Not-bullets

1. Hey, it's poetry month! Hence the poems that have posted the past two days (oh, how I love post-dating!).



2. My Bloglines front page says I have "63 updated feeds" which include 367 unread posts. I also have 172 saved posts. I think this means I am officially buried.



3. I am caught up in tweets and Fb, though. Short Attention Span rules the day!



4. I am not loving Fb's 'update'. Just discovered that you can't do "less of/more of" individuals. People are either in your news feed, or not. That explains why I get RSS'd updates in Bloglines for Stephanie, Kyle, Kevin, et al., but never see 'em on Facebook; in the old incarnation they were "less of" but now they are invisible. Guess I'll create a 'group' of them so I can find them periodically. Stupid. How is this an upgrade, Fb??



5. Today I am meeting someone with whom I may be spending a great deal of time in the future, someone who may strongly influence my external happiness meter. Hope that goes well.



6. This weekend is crazy busy: local mission trip on Saturday (more on that, perhaps, later). On Sunday I'm playing in the bell choir at church which will be followed immediately by an Easter Egg hunt for the little kids. The youth group is going to hide the eggs, so as soon as worship is over, I have to go into supervision mode. Whee.



7. My mom's health is stable. That's all. I have not bought plane tickets. Not...quite...yet.



8. Found a shirt this morning in my closet I had forgotten about. It was with the summer shirts, but it's a long-sleeved T. Why, yes: I am wearing it today, as a matter of fact!



9. I'm nearly caught up in cataloging new materials at work, but suddenly feel absolutely swamped in projects. Graphic Novels, biogs, gifted videos and manga, calling STOOPUD publishers to cancel subscriptions (Dun&Bradsteet, you SUCK!) original cataloging, typos, fairy tales...the floodgates have opened.



10. Our system database manager at work needs to be punched in the face. This has nothing to do with anything else in this post. He just does. On principle.



11. Sparky has reverted to 100% teenager. Glad he's normal. Wish he'd pull his head out a little more often though.



12. The sun is out. This is a good thing, yo.

Small things

How lame am I? I am so lame that I'm twitchy with excitement over the discovery that instead of having the little house icon in the IE toolbar open one window, it can open ALL of my favorite tabs: Facebook, Bloglines, Blogger, Gmail, etc., etc.

If you go into "Tools" under the general tab and read the directions for the top box--one URL per line--it's right there. Why didn't I notice this before? The TIME I could have saved clicking on tabs and typing in URLs....

My life = so terribly geekalicious.


Also, it snew last night, after raining for a couple of hours. Yuck. Snow over ice. My fave.

Winter

It's still winter.

It's snowing. The roads are icy and treacherous. We got stuck on the hill on the street outside our subdivision. Sparky had to get out and push--wearing a hoodie and no gloves. Two cars passed while he did this, one going our direction, the other coming toward us. The one coming toward us flashed his lights when he got about 10 feet from me.
W
T
F
?
I'm very tired tonight, fed up with being asked about the upcoming changes at our library ("No, not me. No, I don't know who."), annoyed with and at teenage girls, aware that Sparky and I have to get up extra early tomorrow if the driveway needs attention. [Beast is in California tonight.]

Gah. In fact, gah, squared.

Thought bubbles

Mood: meh
Hair: meh
Eyes: ok
Listening to: some show on car safety that Beast just started watching

Got up this morning with plugged-up sinuses. Spent 90 minutes updating my book blog for the entire month, and then transferring the list to the sidebar here.

Now I can play.

Except, my head hurts. And I have to pull myself together and go to Sparky's band concert today. I hope he's right that it's only four songs, though at least it won't be bleacher seats for us. High school bands play in auditoriums, not "all-purpose rooms."

Beast looked at 'my' laptop yesterday and he thinks he can fix it; it may 'only' be a Windows update that didn't quite take. He'll have to work on it further sometime this weekend, if there is time. Today he's taking his dad to the doctor and then we have this band concert. Tomorrow is church and the visitation for our neighbor, which is in a suburb about an hour from us. I didn't realize it was an hour away--hmmmm. Maybe we will send some flowers instead....

It was -5 out this morning when Beast got up, just 0 when I first looked after I got up an hour or so later, and 4 now. But the sun is shining and there doesn't appear to be a lot of wind. I am grateful for small favors. Just went out to wave goodbye to Beast and it's not bad in spite of bare feet. I'm stupid, yes. Sick + bare feet + outside in cold weather = not too smart.

