like a fish in her "I did something wrong" mode, with a piece of the broken plate in her mouth. Last night while I was watching my tv marathon (3 hours of the Gilmore Girls, now that was actually enjoyable for me, followed by Law & Order, then Nip/Tuck (plastic surgeons), then The Shield (cops) then at last I was sleepy enough to go to bed at 1), Tess slept on top of me the entire time. This is not really like her, she usually does that for an hour or so, then gets down and sleeps on the floor. Last night she slept on top of me for hours. Not good for my acid reflux (as Julie said, I can now tell my doctor that it feels as if a 50-lb. dog is lying on top of me) but I have to admit I did enjoy it. It'll be nice this winter if she continues. I got my winter comforter from the boat house and put it on the bed. Now THERE'S a sign of the changing seasons.

I overslept this morning, something I've been doing a lot of lately. I can't sleep at night. I just finished a double-shot mocha latte, my third encounter with caffeine this morning. Time to switch to decaf. I have to do data entry today, which is mindlessly rewarding. Doing retrospective conversion of a member library's collection--converting bibliographic information into machine readable format. That just means I look up their books in our data base and add their holdings symbol, plus some other information about their books. We can make anything sound complicated, can't we. Anyway I enjoy doing it for a while, and I was out on the road 3 days last week so I'm way behind in my work and need to do something mindless to feel productive. I need to weed, too. And my desk is an unbelievable mess.

I think a lot about my brother lately, as we all have been doing. My car has become my crying chamber. This morning's thoughts were Do I really care if I live or die? My brother was dying just a few months ago. What did that feel like? Did he really just finally give up? Did he know he was dying? He didn't want to die. Part of my reason for living was the pleasure of having him for my brother. Now that's gone. All that time he had all those things wrong with him, why couldn't he just have lived on and on with those things wrong with him? (can you tell I have an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow morning?) I'm trying to be ok about all of this but sometimes I just feel as if I'm not ok, I can't move forward, I can't accept it that my brother died and I can't stop crying and I can't stop feeling the pain of losing him. Sometimes I think it's because I don't talk to anyone about it, then I think that I don't WANT to talk to anyone about it, it's my pain, my love for him, my family, and there are some things that I want to keep to myself. But is that the best way for me to handle this? Guess I'll get some insight tomorrow. The 5th.

So which Madonna song am I? Well, I didn't think I would be ANY one of them, I challenged Quizilla to come up with one, and surprize, surprize they didn't do too badly. None of the questions had a thing to do with me.

I rushed in to work this morning, convinced I had a 7:30 meeting. No, dear, that's TOMORROW morning, when you were planning to have your blood tested. jerk. Now you'll have to get to Pbg at 7 to do that, to make sure you get to the meeting on time. Now THERE's a real challenge. Leave home by 6:15. as if.

When I got home last night, after having a really nice day there was a huge puddle of pee at the end of the hallway, and pee on the rug in the bathroom. Are those 2 dogs having a contest? Do they pee in tandem? Does one remind the other that they CAN pee in the house? I can't stand this. There were also little teeny turds scattered around the living room rug, blending in perfectly with the navy background. I spread newspaper the whole length of the hallway, hoping to deter Jackson because I thought what he liked was peeing on the floor. No, he just likes peeing in the house. I think I'll call the vet, but first I'm taking away their water during the day. Let them die of dehydration.

I had a good day yesterday. Long drive through the woods and lakes to training. Training all day (only dozed in the afternoon). I like the guy who did the afternoon training, have been to several of his sessions over the past 10 or so years. The morning trainer treated us like 3 year olds, unaware that we've all been doing interlibrary loan for 15-20 years ourselves. Then I stopped to see Jenica and Miles (and Jack). That was great. Miles is the cutest kittie in the world. He's is absolutely beautiful, with an hourglass figure in white on his belly and the whitest, most petite feet possible and the most beautiful black eyeglasses. He's really lovely and has a great disposition. I kissed his belly and he let me, a true sign of wonderfulness.

When I got home my sciatica was killing me so I treated it by moving and stacking 8 wheelbarrow loads of firewood. If I actually did this every day I would get it all done in a reasonable period of time. I don't think I'll have time tonight: I have to go to the store to get the special hot dogs for Ken's dinner, then I have to go to Ken's for dinner tonight. I'll try to move 4 loads, though. The pile in the shed is growing. I love to see that, I stand with my hands on my hips and nod approvingly.

I had the best talk with Kristen last night, we reconnected after a long time. We've both just been busy settling into Life After. She sounds good (yes, Kristen, you do) and in fine form. Amazing to buy a house at 29 and arrange a life for 4 people so well. We had a great time quoting each other's counseling sessions to each other. That's one of the best-ever things about being in therapy, sharing the gems with someone you're close to who's going through it at the same time. You both benefit tremendously.

I also talked to Liza, which was a less satisfactory conversation, but I was pleased that she called me, in need of distraction and company. Mark had gone to bed (it was about 7:15) and she wanted to hear someone else's voice. We didn't have much of a conversation but I made her laugh. I think I can always do that, and that's something I can give her.

