she's gone... oh-wah

I took Johnny to the airport yesterday morning. It was emotional and sad, but I know she's going to have a great time. I think, by now, that she is probably in Italy, but I don't think she'll have computer access until Monday sometime.

Afterward, I went home and got on the old computer to try and get some work done, but something happened and I think I sent the computer into kernel panic because it wouldn't start back up (I just printed out a bunch of help information, so I have some things to try later tonight). I'm supposed to be getting a laptop from work to use for a while, but right now I am computerless, and it's weird. I don't want to have to go back to the library to use the computer, although it is really nice to have that option.

I got my second article proposal accepted! Now, neither of them are done and accepted for sure, but it is pretty exciting to be on the way to publication and fulfilling my tenure-track requirements. I have two impending deadlines now, so the extra free-time will certainly be put to good use. On that, and my fantasy football team - Go Busters!

tent palace

We took Zoey on her first camping trip last weekend. She was really great, and I considered writing this entire post from her point of view, but then I realized that even if it ended up being kinda funny, it would probably come off being a little too dog-focused, in that weird I-am-obsessed-with-my-pet kind of way.

We went to Happy Hills with Sony and Lou. Sony had prepared all this fancy food ahead of time, including homemade macaroni salad and some chicken and shrimp vegetable stuff that ended up on kabobs. On Saturday we went kayaking (because they were out of canoes at the time we got there) and Zoey totally rode in the kayak with Johnny for the whole 5 mile trip. She just sat there all calm, like she'd done it every single day, but barked at the dumb asses who were drunk and jumping out of trees into the river.

It only rained saturday night and some of sunday morning, but we were all tarped out and fully prepared.

I found out that the coffee shop at work leaves next week. That means there is only 5 more days of excessively convenient coffee.

I joined the Librarian Fit Club in order to address some of the issues very aptly reflected by Scootking in her recent post (except that I am not even close to being as active as she is). You should do it too. It will be more fun if we know one another too, don't you think?


I just spilled tea on my shirt. Arg.

countdown

It's only 1 week until Johnny leaves for the island paradise of Sardinia! She claims she will keep up with her blog, so we all have to check and keep her on it.

The library move has really started moving. ha. Library Journal published a little article about it last month and there are some drawings and photos on the website. A few personnel have moved already and they are in the process of moving the books. I'm hoping to get upstairs sometime soon and get some photos of the emptiness. I'll post them when I do. I don't actually move out of my office until early October (tentatively) but we are the last to go. The coffee shop will be leaving next month so I'll be sitting here in silence for once. They've started listening to country music almost exclusively, so I won't mind about that part. I will have to walk to get coffee though, which will take some getting used to.

on a jet plane

Jetgirl was so fun this month. Aside from just a general good time, Johnny did a very funny superhero number and Tamale danced with some fire, and Kitty Victorian came and twirled tassels. I've been fighting off a sore throat for a few days, so aside from the party, I just slept.

Sunday night we went to a fundraiser to help one of our friends pay for his transition, then yesterday I saw this NYT article about "the controversy" in the community. I didn't know about said controversy -- has anyone else heard this before?

Johnny is leaving next Thursday! I'm going to be so sad. Zoey, the cats, and I are already commisserating on ways to keep one another company. I'm making a list of projects.

On the upside, I'm really excited because I finally bought my ticket to Italy. We've planned out this somewhat elaborate itinerary which involves a good portion of the major Italian cities, so we're getting the cheap flights early and the train tickets later. If you have any less-obvious "must see" Italian treasures or travel tips, leave a comment.

Life lesson: Don't be a spoiler

Whatever you do, don't randomly IM someone with the results of the #1 reality show on Bravo. They might not have watched it yet.

Office decor

Last weekend we went to Indiana and visited Johnny's family. Her nephew races go-karts and so we ended up the day by going to the L-burg Motorcycle Speedway and watching hours of go-karts and dirt bikes without brakes racing around and around. The bikes were split up by age, so there was this one division of little kids, like 5 year olds, who were going around. All the dads (or coaches?) came out and were rooting them on. It was pretty cute.

Then Sunday we went to my sister and nieces' combine birthday dinner and then to the Roller Derby which is always a blast.

I just had a bust of Dylan Thomas delivered to my door. He says Hi.


I took the photo with my new work webcam, so if anyone wants to video chat or Skype, I can totally do that now. woot!

all kindsa fun

This weekend presented some noteable lessons:

Karaoke


Don't try to sing "Paul Revere" with a drunk mohawked soccer mom. It's not going to be pretty.


Birthday party


Drinking and canoeing don't really mix. Especially at night.

If you get out of the boat, be sure you know how to get back in.

If you are going to steer the boat, sit in the back, and try not to run into a tree straight off the dock.

That cornucopia bug is a bagworm. Gross.


