Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

I don't know if you noticed, but I added another blog link under my "Good Reading" links a little while ago. I wanted to point it out and explain a little bit about her, but my old high school chum Amy B. already did a very good job of that in the email she sent me introducing me to the site. Below is our exchange, reprinted with her permission and with names deleted to protect the innocent:

Subject: Okay, I'm weird.

Date: 5/6/2007 1:34:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

I really love this website. It’s a ranch wife’s blog with her photography. I get a kick out of her stories and love her photography, and [Amy B.'s husband] thinks I’m a weirdo stalker because of it.
www.thepioneerwoman.com

The only reason I stumbled upon it was someone posted a link to her site on a message board I belong to (Cooks Illustrated, if you care).

When I poked around in her archives and read the story about Tanner, Barbie’s dog, I nearly peed myself and was instantly hooked. http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/confessions_of_a_pioneer_/2006/12/post_3.html If that link doesn’t work, I see it was posted 12/27. Her archives are set up by month as well as subject (Children in this case).

She picked up a camera for the first time and started this site a year ago, and she just had her first gallery showing of her photographs. If you decide to take a look, see the entry for May 5. In there is a link to the gallery photos, just in case this link doesn’t work. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pioneerwoman/sets/72157600174820890/show/ My favorite is the horses’ manes, I think, and the one that
looks like rocks on the beach (they’re not) is another.

Why am I up so late? Deadline.

Back to work.

My response:

Subject: Re: Okay, I'm weird.

Date: 5/6/2007 6:52:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

I can see why you like it. I only read the latest entry and decided to bookmark it. Might even link to it from my own blog.

Reading someone's blog doesn't make you a stalker. Reading someone's blog, figuring out where they live, driving cross-country to their home (with or without astronaut diapers) and camping in their front yard -- that makes you a stalker.

What was I doing up so early? Pushy cat who wanted attention, food, and my pillow. In that order.

Her blog really is excellent, and so is her photography. She copyrights her work, so I can't embed an image here, but please to go take a at her photos on Flickr. They are wonderful.

Down the rabbit-hole, and back out again.

Is it the middle of May already? Good grief. The month's gone by on wheels. I guess time flies when you enjoy your job.

The job I just left was the first (only) full-time one I've had. I've been with them for almost 16 years (a year and a half of that was as a part-timer), and the bulk of it was in the position I had until recently. At least 12 of those years were under the same supervisor. Now that I'm out of there, I can look back and see how bad things were.

Oh. My. God.

It had never occurred to me that there was any other way to work than to have someone at you all the time, interrupting what you do, giving you projects without complete instructions, changing things when you're halfway done, and then treating you like an idiot for not giving them exactly what they wanted but never articulated. I mean, who am I, Kreskin?

Every single thing I said and did at work was monitored and criticized. I caught crap (privately, after the fact, behind her office door) for speaking up at meetings, for not speaking up at meetings, for taking matters into my own hands without consulting my supervisor, for consulting my supervisor instead of acting independently (favorite quote: "Well, what do you think the answer is?" Can you hear the bomb ticking in the background? I always could. If I gave her the right answer, the next thing she'd ask was, "So why are you asking me?"). We had to tell her everywhere we were going and when we'd be back. She suspected us all of goofing off when she wasn't around. She had (well, has. She's still here) a tone when speaking to us that took me a while to pinpoint, but I have it now. She speaks to one she sees as an inferior as if she were the lady of the house upbraiding a servant who has just broken a plate.

She and her boss (head of the department) have said quite a few times that the rest of the library sees them as "difficult." They're sort of proud of it, really. Now that I'm away from them, I'm seeing the other side of the story. Difficult? No. They are seen as mean and crazy.

This job is wonderful. They give me something to do and then leave me alone to do it, secure in the knowledge that: a) I know what I'm doing, b) if I have questions, I'll ask, and c) when I'm done, I'll ask for more work. I've seen my new supervisor maybe 5 times this month. Twice of those were from a distance and one was in a team meeting. It's a whole new world.

I think I was teetering on the edge of a depression there for a while. I'd stopped doing everything I enjoyed -- jewelry-making, singing, embroidery, dancing...yep, even that, the activity I took up with a mind towards cheering myself up. Couldn't tell you the last book I read. I couldn't even make it through a whole episode of my favorite television show without wanting to turn it off and go to bed.

I did make myself go to that pottery class once a week. I joined, I think, because on some level I could feel myself slipping and wanted to do something about it. Fling myself out there with people, learn a new skill. I didn't really like it (too messy, to much hurry-up-and-wait) and I only kept up with it because I'd paid for it in advance. Even then, I skipped the last class, accidentally on purpose. I didn't remember that I had one more class to go to until I got home from work, and even though I could have probably have made it back to town in time for it, I decided to just skip it.

Blogging was starting to be a chore, even. I'd sit here and look at a blank "create post" window with its little blinking cursor, trying to think of something, anything to say. Usually I just gave up and closed the window.

I'm a whole lot better now. Shortly before moving, I noticed myself looking at things and thinking, "I should blog that." Right before Easter, I started a new embroidery project. I'm also working on a little bracelet made out of black and silver seed beads done in something called a zulu stitch. Bought a copy of Edna Ferber's Giant from the used bookstore downtown last week and devoured it. And last Saturday I attended a workshop for bellydance, where I was taught a choreography to a song by Tarkan (he's Turkey's answer to Justin Timberlake) called Şimarik -- here's a video for the song, put out in the 90s, I think.

Heck, I think I may even get my camera fixed instead of just talking about it. Though I saw another one in Circuit City a week back that I really, really want. It has an optical zoom of 10x, as opposed to the one I have now, which is 6. Mind you, 6 is very good, but 10? I might get a picture of the moon that I won't have to blow up until it's almost pixellated.

And what are the odds that this old one will go kaflooey yet again with the same problem that's already taken it out twice? I think there's a design flaw somewhere.

Yeah, that's it. Design flaw. Need new camera.

Ah, since when did need ever enter into it?

Up next (probably tomorrow): the Spelling Wasp.

That just about sums me up

As I leave work for the evening and head downtown, it starts to rain. Pour. Like someone is on the roof of a nearby building with a firehose. Most of those who don't have umbrellas (and that would be all of us) are shouting and sprinting for cover wherever they can find it.

Not me. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt, which is pointless. The thing doesn't so much repel the rain as it does collect it. The reason I'm still outside? The sun is peeking out from a cloud directly behind me, and that means there might be a rainbow out here somewhere.

Cold, uncomfortable, sopping wet, with shoes that are going squelch with rainwater all night, and ignoring it all to look for rainbows. Yep. That's me all over.

Musical nostalgia

Tomorrow is move out day. I don't know when exactly. It depends upon when the Computer Guys come to move my terminal. I came in to the office today to do the last little bit of cleaning and packing -- I can't seem to get anything like that done during the week. The only time I'd be able to do it is my lunch break or if I stay after work, and by five o'clock the needle on the bull[ahem] meter is well into the red zone. It's all I can do to not run screaming from the building.

So, anyway. I get my desk cleaned off, pack all my files, and put everything on the cart I use to schlepp things around the building. On my way out I stop at the little café in the basement and buy myself a bottle of water. As I'm paying for it, the radio starts playing "Isn't She Lovely," by Stevie Wonder.

"Oh!" says one of the young ladies behind the counter. "I love this song! At my junior prom, this is the song they played as I was coming down the steps."

"Aw." This in chorus, from women on both sides of the counter.

"I am such a ham," she confesses. "I started down the steps, and this came on, and I was all..." She turns to one side and does a coy look to the floor and then up through fluttering lashes. "It was a great night. Also, the guy I went with was hot..."

"Well, that doesn't hurt," I reply.

"Mmm. I made him wear pink, and he looked sexy in it."

At this point my water is paid for, and someone behind me wants a bagel, so I take my leave.

It's funny what songs will do to you. I can't keep a straight face while listening to John Denver's "Sunshine on my Shoulders."

My sister and I used to amuse ourselves on long car trips a number of ways. This was before backseat drop-down DVD players, iPods, Walkmen, even. We were captives to whatever our father had on the radio. Sadly, twenty-five years later, this is still true. Driving back from my cousin's wedding in Virginia, I was held hostage by NASCAR radio. *Sob* An entire afternoon of:

nnnnnnNYOWMNnnnnn

I'm not sure what kept me from hanging my head out of the open window and howling like a wild thing.