The moon was full and bright when I left this morning, very pretty with all the autumn colors. We had strong winds at home yesterday, I could tell by all the leaves on the ground. This always happens: we get the colors on the trees looking really great, then a big wind comes along and knocks them all off. I saw 2 flocks of geese yesterday, one when I was stacking wood, in a pretty shaky but definite V. I love that sound, a gentle honking when they tell you that it's really time to think about the next season.

You are HOLIDAY.... You are spontaneous and
fun-loving, with a sense of adventure and need
for attention. You're kind of childish, and
just want someone to play with. You do things
that make you happy and you won't betray the
things you like just because some people think
they are tacky!

What Madonna Song are You?
brought to you by

Carriage bolt: that's what I needed for my wheelbarrow! I love Lowes. Standing in front of this wall of bolts and screws, all sizes was like being a dog standing in front of a wall of milk bones. I loved it. I found what I was looking for, bought two, matched wing nuts to the size I needed, paid 26 cents for each bolt. I bought a new watering can for my house plants (thank you Tess) after crawling on my belly to reach the only one small enough to suit me among the hysterical-looking sea of outdoor watering cans on the bottom shelf. I bought a spray bottle to use with my huge philodendron that has scale so I can now spray the organic insecticide I bought weeks ago on it. I bought paint so I can paint the door from the bathroom to the studio an "accent" color. yeah me. I love Lowes. All for $20 and so much more fun than the grocery store.

Then I came home and fixed the 'barrow, which was not easy but I figured it out, and stacked wood. I'm shooting for 8 wheelbarrow loads at a time. That's about as many as I can stand to do at once. Tonight it was 70 degrees, really too hot by my standards to stack wood (I actually broke a sweat, which is just NOT something I do). So now I have the first rank started, and for me getting started is absolutely the hardest part. I love checking out my firewood as I load it in the wheelbarrow--what kind of wood each piece is. Some cherry this time, which is very pretty but which some people don't like to burn. I like burning it. Some beech, again, some people don't like burning it but I do. Lots of maple, which is good. Size of the pieces is good, lots of mid-size pieces with some big pieces too. If only it were July, then I'd feel better, but this will dry some, maybe enough.

So now I'm watching CSI, my nightly fix. No one peed or pooped or threw up while I was at work so the house was in pretty good shape when I got home. They've all been outside for 3 hours, having a great time. Now they're quiet, in for the night and resting. I don't know what they were doing outside but at one point Tess and Chances told me that something big, scary and threatening was there and I should be really, really afraid. For a long time they barked and barked.

So I don't have to leave for Canton until 8 tomorrow, another bonus. Training is from 10-4 but it can't possibly last that long. It's the new ILL program, but there's just no way they can spend that many hours explaining it. Should be a pretty ride. I'd stop to see Jenica but I need to get there and get home (have all that wood to stack).

Got my DVDs in the mail today. Love Actually and In America. Hugh Grant just because he's cute and In America because it's supposed to be very good. I've wanted to see Garden State for a long time but I don't imagine it'll make it to Pbg. so I'll have to wait until it makes it to DVD. It's had lots of attention and good reviews. You lucky Midwesterners!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Another priceless sunny day with fantastic color coming along. Still not peak but working toward that. I had to drive to Akwesasne, the Indian reservation, which is on the St. Lawrence, to do a "quick version" of the 3 hour workshop I've been doing on collection development. I forgot to buy gas this morning and was driving there with another librarian, oblivious to the yellow light on the instrument panel until we got to Fort Covington ("The Fort"). God what a fool. Anyway, I got gas, squeezed 440 miles out of the tank of gas, which means I must have really had NO gas left in the tank, it was a nerve-wracking few miles after I discovered I had no gas before we found a gas station in the middle of nowhere. So I get to the reservation only to discover that they called me after I left to tell me not to bother coming, there wasn't enough of an audience for me to do the presentation. So I wasted pretty much my whole day: 1 1/2 hours up there to speak to an audience of 2. Then I had to stay for lunch (potluck: last night I made apple brownies. This morning while I was brushing my teeth Tess took them off the counter and ate them all. I bought a $10 chocolate torte at the best bakery in town). Then I had to stay for their discussion of fundraising. Then I had to drive home with the director, but fortunately another director I like very much rode with us. I took the scenic route home, over the mountain (and through the woods) and it was very pretty. Went through Lyon Mountain, where we used to go with my grandfather when we were kids, looking for slag from the iron mine there. And now it's pretty much time for me to go home. I had to cancel my chiropractor's appointment this morning and my sciatica is killing me. Have to drive to Canton tomorrow for all-day training. Oh boy! Sitting in a hard chair all day after driving for 1 1/2 hours! Yahoo!