Irish Festival


Seeing your coworkers doing Irish Step Dancing has got to be one of the funniest things ever.

If you decide to run an Irish Festival, please have some Irish beer (No, Killian's doesn't count).


Niece's birthday present delivery


Call before you just show up at your brother's house 2 hours early on a Sunday. Luckily, they have kids.


Pre-season football


Don't just assume that, if the Eagles are ahead in the 3rd quarter, that they will pull it off. I should have learned this one by now.

Caterpillar thanksgiving

I like to step on really crunchy leaves. This makes walking in the fall among my favorite things to do because there are so many crunchy leaves on the sidewalks. I'll even go out of my way to step on one that seems like it will sounds especially satisfying. Yesterday, I was going to lunch with my friend when I stopped myself, for some reason, from stepping on a really crunchy leaf. As I stepped over it, I realized why I didn't step on it -- it was moving! I stopped and went back and we examined it.

It was a bug, in some sort of cornucopia.


I thought it looked like some 4th grade art project, with a caterpillar stuck inside. We examined it thoroughly and concluded it must be some sort of anomalous cocoon, crafted in some emergency situation where the silk-maker wasn't working...or whatever. But then, we saw another abandoned cocoon about 100 feet down the sidewalk. I'm contribute it to What's that Bug?

Libritaly

If you read almost any other library blog you've probably seen this photo, but I can't help but repost it here. In case you don't read library blogs, it's a play on ALA's new slogan: "Come together @ your library" originally uploaded by Jessamyn.


Which reminds me that Johnny and I had this long conversation last night about what's the point of a GLBT organization in ALA. I explained the purpose of the RT to her, but she still thought it was a little weird that I went to a Queer Social at ALA. I should have just told her that it was the free food and wine.

Which reminds me that she totally got her visa last week, so she is definitely leaving for Sardinia in less than a month. I can't believe it. I am excited for her, a little jealous, and really looking forward to the 15 day vacation tour of Italy we'll be taking in early December. We started planning our route last night, which was a little tiring, but here's a preview: Emerald Coast (Sardinia), Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan. Here's a map. But the real question is: hostels or hotels.com?

zoey & leroy are best friends

Well, not really. On the last day they did sit on the same couch together. Most of the time, however, it looked more like this

or this

or sometimes this


We had a really good time. We went to delicious greek food then karaoke on Friday, we had a cookout on Saturday and went to the Jazz & Rib Fest on Sunday. I ate pulled pork for the first time in a few years, but I didn't get sick. I was probably more likely to get sick from the gigantic creampuff.

After that, we went to a $3 double feature of The Breakup and X-Men 3:The Next to Last Stand. (I hope I didn't just ruin it for anyone, but I didn't tell you anything you couldn't guess before you go see it.)

Then, today, we scored a couple of cool chairs from the thrift store by the recycling dropoff for $13!!

Woot!

Weekend fun

Last night Johnny's brother, his girlfriend and their friends came to stay over on their way to Ozzfest. I was a little anxious about it, because sometimes I'm not sure how to interact with her brother. Whenever we see them they usually have all their kids around and we are with Johnny's parents, which always makes the interaction different.

It was completely great. We got pizza, sat around with some beers, made a fire and stayed up late talking. I was paying for it this morning, but it was definitely worth it to have a good interaction with them.

Today, however, J. Gordan and company are arriving! They are probably about an hour or so away as I post and I'm SO EXCITED to see Leroy! I think that he and Zoey will fall in love after she barks at him and makes him pee on the floor.

as if i needed something else to do

Does anyone know how to get livejournal posts into an rss feed? I know that livejournal wants you to use their "friends" feature, but i want them to come to me.

I read this post by Meredith Farkas, which I imagine you've already seen if you read any library blogs at all. It's interesting and got me thinking about developing a proposal for teaching a big-picture-librarian-technology-skills course at the alma mater. Do any of you know if any of the courses currently available are covering these topics? Do you know if anything is in the works over there?

what really happened

At the risk of driving away every reader, I will tell you how the bird thing turned out.

I found it and it was real nasty.

We cleaned out the pond, got a new pump, rejuvenated the fountain, eradicated mosquitoes, getting some fish. I'll post some photos.

Moving on.

It sure is hot. We somehow ended up with some free window air conditioners, for which our upcoming house guests will certainly be grateful. If we ever get money to replace our aging furnace, we'll certainly put in central air. The pets like it so much more.

all gone

In response to my recent complaints about dead wildlife in our pool, I feel pretty confident in guessing that one of you snuck into our backyard and secretly removed the bird from the water.

thank you. that was really thoughful, and nice -- whoever you are.

p.s. Happy Birthday Jess!

flight, or lack thereof

The guy next door doesn't really like to do any house maintenance. His yard is always overgrown and last fall he had some people come and basically spraypaint the front part of the house, the part you can see from the street. From our side window it is part blue and part old-white.