On these endless car rides, we either read, slept, bickered until the Hand of Justice clamped down on us from the front seat, or played games like "Billboard Alphabet." Sometimes in a spirit of Making Fun Where You Can, we'd start playing around with lyrics of some old radio chestnut we'd heard a hundred times already, et voilà! A new song is born. So now whenever I hear "Sunshine on my Shoulders,"instead of the actual words here's what I hear:

"Sunshine on my shoulders gives me sunburn.
Sunshine in my eyes can make me blind.
Sunshine on the water makes it boil.
Sunshine almost always is unkind."

(or "makes me cry." We've done it both ways, and I forget now which came first.)

Sorry Mr. Denver. Nothing personal. Just two bored kids in the back of a station wagon with three hours to go before they hit the Massachusetts state line.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I think I've touched briefly upon all the flapdoodle at work. Yes? It's been going on in some form or another for almost 17 months now, and an end (at least for one of my colleagues and me) is finally in sight. The dean stepped in last month and decided that as of May 1, my colleague and I will be part of another department.

Initially I was a bit upset, but upon reflection I think that was just vocational Stockholm Syndrome. A few weeks back, we had a very good meeting with our (soon to be) new supervisor and her department head. They seem to be reasonable people, with a management style that seems to be pretty hands-off (hurray!). They're thrilled we'll be joining them, and everyone else we've talked to in the new place is just as happy about it -- though they very sweetly tried not to appear so at first, in case it looked like gloating.

The morning after this meeting with The New Boss, I woke up an hour before the alarm, was showered, dressed, breakfasted, and sitting by the radio embroidering before 6:30. I took the early bus in, had a nice leisurely cup of coffee before heading to work, and just marvelled at how I felt: good. Really, really good. Better than I've felt in over a year. Optimistic, happy, cheerful, hopeful, insert your favorite positive adjective here. It was like I've been living in a fog and didn't notice it until it cleared away. I'm sure the meeting and the mood are related because it's been almost a month now, and I still feel good.

My current supervisor and department head are both doing their best to subtly poison us against the people we will be working with and for. It's not working, though. I wish I'd recognized sooner that I was being used as a weapon, but at least I've figured it out now. All of the trying-to-push-my-buttons is having exactly the opposite effect, in fact. I wish I could switch departments right now, instead of in May.

I was informed this morning that my new cubicle is ready for me. I started moving my tschotchkes into the new space on my afternoon break. M'colleague (any Fry and Laurie fans out there?) came with me, mainly to see what the new space looked like. We were there maybe ten minutes before the welcome wagon came 'round. And 'round. And 'round. At least four people stopped by to say howdy and (probably) to get some juicy gossip about life in Purgatory.

That's going to take a little getting used to. I'm accustomed to a work room that has at most six people in it at one time. This place has probably around one hundred, in various teams. Classic cube farm, complete with prairie dogging co-workers.

The only thing I'm really going to miss in my new job is the reference desk. I won't be doing any, at least for a while. Instead, I will be cataloging serials all day. Though they did say that if I wanted to I could be part of the job enrichment program, and work on a reference desk for two hours a week. For someone who's used to ten hours a week, two seems a bit small.

I'm sure I'll have plenty to keep me busy though.

And now I'm off to dinner, and to go see some actors from Juliard perform a stage adaptation of Jane Eyre.

Things you see when you don't have a (working) camera...

I went to my parents' house for Easter weekend. Came back home last night. On the way home, riding through some teeny tiny town whose name I can't remember/not sure I ever knew, we zipped past something that made me dearly wish I had a working camera with me.

Some family had decorated their yard for Easter using little blow-up plastic bunnies everywhere. They were tied to stakes to keep the wind from making off with them. I don't know if you heard, but we had some horrible weather this weekend over much of the northern USA. More snow this Easter than there was this past Christmas. The bunnies were a bit wind-blown and deflated, most of them very close to lying flat on the ground. It looked like someone had not so much tied them in place as staked each one through the heart. A bit gruesome. I sure hope it wasn't the original intent.

And then this morning, when I got off the bus at my usual stop and made my way over to the place where I get coffee before work, I passed a wooded area marked off in yellow "CRIME SCENE -- DO NOT CROSS" tape. My goodness. I go away for a long weekend and the whole place goes to hell. The fellow who sold me my coffee said it's an assignment for some forensics class on campus. He said they used the same area last year, but I don't remember it. But then, I think I was getting a ride to work this time last year, and we didn't come onto campus from the same direction.

My Visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

What am I doing, making up for lost time by posting two a day? Apparently. Nifty little website.

I'm in the basement of that bagel shop again, listening to a group of students converse (or try to) in German. I love living in a college town, have I mentioned that lately?

Medieval Helpdesk

A coworker sent me this sometime last week. Finally got a chance to see it today, as it seems the cold I had a few weeks ago was in reality an advance scout for the stomach flu I had from Wednesday evening on through to Sunday. I found a new crash diet! 10 pounds in 4 days! And you don't even feel hungry. Seriously. Food frightens me right now.

But I digress. This has been floating around on YouTube for a week or so now. It's from a Norwegian sketch comedy show. Some kind soul has given it English subtitles.

Flotsam and jetsam

For the laundry impaired: Saw a man in a T-shirt that read, "Same shirt, different day."

Talking to one of the bus drivers a couple of weeks back:

Driver: So did you have a nice Valentine's Day?
Vee: Yeah, it was pretty good.
D: How'd you spend it?
V: Throwing pots.
D: At...whom?
V: No, no, no. Not lobbing kitchenware. Throwing pots. Clay. On a wheel?
D: Aaahhhh.

Little novelties:

I got my eyes checked a few weeks ago. I was test-driving a pair of contact lenses there for a while (I did eventually decide to buy contacts, but not that brand. Boy, were they uncomfortable!). After I put them in the first time I wandered around the store, shopping for frames for the new glasses. It was a new experience to put the frames on and not have to put my nose almost to the mirror to see what I look like in 'em.

And then a few days later, while walking along the sidewalk squinting in the sunlight it hit me: I can wear sunglasses now! Woo-hoo!

Pretty silly, isn't it, to spend close to $100 on your eyes just for the ability to wear a $10 pair of sunglasses.

Fevers make the best dreams

I've caught some sort of cold. Well, considering I work with the public and take mass transit to and from work, what were the odds that one of the sniffling multitude around me was going to breathe on me and give me something yucky?

This is my second day off work, and the first time in about 24 hours that I can string together coherent thoughts. Yesterday I managed to call my supervisor and croak out, "Sick. Fever. Not coming in." before I lost all track of time. Pretty sure I'll be back on Monday.

Favorite symptom: bizarre dreams. It's like watching some sort of arthouse movie, heavy on symbolism and subtext, light on actual sense. The one that I woke up to this morning featured a walk in the woods with someone I knew at the time (but of course is a stranger to me now) and encountering a little bear cub with a bright red streak on its muzzle. Not blood red, more like fruit punch red -- like something a punker would do to his hair. My companion wanted to stop and pet the bear (come to think of it, the cub looked a lot like my parents' little black dog Pippin), while all I could think was, "Mama bear's around here somewhere, we better get away from her cub or she'll tear us apart."

And then suddenly we were at the shore, this person and I, running some sort of hotel on a beached ocean liner, where we'd call the room numbers "wave 72" instead of "room 72." There was some sort of mystery involving the theft of jewelry that turned out to be (when I finally got to see it) silly souvenir-type stuff -- paua shells and turquoise chips and coral pieces.

Interesting what the mind will do when the body's a little warmer than normal.

Clay tribute

They've put together a memorial service for my friend Mary. It's today. I'm not going. It sounds like some large, long, intricate thing. Not like Mary at all.

The course I'm taking in wheel-thrown pottery includes 15 hours of time to use the facility outside of class. I've decided that instead of going to a funeral where everyone will be all long-faced and sniffling, I'm going to go throw pots. It will be a more fitting tribute to a woman who was a potter, a teacher, and a life-long learner.

Finally!

I know the date says Wednesday. I've been writing this in bits and pieces all week. It's Friday, March 2 now, and I'm finally ready to post this.

Around 5 pm Monday I finished the Underground Newspapers project I've been whining about since last May. I was so happy, I almost whipped of my shirt and ran around the office, a la Brandi Chastain.

Almost.