I'm wondering when I'll be able to take down the "Cost of the War" widget on my sidebar. It's been there for almost as long as I've been blogging. Which, by the way, is about 5 years. And my template is boring the shit outta me today. sigh

I'm also boring myself with this post, so I'm gonna go see what's happening on Facebook, and then think about getting properly dressed in something besides sweats and fleecey hoodies.

---

Urban Word:

pedexterity: v. [sic-actually a noun] Describing someone with the ability to use their feet to pick things up. Also, pedextrous [adj.]

There is actually NOTHING weird about pedexterity, in spite of the ooky face I get from Beast when I pick things up with my toes.

Bulleted

Mood: sleepy
Hair: probably a mess due to the two-hour nap in the recliner
Eyes: tried, dry and not fun
Listening to: Football (Eagles @ Vikings)

Since I have few coherent, lengthy thoughts, I'm throwing what I do have at the blog. Cuz I can. Y'know?

• Beast ran the sound and light at church today, so he had to be present at both services. He called after he arrived for first service to warn us (me) that the roads were dangerously icy, especially in our subdivision. They were insanely bad, but we all made it there and back safe and sound. About half an hour ago--5 p.m. or thereabouts--the road crew came around and salted our streets for the first time today. Nice. Thanks, guys, for being right on top of that.



• Worship this morning was the first time I've been 'at church' on Sunday since...uh...Thanksgiving? And I would manage to pick today: the first week of every month is Communion Sunday, so that lengthens the service, plus today was a baptism, which means more time. I don't begrudge the time usually, but I was awfully antsy today. And then, suddenly, as the pastor held the baby and swept water onto her head, I couldn't stop crying. I didn't leave, but I really wanted to for a minute or two. Nathanael would be two now. (And no, the mom did not breastfeed in public this morning: the baby slept through the entire service.)



• None of the teams I want to see in the Super Bowl are winning this year. Our big three main teams--Packers, Browns, Broncos--are out of the running already because they didn't make the playoffs. (Denver fired Mike Shanahan--WTF?) This weekend's games were either two teams we cared nothing about or the 'wrong' team won, not that we care that much. The one that is going on now isn't boding well for the team we sort of want to win. Next week doesn't look a lot better. The Super Bowl could be a giant Who Cares? on February 1. I may end up cheering like a girl: for the best-looking team/quarterback/coach. Oh, well, thank God for the ads!!



• I haven't decided what my 2009 Word of the Year should be. That's why it hasn't been changed in the sidebar. Maybe I'll pick one tomorrow, once the holidays are really over and school has restarted. Stay tuned.



• BIG HUGE THANKS to Betsy for passing the word on Jango!!!! I frickin' LOVE it!! And it's free. Why was I spending money on Launchcast?? 'Course, now that LC is going, Jango will probably start charging too.



• Speaking of technology, Meebo--the IM consolidator I use--recently added Facebook to the IM sites it supports. MySpace, too, if anyone cares. I can now log in to Meebo and chat with anyone who is logged into Yahoo!, Gmail, or Facebook, or looking at any of my blogs. It's not perfect, but when it works, Meebo is one of my favorite things evah.



• We had Greek burgers last night, courtesy of DinnerByDesign. They were excellent. I need to start eating better, and less, and get back on a regular scheduled meal schedule instead of snacking on junk all day every day. Then there is the whole exercise thing. Ugh. I can't tell you how much I hate pointless tasks with no immediate payoff.... Apparently, there are no WiiFit games to be had, so I'm stuck with Sports for now.



• Anybody got a good lead on a job for Sparky? Yeah, this is the perfect time of year to be looking, right? And the perfect time in the economic cycle, too.



• Speaking of which, I'm already 100% ready to eliminate the word "economy" from the language. I'm tired of hearing it, saying it, discussing it, blaming it, worrying about it, prognosticating about it. It's only going to become more omnipresent, I know, so it's not a good sign that I'm so fed up with the subject.



• We were going to take the tree down today and put away all of our Christmas stuff...but changed our (my) mind when we remembered that it's still 'officially' Christmas until January 6, Warren's birthday. So I'm not sure when we'll pack it up. Sometime this week, I guess, maybe in pieces.



• Everyone gets back to our regular schedules tomorrow: it's a full work and school week for all of us. Yuck.

I think that's enough. I should probably get myself sorted out for dinner and maybe work on the Christmas card filing.

---

Urban Word:

Presponse: To respond to a question before it is finished, often confusing the asker.

The whole concept of presponses confuses Beast. He'd rather finish one thought and spoken sentence before moving on to the next thought and speaker.