He also doesn't like to repair his attic windows when they break, so now there is a full-on colony of pigeons living up there. They coo into our bedroom window in the mornings, and if you know Johnny and her fear of birds, you might have an idea about how that goes over.

So there have been some baby bird sightings in the back yard. Zoey likes to go up to them and bark at them, over and over, to get them to leave, but they are just scared and sit there until she leaves.

Today I found a dead bird in the pond. I wasn't sure whether to bury it and risk Zoey digging it up, or to somehow put it in the trash, which I'm sure is illegal. I was paralyzed by indecision so it is still in there. What should I do?

For Catalogers Who Care

I got this link to the RDA prototype and survey from Catalogablog. I went through the prototype (which is a little boring, unsurprisingly) and filled out the survey at the end.

The question I ended up with is, do The Co-Publishers think people want another cataloging utility? It seems like they are trying, at least in part, to create yet another method for people to create catalog records. Has anyone looked at the prototype? Did you think this? I think they should just skip that altogether and focus on making the rules easier to navigate, but maybe I'm being short-sighted.

the day off

So here's a photo of the backyard before our work:


And here it is, after:


Doesn't it look nice?

Last night, we went to see Al Gore's feature film which really was very good. It had a lot of accessible information about the situation the earth is in, and he was pretty funny in parts, which was nice to see. Johnny thinks he's going to run for president now, and that the impact of the film will be negated. Either way, you should probably go see it just for the information it imparts. It has already come in handy for a conversation with Johnny's mom.

Speaking of Johnny's mom, she came up to visit for the 4th. It was really nice, we went to lunch and did a little shopping, then we had a project.

We have this currant bush in our yard. It had loads of currants on it, and I have been feeling obligated, for weeks, to do something with them.
Here they are:


Aren't they lovely?

I thought I'd try to make wine, but it is a little complex and you have to wait at least a year before you can drink it so I settled for jelly. Johnny's mom brought down her canner and here is the end result:

It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it was pretty hot work because of all the boiling and what-not. And, after about a half hour of cooling, all the jars sealed. I was a little worried about that. All in all, I'd recommend it to anyone who want to try making their own. Now I have a few extra packets of pectin, so I might need to look for some more fruit to transform.

Mulch Mania

Yesterday Johnny and I got a good 7 hours of yard work in.

Our day wasn't planned that way -- we were on our way to Our New Filmmaker Friend's house and there were these nice flat rocks stacked out in the alley by someone's trash. They were placed there quite neatly, with the sides all prettily aligned so I was concerned that they were actually in a holding pattern for a project. Johnny stopped the truck and I looked through the slats onto a very lovely backyard. I ran through a neighboring yard and went to the front door where I was told that we could completely have them. We loaded them up and went to Lowe's for mulch and now we have a trail of stepping stones through the backyard to cover the dirt road that Zoey had worn into the grass. Nine big bags of mulch later, we really have a lot more to do but it looks pretty good so far.

You have to check back tomorrow to see the photo. It was dark by the time we finished and I couldn't get a good shot.

Themes

Last night my sweetheart and I were watching The Big Easy, an 80's classic starring Dennis Quaid (not Randy) and Ellen Barkin, set in New Orleans.

Ellen is really pissed at Dennis for a good portion of the movie and I kept wondering why. It just didn't make sense. Johnny pretty much summed it up by asking, "Did we get smarter since the 80s? Did the nation actually increase it's IQ since then?"

Then, after an especially thrilling scene where Dennis sports his non-authentic accent and Ellen wears a bag-dress, she called 80s people "simpletons."

Eighties simpletons. That would make a great theme party. Maybe J. Gordon's next party could be an 80's simpleton toga prom?

N'awlins

I'm on my way out and thought I'd create a little list.

Things I didn't do while in New Orleans:

Show my skin for some cheap beads.
Take advantage of the lack of open container law.
Fall asleep immediately after I got into bed.
Eat a po-boy.
Adjust to the time change.
Take the ferry to Algiers ("The real home of Mardi Gras")
Wear sensible shoes.
Go to Emeril's.
Attend a General Session.

Things I did do while in New Orleans:

Drank and ate seafood every day.
Shepherded a cricket out of my hotel room (twice).
Listened to Howl-at-the-Moon (across the street) until I was forced to wear earplugs.
Went to an incredibly cool jazz bar called Fritzl's.
Saw nearly everyone that I knew was going to be here, some I didn't expect and made some new friends.
Went to Cafe Du Monde and tried the chicory cafe au lait and beignets (dude.)
Learned that Loyola and Tulane are literally across the street from one another.
Got free books without trying.
Re-used my towels & bedding, without being asked.

I love it here. I want to come back.