So I had an ok weekend, not terribly productive but I did get my rug cleaned. I bought the neatest little rug shampooer. You have to get on the floor to use it, it's only for small jobs but is very useful for someone whose dogs pee on the rug. I cleaned my living room rug, which has never been cleaned. Man oh man was it filthy. Then I cleaned the two bathroom rugs that Chances peed on. Now they don't smell like pee anymore, nor does my living room. It smells like clean rug. I'm happy but it took forever and was tiring. Not something I'll do often, but I imagine I'll do lots of spot-cleaning, thank you Chances. What's up with these dogs? They seem to have stopped throwing up but now Jackson pees and poops on the floor every night. It's not as if he can't hold it, he holds it all day from 7-5. Last night I let him out at midnight, and when I got up at 6, there it all was, in the same spot. I fantasized about having him put to sleep, telling the vet he can't control his bowels anymore. How nice it would be to have just the brown girls. I'll call the vets for advice, see what they say. I can't live with this, that's for sure.

Yesterday I went to camp. The far shore is really pretty but not yet peak. Unusual for the last weekend in September. Plenty of reds but still plenty of green as well. It was sunny and warm. I wanted to borrow camp's wheelbarrow because mine is missing a bolt--but camp's has a flat tire. This sucks. I was all set to stack firewood yesterday, but with no wheelbarrow I can't move the wood from site A to the wood shed. That was that. In the afternoon two people brought my dogs back from the bog. The guy brought out his cell phone and said he wanted to call the number on their tags but he couldn't get any cell service. Give me a break. They said, very dramatically that the dogs followed them ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. Big whoop. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was probably the third time that day they'd done that. Anyway they were nice people who were concerned about having the dogs get home ok.

I've been thinking about Henry a lot. Yesterday I walked on the path he made to the crest of my hill, which has the view of Whiteface he knew I should have. The view is getting overgrown now, but the path is still there. I walked past the brush pile he made for me to burn and felt so sad. He had great plans for my land and my house. This morning I cried most of the way to work. I miss him very, very much. I called Liza when I got to work and had a nice talk with her. She seems as if she's trying hard to not be so depressed (JoAnne threatened her with antidepressants and that did it--shape up, Liza, or else! so now she's trying to feel better. who knows). I'm going there in a couple of weeks, which will be nice for all of us.

And now I have to stop at Loews to try to find a bolt that will fit my wheelbarrow so I can start moving my firewood. This is getting to be way too much for me to think about but I have to get it done. Maybe I'll have to buy a new wheelbarrow. It's a real pain in the neck transporting it home, I have to have it bungeed, sticking out of the trunk. But I do the things I have to do.

NOW WHY WOULD?
Now why would a sales rep "drop by" at 2:45 on a Friday afternoon, "just to introduce" himself? I spoke to him with my arms full of the books I was using to fill requests, not letting him beyond the vestibule, not quite tapping my toes, but being (I thought) visibly eager to get back to my tasks. This is just not the way to endear yourself to me. Make a call BEFORE you stop by and I'll let you know when it's convenient for me to interrupt myself to speak to you. Plus he had no idea how we function here, thought we did all the purchasing and processing for our 35 member libraries, and we had a subscription to Grolier Online. NOT. Give me a break. He kept trying to correct me when I said none of the above were true. "Why would they say that?" he asked 3 times. Go fuck yourself, I said not outloud.

What a gorgeous fall day it is, though. Huge flock of turkeys ambling across the road on my way to work this morning. You have to laugh when you get that close to them. They don't call 'em turkeys for nothing. They really are something to see. Mondo ugly from the neck up, and not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but clever in their own way. The colors of the trees are really getting pretty. Lots of rusts and reds coming along.

I can't figure out what's going on with the dogs. No puke yesterday but Chances loves to pee in the same spot on the rug and really stink up the house. I don't know if it's a psychological thing or if there's really something wrong with her. Anyway, Tess didn't puke yesterday during the day so I thought we were all set, but she woke me during the night with 2 huge piles on the floor. Swell. I think they ate massive quantities of rotten apples in the woods this week. I followed them last night and they went right down to the apple trees, shuffling along the forest floor in the sweetest (most puke-worthy) way. I didn't let them eat much, so I thought they'd be ok. Let's see what greets me tonight. I have to look for an inexpensive rug cleaning machine at Walmart on my way home tonight. And buy Chances a new collar, since Tess woke me this morning to the sound of >crunch, crunch, crunch< as she chewed the plastic parts the nice purple collar C. has had for 2 years. Somehow she tore if off and started chewing it. She loves to chew that webbing stuff. This dog has cost a small fortune in stuff she's chewed up. Oh, but she's so cute and I love her so much.

I listened to Sgt. Pepper on the way to work this morning. I didn't realize that it had been exactly 6 months since Henry began to die, but I got very emotional hearing the music. I remember when the album first came out, how much he loved it and how much he wanted Molly and me to love it too. He sat me down in his room at Winthrop Lane and had me listen to it from start to finish. I have to admit I wasn't as enamored as he was (but then I wasn't doing the same drugs he was at that point) but boy I sure came to love that album. What a masterpiece. Each song is just so perfect. I love "indicate precisely what you mean to say" as a phrase. And Rita, and Lucy, and Billy Shears. But it made me sad before it made me happy. I miss my brother, have been thinking of him all week, more than usual. Of course I think of him every day, but this week I just start crying. This is ok, I can stop more easily now. Anyway, I've always heard that John and Paul wanted to make an album that was at least as good as Brian Wilson's "Pet Sounds," and that's what inspired them to do Sgt. Pepper. I always wondered about that, because who knew that Brian Wilson was a musical genius? But now I listen to the harmonies in the Beach Boys' songs and realize how beautiful and complex they are. But I always have to laugh because my favorite, my all-time favorite was Dennis, the drummer, who turned out to be a raging alcoholic who destroyed his life and ultimately drowned in an alcoholic haze. Soon Brian will be releasing "Smile," the unfinished album, which will hopefully be the masterpiece everyone has been expecting it to be for decades.

