Monday, December 11, 2006

Hark the Horn of Gondor Rings

Really, this is one of those “picture is worth 1000 words” times, but the cameras aren’t exactly unpacked yet. So until they are, you’ll have to bear with my description.

The bookshelves in the living room sat empty for a few days, just where the movers left them, until I got around to some boxes of books. Of *course* I started the library with the Tolkien collection, boxes LOTR1 and LOTR2. And that’s as far as I got for a few days. Just your random Elvish texts and the movies, and of course, the happy meal toy I got on the way home from my very first trip to see FOTR, Boromir and his horn. When you push a button, he says “You carry the fate of us all little one,” (hey, there are layers to what I’m about to write that I didn’t even see till I typed that.)

Last weekend, Nathan’s mom Cheryl visited with a burst of enthusiasm for unpacking, and several housewarming gifts. She filled the rest of the bookshelves for us, and set up the Nativity Set she brought us. Right there on the Tolkien Shelf, next to Boromir. So now, we have Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, some Wise Men, and HARK! Boromir of Gondor, obviously sidetracked on his way to Rivendell. It’s quite simply, perfect.



AHA! Thanks to the sharp shooting of LLCoolberg, we do indeed now have a picture.


Thanks Cheryl and Lisa!

~ by meteowrite on December 11, 2006.
One Response to “Hark the Horn of Gondor Rings”

1.

Jenn, I must confess. At first gander, I could not pick out which of these icons is not like the others…one of the icons is doing its own thing… as the song goes. Is Cheryl up to speed on her happy meal toys? Or did she assume that Boromir was a wayward shephard in search of a manger posse to hang out with?

jean said this on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Monday, November 20, 2006

My Un-vacation Ends

I was very clever. I scheduled 10 days, TEN days between my last day at ILL and my first day at LGPL. Ten days. You should see the list of things I was going to achieve. It was a beautiful list. I was going to re-watch every episode of the West Wing. I was going to finish reading all the books remaining on my YALSA book list. I was going to start reading a new list of kid lit, so I’d be ready for those shifts on the reference desk in the kids room. I was going to pack up the whole apartment, since we’re moving. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I had TEN DAYS. After eight years of working, I treated myself to ten days off. Then it turned into 11, as my start date switched from today to tomorrow. ELEVEN DAYS.

I’ve been so cheated. I got SICK! On day TWO! I was sick the whole week. All kinds of sick. I mean, I understand what happened. It’s like when you take a pass on Jury Duty, because something’s going on in your life, and then when you get called again, somehow, it’s even more inconvenient. My immune system had been trundling along for awhile, letting me get a lot of work done at work, but then, when my vacation popped up, my immune system felt like it deserved a break as well. All kinds of sick. In a generous mood, I started to recover last Thursday-ish, and by Friday, I was doing pretty well. But come on, that’s just a long weekend. That’s not 11 days. I really think I deserve a do-over.

Anyhow, at least I don’t have tuberculosis. I had to go in for a physical for my new job, and I had a TB test. All clear. Whew. That was a close one.

So, tomorrow’s the big day. A First Day of Work. I haven’t seen one of those since 1998, mind you. Totally different millennium. I haven’t really put a lot of time into thinking about it, what with the being cheated of my vacation and all. This morning, before I decided to get out of bed and try and finish my 11-day To Do List in one day, I was remembering an ILL staff meeting we had when Josh was new there. Kim and Sarah and I rolled up to our table with our lists of things to figure out. Josh rolled up to the table with some paper from around the office, for taking notes. We started to build our agenda. Josh held up some paper, one of those print outs from a fax machine that tells you what has been sent to which number, and said “I’d like to talk about the fax logs I’ve gathered.”

In the five seconds or so before we figured out he was kidding, Sarah and Kim and I were all trying desperately to remember what task we’d asked him to do that would require looking at the fax logs. We assumed we’d set him to a project, and the fax logs were a part of it. And then we realized he was just kidding, he was going to take his notes on the back of the fax logs.

I bring it up, ’cause that’s what I’m looking for in an office. The sort of place where it’s just assumed that everyone is on to something, that everyone is working as hard as they can, as creatively as they can. And if you don’t understand why they want to talk about fax logs, it’s just because you haven’t followed their train of thought yet. It’s never assumed that it might be just plain lame to look at fax logs. I’m also looking for a place with a dry, deadpan sense of humor. That always livens up meetings. No fear of silliness.