Baby It's Cold

Mood: Mildly sinus-y
Hair: Clean and brushed
Eyes: Tired
Listening to: Foo'bal

The current temperature, according to our thermometer on the (sunny) porch, is -6.2F (up from -6.0F at 10:00). The weather channel has posted a wind chill warning: gusts leading to -40F chills.

Beast just came through the living room in his winter coat, balaclava, and fully lined heavy mittens and said, "Right, I'm going out to get the newspaper!" It is on the driveway 20 yards from the house.

[He was outside maybe 5 minutes--he brought in firewoood too--and his under-the-breath comment after removing the outerwear was, "Hoo--that's brutal."]

---

Urban Word:

leanover: A small-sized hangover, usually comes with merely a mild headache, a vague fatigue, and little or no sense of regret and/or shame.

I feel like I have a leanover this morning, but I haven't had anything alcoholic since Friday night. Time warp.

Cheer

Mood: Good
Hair: Flatter than flat, and dry
Eyes: Itchy. here we go again....
Listening to: The house. It's VERY quiet.

I opened Borders today. Hee.

I also grocery-shopped in anticipation of what they've been saying is going to be a GIANT STORM. I always use the self-check lanes at Meijer's because it's faster. They have hired some people do help bag on those lanes, which is nice. The guy working mine didn't do a great job, but it did save me some time. On the way out the door, a voice behind me said, "Uh-oh. You dropped your cheese."

People are nice.

---

WordSpy Word:

murketing: n. A form or marketing where the product or service is not mentioned or shown.

Obviously, I'm not murketing Meijer's. They have their issues, but I do like the store near us.

Checking in

Mood: Blergh
Hair: Cleanish
Eyes: Tired
Listening to: The Broncos/Jets game

It's snowing. All kinds of weather warnings today. But, really, not all that awful. Not enough for a snow day tomorrow for Sparky (and the rest of the district), unfortunately.

It is sort of unfortunate since he spent yesterday feeling totally lousy--throwing up and sleeping with the "just in case" bowl a foot or less from his face. Today he seems almost normal, except for the coughing. Meanwhile, both Beast and I are still feeling the lingering effects of this bug: we are drop-dead tired.

The Packers lost (and they did deserve to lose, despite a kick-ass 3rd quarter), the Browns lost, and the Broncos are currently ahead of Brett Far ..., er, the Jets, but I'm not holding my breath.

The highlight of today, it seems, will be The Amazing Race tonight, directly after which I think I'm going to bed. I really have to be at least functional enough tomorrow to go to the grocery store and run a couple of other errands, and call the supplier from whom we order our greens for youth group. They messed up our order in a big way, which we didn't realize until we started delivering things yesterday. Along with that, one person called to ask why she got a cross instead of the tree she ordered. ...Uh, cuz you ordered a cross not a tree--wow, duh, fill out forms much?

So, no one here is in a very good mood, and I can't actually wait for the end of winter in spite of the fact that it just started today got sll intents. And purposes.

---

Urban Word:

goat rope: A situation or activity that has become completely fucked up, or, an exercise in futility. The phrase comes from the image of a goat, tied down with a rope, humping the rope but not getting anywhere. Similar to goat fuck.

The health in this household is currently nothing but goat rope.

This is...just...incredible

Just found this in an email from a coworker which she sent to several of us; she is a reference librarian:
I assume Hurricane Ike is named after the former president? Think what would have happened if it would have been named after the current one!While I tend to agree that the idea of naming anything after Bush is farcical and probably will end up as a disaster, she apparently doesn't realize that "Ike" is a first name (hello, Ike Turner?) nor that the storms are not named for individuals.

Do y'all see why there are days when I want to put my face through a wall?

---

Urban Word:

27/4: 27 seconds a day, 4 days a week, i.e. quite rare

Identifying the person who put this in an email will be easier if I note that her ideal work plan is 27/4. She even includes Sundays in that work-week!

Productive Day

Mood: Better'n last night!
Hair: Newly dyed, but looking purly-AWful
Eyes: ...grrr...
Listening to: Beast talking to his dad on the phone

Beast worked his 40-plus hours over the course of the rest of the week, so today was a free day today. So...