So what's up for this weekend? Not much. Stack firewood, for sure. Yeah, she always says that. No, really, this time I really mean it. I have to, it's nearly October and I have this huge pile of wood to get drying. I was thinking I should mow at least part of my lawn--not to get it mowed, but to use up the gas in the mower before I store it for winter. Not supposed to store them with gas in them. Every fall I dump out the gas & make a mess. Other than that, nothing going on. Feeling pretty laid back, is that good? Wrote my articles for the shoreowners' newsletter, after putting that off for 6 weeks. Nothing very inspiring or creative. Meant to write something fascinating about Daddy longlegses, but never got around to doing the research so that will have to wait. They're all over the place these days, fall must be their busy time. Someone told me their venom is deadly, which I've heard before, but they never bite so they're harmless. Whatever that means.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning
So we prevailed at my hearing yesterday, but that was just a battle, and the end result is that she dug in her heels more deeply and is now incredibly angered and ready to draw blood. The hearing officer ruled that they had not followed proper procedures (quelle surprise) so her written reprimand must be destroyed. They had claimed that our grievance had no merit because we had taken to long to pay the filing fee. That got show down by the hearing officer because there's no time limit in our contract for filing the fee. I could hear the system's attorney shouting at the end when the two attorneys were meeting with the hearing officer for the final decision to be made. So here's how it went: I went in to the room with the hearing officer, my attorney, my union rep, the director and the system's attorney. Emy (sys. attorney) presented joint documentation, which consisted of memos and letters. accepted by all. Discussion of events and memos. Emy tries to make the case about whether or not I accepted the written reprimand when it was presented to me. Director is sworn in (refuses to raise her right hand on religious grounds--she's a Quaker). Is asked questions about the meeting at which she presented me with the written reprimand. Since I know she can't remember details, I can tell she makes up certain salient points, stumbles over others. Says I didn't sign off on the memo. The memo says that if I don't sign it, disciplinary charges will be taken. "Were these charges taken?" no. My union rep is sworn in, as he was also present at the meeting, and heard me say that I refused to sign or accept the reprimand. At this point Emy enters into evidence the notes (anecdotal) taken by director at the meeting. In capital letters are written "DENIAL" about my reaction. Ken (union rep) says that every time I try to speak I'm interrupted by Mary, who says, "of course you'd deny it, that's what I'd expect you to do." I remember all this painfully well. Does Ken remember my saying that I refuse to accept the reprimand? Yes, he clearly does. I don't get to testify. RATS! We leave for lunch while the hearing officer makes his decision. We return, wait for half an hour, during which time the tranquilizer's soporific effect takes hold and I begin to doze. Finally attorneys are called in and decision is announced to them (I hear yelling). We're called outside, told the results and I'm asked if I want to proceed with a hearing on the reprimand at this point. This would mean that all witnesses would be called and all accusations would be addressed--my trying to subvert the process, calling someone a cripple, my interfering with Julie's doing her job, etc. I decide to end the day, don't want to deal with the ramblings of a lunatic at this point, knowing that she will rewrite the charges in a (seemingly) more coherent form. Maybe this is wise, maybe not, but it will give us a chance to prepare a stronger case against the cripple comment, which is not what my attorney has been focusing on thus far. We need one witness he has not lined up for the day. Besides, I'm TIRED OF THIS. So that's it for the day. Wasted 5 hours and a lot of the library's and union's money. And that was only round 1.

When we get back to the library the director finds me delivering an audio book to another member of the staff and tells me it's time for us all to be doing work in our own departments now. OK, I say. I walk by another person's cubicle: she tells me the workshop we were to do in Malone is cancelled. The director hovers, listening in on the conversation. I go to the bathroom. Julie is in there. The director follows me there. Is this woman rowing with two oars? I pee and flush, Julie and I say "See you tomorrow." That seemed safe enough.

So I go to the chiropractor, who wants to talk about all sorts of things, but ends up giving me very explicit instructions on how to move firewood. This is good. He also works on my pressure points for spleen, intestine and liver. This is to help my sacro-iliac so my legs won't ache all the time when I sit down. And today I feel better driving in to work and sitting at my desk.

Then I finally get home to discover that dog A has peed on the floor and rug, while dog B has puked in her cage. We're having a rash of puking and peeing in the house this week. I don't know what's going on. Chances and Tess are puking every day but are fine otherwise. No loss of appetite (just the reverse--of COURSE they're hungry, their stomachs are empty!). I have no idea what the pee is about or who's doing it. All I know is that it's no fun to walk in the door and start cleaning up puke and pee before you get to relax and eat your dinner. Just before I went to bed I let them all out to pee (and puke, if they had to, since Chances had spent one night puking on the floor 4 times) and only Chances returned. FINE! I shut the door, turned out the lights and went to bed. Chances worries about Tess if she doesn't come home, but I was so tired and drained that I slept soundly all night. No one was at the door this morning, though, causing mild concerned. I called Jackson & Tess, and 2 minutes later Tess came bounding up the stairs and into the house, very happy to see me and relate her adventures. Jackson ambled in a little later. This is not a good way to monitor what they eat or how firm their poop is, but I'm just not up to controlling them these days. I can barely keep track of myself. Let's see what greets me when I get home.