Now that I’m done, I can look back and pick out some of the highlights and oddities. Well, no, face it Vee, the whole collection is one big oddity. But I digress:

Favorite titles (Based solely on the title of the publication. I didn't stop to read most of these):

The Anemic Traveler: the newsletter with poor circulation; Bandersnatch; Bi-Weekly Blah-Blah; Borrowed Times; Come Unity (which sounds like "community" if spoken aloud); The Buddhist 3rd Class Junk Mail Oracle (also known as The Barking Rabbit) -- which later changed its name to: Great Swamp Erie Da Da Boom; The Distant Drummer; Fertilizer; A Four-Year Bummer; Good Morning Teaspoon; Great Speckled Bird; High Times; In Arcane Logos; Kompost; Kudzu; Lux Verite; Mile High Underground; Oscar's Underground Ghetto Press; Protean Radish; River Courant; The Son of Jabberwock; Twentieth Century Anonymous; Witzend

Something in the water?

California likes oracles: From 1966-1968, groups in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Larkspur, California all decided to produce newspapers called "The Oracle."

And the midwest likes kaleidoscopes: During the seventies, groups in Omaha, NE, Madison, WI, Milwaukee, WI, Oshkosh, WI, and Chicago, IL were all publishing papers called Kaleidoscope.

Proof that "anarchy" and "chaos" aren't necessarily synonyms:

Freedom: the anarchist weekly -- published weekly from 1947-1960, had a little bobble from 1961-1963 where they went to three times a month, and then weekly again until 1975. Wow. And I can't remember to call my Mom once a week.

Probleem vooruit:

Any title in this set that was in a foreign language (be it Spanish, Greek, Hawaiian, Navajo, Finnish, Dutch…) was destined to have incorrect index entries.

The moment when I knew this thing had taken over my life and warped my thinking:

The title was "Broken Barriers," out of New Orleans. The index listed the issues thusly:

Volume 1 in 1975, vol. 7 in 1976, vol. 11 in 1977, vol. 3 in 1978? What? I stared at the entry for a little while, and a scene played out in my head.

First, let me explain. This collection was organized by year, then alphabetically by title, and then photographed. What's that mean? Well, look at the entry. Issues for this one title are scattered throughout the collection. The whole index is like this, all 1000+ titles in it. I think there were two reasons things were done like this: 1) newspaper degrades fast; and 2) these were publications of independent presses, and might not be printed with any regularity. They could (and did) sometimes go years between publishing issues. Waiting for a "complete" volume was not a good idea.

Since the issues were filmed in different years, I think it's safe to assume that filming wasn't always done by the same person. I also suspect that the photographer filled out a chart as he/she went along, reporting titles, volume and issue information, and dates. This chart was then transcribed into the index by a typist somewhere else in the building. The typist had no contact with the photographers whatsoever, and had to believe that what was on the chart was correct. With me so far?

Okay, now here's how I saw it happening:

My guess was that volume numbers for this title uses roman numerals, and the issue numbers are regular ones. Photographers for reels 178 and 200 recognize this, and write "1" and "2" in whatever place on the chart they need to. Unfortunately, the photographer for #2 has crappy handwriting, and his/her "2" looks like a "7" to the typist. Photographer for reel 229 either needs glasses or doesn't know roman numerals, and he/she records II as "11," so that's what gets transcribed into the index. Photographer for reel 261 recognizes "III" as "3," writes that. Typist sees that on chart, shakes head at the vagaries of independent/alternative presses (1,7,11,3?), and dutifully enters "3" into the index.

I go to the film reels, sure that each issue for volumes "7" and "11" are going to be "Volume II." I am right. I am momentarily triumphant; and then very, very frightened of myself.

The Parting Shot:

All the way at the end of the title portion of the index (three pages from the end, to be exact), there's an entry for Xex Graphix:

This looked like trouble, so I saved it ‘til last. It turns out the Xex Graphix is a publisher of comic books, and these entries were each titles in their own right. I needed to make 12 records just for this entry.

Cataloging microfilmed versions of comic books. Never thought I'd be doing that.

But now I’m done. I have yet to decide how to celebrate. I think I’m going to bring in some baked goodies as a thank-you to my coworkers for putting up with the muttering, weeping, and shouts of outrage that leaked out over my cubicle walls. Not to mention the occasional conversational bludgeoning they’d take as I’d corner one of 'em and jabber on and on about my horrible project until their eyes glazed over.

I wonder what I'm going to be given next. There is a project around here somewhere with my name on it, I'm sure of that. As it was pointed out to me yesterday, the reward for a job well done is usually more work. I hope they come up with something soon. I've been wandering around since Tuesday morning, time hanging heavy on my hands. It's weird not having "that #@$! microfilm project" around, driving me crazy. It's been the bane of my existence for ten months. Now I almost miss it.

Almost.

Snow day!

This whole section of the country got socked with snow. We have about six inches already, and it's still snowing. The university I work for cancelled all classes or activities before 5pm, and non-essential personnel need not report to work.

It's good to be non-essential. Off I go to make snow angels. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

(Picture taken from just outside my door, with the laptop's camera).

Camera woes

I guess that last picture was just too much for the camera. Maybe its lens started to have sympathy pains or something. In any event, I have to send it away to be fixed again. Same problem as last time -- everything works, except that it won't take pictures. I can playback, crop, and adjust to my little heart's content, but when I switch over to a picture-taking mode, all I get is a black screen no matter where I point the camera. It has become, in essence, a very expensive electronic paperweight. Grrr.

So now I get to dig out my receipt and call the 1-800 number, tell the guy on the other end that no, I didn't drop it and no, I didn't get it wet, and yes, the battery is fully charged. Then I'll get a box FedExed to me (which I will of course have to go sign for at the main terminal, as they never come when I'm home) that I'm to put my sick camera into and send off to Wherever They Fix Cameras (last time it was somewhere in Connecticut).

But at least I can play with the pictures I already have:



Or how about:

Still life with myopia

Still life with myopia
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves.

So what's wrong with this picture? I done broke mah glasses, that's what wrong! The other pair (the big black frames, remnants of the 1980s) are not so much my back-up pair as they are the only other set I have to hand. The white tape (which makes them look like a prop from Revenge of the Nerds) aren't holding the frame together -- they're acting as little wedges to keep the lens from popping out. Fun huh?

The little wire-rimmed ones have been fixed since this picture was taken. Snapped 'em in two Sunday afternoon (doh! A little too strenuous with the cleaning there), got 'em soldered back together Monday lunchtime.

And now I have an appointment to get my eyes checked, since these just-fixed glasses are a rather old prescription too.

Love for sale

Standing in the checkout line of a local grocery store, bored, I decide to read the back of the packet of cat treats I'm buying (product name deleted so I don't get sued):

A [product name] treat is special the moment you give it, and even more so the moment after. Because that's the moment, in the wake of that deliciously satisfying taste, when your cat shows how much she loves you--with purrs and smiles just for you. And if you don't have that loving moment often enough...you're not giving your cat enough [product name] treats.

Interesting. I thought a pet's love was unconditional. Silly me.

And how did they know my cat was a she?

Words & language

I was trawling the Internet over my lunch break and ran across this. I'm very proud to say I already knew aglet, harp, minimus, nef, peen, rowel, and hemidemisemiquaver.

Does anyone else out there think that Jarns, Nittles, Grawlix, and Quimp sounds like a law firm?

While I'm thinking about it, Matt over at Defective Yeti has started something he's calling the Cliché Rotation Project that sounds like fun. I've been browsing the clichés at the places he suggested we look first, and at the moment I can't come up with any good replacements.

So this is what today is going to be like, huh?

I'm working on a project that involves cataloging microfilm versions of underground newspapers. Been working on it since May. I'm in the T's now. I just ran across a title from Berkeley, CA called Trashman, and for reasons that elude me this popped into my head and won't leave:

"NanaNanaNanaNanaNanaNanaNanaNana Trashman!" (a la the Batman theme song)

Whimper.

Happy birthday, li'l blog...

Wow. A whole year blogging. Frankly, I didn't think I'd make it past a few months.

(update 12/10/07: There used to be a .gif of a cake here, but the link broke. Next year I'll buy a cupcake and some candles and make my own picture. --V)

Mary

A friend of mine died over the weekend. She'd been battling breast cancer for quite some time. She was in remission when we met, but the cancer came back about ten years ago. She's been fighting ever since.

Mary was an amazing woman -- interested in everything, loved the arts, loved nature. She used to travel a lot, back when she was healthier. She was always trying to do new things. I think it was that interest in everything that kept her alive so long, even when she was so horribly sick -- she wasn't done looking around yet.