...he dropped me off at 9:20 for my aforementioned hair appointment
...he went to the bank and set up his dad's new account (part one) and I think did one other short errand
...we drove half an hour to the next biggest city to return his rental car and pick up our Honda
...we stopped at the nearest furniture store that sells LaZBoy and picked out a new recliner for FIL (it will not arrive until after he has moved in)
...we tried to eat at one place where Beast was called an "Asshole" by a woman driving a giant SUV and the line was 15 minutes long (ABORT!)
...we drove thru Wendy's where I got fries and Beast got a burger
...Beast dropped me at Starbucks back in the town where I work where I was meeting someone; meanwhile, he stopped at the bookstore next door to talk to someone who had left a message about running the sound/light board at church
...he went to talk to people at U-Haul
...I talked to a friend
...he picked me up
...we went to the grocery store and I went in and grabbed food for dinner while
...he stopped across the street at the post office to check our box
and then...we went home (arriving at 4 or so).

I had to run out and collect Sparky from school at 5, I made dinner (gasp! shock!), we all sorted laundry, Sparky cleaned up the dishes and brought up the recycling, Beast is paying bills, and I'm about to go take a bath and rest my eyes. I'm having a horrible time seeing the computer screen well enough to read, which is freaking me out a little.

Tomorrow I work. It will be MUCHO relaxing!

It's raining, and will be doing so for the forseeable future. There's another horrible hurricane in the Gulf. I don't want to drive to Houston with stuff again, so I hope people there evacuate sensibly.

Right. Going to bath and bed.

---

Urban Word:

hurrication: Evacuation from a major hurricane turned into a short holiday.

I hope all you Galvestonians are enjoying your hurrication and things aren't as bad as they sound after the storm passes.

24

Although I have never watched his show, I'm feeling a little Jack Bauer-y today. No shooting, though. Too bad, really, cuz I had some very clear shots.

Last night at 12:45 I was brusquely shaken out of my semi-sleeping state--wherein I was doing my best not to obsess over something trip-related--by Beast shouting--he must have been shouting since I could hear him through the earplugs--"DOWNSTAIRS!" [I'm redefining "mad dashing" tonight, eh?] Actually, my first thought when I felt his hand on my back was, "Oh, he's having another bad dream and flailing in his sleep." I totally wasn't asleep, was I?

So, I staggered in to find Sparky, who had said he was going to be sleeping in his 'darkroom' behind his bedroom (long story). His fan was on, with the light off, so the switch by his door didn't turn on the light. Eventually, I found him in bed and shook him awake to grab a flashlight and move it.

It was a false alarm for everyone locally and we were back upstairs within half an hour. During our time in the basement, I found a message on my cell phone, which I'd grabbed on the way through the kitchen. The message was trip-related. By the time we got back upstairs, I was already prepping the list of things to think about instead of sleeping. I tried for 45 minutes or so but eventually came downstairs and attempted to sleep on the couch. By 4 I was soundly asleep, or as soundly as one can be on this couch.

Beast woke me up at 7 as he was preparing to leave for work. I managed to made it to work precisely on time. I cataloged, solved an ongoing problem for the 32nd time, cleared my desk off, staffed the Reference area for two-plus hours, and prepped paperwork for the short trip-related meeting at 5.

Then we went to dinner and I started drinking. I've had two cocktails since about 6, and I'm pretty close to non-functional. This goes to show that a) I don't drink much and/or often, and b) I'm way tired.

So. Up to bed. No alarm. I've listed the things that need to get done in the next 40 hours before leaving town, a list that encompasses everything from mowing the lawn to doing laundry to packing. Hopefully, the existence of that list will keep my middle-of-the-night "planning" at bay. The vodka I've had may help with that too, and I know the Benedryl I'm about to take will do the rest.

So good night and good luck. I'll be back before we leave Sunday afternoon, I hope.

---

Urban Word:

fauxtograph: A fauxtograph is a practical joke in which the video setting of a digital camera is used to trick the target into posing for a really long time for what isn't a picture at all. [It also seems to mean something along the lines of cleaning up a photo by digital enhancements to make something/someone look much better than reality.]

I'm wondering how many individual fauxtographs we can get this week from our group of kids. Is it bad that I want to waste battery power and disk space this way?

Summer means Reading

Today was our first day of Summer Reading Program. Anyone who has worked in a public library is now shuddering. Today, for some reason, they scheduled a program in the evening...and then nothing particularly for the next 10 days. At least, according the calendar page that supposedly lists all the programs; on the other hand, there was supposed to be a teen thing this afternoon, which Sparky specifically asked to come in for...and nothing happened. He didn't tell me till 20 minutes after it was supposed to have ended.

Whatever.