Time will tell, I guess, if that’s where I’ve ended up.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Council of Elrond’s Anniversary

No really, if you check your calendar, you’ll see that I’m right. Google Calendar lets you download all sorts of calendars that you can “overlay” on your own. The Tolkien Calendar says that yesterday Boromir arrived in Rivendell and today is the Council of Elrond. It’s also the anniversary of the Big Quake and my high school friend Christine’s 32nd Birthday.

Since the Council of Elrond has come to represnt all things work-related, it seems fitting to muse on work today. It’s hard to avoid musing on the workplace, isn’t it, when that’s where you spend so much of your time (unless you’re retired, in which case you are free to eat your Council Cake, or should I say Lembas in peace) ? I have a second round interview for a job I’m not sure I want. In passing, multiple interviews are sort of a sick joke to those of us who normally wear jeans day to day. Like it wasn’t enough trouble coming up with something to wear the first time around.

Anyhoo, yesterday I realized that if a friend of mine were dating a person who treated them the way my current work place treats me, I would tell them in no uncertain terms to dump the fool. And yet, as in so many great bad relationships, the idea of leaving this library kind of makes me want to crawl under the covers and hide. I hate my job, and I love my job, all mixed together. There is nothing tacked to any of the walls in this office in handwriting I can’t identify. When I look up titles in our on-line catalog, ninety percent of the time I only have to type a few letters, and the autofill takes over. I’ve looked up most books before. Thirteen goodbye cakes. Was it fourteen? I’m the only person who has cracked the code of the filing cabinets…oh, you need a new label for that? Look under F, for “Forms, Masters.” Are there such things as Job Interventions?

Well, gotta go, there is a desk with my name on it. No really, I carved my name into the Circ Desk earlier.

~ by meteowrite on October 17, 2006.
One Response to “Council of Elrond’s Anniversary”

1.

The only cure for job boredom, and it is the worst kind of boredom, is job change. In 33 years of State service I worked in six different departments, just to keep from going postal. One of us must take the ring out of the library…

Goodyear said this on October 19th, 2006 at 8:37 am

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Undercover in the library

I have an interview at a local public library on Friday. It just so happens, though, that I have never been to this public library before. Their website is somewhat short on information. So there’s not much to build a *vibe* on. Do I want this job? Dunno. So, this afternoon, I went over there to poke around. Sure, there’s no law about checking out some place you’re set to interview, but I felt like I was doing something sneaky. I lingered near the reference desk to see how they were answering questions. I stole furtive glances at the computer being used to check out books to see if I was familiar with their software. I checked out their hours to see if I could piece together any information about what a schedule at this library might be. I browsed their collections, trying to get a feel for their strenghts and weaknesses. I surveyed their collection of Kay books. I watched the patrons….did they look satisfied? What parts of the collection were they using? What did they think of the computer policy? I tried to get into the restroom. It was locked, in use apparently. One of my moments of triumph : at one point the door marked “staff only” opened while I lurked in the nearby stacks. They have desks in there! I knew it!

I still don’t know. I’ve never seen a place so completely devoid of a vibe. Or rather, with so neutral a vibe. Yes, it’s a small collection, but hey, I saw plenty of stuff I wanted to read. Lots of magazines, and plenty of books on tapes. They have a small teen section, but they seem committed to it. Their building was small, but it was busy, people were using it. And it was in a lovely small downtown area. Harrumph. Guess I’ll know more after Friday.

~ by meteowrite on October 11, 2006.
2 Responses to “Undercover in the library”

1.

Oh jenn! I think it’s a great idea that you scoped out the prospective job location. My advisor would have approved. You’re doing your homework like a good girl. And when they interview you and ask you that first conversational question: Have you ever been to this library before? You can breezily answer, why yes, yes of course I have. You have a lovely books on tape selection and you seem committed to your teen literature.

You have the edge!
Break a leg!

jean said this on October 12th, 2006 at 9:02 am
2.

Back in the dark days when I interviewed people for jobs as a way of getting a paycheck those people who actually had come to the work site to scope us out always got at least a 10 point head start. I figured A: they were motivated, B: they had the brains to follow through, and C: they had enough analytical skills to know what to look for. Well done. (But how was the military history section??)