I've found myself trying to be more like her in recent years. I don't think I ever told her that. No, I'm sure I haven't, because I don't think I even realized that's what I was doing until I typed it a moment ago. The cynic in me tends to roll her eyes skyward when anyone talks about someone being "inspiring," but really I guess that's what she was. The determination with which she held onto life, the way she refused to allow illness to get in the way of her enjoyment of things, the enthusiasm with which she embraced a new idea or activity -- I want to be like that. She's part of the reason I took a drawing course a few years back (just to see if I could draw), and there's a little bit of be-like-Mary in my decisions to blog, to bellydance, to get out there and do something instead of hanging back and dithering. She used to ask for dancing updates. And demand demonstrations. When I visited her in the hospital last week, I mentioned I'd enrolled in an intro to wheel-thrown pottery class that starts the end of this month. That made her perk up a bit (she was a potter, among other things). We made jokes about dancing and throwing at the same time: the wheel going one way and my hips going the other.

She became a potter after her cancer went into remission the first time, back in the 80s (I think). Long before I met her, she'd switched from making regular-sized pottery to miniatures. I have some pictures of her work on my Flick'r account.

I think that Mary wrote her own obituary. It sounds like her voice. I'm not sure how long it will stay up on the newspaper's site, so I'm saving a copy of it on my computer. If the link breaks, I'll work something else out.

Is it 2007 already?

Yawn, stretch, scratch, scratch, scratch.

I feel like a bear that's come out of hibernation. Kinda disappeared there for a while over the holidays, didn't I? It's not like I had anything better to do, either. I just hung around town most of the time, doing next to nothing.

I did go to my sister's for Christmas though. Enjoyed that. There were seven of us -- me, my parents, Ditter, Ditter's hubby, and Ditter's in-laws (called hereafter Mr. and Mrs. S). I think I mentioned before that she and her husband bought a house with his parents, didn't I? It all seems to be going well, except that the cats don't get along. Hops is very territorial, always has been. Schotzi tends to stay in Mr. & Mrs. S's bedroom most of the time.

The living room looked like some sort of monument to excess. There were presents everywhere. Here, let me show you:

We ran out of room under the tree and started to build outward. There are more added after this picture was taken. Mr. S said it looked like a department store display.

Christmas itself is a blur. Only a few things stand out:

1) Double warning -- Handwritten in large letters on the hot drinks vending machine of the Greyhound bus terminal:

Caution! Very hot liquid!

And under this, very small, in different handwriting:

When it gives you anything at all!

2) Good night kisses -- I slept in the downstairs guest room. The door to my room stayed open all night, as it had the cats' litter box and food dishes in it. Daisy (my sister's yellow lab) does a bed-check at some time every night (no one else knew this until I told them. Probably because all their doors are shut). She took the opportunity of an open door to come and give my face a quick wash. By the third night the kisses didn't completely wake me -- I incorporated them into my dream.

3) Christmas dinner -- My brother-in-law had done a turkey last year, and though we all liked it, he was a little disappointed. He'd used some recipe from the food network and thought it would taste different. So this year he decided to do prime rib. Very tasty, and very large. It looked like a quarter of a cow, and he hadn't used the whole standing rib roast. I remember him asking my sister whether she wanted him to make steaks out what he wasn't going to use that night, or whether to just leave it as a roast.

4) First Night prep -- fast forward about a week. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig. They'd fenced off a block downtown in preparation for some alcohol-free, family-oriented New Year's Eve festivities called "First Night." A large part of the event has to do with ice sculptures. The ice was brought in a few days in advance, wrapped in silver thermal blankets to keep it cold. New Year's Eve Day, the sculptors start carving. I have a few pictures over at Flickr, if you'd like to see them. I didn't make it to the actual event. I don't think the buses run that late, and besides, I'm usually yawning by 11:30.

The rest of the two weeks went something like this: sleep late, play on the computer, watch TV and knit, go out for a walk, maybe go downtown for a little bit, read, watch TV with cat in lap, go to bed. One day I skipped the walk/downtown part, and just hung around the apartment all day in my PJs. Aaaah. Sloth. I enjoy a little of that every once in a while.

I'm going to have to start using the alarm clock again, starting tonight. I go back to work on Monday, and I should probably get back into the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn.

Hope your holiday was a good one. Happy New Year all!

These scarves are too heavy to juggle

I've been a knitting fool lately. Been making some scarves as presents this year. I really like the wavy one on the left. I may have to make one of those for myself. I got the pattern for that one from an online magazine called Knitty. Lots of interesting patterns there. They're out of Toronto, somewhere on Queen Street. I probably walked right past them last time I was up that way.

I'm blogging from my sister's house. I'm here until a few days after Christmas, then it's back home for a week or so. I'm not going back to work until the 8th of January. I figure I'll be fairly stir-crazy by then and ready to go back.

Merry Christmas from Amish country!

Do-it-yourself snow

The high temperature for today is supposed to be 57°F. That's just wrong. It should be snowing.

So I've decided to make some snow of my own at Popular Front's snowdays site. And then a few moments later I made some more. It's oddly addictive.

Anyone wanna join me? If you do and you want to share your snowflake with the other three people who read this blog, you could post the link for it in my comments box.--the site gives you the opportunity to send yourself (or anyone else) a link to your work.

If you wanna sing out, sing out...

Last evening one of my neighbors was out walking his dog and singing:

"I'm 'Enery the Eighth I yam,
'Enery the Eighth I yam I yam.
I got married to the widow next door.
She's been married seven times before
And ev'ry one was an 'Enery ('Enery!),
She wouldn't 'ave a Willy or a Sam (no sir!).
I'm 'er eighth old man named 'Enery,
'Enery the Eigth I yam!"

I couldn't stop myself. I flung open the door and shouted:

"Second verse, same as the first!"

And slammed it shut really quick so he couldn't identify the shouter.

Got a chicken where?

I wasn't able to go to dance class last week, as I was on a bus heading back from Thanksgiving with my parents for most of Sunday evening. I'd told my teacher that I wouldn't be there, and (little teacher's pet wannabe that I am) asked for another rhythm or two to practice on my zills. She'd already given us five different ways to do triplets, and a rhythm that she called "3-5-1-3" because, well, it's that many beats with pauses in between: 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5,1,1-2-3. So anyway, this time she gave me 3-3-7, and 3-7-3. Since you get 8 beats when you count from one to seven out loud (go on, try it), they've put this rhythm to words. Instead of 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 it's: "Gotta dance, gotta dance, got a chicken in my pants."

Yep.

And of course, 3-7-3 is, "Gotta dance, got a chicken in my pants, gotta dance."

Best of all was when she was telling me, she couldn't help doing a little wiggle and shoulder shimmy when she got to "got a chicken in my pants." To which I replied, "well, thank you for the blog post."

I was practicing the zills earlier today, and when I stopped I heard a noise behind me that I quickly identified as the cat, snoring. My first thought? "Oh, God, I've deafened her!" To test this, I went into the kitchen and said very quietly, "Would anyone like a cat treat?" I turned around and she was at the door of the pantry, watching me expectantly. So apparently she's just used to the noise and has learned to tune it out.

What's next, locusts?

The weather forecast for today has predicted just about everything except a rain of poisonous toads. It's supposed to start out with a high of 62° (Fahrenheit), then about 1 o'clock we're supposed to start with rain and high winds -- there's a flash-flood warning until 10 pm, I think -- and then we're supposed to get a little bit of snow. Is Mama Nature a smidge angry?

The rain and wind have started right on schedule, and I just heard a siren in the distance. It sounded like a fire engine. The lights flickered slightly a little while ago, which makes me wonder if a power line is down.

Vacation was nice & relaxing, by the way. Nothing earth-shaking happened, though I did take a few pictures at the kitchen table with the laptop. I'll post them soon.

Now comes the part of the year I dread: Christmas shopping. It's very hard to get any information out of my male relatives about what they'd like for Christmas. Some year I'm going to take a pottery class, make bizarre lumpish objects (that's all I can do anyway. Ever made a pinchpot with corners? By accident? I have. I still don't know how that happened), call them I-don't-knows and give them as presents. Then the next year when I ask what they want and they tell me, "I don't know." I can say, "No, I gave you that last year."