I like the kids: it's fun to see everyone signing up to read (OMGOMG--signing up to READ!). But the drama, the sheer middle-schoolishness of (some of) the staff is just a big p.i.t.a. Two staff members spent an hour of their day today retyping the main flyer because it was so badly-done. Bad layout, no proofing, program explanations that made no sense, the usual denigration of one person's programs to make more space for another set of programs.... sigh

I'm tired. Very very tired. Drained. I thought I was on the emotional upswing, but I'm so tired tonight that those same emotions feel abraded and raspy. I'm just so veryveryvery sick of Schedule Nazi. She kept us waiting--standing around--nearly 10 minutes after closing while she faffed about doing stuff she should have been doing while we were open instead of yippety-yapping about JackShit to anyone unlucky enough to have been in her vicinity.

Still. Life could be worse. We are not flooded out like so many people in the upper midwest, our roads are all passable, there've been no tornado sirens this week* (yet). Beast isn't trapped trying to get home through flooding. I have a comfy bed and wonderful family here in my lovely, cozy house.

Speaking of that bed, I think I'll go inspect it more closely...after changing into pajamas.

---

Urban Word:

power outage baby: Years ago, the power went out in San Francisco for a long time. Nine months later, there was a certain increase in birthrate. If you were born nine months aftert a power outage, you are a power outage baby.

I have a suspicion that there may be a few power outage babies next year as a result of this year's flooding. At least that's one positive outcome of all this mess.

---

* UPDATE: As I typed this last night I knew I was tempting fate. So naturally, at 1:00 last night, Beast rousted us all to go downstairs because the siren had gone off. We are fine, nothing happened nearby, but... Me and my big mouth!

In which the media is the massage

Mood: So far, so good
Hair: Unkempt
Eyes: Finally focusing properly (I've discovered, while trying to get back into early-morning Bible study this week, that my eyes can't manage small print for the first 15 minutes of the day. This sucks)
Listening to: Silence/random homey noises

So, we've had all this weather lately. It's been ... fun ... if you're a weather geek, or get off on carrying a flashlight everywhere with you, including the bathroom (we have no windows in any of our bathrooms).

One of the other traditional spring activities around here include trees splitting and falling on power lines. We've been up and down a few times already this year, and as a result our basement "baby" TV (i.e. slightly smaller than the main one in the living room) gave up the ghost last week. Beast took the cover off, took one look at the circuit board and said, "I can't fix this."

He can fix everything. ;-)

Since there is a federal law in this country for households having three or more people that requires a minimum of two television sets, or at least one set for every two people...we had to go buy a new TV. But being us, first we had to go find the Consumer Reports information. Yes, we are dorks.

We (briefly) considered The Mirrors. But like all mirrors, it's hard to see what's going on in them if you aren't standing directly in front of them. So instead we are on the brink of--oh hell, we've dived into it head first!--a Bravia new world.

Of course, there had to be drama. We went to Circuit City because they hire people over the age of 22 to staff the sales force, instead of the big blue store from hell where everyone is 18 and thinks that we are too stupid to deal with when we ask questions like, "How often does this model break down?" Big box stores tend to all be the same, to a point, so when the sales guy disappeared with the sign saying that the set we'd selected was on sale...we got leery. We stood and watched the lamest EVER movie--well, it did have Sylvester Stallone (gaaahhhhh!) in it as a race car driver--for about 15 minutes before the same guy returned having battled apparently to the death in the stock room. Turns out the stock number on the item that was "on sale" was a different stock number from the set it was touting. So, technically, the set we chose wasn't on sale.

HOWEVER! Pay attention, people, this is unheard of! Dude didn't say anything except a little grumbling over the restockers who stay out all night Saturday and come to work early on Sunday...he didn't quibble with us, he didn't tell us that he was "making a special deal" for us, he didn't say anything akin to "we fucked up and that isn't a deal we can actually do for you," and he didn't narc out any specific co-workers. He just gave us the advertised price, took our money, and was a consummate professional all the way through.

We will continue to shop at Circuit City, just because of this.

Oh. The (huge-for-us) TV? Rawks. And the massage? I'm getting one this morning because my neck/shoulder thing started yelling at me on Saturday again.

---

Urban Word:

consumerican: An individual suffering from the particularly American brand of consumerism.

Much as I sometimes hate to admit it, even Beast and I have consumerican tendencies.

James Joyce is my hero*

Mood: Good
Hair: A mess
Eyes: Dry and tired
Listening to: NASCAR is on the tube(sigh)

Well, we have scrounged one extra kid for the mission trip (thanks, AN!). We're still looking for two more. Things are coming together for this trip, though. I took paperwork to the mom of today's addition and we had a great chat.