Goodyear said this on October 12th, 2006 at 10:23 am

Saturday, October 7, 2006

Application of my dreams

I spent Friday at work reviewing applications for the ILL staff position we have open. Twenty applications. We’re also going to be looking at applications for a student position we have open. And then I’m applying for jobs, so I’ve been filling a few out myself. Which perhaps explains the dream I had last night. I was filling out a job application, on blue paper, and reading the instructions carefully I found the following:

If you choose to deep fry your application, please use the appropriate setting on your deep fryer.

Just a safety tip for you, friends. Be sure to set your deep fryers to “job application” before dropping those pages in.

Friday, September 15, 2006

The 14th Cake

I made a list yesterday of all the “Last Day in ILL” cakes I’ve eaten in my time here. Well, really not ALL the cake, that would have taken more time than I had, and I’m sure there are many people who’ve left the library who’s cake I’ve eaten, who I now wouldn’t know if they turned up sitting on the sofa in my living room. The list had all the former ILL staffers who have moved on to better things. It didn’t even include people who sort of worked in ILL, like the Access Computing people, they aren’t on the list. Still, there were 14 names. Fourteen people have left ILL since I started almost eight years ago. It’s a shocking figure.

Which of course, put me in a reflective mood. Some of those cakes (and they weren’t always cakes, some were pies or tarts, but I’m grouping them all as “cakes” for the purposes of this post) were so thrilling. It meant the end of a long arduous relationship with coworkers who irritated me, for myriad reasons. Some were bittersweet, and marked the end of spending my days with very cool people who were moving on to better things. Some were really just an excuse to eat cake, as people moved from ILL to Other Places in the library.

We’ve got another Last Day Cake today (already included in my list of 14), German Chocolate from the Buttery, and as with each of the others, I wonder when I’ll get my own “Last Day Cake.” I can’t really imagine leaving this place, and at the same time, I have a hard time staying much longer, certainly not with my sanity intact.

At one point I decided that if I were to get a tattoo that represented my time in ILL (not that I would, but you know, it’s a good hypothetical question) it would be the phrase “pf11, in Elvish characters. Now I’ve decided that to this mythical tattoo, I will add the phrase The 14th Cake.” However, since I don’t know exactly how long I’m in for, I can’t get the mythical tattoo until I leave. Because I can imagine having to go back in again and again, having the artist slash out one number and replace it with the next. The 15th Cake, The 16th Cake and so on.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Crafty friends and family


Lately I’ve been the lucky recipient of several crafty gifts, all of which I’d like to showcase here. If you are the crafter who made the gift below, and you would like a larger picture than these, click on the photo for a bigger version. I’ll email you a gigantic version if that would be better. Thanks all!

First, a lovely plate that was a wedding gift. A Joy Baldwin original:

From blogstuff

Next, a quilt, made by Vicki Davis, in honor of our wedding:


From blog stuff

And then, lovely socks, made by Jean Kenny:

modelled by me:


From blog stuff

in their original packaging:

 socks 2

and modelled by the bunnies, Macaroni going for a traditional sock look, and Disco Stu going for a more scarf-esqe approach:

From blog stuff

Check this crazy math

My commute is 60 miles round trip. By not driving over the hill just one day a week, I’d be saving myself about 3000 miles of driving every year. Now I get 50 mpg (yay Prius!), so that’s about 60 gallons of fuel, or about $180. Okay, when I was working that out in my head, I decided it was $1800 I was saving, which is off by a little, but still! 3000 miles I’m not driving every year. That’s fairly awesome.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Apartment Eye Candy

So, the Portland Plan has potentially been delayed for a bit (in strange coincidence with the Boston Plan, if you follow Cafe Jean.) Nathan is suddenly swimming in potential job offers, each at companies that are well-known, seemingly fun to work at, and downright cool. We’re thinking of hanging around here for a bit longer. Who knows.

Staying here, however, doesn’t necessarily mean denying ourselves some of the luxuries we hoped to find at a new place in Portland. A cat. In home laundry. A place to store our bikes that ISN’T the dining room. These sorts of niceities. So we’re beginning to poke around and see if we can find a new place to set up camp. Maybe a townhome kind of place, maybe a house to rent. Did you know you can make and share spreadsheets on Google? I mention it only because I discovered this yesterday when I was trying to send Nathan my “How we should choose a new apartment Matrix.”