A "stealth" vacation

I've been a full-time employee of this university for fourteen years (and six days. My anniversary was last Sunday), and I have never gotten used to how cool the concept of a paid vacation is. You tell your boss, "Hey, I'm not coming in at all next week. Not only do I expect to have a job here when I come back, I want you to pay me for the time I'm gone." And (s)he says, "Okay. See you in a week."

This is a "stealth" vacation. I haven't told any of my family or friends about it. I am hugging the week to me and whispering, "Mine. All mine." I don't really have much planned, just some Christmas shopping. I'll also try to finish the Christmas stocking I'm embroidering for my brother-in-law. Other than a trip to my parents' house Thanksgiving weekend and dance class tomorrow, I have no obligations this week.

I quit the choir. I know that in last post I said it was fun. And it was fun, when my voice would behave. I've had a series of colds and bouts with allergies this autumn (more so than usual) and they've left me with a now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't kind of singing voice. One of the pieces we were doing is the Hallelujah Chorus. They need first sopranos who can consistently hit the high A's. Sometimes I could, and sometimes all that came out of my mouth was "squeak." Frustrating, and not a help to the rest of the choir.

Also, my friend is feeling a bit of pressure regarding her dissertation. If she doesn't get it finished by the end of this term, she'll have to pay for another semester's tuition. She's running short of funds and getting a bit frantic, so she really doesn't have the time for this choir that she did last year. The whole time she's there, I think she's making mental lists of What She Should Be Doing. The relief in her reply to my "I'm quitting" email was palpable. I think she was trying to find a graceful exit. I'm happy to oblige.

I'll probably post later this week, if anything remotely interesting happens. Maybe I'll take a laptop-camera shot of my parents' place at Thanksgiving.

In the basement of Irving's

Lately, I've been calling Sunday "song-and-dance day." Practice for the Bellefonte Victorian Christmas choir started up about a month ago, Sundays 2 to 4. Then I have dance class in the evening.

I joined the choir last year with a friend of mine. It was her idea. She wanted to do something that had nothing to do with writing her dissertation, and asked me if I wanted to come along. This choir is a volunteer, unpaid, single-purpose choir. We practice for 2 months' worth of Sundays, perform twice during Bellefonte's Christmas celebration in early December, and then disband for the year. It's a lot of fun. One of the few opportunities I get to sing that isn't in the shower or along with the radio, since I don't belong to a church and therefore can't join the choir. I made the mistake of saying that a fellow choir-member last year, and she tried to get me involved in her church. I finally had to tell her gently but firmly that I didn't miss being in a choir quite that much.

I should be there right now, but my friend's mother needed to be driven upstate somewhere. I have no other way to get there -- buses don't run to Bellefonte on Sunday. Instead, I've dragged my laptop downtown to Irving's, a sandwich shop/café with free wifi. Bought myself lunch, and now I'm blogging in their basement.

I've moved up to Belly Dance II, by the way. First class was last week, and it blew my mind. We've thrown zills into the mix, as well as doing things faster and in odd rhythms. Remember the whole steps-on-the-down ("that butt-clench thing") I went on about last March? Well, now we're doing something called a three-quarter shimmy. Instead of 1 squeeze each step, it's squeeze-left-squeeze-right-squeeze-left each step. Yeah. That's gonna take a bit of practice.

And on top of this, we add zills. Now I know why I've been holding my fingers like I'm holding a coin between thumb and middle finger. That's where the finger cymbals go! I bought a pair and was given some rhythms to practice. Here's what a zill looks like:

The safety pin is there at the suggestion of my teacher. When I bought them, I got 4 zills and long piece of elastic. You cut the elastic into 4 pieces, thread a piece through each zill, and then fit it to your finger. After a few weeks with them, once I'm sure of the fit (tight enough to keep them from falling off my fingers, yet loose enough to keep my fingers from turning purple. It's a delicate balance), I'm supposed to sew the elastic at the pin mark and trim the ends.

They make a nice, bright, loud "dinnggggg!" The cat hates them. She doesn't run from me when I practice though. She just sit there and stares at me, wide-eyed, ears back flat, wondering what this is in aid of. The way she tells me she's had enough? She starts to sharpen her claws on my rocking chair. That backfired on her, because the last time she did that I chased her away, hissing and clanging the bells.

I'm not staring at you, I'm just reading your T-shirt.

I've been collecting sayings from T-shirts lately. Here are my favorites:

"Subtle..." -- on the front. Continued on the back: "...as a brick in the small of my back."

"Respect my peeps." -- The "peeps" in question were three little cartoon drawings of those yellow marshmallow chicks that get sold around Easter time here in the US. I don't know why I'm surprised at this, but they have their own website. These peeps were drawn with little baseball caps on backwards, wearing jewelry.

"Blondes really are more fun." -- worn by a very stern-looking brunette.

"Stop plate tectonics!" -- this one belongs to a friend of mine, and I laugh every time I see it. But then, I'm a little nerdy that way.

I don't tend to wear things with text on them, mainly because I don't hold the same opinion or thought long enough to want it emblazoned across my chest all day. Though if I did, I think it would be the sentence I used for the title of this post. Either that, or something I said to one of our newer part-time employees last week: "I'm not nearly as enthusiastic as I appear." That would work for all moods -- chirpy to grumpy to apathetic.

What would yours say?

I think my 15 minutes just started...

A few weeks ago, one of my co-workers called me from the reference desk and asked if she could borrow the back of my head. The fellow who takes the pictures for our public relations department was doing a photo shoot of our library, and he needed someone to sit and pretend to read a paper. So I came downstairs and held the New York Times in front of me for a little bit, did the same thing with USA Today, was thanked, went upstairs, and forgot about the whole thing.

Until this morning, that is, when I passed a framed poster of myself in the exhibit area on the library's first floor. This shoot (I just found out today) was for a display about my department, what we have to offer, what researchers can do with our resources, etc., etc. The area where I'm sitting is a place with comfy seats and three plasma screen TVs. The TVs run news feeds all the time. The one in the center is news non-English language news (with the sound on), and the two outer ones are US domestic news. These two have the sound turned off and closed-captioning running. We've had complaints from people who want to hear the English-language news, so recently we installed little radio transmitters. Anyone with a walkman or an MP3-player/radio can tune in and listen. We've also ordered radio headsets that people can borrow from the desk, for those folks who don't have either of those things.

This exhibit area is part of the normal route I take while crossing back and forth between my office (which is on the second floor of one end of the building) and the reference desk where I work (on the ground floor of the other end of the building). I get to pass by the back of my head a few times a day every day between now and the end of January. It's an odd feeling. It's also very hard not to look up at myself as I walk by.

Blogging remotely

For a number of reasons, the main one being that my desktop machine is on its last legs, I bought myself a laptop last week. It has a hard drive twice the size of the old machine, a wireless card, a 17-inch monitor (the main selling-point, really. Yes, it's heavier than most others, but I have all sorts of room on the screen! I consider that a fair trade), and this nifty little camera above the screen. I can use it to take pictures of myself, but I can also flip it round and take pictures like the one to the left.

This is the room I'm blogging from at the moment. It's my favorite place in the library. Before the renovation (back in the late nineties), it was the Maps library and was just jammed full of map cases, with a section in the back that had tables similar to these. No lamps, though. Then the football coach donated a huge chunk of money to the renovation project, so they turned this room into an old-timey looking reading room and named it after his family. Those brass and green glass lamps house electrical outlets and laptop ports in their bases. The ports were used much more frequently before they installed wifi in the whole building, but it's still a pretty neat idea.

You can't see it very well (the camera only has 1.3 megapixels to it, and was definitely made to take very close-range pictures), but the trim near the ceiling is a series patterns in plaster-- the largest one has been painted red and gold. Back when this was the Maps room, all of those fantastic little details were all painted the same color as the wall. I was so happy to see this room finally get treated the way it deserves. It's in the oldest part of the building, and one of the few places that hasn't been hacked apart or partitioned off into smaller, pokier rooms.

Well, that's about it for now. I just wanted to try out my camera and my wireless card. I suppose I should pack everything up and go get myself some supper before it gets much later.

I hope this isn't a monthly occurrence

"So," I ask, stretching my arms out and turning from side to side. "Do I look like I got dressed in the dark?"

My officemate barely looks at me before responding, bless her. "No. Why?"

"'Cause I did."

"Power's out again?"

"Most of it."