Then I came home and watched a Gene Kelly movie on DVD (That's Dancing!), followed by about half of a newer version of Little House on the Prairie (Disney). I caught up my book blog (though I've just realized that I didn't enter ...Big Woods), did a bunch of Friday memes, finished and put away a load of laundry, went to the store, downloaded about 6 CDs onto my Zen (and how--HOW!--does one delete shit from one's MP3 player, eh?!), read the church newsletter while on hold waiting for the phone to be taken to my mom's room, talked to Mom (more time on hold than talking), and obsessed over the weather. Which sucked.

Sparky had a fun post-school: for the second time this school year, he got detoured after school due to tornado activity. He and his friend were walking to the library--I wasn't working today, but there is Wii, I think, today--when the tornado siren went off. So they took off running, were waved into the building and directly into the basement with the staff and the sensible people in the building. Apparently, this is an every-six-months thing this school year. Weird. The worst of the storm today hit only slightly east of when it centered last time. Not really that close to town, as it turns out.

Meanwhile...nothing but wind and sideways rain here at the house. No sirens. No warnings. Spring is weird.

Tonight, Beast finished building the shelves in the basement that goofed up his back last week. Meanwhile Sparky and I played Apples to Apples--our own made-up rules, since it's designed for at least 4 players. He beat me. That sucked. ;-)

Generally, the best part of the day was the fact that I finished the list I made today. That rarely happens. Maybe I'm getting better at making lists....

Now I'm going to bed, because I slept very poorly last night, mostly because I went to bed late and Beast had literally taken over the entire bed. This is only notable because I'm normally the one who does that sort of thing.

Tomorrow: work. Waste of time, really, since I checked the schedule before I left yesterday and I will be on desks for over half my scheduled hours. No cataloging. Again. I'm up to three carts of backlog now. Last fall I had a shelf of backlog. Oh, well. The further behind I get, the more obvious it is that Schedule Nazi is fucking me over in spades; and the more she does that in obvious ways, the longer my CYA document gets. {{shrug}} No more Ms. Nice Cat.

---

Urban Word:

Viagrate: To imbue with lasting vigor

I seem to be finding a few ways to Viagrate my life again.

---

*Stream of consciousness writing....

Goin' on

Mood: Good
Hair: A bit flyaway from humidity
Eyes: Fair
Listening to: An odd (but quiet) sound from the fridge

In case you all care, Summer Reading Program starts next week in libraries all across America, if it hasn't already. You may be too late to get in and see a quiet library at this point until August. Don't say you haven't been warned.... On the other hand, if the sight of dozens of kids enjoying books makes your eyes light up, come on in!!

The advice from the Professional this morning involved telling me to stop picking up snakes, to stay away from edges, and to follow the middle way. Also, guilt is not a Christian emotion. I'm going back next week to let him know how I did, especially on snake avoidance.

He's a cool dude.

Now, about those 65 mph winds this morning...I was in basements for both of this morning's meetings, for which I am quite grateful. There was a rumor of 'green sky.' Green sky, for those unfamiliar with the midwest, is as eerie as it sounds, and generally translates to "Weather is Coming--Find a Flashlight NOW!" In this case, it wasn't flashlight weather, quite. Mother Nature just did some more tree trimming, the second time this week. Whee.

I'm home now, long enough to eat lunch, blog and head back to the 'brary where I will be partially covering for Crazy Cat Lady who always takes the week before Summer Reading Program off.

---

Urban Word:

Homing from Work: Using work time and resources for personal tasks. See reverse telecommuting, work from home

I expect to get a slightly higher-than-normal amount of homing from work done today during my scheduled Reference Desk hours.

---

P.S. After four years of being told, "REALLY, those are lilac bushes in the yard!" this year they've bloomed. In profusion. I guess God does love me after all.

Mood: Pretty good (mark that, y'all!)
Hair: Pony right now--I'll be in the shower in awhile, and then it'll be all fabu-curly when I'm done
Eyes: Functional
Listening to: Silence. I love my house!

My neck/shoulder started kicking back in day-before-yesterday. I called the doctor for better drugs--Skelaxin doesn't work for me. Not at all. I have a new scrip for...something else. I didn't even realize how goofy it made me until about 2 hours after taking it. I slept great, woke up a little early, but for the duration of the pill it worked great. Now, if I could just figure out why it's happening, and make it stop.