Anyhow, we’re trying to decide which combination of features is most important to us, and have developed a point system that we are still fine tuning. For example, any apartment or home that will allow cats is a +10. Each additional bedroom over two is +3 points (interesting, but not as critical as the cat criteria.) Washer and dryer hook ups, +8. I’m still stuck trying to apply a value to “prettyiness.” I have an appointment tomorrow to visit some townhome-y kind of places, that have cherry cabinets and granite slab countertops and the like. How many points for apartment eye candy?

~ by meteowrite on August 29, 2006.

One Response to “Apartment Eye Candy”

  1. Interesting that WD hookups rank lower than pet friendly. And not that you two are packrats or anything, but you do like your stuff. And some of it big stuff, but extra storage space ranks well below WD hookups. If someone were reading into this incorrectly, they may picture your new place as a cat haven with piles of laundry to do (maybe arfully hanging from bike handlebars? that are stored somewhere that isn’t the dining room)… I’d like to take some side bets on where aesthetics will rank on the L***** New Apartment Matrix. Who wants to set the over/under?

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Wednesdays Off

Wow! I LOVE having a day off in the middle of the week. And I can say that this morning, when my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am, so I could get to work by 7. Thursdays and Fridays are the early days, in by 7, out by 6. Though the 4:30 part is rough (and really, I didn’t actually get out of bed until 5:15 am) I’m looking forward to packing it out of here at 6 tonight.

I got so much done yesterday! I was able to go to the bank, to the library and to Trader Joe’s all in less than an hour! You can’t pull that kind of miracle after 5 pm on a work day. My deck garden got some attention, the laundry is done (Nathan, upon hearing this repeated it back, with stunned appreciation “The LAUNDRY is done?”) That’s right, no need to stragtegize for a washer, they are all available. Thank yous, nearly done (I ran out of cards, and had to order more.) Spent time on that album. Hung out with Lisa. Went to the mall. Took a short walk. It was FANTASTIC. I can’t wait for next Wednesday. I mean, weekends are great and all, but they are expected. Wednesdays off, now that’s a real miracle.

3 Responses to “Wednesdays off”

  1. I am so jealous. I long for a day of unimpeded errand accomplishing. (Is that a sign of our age bracket? That we long for a day of running errands instead of, oh…say, a new sportscar or a cute outfit or some really good antacid?) When I become a teacher (cough) I will have summers to run my errands…Oh to dream!

  2. Ah the pleasures of Wednesdays off. Plus the decadence of two Fridays each week. Of course, retirement is even better…..

  3. So exactly how Were our tax dollars at work back when you were with State Lands?

Monday, August 21, 2006

Working Late

Today’s the first day of my new 4 ten hour day work week. I’m here tonight until 8 pm. Which is pretty bizarre. The best part is the quiet. I’ve finished several of those little nagging projects that I didn’t get to last week. I’ve cleaned up our database. When else do you get around to database clean up, except when you are the only person in the office. I’ve prepared for tomorrow, getting ahead. I still have one hour left to the work day.

I also like being in the library when I’m one of the only people here just for the sheer coolness of it. It’s just me and thousands of books. Same thing on the mornings when I open the library. Those doors wouldn’t get unlocked if I didn’t walk around and open them, early, early in the morning. It’s a side of the library not everyone gets to see, I guess that’s what I like about it.

However, since the undeniable fact is that it’s after seven and I’m not home yet, in fact I won’t be home for another two hours, I’ve been working on the list of stuff I’m going to get done on Wednesday. See, that’s what all this working late is about…taking Wednesday off.

I’m plan on:

  • sweeping the deck, pruning the plants, giving them a good watering
  • going to the bank, maybe walking, to change my name on my account there
  • finishing the Thank You notes!!! (no really, I am)
  • working on (finishing?) the wedding photo album
  • perhaps, if this isn’t too crazy, going for a nice bike ride.
  • oh, and laundry.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The Best Book I’ve read in awhile

If you like books about girls named Zazoo,you should read Zazoo, by Richard Mosher. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s sweet. It’s timeless, the story seems outside of time. Kind of Gabriel Garcia Marquez-esque. It’s a fast read. It’s set in France, who doesn’t love that. Zazoo and her grandfather live in a mill, they mind Lock 43 on a canal. Zazoo has a plum colored punt she uses for boating up and down the canal. It’s like Griffin and Sabine, a bit too, though less “arty.” Read this book. It’s great.