Today I'm cataloging videos of classic films (done) and will now write some articles for our newsletter. One will be about the nice workshop I went to on redesigning library space. That will be ok to do. Another will be a potpourri of interesting websites and the third will be excellent election-related websites. you go girl.

Tomorrow I have to do a repeat of the workshop on collection development for member libraries. I think we have an audience of 4, but not 4 who are motivated or stimulating, if I'm correct in guessing who the 4 are. But I'll do my best. yuck it up.

It continues to be autumn here. I bought 2 sweaters from Lands End overstocks yesterday. cotton. And two long sleeved tops at Penneys last night while I was waiting for my apointment at the chiropr.'s. I need some more pants, and that will be my winter/fall wardrobe for the year.

So that's the news. Sick dogs, wiped out me, work, firewood.

The lost weekend
I left my house this morning, surveying my living room and said, "This is not the way a house should look after a weekend." It should have looked clean, straightened up and much more organized. What did I do all weekend? Well, yesterday I took a wonderful, 2 hour nap. That's what a glass of bourbon and a glass of wine at 1:00 with Sunday dinner will do for you. We had dinner at Fred's camp, which is a beautiful place, and he had a wonderful fire in the fireplace. It was great and we all relaxed, enjoyed each other's company and the day. Then I went home and crashed. Tess ripped apart my $8 Target purse, frustrated because I had zipped it shut. She tore a hole in the bottom and emptied the contents. One tranquilizer was missing from the pill bottle (but she apparently did NOT eat it, judging by her behavior in the evening) and the car was locked (after she played with the remote door locker, oh these modern inventions I'm just an old-fashioned girl), but at least this time she didn't chew up my credit cards--or maybe that was NOT a blessing. Chances puked all night, sitting humbly in the corner after each episode. I watched the Emmys last night--sometimes I really enjoy the total waste of time that awards shows are. I brought in all my house plants because we had frost warnings. No frost, but now I have plants on every surface in my living room. I cut back the Swedish (jah) ivy to nubbins and am rooting a new potful (as if I needed another plant) in anticipation of the death of my huge (9' long) asparagus fern that hangs from the second floor. I think it's getting to be too old and will die soon. I worried that Tess' heart was beating too fast and she was going to die during the night, then discovered that that is the normal rate for a dog's heart to beat when I FINALLY found Chances' heartbeat under the layers of fat and ribs. See, I found a chewed up and empty pill bottle with the label destroyed on the l. room floor after my nap and I didn't know what she had eaten, or if she had eaten an Atavan, or what she had done while I was asleep. With this dog you just never know. Her heart was just beating so quickly I was sure no heart could make it through the night. But lo and behold that's the normal rate. Go figure.

But I had an ok weekend. Not productive, fairly sociable. I went to a great workshop on Friday, done by an architect who works with libraries (why didn't we have one of those when we did our building renovation?) on redesigning your library. He was great and my time was well spent. Friday night my cousin Tom stopped by and we visited for a few hours. I had my wood delivered and Tom and the driver picked the best spot for it to be dumped (don't you just love it when two men get together). The driver turned out to be my plowman so I had a chance to butter him up a whole lot. He works for the town in the winter. Tom and I talked about Henry and both cried, that felt sort of good.

Saturday I packed up my garbage and went to camp to clean out the refrigerators. Tom, Bill and their brother-in-law Jim were there, just finishing up the dock removal. Boat house out and stored in the slip (see, Jenica--that was a good idea, wasn't it!). We stood in the sun in the driveway, traditional shit-shooting spot and visited for 45 minutes or so. They are very nice people. Then I went to the dump. My friend Lin came over, picked up the book our group is reading this month, we visited a bit. She invited me for dinner at their camp, Tom & Bill invited me for dinner at their camp. In the end I stayed home, just didn't feel like going anywhere. Good idea, bad idea, I just stayed home. Watched Matchstick Men. Nicholas Cage is such a good actor. Good movie.

And now it's Monday, zeroing in on the end of September. Have already had big discussion about who should be deleting records from the data base, how we should handle "unowned" records in the data base, what to do about renegade and unpleasant staff member at library next door. But all was good in discussion, no one got upset and I soothed everyone and lulled them by saying no decisions would be made until I have all the information about how and how much work is currently being done. blah blah blah.

Tomorrow is the hearing for my grievance against the director. My friend Julie has been subpoened to testify on my behalf. That was a big surprise to the director. Julie was referred to in the written reprimand that is the center of the whole grievance. The director accused me of phoning and conversing with Julie to the point of interfering with her ability to get her work done, and in an attempt to subvert the assessment process. Lies, all lies! Anyway, Julie and I never talk on the phone and both know the whole thing is laughable. Whether she'll have to testify is not known but my lawyer wants her there on my behalf. Am I nervous about the hearing? You bet, but not just yet. Tomorrow I'll be hysterical. Today I'm just getting my work done.