In spite of the shoulder, and the coolish weather yesterday, I walked downtown, bought a fresh panini, and took it to the park in the middle of town to eat it. It was lovely. Kids playing, guys doing road work--actually, they were on lunch break, and they aren't using big noisy machines anyway--the carillon playing, blue skies and buds on the trees. I need to do this more often.

Sparky and I watched "Beowulf" the other night. Great story--really well-told story--but the CGI was a little lame-o. Grendel's mom wore high heels? I think NOT. Still, a fairly decent retelling of the story, with some updates and finishing. I was pleasantly surprised. In honor of it, I bought a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf" to reread and keep.

Today is my annual review. I guess I should be tense about it, but I'm not. As I told Beast last night, it's really not that I'm energized about work or whatever. It's more of a "what the fuck, I don't care" attitude. I've cataloged a total of about 60 books so far this week. Usually I'm well into the triple digits by this point, but I don't give a shit.

Some of that lack of attention to cataloging can be explained by the following: We have started a blog at work this week, and set up del.icio.us and Facebook accounts (technically the latter is a group). I've volunteered to coordinate a staff training series on various things, starting with the new color copier that we're supposed to be helping the patrons use, but really focusing on things like how to get Word/Publisher/Excel to do cool things, like rotate or sum or whatever. I'll be talking to the boss about that today, I expect.

If it were about 20 degrees warmer outside right now, I'd drag out a chaise or a towel and lie in the sun all morning. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite hit 50 degrees yet. Maybe I'll take my Icy-Hot bod back to bed for an hour....

Urban Word:

rotuzzi: A rotisserie which is installed in a jacuzzi. This device allows you to roast meat while relaxing in the hot tub. You can even eat meat right off the bone from the comfort of the warm bubbling waters. Also see: jacuzzarisserie.

When we buy that hot-tub--insert guffaw here--I'm installing a rotuzzi so I can be 100% sybaritic.

Is it over?

The meeting wasn't all that bad this morning. I corrected a typo on one of his slides, a slide he has used in presentations all over the place at least 10 times. There was another typo later. Clearly the dude doesn't believe in SpellCheck--a man after my own heart, no? :-)

Stacie, my masseuse--how grandiose!!--hurt me today. Hurt me bad, for the purpose of doing me good. She worked on about 100 square inches of real estate on my upper back. I had to keep telling her to stop while I breathed out some of the pain. In the end, however, I can now turn my head, tip my head, nod my head...without pain. The pain I am feeling is more deep muscle soreness, like I actually did something for a change, rather than OMGWTF--I AM ATLAS!!

Then I came home, started laundry, cleaned, talked to Beast on the phone, watched last night's shows, tidied a little, mopped the kitchen/back hall/bathroom, finished the laundry, faffed about on teh 'tubes (including moving around and deleting several feeds in Bloglines--I'm down to 125. Hi Amy!), called Jenny...y'know, life. The good stuff. Yes, mopping = good stuff. I've lost my mind! I ate dinner too, by the way: fish. Yum.

Still need to put away about 2.5 weeks' worth of laundry tonight, finish the convo with Jen, and take a bath. The wind is whipping around outside, rain is falling, and I think there's a tornado watch for another few minutes. I love the smell of ozone. It's warm enough that I had to put on shorts, and I can hear people sitting in their garage across the street talking. Because the window, she be open.

N.B. : Regarding yesterday's rant about courtesy...before publishing the post, I deleted the line I had originally included that explained that I checked my site stats before writing it. If you have visited here anytime in the past month (or more), you are not involved. What I should have known about you guys (gals?) is that those of you who would take it to heart are those to whom I would cut miles of slack right now because of the shit in your personal lives. I'm sorry if I caused any of my good and true friends any angst. You all know who you are, dahlinks. Mwah.

Dear God, I've turned into Billy Crystal!

I'm going to go do that laundry thing, because I'm sure as soon as I start it, I'll be interrupted by a phone call, a good phone call.

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Urban Word:

ice maker: The opposite of ice breaker. Something you do that makes it super awkward, right after meeting someone.

Doesn't it seem as if some weeks everything that comes out of your mouth when speaking in a group of people is an icemaker? Or is that just me?

Still around?

Yup. Busy. Yup. Synopsis:

FRIDAY:

Stayed home from work. Took drugs for my neck. Slept. I believe Beast was home for part of the day. Don't remember.