One Response to “The Best Book I’ve read in awhile”

  1. Hm… sounds intriguing. When I am back in a place where I can read for pleasure I will definitely pick it up. Right now all my reading these days are in blog form or snippets from magazines. Even my beloved Dwell is sitting in a stack on the coffee table, waiting for me to pick it up. It can be a dense read at times and I guess I am not in the mood for heavy reading these days. (I find it amusing that my definition of heavy reading is magazine reading and that blog reading is about all I can handle. Oy!)

Friday, August 11, 2006

Libstaff Officiality

You know something’s real when you’re ready to send out an email to everyone you work with about the item who’s reality is being confirmed. How’s that for a sentence. Today I emailed the reflector that goes to everyone in the whole entire library and told them I was changing my name. I wrote “I’m changing my name from Jenn OldName to Jenn NewName. My email will stay the same. Look for me on the other side of the phone list.” One of my work friends who knows enough about my life to know that I got married likes how up in the air I left it. Leave ‘em guessing. So today I’ve been answering the question “Hey, did you get married?!!?!?!?!?” Quite a lot.

I’ve also heard a few good stories…when people find out you got married, sometimes they tell you good stories about their own weddings. One guy was telling me that he and his wife decided to get married rather suddenly, in fact, they were both at work and decided to get married on their way home. They called a friend (another library worker) who just happened to be ordained to marry people and said “Hey, are you busy tonight? If you’ll marry us after work, we’ll give you a ride home.”

Monday, August 7, 2006

65% nerdy

Well, once Jean took the quiz, I had to take it too. I’m like sheep that way. Of course, they know this, as one of the questions was “Why did you take this quiz” with one of the answers being “To find out if I’m more nerdy than someone else.” You know what it’s missing, though, are my answers. Was it really Max Planck? Turns out it wasn’t. Nothing a little Google image search couldn’t tell me. I took the test without Googling. Some others I know might not be able to restrain themselves. Though, one of our more charming mottos in this apartment is “We settle our arguments the way they should be settled — with Google.” Okay. Now back to reading up on what’s hot in the world of Public Libraries. I’m studying for a job interview. Take that nerds of the world.

~ by meteowrite on August 7, 2006.

One Response to “65% nerdy”

  1. How much of a nerd am I that I thought it was cheating to look stuff up while taking the quiz? Or is that just my repressed asian upbringing?

    Reading down through the quiz, one of the multiple choice answers was: I looked it up online. Or something to that effect. I smacked myself in the head thinking: This quiz is open book???

    Does that make me more of a nerd? Or just a dork? Or maybe I am just a rules-abiding geek…

Monday, July 31, 2006

Social Security

As in “I went to their office today,” and not “I’ve been thinking about it generally.” I went to the Social Security office to legally change my name. Pretty exciting stuff, in a rather dull office. I guess that’s the beauty of bureaucracy, they can pretty much add a form and suck the romance out of just about any situation you could imagine. I’d tried to go on Friday afternoon, to the office in Campbell. Call it a knee-jerk reaction, but if given the choice to carry out some important bit of paperwork, the kind of thing that could follow you around and haunt you if something went wrong, in either San Jose or Santa Cruz, my gut reaction says “San Jose.” I feel like they take their form filling out more seriously on that side of the hill. However, they also hide their office in a mess of expressways and streets that aren’t where they seem they should be. Even leaving work two hours early on Friday, I didn’t make the Campbell office before it closed. So today I tried my luck in Santa Cruz. Rock star parking, lovely office on Walnut street, which is always where you think it should be, and very minimal wait. I should have my new card, and my new married woman identity in less than two weeks.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Super Scrabble

This last weekend we broke in the new Super Scrabble board we received as a wedding gift. Sure, it was 110 degress in our living room. We still had one room with air conditioning, and a board with Quadruple Word Score spaces on it. Quadruple Word Score. Can you even imagine such a thing? The combined scores of this game soared over 1000 points. There are 200 tiles, double the number of almost every letter. That’s two Z’s, two J’s and four blank tiles. It was a thing of beauty. The honor of scoring the First Ever In My Apartment Quadruple Word Score went to Sarah, who was, coincidentally playing her very first game of Scrabble ever. The wonders never cease.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Calls from the Homeland