Yeah, that's right. Most of it. At ten o'clock last night my apartment was plunged into darkness. I could see that the answering machine was still on, though (it's in the back corner of the kitchen) and I could hear the refrigerator running. This led me to assume that a breaker tripped, even though I hadn't heard it go off. After flicking various switches in the breaker box a few times, I realized that wasn't it. I poked my head out the front door and saw some of my neighbors wandering around asking each other whether they were having power problems. Some people were completely out. Some people had a few things that wouldn't work, and some people had situations like mine. I'm guessing the people I didn't see weren't affected at all.

I tried calling the complex's office on my cell phone. I got no answer, not even the answering machine, which lead me to believe the office was affected too. The manager has emergency numbers posted on the office door, so I decided to head on up there and see if I could get hold of someone at one of them. I didn't make it very far, though, before another neighbor told me he'd talked to our manager (who is also fellow tenant, apparently. His cable went out and about two seconds later the phone started ringing off the hook--people from all over the complex calling with problems), who was now on the phone with the electric company to see what was up. So I went home.

My heater uses natural gas but the fan is run on electricity, so I had no heat last night. I grabbed every blanket I could find and huddled up with Delilah (who, by the way, was as happy as a pig in poo and spent the whole night purring loudly in my face. She loves it when weird stuff happens). I attached the alarm clock to the one working outlet so that I could at least get to work on time.

No coffee this morning, and a cold sink-bath by candlelight. Yuck.

Around 7 this morning, some fella in a hardhat went door-to-door to explain the situation to us. One of the lines from the transformer was out, so anything attached to that line was out too. They would be digging up our driveway and parking lot again, hoped to have everything restored by noon today.

Admittedly, electricity looks a lot like magic to me, but I have what I think is a logical question: why would you attach parts of an apartment's wiring to different lines? There doesn't seem to be much reason behind the way it was done. It's not like everyone's lights were out, but the refrigerators were all fine. In some cases it was just the reverse. Is that standard practice, or am I right in suspecting that my complex was put together by the Keystone Kops of the construction industry?

Everything should be fine now. I suppose I'll find out when I go home.

Ouch

Point of consumer-relations etiquette: Unless you are absolutely certain the customer with whom you are conversing is expecting a child, under no circumstances should you ask her when she's due.

Harrumph. Not going there for coffee again anytime soon.

I've spent the whole day asking people at work if I look pregnant. Consensus is that my sweater is rather baggy, the sort of thing a newly pregnant woman might wear. It's also the sort of thing a plump woman might wear if she were not inclined to dress herself in low-cut jeans and high-cut shirts--the sort that make the wearer look like a tube of Pillsbury's biscuit dough that just exploded.

Ah, well. Better to be called pregnant than fat. I guess. Though you'd think the fact that I was buying coffee would be a hint, wouldn't you? Most pregnant women I've ever come across cut out caffeine right away.

Missed opportunity

Blast, blast, blast.

Sunday evening at about 6pm a gorgeous rainbow appeared. It's the only full arch I have ever seen, and very, very bright. I was on the bus for most of it, headed into town for dance class. When I finally got off the bus and started walking, it turned into a double rainbow -- the second about 10 ft (I guess) outside of the first, mirroring it very faintly. As I stood there on the sidewalk, gaping, a flock of migrating Canadian geese flew (in V-formation) right between the two rainbows. It would have been a perfect shot. The next one I would have taken? All the people holding their camera phones skywards, a la Hayata in Ultraman.

Guess where my camera was. Home. I'd decided my bag was too heavy and had a lot of extraneous junk in it. So I pulled out everything I thought I wouldn't be needing that evening.

Blast.

At least there are some other people from my neck of the woods on Flick'r. I did a search and found some nice shots. Here's one of the double rainbow, and here's one showing how bright the interior bow was.

Trust

Two young women (late teens, early twenties) were alone on a large expanse of lawn on campus yesterday, taking turns falling backwards into each other's arms. I was passing at some distance, and didn't like to interrupt, but I really want to know what that was about. I recognize it as a trust exercise--my Mom used to work in a drug rehab center for teens, and I remember her describing this to me. Were these ladies Psych students? Participants in the same group therapy session? Preparing team-building exercises? Was this the result of a conversation on trust? Were they just goofing around? No idea.

Interesting to watch, though.

Fried modem

I was checking my email a little before 7 am yesterday when the power went out. I found out later that most of the people on my street lost power. The first indication I had that it wasn't just my apartment that had a problem (well, second. The first was that I didn't hear the breaker box click) was when my upstairs neighbor started scurrying around. Lighting candles, I suppose. That's what I was doing, anyway.

Candlelight is very pretty and romantic and all that, but it sure is difficult to get dressed by. The cat (very intelligently I thought) decided that the safest place to be was in her little bed, well out of the way of the frantic human fumbling around in the semidark.

According to my neighbors, the power was out until around noon. It was on when I got home at six. There were workmen digging in the front yard, though, so I figured it hadn't been truly fixed yet. They're still out there today, doing who knows what. Whatever they were doing yesterday has resulted in a very large hole, a big pile of dirt, and very thick cable with an extremely frayed and frazzled end to it. I wonder if one of the groundhogs I've been seeing all summer mistook that cable for a chew toy.

The upshot of all this for me personally is internet connection problems. Apparently there was a power surge right before eveything went *poof* that was too much for my power strip, and my modem has died.

I'm trying to decide whether to just get a new modem or to replace the whole CPU. It's an older machine. The service plan I bought for it has most definitely expired. It's probably time to get a new one. And the power goes out often enough (symptom of a town that's growing too fast and an electric company that needs to update their grid) that it's probably one surge away from following the modem into the Great Beyond.

I've been shopping around online (in a computer lab on campus, in case anyone is wondering) and I looked briefly (very briefly) at laptops. They want over $1000 for most of those. Oy. No thanks. Portability isn't that high on my list of priorities. Actually, there isn't really much on my list of priorities. Don't care much for all the bells and whistles. Whatever comes standard suits my purpose. I don't need tons of storage, either, which frustrates store employees.

Most of the machines on the site where I was looking have at least 100 gigs of storage. Mine has 60, and I thought that was a lot when I bought it. I've only used about half. When I was buying this machine, the fellow at the store tried to talk me into getting one with 80 gigs. He couldn't believe I'd be happy with "just 60."

"Look," I said, "the machine I have now has .6 gigs. Asking me whether I want a 60 or 80 gig hard drive is like asking someone living in an efficiency apartment whether they want a 60 room mansion or an 80 room one. It isn't going to matter, because everything they own is going to fit in the foyer."

I expect a similar conversation regarding the 100 or 120 gig hard drive now, if I decide to buy a new machine.

I'm going shopping a little later today. Not buying anything, of that I am sure. There's no way I'd be able to wrestle a purchase onto and off of a bus all by myself. I'm going to have to ask a friend with a car to help me with transport, when (if) I decide to buy something.

I wonder how difficult it is to replace a modem myself? I wonder how much the people at Circuit City would charge to do it for me? Something to ask while I'm there.

BookCrossing's latest acquisition

Heading out for an evening in town, first to dinner then to dance class, I grab a book I bought years ago and have been meaning to read: God-Shaped Hole. I start into it as I'm waiting for the bus. About twenty pages in, I'm getting a bad feeling. By the time I get to town, I'm sure that I'm not going to like this book.

It's a first-person story. I don't like the main character. That isn't necessarily the end of the world. Have you ever read a first-person narrative where the character sets him/herself up as the protagonist, but the author gives you some sort of signal not to believe what you're being told? A turn of phrase, a skewed point of view, a fact dropped into the story that the narrator doesn't realize the significance of--it's a literary throat-clearing, a broad wink. I keep waiting for that signal. I'm not getting it. Oh, dear Lord. The author likes this woman. I'm expected to like her as well, and by extension I'm supposed to care about this idiot she's just met and fallen in love with.

I do not want to have dinner with these people. I have no other book with me, and the public library closes at 5 on Sunday. Ten minutes ago.

Thank goodness for Webster's, our local second-hand book store! For two dollars and tax, I buy an Agatha Christie murder mystery I've never heard of before (Towards Zero) and use it to replace the bunch of pretentious, angst-ridden, pseudo-intellectual twerps I was stuck with.

Now I'm starting to feel bad. Maybe I didn't give these people enough of a chance. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for this book. Maybe I'll pick it up again in a few weeks.

Maybe I'll enter it in BookCrossing and leave the book out somewhere in the hope that whoever stumbles upon it will appreciate it in ways that obviously I cannot.

In Pennsylvania Dutch country this weekend

Traffic in Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves.