The sun is shining and it's a beautiful autumn day. It was very cold this morning, but the leaves are turning and it's one of the prettiest times of year at my house. I have a huge pile of firewood to stack. woo-hoo. I didn't touch a stick of it Saturday or yesterday, oh the shame of it. I did get to talk to my sister, though, which was a nice treat.

The perfect shoe
The search never ends, but if I ever found the perfect shoe, then I'd have to stop buying shoes, and that would be tragic. As it is now, I bought 2 new pairs of shoes (I hear the collective groan) on sale from Lands End overstocks, both to replace shoes chewed by the Perfect Tess. Both are improvements over their predecessors. I have also ordered a new winter boot, on sale from Sierra Trading Post, religious tho they are, they have good stock. This is a lower boot than I'll need in the heart of winter, but it will be nice for a break. I also ordered flannel-lined jeans, which Ken swears I'll really, really like. He wears his for weeks on end (yuck). This money is from my accident settlement and I can't spend any more of it because the last of it has to go for firewood and lumber. And no, I don't need any of these items, I just wanted them. Footwear, I always want footwear. Yes, I can stare down at my sea of shoes and still feel that I don't have the right shoe to wear. With my jeans. And the shoes came in the Perfect Box. Since I'm a box hoarder, this really pleased me, but I won't take the box home, I'm forcing myself to leave it here at work. I have no more room at home for empty boxes.

Difficult work situation going on. Clerk #1 wanted two of her job duties reassigned to Clerk #2. No particular reason, she just felt it would be appropriate if these jobs were no longer done by her--they are not appropriate to her title, are beneath her, etc. Clerk #2 does not have time to take on extra duties. Clerk #1 has been here for 20 years, feels she should (for that reason) get what she asks for. I refused her request yesterday when the three of us sat down to discuss this. When I asked if we all agreed that the three of us are equally overburdened in our jobs Clerk #1 said no, she didn't agree, she felt she had more work than the other 2 of us. This is patently untrue and really fries me. She has more flexibility and really, less work, than the other clerk and I do. She also said that we NEVER offer to help her. Again, so not true. At the end of the day she came to me and said she felt I had not treated her with respect, that she had been here for 20 years, Clerk #2 only here for 1.5 years got whatever she asked for (she didn't ask for anything, I reminded her), and that now she guessed her work would just back up (ON PURPOSE?? I asked, incredulous--"Oh no," she replied innocently). Since she's not getting any additional work there's really no rationale for that. This is a woman who is really angry because, though she's only turning 50 in November, she feels she needs to retire as soon as possible. I agree with her feelings more and more every day. She'll have enough years in with the retirement system so that, if the state offers and early retirement incentive one of these years, she'll be able to take it and run. She's just pissed because they didn't do it this year. Tough shit. I was eligible for early retirement about 3 years ago but couldn't afford to do it. Probably wouldn't have anyway--what would I have done?

So now I'm dealing with the wrath of a bitter employee (aren't we all). But the sun is shining and it's autumn. You might call it Indian summer, but Ken would correct you. Indian summer, according to him, only comes after the first frost. We haven't had that yet, in fact we haven't even come close. Only 36, I think. There's a really nice article in this month's Adirondack Life magazine, written by Bill Hord's son-in-law (who's studying creative writing), about the relationship between Bill and Ken. It's very touching and captures their relationship very nicely. Ken's pleased with it.

And I'm driving a Magnesium, 2004 Honda Civic. It's very nice. Clean, smells good, drives like a dream, nice tight transmission. I like it a lot and am very happy with it. Have had plenty of compliments on the color, was feeling very special because surely it must be relatively uncommon, since it took so long to get one, when suddenly, there at the stop sign this morning was...a Magnesium Honda Civic. Can you believe it? I couldn't. Get that car off the road!

Spent yesterday cataloging theses and dissertations on the Mohawks and their various cultural situations, gambling arrangments, educational stuff, etc. for the library that's on the reservation. That was dry enough. This morning I weeded our Sidney Sheldon collection. That was boring enough. I had to shelve books in order to clear a book truck to use for weeding. That's work that a page should be doing, not a Librarian III like me. That was the point that Clerk #1 kept making--she's doing the work of a Clerk and a Page, not just work of a Principal Clerk. woo-hoo. It'll be a cold day in hell before she ever shelves another book to help with the backlog, that's for sure. I can see that. I told her we'll never fill the vacant position in our dept. so we'll all have to do the work of the non-existent page and clerk, like shelving, etc. That did NOT appease her. Well, I said, you like your free health insurance, and your benefits and your job, don't you? That's what has to happen in order for us to keep those things. There's just not enough money right now. Sour, sour face.