My mom and aunt are visiting our homeland this week. They flew out to Indiana to hang out with my great aunt and uncle, and then they all drove to Kentucky to see where my grandma and great aunt lived when they were little girls. My mom had never been to Kentucky so she was extra stoked. Gram’s family are all Pitchfords and Cliburns…my great aunt got them to Grandpa Cliburns house, which is on a street called Pitchford Ridge. They stopped to take pictures of the house and the lady who lives there now came out of the front door and said “Well, you must be relatives.” She showed them the inside of the place, and then called up her neighbor, a man who is 100 years old, and them all on to his house. Apparently he didn’t have any hearing aids, was “sharp as a tack” and when a bunch of photos fell to the ground he got to them to pick them up before my mom did. They stopped by the local cemetery which was filled with Cliburns and Pitchfords. So they had a good time. They kept calling me on Friday at work, because they were in a huge storm, and they wanted me to use the internet to tell them if there were tornado warnings. No tornado warnings, but I did keep them up to date on the severe thunderstorms and lightning they were encountering. They had to pull over to the side of the road to wait out a storm at one point, but then they called an hour or so later to let me know the worst had passed, and that they were all safely back in Indiana.

Anyhow, in an unplanned “art imitating life” moment, I watched “Elizabethtown” Friday night, which is set right in Louisville, KY, where my mom and the severe thunderstorms had just been. The family in the movie felt very familiar, especially the aunt who wanted to walk her nephew through the entire photographic history of the family.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

What 2012 photos look like

Our order from Shutterfly arrived today.

2012 photos

The boxes were labeled “Do not bend.”

Portland is literally cooler than Boston

Some of you may have recently been dazzled by a new plan circulating the Avogadro-sphere. It is reminiscent of the Portland Plan…except that it doesn’t involve us all moving to Portland. I conducted an informal survey of people living in my apartment, and asked “Why is Portland better than Boston?” An answer that scored highly was “Boston’s hot and humid in the summer.” (Another popular answer was “The city and street names around Boston are hard to pronounce. We might look silly.” The humidity somehow seemed more tangible.)

I was reviewing the Third Chapter Chart this afternoon, not in connection with this Boston v. Portland question, and found this commentary on the East Coast Humidity,

“I often wonder, no lie, why colonists landing here in the 17th century didn’t say, “Hey,this sucketh, why not look for better land yonder, a place without fens, malaria, and this oppressive heat.” Something like that. Silly colonists.”

~ by meteowrite on July 18, 2006.

One Response to “Portland is literally cooler than Boston”

ON HOT AND HUMID SUMMERS
Name a place that you want to move to, that you think your friends would want to move to, that ISN’T Portland, that also IS NOT hot and humid in the summer.

Also, one word for you: Air Conditioning (okay, two words)

ON BOSTON STREET NAMES AND THEIR PRONUNCIATION
I need to hijack your blog for a few minutes to tell you the following:

People in New England? They can’t pronounce worth shit. They must have all failed phonetics as children. This was confirmed for me on a family vacation a few summers ago. My sister-in-law Maureen organised it. She thought it would be a great idea to have a family reunion camping trip. Lovely idea for me and my beloved, a house of horrors for many of my in-laws. Many opted to stay in hotels with lots of trees around them just a few miles away from the campsites. The camping took place in Maine in a lovely lovely national park. My husband and I talked about this trip to Arcadia National Park for months. He researched Arcadia online and checked out what this park had to offer. He exchanged ideas with his parents during their weekly phone conversations on the Arcadia trip. When we all convened in Boston ready to make the drive up to Maine, all my in-laws were abuzz about Arcadia. Would the hotels be nice? Someone heard that the campgrounds had showers and laundry facilities. Was there good hiking in Arcadia? Is Arcadia the name of the nearby town as well? Or just the national park?

Imagine my confusion when we drove up to the kiosk of a park called ACADIA National Park. Is Acadia another part of Arcadia, I wondered. Nope. It’s Acadia National Park. Our vacation was in Acadia.

I have corrected my husband each time he inserts and “R” in that name, but he still persists. And if I try to talk to my in-laws about that lovely time we had camping in ACADIA, they all look at me with blank faces. When I ask to see the photos they took at ARCADIA, they say: OH! Let me take out the album for you! There’s a really good one of Ellen throwing out the wine.

I say this to you to make you feel better. NO ONE in Boston pronounces things properly. You will never sound silly for saying something wrong. This is not unique to the Kenny clan. Next time you’re in New England, ask someone “Is Amanda in her room?” And they will say, “I think AmandaR is in the kitchen.” Everyone.