I'm visiting my sister at the moment. This is the first time I've been to their new house. They live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, deep in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Mennonites and Amish folk everywhere. Sunday in particular the buggies and bicycles on the road drastically outnumbered the cars.

Headed back home by bus this afternoon. Classes start tomorrow, which means town is going to be busy and full. I'm glad the students are back. I missed them. It's a little too quiet without them. Sure, I say that now. Give me two months, I'll be ready for them to leave and give us some peace.

Grange Fair

Cow
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves.

Went to Grange Fair this weekend. This fair is (I'm told) unique in the country. It's the only one left where people camp on the fairgrounds all week. A tent city pops up the day before the fair starts, and stays up into the Thursday of the following week.

Once you have been assigned a plot at the Grange Fair, it belongs to your family until someone decides to give it back. They get passed down in wills, they become a bone of contention in divorce settlements...this camping-at-the-fair thing is a great big deal. If you're locally born, that is. Outsiders (like me) just don't get the appeal. But I digress.

There's a waiting list a mile long for people who want plots. I don't think these plots can be sold, but they can be loaned out to people for one year at a time. Apparently, if you leave the tent completely unoccupied for one fair, your plot is forfeited and given to someone else. I don't think this happens often.

I spent the whole day there this past Saturday. I went with friends who have one of these tents. I can't imagine staying there for a whole week, unless I had animals to tend. That's where the tradition originated, back when long-distance transportation took a lot longer than it does now. Farmers had to stay on-site, because it wasn't feasible to ride back and forth from home to fairgrounds. It was also quite a social occasion. Again, because of transportation difficulties, it was sometimes the only week out of the year that families and friends living on opposite ends of the county got to see each other. A lot of family reunions are still held during Grange Fair.

It's not just about animals, produce, and handicrafts, either. There's a midway full of games, rides, and food stalls. There are performances in the grandstand and on the midway all week --concerts, tractor pulls, dance exhibitions, you name it.

Bringing the war a little too close to home

My aunt sent out an email on Friday to tell us all that my cousin, currently stationed at an air force base in Germany, is being deployed to Baghdad in November. The airman that was supposed to go got into a fist fight a few days ago. The disciplinary action that followed cost him a stripe on his rank, and now the only person with both the rank and the experience to suit their needs is my cousin.

He's coming back to the U.S. next week for training somewhere in Mississippi. His wife and two children (a three year old daughter and a newborn son) are going to live with my aunt and uncle in Virginia while he's away. It's only supposed to be a six-month deployment, but he was told that it could be extended to eight or nine months.

I was afraid something like this would happen. When he joined the air force, my cousin was trained to work with the missiles. He was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming and looked to be there for quite a while. Ironic, isn't it, that the safest place to be right now is tending nuclear weapons? He got restless, though. Because the job is so specialized there isn't much room for advancement. So he got retrained a few years ago and now he's in the post office for the AFB at (I think) Bitburg. My aunt says that's what he'd be doing in Iraq, handling the mail. Somehow I think it's going to be more difficult than that.

In my head, I still see the little boy I used to babysit. It's hard to think of him in a war zone.

Nothing to report, really

I've been surfing around, checking in with all the blogs I read, and I'm seeing there's as little activity elsewhere as there is right here. I think we're all doing the same thing: playing in the sunshine.

Will be back later when I've done something even remotely blogworthy.

Last weekend and this weekend

This is Chewie. I'm not sure I've spelled his name right. He's a chocolate Labrador. He was one of about 20 dogs that came to Mutts Gone Mad last Saturday, which is about twice what we had last year.

I was running the Bobbing for Hot Dogs event for most of the day, and aiming my camera at everywhere else the rest of the time. Chewie was not interested in hot dogs at all. He flung himself into the wading pool and spun around a few times while biting at the water. Then he lay down, threw his head back, and allowed me to take this picture. It was one of the few times he was still all afternoon.

Everyone involved had a lot of fun, and we raised $42 for the local animal welfare agency. Not very much, but more than last year. They were pleased with it, though (every little bit helps), and the beagle rescue group was thrilled to get what they consider a "good" adoption application for one of their animals.

This is going to be a short post. I'm heading to my parents' house for a long weekend in about half an hour, and I'm not done packing yet. It's been a nice week off so far. I did some drawing on Sunday and Monday, thanks to a suggestion made by Anna of Self-Winding. I did a lot of reading, too, most of it indoors because it has been stinkin' hot here all week.

I think I'm going to bring my sketch pad with me to my folks' house. The first drawing I did pleased me quite a bit, but I'm not sure it wasn't a fluke. I seem to be able to do one good one, then a bunch that are very unsatisfying. Is that normal? I only ask because I don't draw much, and it bothers me when an ability seems to come and go of its own free will.

Time to go. Packing to do, taxi to call. Bye y'all!

Mutts Gone Mad & my birthweek

Howdy! My birthday is next Friday, and I've decided to take all of next week as vacation. I don't know quite what I'm going to do with myself. Well, that's a lie. I do know of two things I'll be doing. I'm visiting the parents towards the end of the week for a combination birthday/anniversary celebration. I was a 1-day early second anniversary present. And tomorrow I'm going to be in Reynolds Park in Bellefonte from 11 to 2 with my fellow Loons, hosting a fun fair for dogs.

We call it "Mutts Gone Mad," and this will be the second one we've done. Last year's was pretty well-attended, considering the very little press we got. We're hoping tomorrow's crowd is at least as large and that they have just as much fun as least year's group. There will be contests of all sorts: a rally course, an agility course, a best-dressed contest, and (new this year) doggie limbo. I have no idea how the last one works. I guess I'll know more tomorrow. There are also no-pressure sort of games to play, like an IQ test, and bobbing for hot dogs. This game involves throwing a frankfurter into a full wading pool, and then letting the dog go get it. It's fun to see how the different breeds react. Last year, the retrievers were more interested in splashing around in the water than what was in it. There was a mastiff who tried to do a Moses and push the water aside with her paws, because she didn't want to get her face wet.

The whole event is free. The only thing we sell is food (hamburgers, hot dogs, drinks) but we don't keep the proceeds. Those go to the local animal welfare organizations, some of whom will have representatives there. Beagle Rescue is even bringing a dog who's available for adoption.

This year we had a reporter from Lock Haven contact the Chief Loon, wanting to do a piece on MGM (as we've started to call it). Chief didn't get the email until after the deadline had passed, but this reporter is still interested in us, and now wants to write about the Loons in general. Wow. I wonder how she heard about us. I didn't think we were that visible, really.

Well, that's it for now. Desk is organized so people have somewhere to drop problems in my absence (I'm writing this from work). Time to get the heck outta here. I'll probably post some pictures here and/or on Flick'r when I come in for a landing. Tootles!

Local arts festivals

Dancing
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves.

There were a couple of arts & crafts festivals held in towns nearby, about a week ago. This is a yearly event, held around the middle of July. The two festivals are run by different organizations, but are scheduled so that they coincide. The one in State College was started by local artists forty years ago and it wasn't very long before it became too big for its britches. The organizers introduced some sort of jury process for artist selection, and the local talent started getting excluded in favor of out-of-town (usually out-of-state) artists with more expensive wares to sell.

In reaction, about ten or fifteen years ago the local artists started another festival in Boalsburg, the next town over. The first few years it was strictly for Pennsylvania artists. It's widened a bit in scope since then. Actually, this last time through I noticed the same artists had booths at both festivals. I wonder how long it will be before the local artists get pushed out of the Boalsburg one and have to start up a third festival in Bellefonte, Port Matilda, or Lemont.

My belly dance teacher has been trying for years to get some stage time at either festival. She's been repeatedly turned down. This year, though, she had an edge: one of her Belly Dance 2 students is married to a planner on the Boalsburg festival's committee. She got an hour of performance time. She contacted the other belly dance troupe in the area and offered them half of it, and from 3:30 to 4:30 the Saturday before last, the patrons of the People's Choice Festival got to see all sorts of belly dancing. This picture is of part of a sword dance. My teacher is one of the two women balancing swords on their heads, but unfortunately you can't see very much of her. The smiling woman on the right is my new teacher, who took over teaching the cabaret-style classes now that Barb is leaving.

I didn't take any more pictures than this one. I wasn't using a flash (didn't want to distract) and the picture came out very dark. Through the miracle of technology, though, I've managed to brighten it up considerably. If I'd known about the software before today, I would have shot lots more.