The dogs seem relatively peaceful these days. It's really nice at night so I leave the door open and the come and go at will. Tess and Chances run out, disappear for half an hour or so, then come running in, breathless. so cute. Then back out to repeat the whole exercise. I think they're eating apples at the foot of the driveway. Part of my new eating pattern involves eating cooked apples in the evening for my snack. What the hell--we have tons of orchards here with some of the best apples ever, I might as well eat them, huh. The Macouns are in season, and I love them. They're great for applesauce. I may sleep in the boat house tonight, if I can get my shit together enough to get down there. How complicated is it, really? Grab a few things, get in the car and GO.

What the dogs at Adirondack Pet Lodge are saying this afternoon:
"This is ok, we can walk around together in the room and wag our tails."
"I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE AND I'M GOING TO BARK AND HOWL THE ENTIRE TIME. Watch me throw my head back and reallly wail! If I make enough noise they'll let me out."
"I shouldn't have to wear a collar so maybe I can scratch it off with my foot if I just try and try and try with my hind leg."
"zzzzzzzzz"
"Not only am I a pretty yellow Lab, but I'm well behaved too."

What my dogs would say:
"A terrible mistake has been made. We should not be here."

Refusal to accept
In spite of the fact that it's cold (40) in the morning, I refuse to wear a jacket. I have a favorite spring/fall jacket, though now tattered at the cuffs, that I can wear to the car, from the car to the building, it won't hurt me to put it on. But that would mean...you guessed it...summer's over. Well, hell, the trees are turning red and orange, that means summer's over. It's done. I went berrying last night and all the blackberries are gone. Af first I was pissed at myself because I let the campers beat me to the spots I always go to, the spots that I didn't think others knew about. Then I got back to my house and discovered that all my berries had been "picked" too. I guess the birds were my competition, plus the deer and the squirrels. Can't complain, now, can I. I have to get out there sooner. I knew the berries were ripe two weeks ago, I just thought I had more time. whine whine. There were plenty of berries, too, I can tell by the empty stems. I have enough for nearly one pie, if I can find more of some kind of berry to fill in with. Sometimes I'm amazed by myself. I'd blame it on laziness but this fall I don't really think that's what it was. Anyway, I had a really good time last night, berrying with the dogs. I love doing that. The sun was golden and low in the sky, the dogs would have been whistling if they knew how, they were practically skipping. They picked along with me but weren't happy with the yield. It was a beautiful evening and I had a really nice, peaceful wonderful time.

Today, wonder of wonders, my car is being delivered. I spoke to the "money man" to go over the final figures this morning because the figures didn't look right when they delivered the wrong car before. The figures are right, the color is reputed to be right (the salesman has left me at least 3 messages describing the car, "Magnesium, 5-speed, LX"). And, since I've had to wait 3 weeks and have driven 3 different cars in the interim, I'm actually looking forward to having this car delivered. See? Good things DO come to those who wait. I just want to have my own car. I want to move into my own house on my own Hakapalita tires. I've done pretty well in keeping the Accord clean and like to think I can make the same effort with my own new car. So this is it, the end of this saga. Let's hope, anyway.

Long, long meeting this morning with other professionals and director. I finally started to doze a bit, squirming in my seat. blah blah blah. I could focus on our planning to plan for the future for only so long, but when they got to planning to plan for the next 2 years my eyes really did glaze over. I got up to go to pee, came back refreshed and said "So then, where were we?" in an honest effort to wrap things up. I think 2 hours is just too long for 4 people to meet.

Yesterday I did a workshop on collection development. For some reason I was in rare form and put on a great stand-up routine, which was fortunate because the director was in the audience. Unfortunate, thought, because these are regional workshops which are to be repeated twice more and I've set the bar pretty high. There are 2 of us doing this, with a bit added on at the end by the director (her part is really dry, confusing and dull). I was really funny yesterday, which is a shame because I can't stand to repeat the same jokes a second and third time, but I know the director will expect me to get lots of laughs next week at the other 2 sessions. I had a good audience, people who interacted and were receptive to what we were discussing. Let's see how it goes next week. The director couldn't stop talking about how well it went and how great a presentation it was. Yeah, well, make 'em laugh is what I always say. Being bipolar has its perks when it comes to performing. That's why Robin Williams is such a genius.

So today I'm faced with a desk that's absolutely covered with paperwork. There is no naked space at all and I can't stand the thought of exposing any. I'll catalog I guess, and weed--my 2 staples of activity when I can't stand to be any more creative than that.

Had a good weekend. Jenica came Friday night, it was great to see her and be together. We watched the CSI marathon (that's Crime Scene Investigation, a tv show about forensics, all fiction, takes place in Las Vegas). One right after another. It was fun, hypnotic. Saturday we had a dock day. Started out a bit cold but ended up really hot. We had lunch on the dock (turkey, not cucumber sandwiches) and I swam twice. That brings my seasonal total to 4. Not bad for me. The water was 67 degrees, which is pretty cold, really. The brown girls lazed along with us and Tess swam and swam. A good day. We went out for dinner to a really nift restaurant with an unbelievable menu. Lots and lots of choices. We went with Linda and Erdvilas (who was only mildly annoying) and Bill and had a good time, ate lots of good food. Sunday morning we watched MTV for a while, sitting in the sun in the living room enjoying it a lot. She left, I went to Sunday dinner with Bill, L & E and Ken. That was nice--it was sunny and warm. Such a nice, golden sun we have now. We stayed at Linda's for a long, long time, then I came home and slept for a long, long time. What else could I do? It was their last day, they're safely tucked in in Ann Arbor now, to return in a few weeks for Columbus Day.