You get the idear?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

My Workout Posture

A group of us library folks are taking a “Wellness” class this summer at the East Field House. It’s called “Get On the Ball,” which provides many opportunities for on the ball jokes, and is basically a pilates course utilising large rubber workout balls. Occasionally I feel dorky…we usually start the class by raising the balls over our heads and to the right, then lowering them to ground by our left foot. Over and over. We look like we’re trying out for some version of “A Chorus Line” or a School House Rock expose on the inner workings of a giant atom.

Of course, when you venture out into the world, especially to a class involving giant rubber balls, you’re bound to run into some characters. We’ve tried to fill the class with people we know, but a few random folks have filtered in. And this is Santa Cruz, where a few random folks are generally a little extra random if you know what I mean. We have an older guy with a with a collection of sweatbands who is very intent about working out his upper abs. He asks about them frequently. And of course we have the lady who is gym-serious. She’s really into exhaling on the exertion, in an intense-zen sort of way.

As our class ended today, and we were all staggering to put our weights back on the shelf she said to me “You have really good work out posture.” This is worth mentioning, because as I type this I’m slumped in my chair and my foot has fallen asleep because I’ve been sitting on for the past half hour. I won’t be able to walk when I eventually try and stand up. Good posture is generally not one of my strong suits. No one’s ever complimented my work out posture before. :)

Monday, July 17, 2006

Birthday Monday

At age 32, I’ve finally discovered a trick for making weekends seem longer. You have to do something outside your home on Friday night. Nothing too involved, but just away from home. For instance, I’ve gone to a movie two Friday nights in a row now. Pre-wedding, not a lot of time for movies, so we’re sort of getting caught up now. BUT, and here’s the beauty part…if you go out Friday night, then you can laze around all day on Saturday and not feel like you aren’t capitalizing on your weekend. You’ve already BEEN out in the world. You’ve done something “weekend-y.” You’ve achieved some level of recreation. Leaving home on Saturday becomes unnecessary.

We saw the pirate movie on Friday evening. It didn’t get great reviews, but I found it to be quite enjoyable. I mean, it’s a movie about pirates, it’s not going to change your life, but it’ll entertain you handily for three hours. The dialogue was laugh out loud funny, and there was plenty of good swashbuckling action. Really, that and bag of popcorn are all I need from a movie on a Friday night. Saturday, just to refresh, we watched the first pirate movie again. It held up to a second viewing as well. Good music too.

Since last December, and with my friend Sarah, I’ve been working my way through YALSA’s (Young Adult Library Services Association) Best of the Best — 100 Best Books for Young Adults list. We’re up to the authors with last names starting with “K.” I read “Blood and Chocolate,” by Annette Curtis Klause. The blurb reads “Beautiful teenage werewolf Vivian falls in love with Aiden, a human — a meat-boy — and longs to share her secret with him.” It’s better than the blurb makes it out to be. Sarah and I use a 1 - 5 scale to describe our overall feelings about the book, and I’d give this about a 3.5. It was compelling, I kept picking it up after I’d set it down. Not earth-shattering. Now, if you are interested in werewolves, that’s a different story. This it totally the right book for you if you’re a werewolf fan.

Last night, we placed an order for 2012 photos from Shutterfly. This figure is staggering. I am staggered by this figure. :) Shutterfly doesn’t like to handle batches of photos with more than 2000 items in them, but after several attempts, we managed to convince the software to take our money. I can’t wait to see how big of a box our order comes in.

Friday, July 14, 2006

No really, this time I’m going to be a blogger

I have no trouble whatsoever keeping a blog on vacation, and here at work I have a lovely internet connection. It should be a piece of cake. I’m a bit of an expert on cake. I’ve had cake 12 out of the last 14 days, so when I say it should be a piece of cake to do something, I’m lending all my authority to the statement. Really, I’m going to be a blogger.

~ by meteowrite on July 14, 2006.

3 Responses to “No really, this time I’m going to be a blogger”

  1. You are SO a blogger! Group emails? Journal entries in meteowrite.com? All practice turf to get you ready for the big time. Plus you are a fabulous writer with a funny spin on life around you. I sit back and wait for the brilliance to spew forth.

  2. ps. I too have a wordpress account. How’d you make your’s so pretty? I took the easy way out and opted for a template. Code may be poetry, but I’m a busy girl with other things to learn.

  3. It was your wordpressing that led me to wordpress! I thought your blog was so lovely, and seemed to have more features than another blogging site I’d used. This is just a template too, Regulus, if I’m not mistaken. So the poetry that is code was written by someone else. Thanks Someone Else!