I bought my Mom's birthday present at the State College festival. This is tradition. Her birthday usually falls right after (or somewhere in the middle) of the festival. This year, though, the 4th of July being on a Tuesday pushed both festivals back a week. I can't say just yet what I bought her -- I haven't given it to her yet, and she sometimes reads this blog. I'll post a picture of it after I give it to her. I'm pretty sure she'll like it.

I also bought something for myself, which I don't usually do. There was a paper-maker and bookbinder there, selling gorgeous leather-bound books, full of thick, creamy, blank pages. The pages are hand-sewn into the binding. You just don't see that anymore. The one I bought is bound in red leather. So soft. So lovely. So intimidating to think about writing or drawing in it. But draw in it I will, just as soon as I limber up the old sketching muscle.

Now I know I saw my art supplies somewhere when I was cleaning...where did I stash them?

I really need to get out more

I'm working on a project involving a set of microfilm called the Underground Newspaper Collection. I'm not going to get into how crazy it's driving me. Let's just say that my coworkers tiptoe past me and pretend not to hear to the muttering, sobbing, and cursing that leaks out over the soft walls of my cubicle.

I just want to mention this, because it just struck me today: of all the newspapers that were not trying for commercial success (in other words, the ones published by someone with a Cause, as opposed to the ones published with the intent of being a local newspaper), I've found that the anarchists were the best at being consistent. Their publications generally had numbers that went in sequential order (a rarity, trust me) and those numbers were (usually) printed somewhere on each issue, along with a date (equally as rare) . They also managed to maintain the frequency of publication, instead of publishing as a monthly for 3 issues and then letting six months go by before publishing another one. Wouldn't you think that as anarchists they'd be less concerned with organization and structure than their fellow alternative presses? Maybe to the point of being random on purpose?

I thought that was pretty funny. But then, I amuse easily.

Pictures from the Box

Whaddya think of the new look? I was getting a little tired of all the pink, myself. One of these days (not anytime soon) I may try to figure out how to design blog and make my own template. Don't be holding your breath, now. That's a vague whim. Until then, I think I can live with the lighthouse.

I visited my parents this past weekend. We spent a lot of time on the porch watching nature's floor show. There is a family of woodpeckers that walks up and down the trees calling to each other while they hammer away at tree trunks, and a gorgeous, too-fast-for-my-camera scarlet tanger (bright red with black wings) that visits once in a while. There are some juncos living in a nest under the porch (the porch is actually very high off the ground, so I'm not surprised there are birds using the underside of it), and the babies are just learning how to fly.

The real attraction though is a bunch of flying squirrels living in the eaves of the red tin roof. Mom's named them The Flying Wollendas. They leave the nest about dusk, go to the very edge of the roof and one by one they fling themselves out into the air, swooping down to land on the tree nearest the house. Then they climb to the top of that tree and fling themselves at the next one. They're about the size of chipmunks. I assumed flying squirrels were bigger, for some reason. Mom and Dad say that when it's finally time to weatherproof the house, they're going to have to seal off the roof in the evening, after the squirrels have left for the night. They don't want to hurt them, just make them move their nest to another location.

I stayed through to Monday, because it was Mom's birthday. I took her out to lunch at a 50's-style diner called Fezz's, after a morning spent going through this h-u-g-e box of photographs. She was looking for baby pictures for a family picnic my aunt is having this weekend. She wants everyone to send her baby pictures and she's going to make some sort of poster with them. I'm not going to this shin-dig. Not only is it farther away than I can manage without a longish bus trip (she lives in New Jersey), I already had other plans. And if I hadn't had any I'd have made some. My father's side of the family is large, loud, and rather...contentious? I guess that's the word. Last time we all got together (which was for my Grandma's funeral a little over a year ago), my dad and one of his brothers argued for at least 1/2 an hour about whether sugar or baking soda should be used to cut the acid in tomato sauce. I mean, really. They both work. Let's move on, okay?

So anyway as we were sorting through the pictures, I found a bunch I wanted copies of. I took twelve of them with me, but there were dozens and dozens more that I wanted. When I go back up next month, I'm going to spend a bit more time digging around in that box. There are some great ones in there. I scanned the twelve I brought back with me, and have uploaded all but three into Flickr. I'll get the other three done tonight. My connection is dial-up, so it takes a while to do.

Here's the one I used to make the new picture for my profile. It's me, at about 1 1/2.

Sounds of the season

Pa-pow!

I sit bolt upright in bed. Was that a gunshot? I jam my glasses onto my face and look at the clock: 2:45 AM. That means it's really 2:18. The police will want to know when I heard the shot. I wonder if I'll have to explain why the alarm clock is set 27 minutes ahead.

I don't remember getting out of bed, but now I'm in the front room, peeking through the slats of the window blind. Can't see a thing. As I'm deciding whether to call the police or not, I hear it again. Different this time:

Zzzzzt! Pa-pow!

Oh, for pity's sake. It's been the fourth of July barely two hours, and someone's already setting off firecrackers. He (I don't know why I'm so sure it's a "he") probably bought them from that huge tent in the Wal-mart parking lot tonight, stopped there after work. Then, since tomorrow's a holiday, he went out drinking with his buddies. Bars close around two, so he probably just got home. He's not sleepy yet. A little bit bored, in fact. And then he sees his fireworks....

Screeeeeeee! Pop.

I shuffle back to bed, climb in, put a pillow over my head. Now that I know what the noise is, I can probably sleep through it. Oddly comforting to know that one's neighbors are just idiots, as opposed to being violent criminals.

As I start to drift off to sleep, I decide I'm going to have to suspend my disbelief a little more when watching TV or a movie. I never believe it when I see a character go from being sound asleep to sitting straight up in bed. Apparently it does happen.

Bang!

Moron. I hope he gets rained on at every single football game he goes to this Fall.

Phew

Well that's over with, thank goodness. It appears they only notify you of the results if things need to be changed at all. All I got on my door was a little note that read, "Your apartment has been inspected," so I guess I passed. I finally got the computer reconnected last night. It's amazing how much time you have for other things when goofing off online isn't an option.

One good thing came out of all of this. I like the way the apartment looks now. I wouldn't be embarrassed to let my Mom in here. It's a bit more organized, and there's a little less clutter overall. I threw out or donated to charity a lot of things that I decided I just didn't want or need any more. And I have enough space in the front room that I practice with the belly dancing DVD I bought a while back without too much furniture-shifting beforehand.

My belly dance instructor is moving away in August. Her husband lost his job, so they're moving to a little town a few hours away from us and starting a business. She says there's no one in that area teaching belly dance, so she's going to try to get some classes started there. Our classes are going to be taken over by her most advanced student--sort of her apprentice. She and my instructor have been taking turns leading class since I started going last March, so it should be a smooth transition. I'm going to miss Barb, though.

Speaking of belly dance, I took a workshop a couple weekends ago, focusing on Turkish Romany-style belly dance--the sort the gypsies dance. It was really interesting. And fun. And tiring. Dance classes are normally about an hour long. This class was one two-hour session, then an hour lunch break, then a second two-hour session. Boy, did I hurt the next day. My body clicked and clacked like a Jacob's Ladder. The music we were dancing to was in 9/8 meter: nine beats to the measure broken down into 4 beats, so you get this slight pause at the end of each measure. Here, try this, you'll see what I mean. Count this out loud and clap on the "1's":

1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3...

It sounds like this:

clap, clap, clap, clap,[slight pause], clap, clap, clap, clap [slight pause]

That slight pause is just enough time for a quick hop or kick or hip movement, or any number of things. It takes a little readjustment to make oneself pause at the end of the fourth beat. I wound up rushing the steps a few times until I got it figured out. And then at class the following week, I had trouble readjusting to plain 1-2-3-4 again.

Let's see, what else is going on? The mess at work has been sorted out, kind of. I don't think anyone is particularly happy with the result (I know I'm not), but this is only supposed to be an "interim" solution to our problem. Maybe now we can stop sniping at each other and act like civilized people again. Hope springs eternal.

I'm visiting my parents next weekend, staying through to Monday for my Mom's birthday. No word yet on a diagnosis for her problem. I don't think she's been back to the doctor yet. Maybe it hasn't flared up recently. I'll make sure I ask her about it during the next "finger and toe check," which is what she calls our weekly phone conversations.

It's gorgeous outside. Finally. It's been raining off and on all week. I'm going to go play in the sunshine now. Have a good weekend everyone!