I'm feeling better, not so gloomy. Do I care more about things? I'm not sure, but I seem to be happier. I still miss my brother, and I'm still sad that he died. I cry, but not as much. I dreamed about our old house at Green Street last night, that I had to move back there--but that's just because I was reading my old journal from when we were moving from there to my house to Jenica the other night and we were laughing at the absurdity of it all. I also dreamed about Jamie, who in my dream was complaining about something petty, so I said to him, "At least you're still alive, and at least you didn't have someone you really love die. You always complain about the stupidest things, but you're still alive." That felt really good in my dream. A dream of wish-fulfillment. I keep dreaming about cars that are going out of control, the brakes don't work. My classic anxiety dream, but in these dreams I get the cars to stop just before I hit something. So there I am, teetering on the edge of loss of control in my life. I guess that's ok, at least I'm not rolling off a cliff.

Back to the chiropractor tonight, that will feel good. Then to Walmart to pick up pictures from the RI trip. Another nice thing. Then I get to watch two episodes of CSI tonight. My new version of Law & Order. I such a sucker for tv, huh.

Perhaps a better world is drawing near
To quote Jackson Browne, singer of the most depressing lyrics any of us have ever sung. But today I feel better. Maybe extend-release Wellbutrin is the way to go after all, raising the dose and changing the way you take it. yahoo. (don't we like the way ya-hoo has become yahoo, now that we all are so familiar with webspeak?) Anyway, today, in spite of the continuous rain, I feel better. I had to ride to work with Erdvilas, dropping him off at the place where they are fixing Linda's car (god help them, he wanted to witness the operation). He ranted and groaned ALL THE WAY in. I grasped the steering wheel harder and harder so that by time I got to Plattsburgh my knuckles were white. god, man, give it a break. We all hate Bush but some of us learn to control it. Anyway, I like the solitude of my ride to work and do not want to carpool. good to know, check.

Had a very pleasant time last night with a different group of people. Started off with Linda and Erdvilas (ok, not different people) who needed a ride home from Pbg. They gave me a quick drink while L and I sat in front of the fire, which was really nice, soothing and peaceful. I could do that for a long time. Then I rushed to feed the dogs and get to dinner reasonably (as opposed to fashionably) late. Had a nice time, good visit with people. They reported that the night before, they let their 12 year old black lab out in the evening and when she came back in she was really bouncy and energetic, wagging her tail. Ran into the living room, jumped on top of their company, licked and licked him, most unlike her (her name of course is Molly--as all black Labs are named). She was panting, seemed thirsty, so Emily called her into the brightly lit kitchen for a drink of water, where she turned out not to be black, or old, but chocolate and young and Tess. Turns out Tess has wanted to see the inside of that camp all summer long and leapt at the chance to get inside, I guess. Anyway, Molly wouldn't come inside until Tess went outside and Tess wouldn't go outside until Molly came inside so poor Emily, who knew Tess was mine, had to convince my dog to GO HOME.

And when I got home I found two very fat, very uncomfortable dogs loose in the living room. Tess was safely locked in her cage but Jackson and Chances had eaten at least 15 pounds of dog food (and this is not the cheap stuff, either). They were so fat they were grunting and groaning. Chances lay at my feet and whined, something she never does. I contemplated making her throw up, but it was raining and I didn't feel like going on vomit patrol in the dark so I let her suffer. This morning they were still very very fat. Jackson looks like a Sudanese refugee, he's so long and lanky but then there's this huge swollen belly. Tess had milk bones for breakfast, like eating circus peanuts to a human. I gave C & J each 3 small milk bones as a token gesture. If I had no dogs, what would I do for entertainment? Television is one dimensional and is based on other peoples' lives.

Tonight, wonder of wonders, I will dine alone at home. I can't wait. If I had a fireplace it would be nice but I'll cuddle up on my couch and watch mindless Law and Order reruns (although they're now showing CSI reruns at 7 & 8--oh goody!). And, for the Italians, the new series starring Joey Trebiani starts tonight. Got a terrible review in the Washington Post online but I'll give it a shot.

So Frances is now raining down on us. Tomorrow we're supposed to see some sun in the afternoon, and Saturday is supposed to be a nice September day. The trees are turning quickly. colors, that is. I think we'll have good color this year, lots of rain. I need to get out into the bushes and do lots of blackberry picking. The people last night said they had picked everything already but I wonder if they know my spots. I'll be disappointed if they do. They leave on Saturday and there will be more to the crop, but they've picked enough for 2 pies already.

Tomorrow and Saturday nights will be spent with Linda and Erdvilas, they leave on Monday. Jenica may come--hurray! Haven't seen her in a while, and we had such a great fall last year. I love September here, it's truly a wonderful time. I have to call the wood lady tonight to see when she can deliver another 4 cords for my Wood Olympics. I'll need to alert Martha so she can come be my judge.