SATURDAY:

Our annual spring mission trip to the Big City to the West. Beast rewired a basement room with three or four others. I grouted about 3/4 of a bathroom and laid tile in a short, 8-food hallway. We actually only cemented half the hall. I worked with five or six others who were putting in a closet and drywalling a porch and (different) closet. All of us were in a halfway house where Beast has worked before (men just out of prison) in a neighborhood "in transition." Not sure which way the transition is going. There is a crack distribution house at the end of the block one way, hookers a couple of houses away, and families in three houses across the street. Links to previous mission trips.

By the time we left--10 hours after arriving--my knees and back were shot, and Beast's nose was cut by flying metal. He nearly injured his eye. And they have interesting toys in the office where he was working; interesting in a "Christian" office but necessary for their counseling of sex workers. Sparky has no idea what we were giggling at, and I told Beast he can explain.

My neck/shoulder obviously had improved, but I basically replaced that agony with the pain left from kneeling on ceramic tile for 8 hours. I will not be converting to Catholicism or any other religion requiring kneeling.

SUNDAY:

I went in to work at 11 to try to get a little caught up on last week's pile o' shit. It was my Sunday to work anyway, so that covered 1-4 on a beautiful day where we who were forced to be inside kept saying, "Why are all these people HERE??"

I came home, helped (a little) with kitchen cleanup. Beast has finished painting, so we can move all the stuff on the island back to where it belongs. I made the last DbD meal, and then spent the evening looking for typos in our library catalog and checking for Dewey Errors. I know what this means. If you don't, trust me when I say it's a clear sign that I'm beyond anal.

TODAY:

Another eye appointment; I passed. Grocery shopping. Then a stop at DbD to make 9 meals. It took me bloody forever (although I guess the new employee said to the supervisor, "She moves FAST!"), and by the time I got in the car with everything I wasn't sure I'd be able to get out of the car when I got home! My feet are killing me, still from crawling around hard floors on Saturday.

Once Sparky gets home, he and I will head to the shoe store to buy him some sandals...ones that aren't plastic this year! We'll probably also pick up some shorts for him. And I'll look at curtains for the kitchen and dining room windows. Maybe an office chair for me: the hydraulics on mine blew out last week. Thanks a bunch, Sparky. ahem

Tonight, I'm really hoping I can get the kitchen floor wet-mopped--there's still an awful lot of drywall dust on the floor--and talk to Amy about this class we're teaching in two days!

Howsomever, right now, while Sparky is still at school for another hour, I'm going to go lie down and try to loosen up my back a bit.

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Urban Word:

acoustic shave: the act of shaving with razor; not an electric shave

The thought of anything but an acoustic shave on my pits is painful in the extreme! How does Norelco make ANY money?

Annus

Remember the Queen of England saying in 1992 that it had been an "annus horribilus" for her that year?

I can relate. I'm trying like hell to manage and deal, but wow there is a shitload of pain and grief around me, not to mention what's inside of me. I can't even keep track of what's going on, really, just that lots of friends have lost family members recently, lots of other friends are facing the death of family members, and lots of people have been really sick for a long time. Add to that news of teenagers being hit by cars, kids killing themselves, local educators being incredibly--CRIMINALLY--stupid.

Jenny and I have always cheered each other up by saying, "Could be worse. Could be raining." It is raining. As I said earlier today, the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes should be starting here any second. We've already got thunder, lightning, flooding, and fire going for us.

I just realized that one of our regular patrons actually talks like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.

Yes there is a connection. But I'm going to bed. You'll have to sort it all out while I sleep.

Palm Sunday

Mood: not bad
Hair: wet
Eyes: dry
Listening to: Sparky brushing his teeth upstairs

Holy cow--it's Palm Sunday! That means church today will be a little more exciting than usual: kids galore, and good hymns. I may absent myself during the passing of the peace so as not to contaminate anyone who hasn't had this particular brand of crud.

I worked four hours yesterday and then came home and went to bed. The weather is finally perking up. There are rumors of a full week of sunny days ahead of us. I hope I'm healthy enough to enjoy it, but if not at least I can open the curtains and blinds and sleep in the sun.

Weird dream this morning about the library in the town where I grew up. It has since moved a few blocks away, and the whole area has been reconfigured: new streets, different buildings, etc. In my dream the building had been torn down, the streets were as they were c. 1980, and Sparky and I were wandering. We got caught hiding in the old building, which turned out to be abandoned but not torn down. It turns out this is the computer center for the city, and it's more or less an underground parking garage with the remnants of the library signage still in place. The funniest sign? "Circulation" with another sign hanging down from it that read "School Bell Schedule" giving the impression that the bells ring at the library.

Why? Because the circulation desk area was actually the office from Sparky's middle school.

WTF? Dreams are weird.