What Adrienne Thinks About That

January 03, 2009

Desperately Seeking Ambidexterity

One of the things I love about being single is how challenging it can be. I have a lot of support from a lot of people—otherwise goodness knows where I’d be right now—but, still, I find myself in a lot of situations I’m not quite ready for, where I have to figure things out and cope or admit I’m not up to the task and give up.

I’m not much for giving up.

This can be tiring, but figuring out how to do things I didn’t know I could do has also kept me hopeful. In the early days of my widowhood, the logic went something like if I could figure out how to clean out the gutters, I could probably figure out some way to deal with my grief. Now this helps me walk around feeling like I can cope with whatever I have to cope with, and that’s a good way to live.

Since I got burned earlier this week, though, I can’t help but notice that the one thing I can’t seem to figure out how to do is to bandage my own right forearm. You would think after a week of changing the dressing 3-4 times a day, I might be getting better at it. Sometimes I think I’m getting worse. It is beyond all reason the way my left hand refuses to do what I tell it to. I cannot, for instance, teach it how to use scissors, so when I have to cut the roll of gauze—again, let’s remember, 3-4 times a day—I try and try cutting it with my left hand and then finally give up and let my right hand do it—awkwardly, of course, since the bandage is, essentially, on my right wrist, but it gets done. I guess this is partly because scissors are made for right-handed people, and so now I’m beginning to appreciate why left-handed people have their own stores. (No, really, I saw one in San Francisco.) I am not quite ready to give way to despair, but that’s only because I’ve found a coping mechanism, which is that I will take every opportunity when I’m out-and-about to have someone rewrap my bandage more securely for me. The trade-off is that whoever’s helping me rewrap gets to see my burn, which some of my (crazy) friends seem quite eager to do. I haven’t hit up any strangers yet—other than medical personnel—but you never know. Luckily, the darned thing is finally starting to heal, so I’m down to rebandaging twice a day.

I am hoping this is a problem I won’t be running into again.

Posted by adrienne at 11:23 PM | Comments (8)

January 01, 2009

My New New Year’s Resolutions

So I’ve been using the same New Year’s resolutions for about three years now. I don’t want to knock them—they’re good resolutions—but I think I’m going to write some new ones for 2009:

1. Grow new skin back on my forearm. When I go to bed every night, it is with the wild hope that maybe I will wake up the next morning with nice, happy new skin. This has not worked out for me. Yet.
2. Travel less. I have three trips to California planned in the next four months, so I can’t really start working on this one until May. It is going to be hard not to plan more trips for the rest of the year, but I seriously need more time at home.
3. Pay off my student loans. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
4. Read every day.
5. Write every day.
6. Get off the couch every once in a while to exercise.

Okay, so there are fewer resolutions than I had before, but they are also slightly more ambitious, especially numbers 2 and 3. Make that double for 3.

Thanks for all the well-wishes, by the way—for my burn earlier this week, for my cold the other week, for all the general encouragement and support I find here almost every day. I hope 2009 proves to be an excellent year for all of you.

Posted by adrienne at 09:35 PM | Comments (9)

December 29, 2008

Proof that Practice Doesn’t Always Make Perfect

When I was in high school and college, I worked in the food service industry—specifically, I made chicken wings in a pizzeria and then worked for several years at McDonald’s, which remains the second-longest job I’ve ever held.

Food service isn’t a particularly good career choice for someone with a mind that has a tendency to wander. My skin isn’t prone to scarring, and so most of the evidence of this has faded through time, but I sustained so many burns in my food service years—and, truly, the years since—that I know almost as much about burns as I do about preparing food. For instance, I can tell you that burns come in three types:

First Degree
Hurt like heck for a day, but then you forget you have them.

Second Degree
You feel that fast HOT that makes you get your skin off whatever’s burning it, and then it stops hurting right away. Your skin just feels kind of wet. A few minutes later, though, you’ll notice your skin changing color, and just when you start to worry about it, the REAL pain hits you and WOO BOY that is going to get worse for the next few hours, so good luck.

Third Degree
You definitely notice these when they’re happening, as they generally involve open flame, open flame that is quite often attached to your person, which is, I imagine, pretty hard to ignore. I’ve only had one third degree burn. It was small and the result of direct contact with an oven that was, I think, about 600 degrees. The burn got infected, which made my doctor prescribe penicillin, which is when my body decided that penicillin would be an excellent new allergy to acquire. As an experience, I wouldn’t recommend it. That burn took about three months to heal.

So last night I was making soup and took the lid off the pot and I don’t know how it happened but the next thing I knew that lid was HOT on my arm. I looked at my arm, though, and thought, “Eh, doesn’t hurt. It’s fine.” Then a few minutes later my skin started to change color, and I thought, “Crap.”

Then it hurt.

The burn is certainly the largest I’ve ever had, from just below my wrist to a couple inches shy of my elbow, on that soft, lily-white skin on the inside of my forearm. I tried to move my arm as little as possible until this morning, when I called the doctor’s office to beg for drugs. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, I have a second-degree burn. Can I get a prescription for that good burn cream stuff?
Doctor’s Office: Does it hurt?
Me: Yeah.
Doctor’s Office: Well, you’re going to have to come in so the doctor can look at it.
Me: Really? How about the PA?
Doctor’s Office: No, the doctor. Come in at 11:00.
Me: Okay.

Fast-forward to 11:00 at the doctor’s office:

Nurse: Is Aid-reen Furn-ass here?
Me: That’s me! I have a second-degree burn. Can I get a prescription for that good burn cream stuff?
Nurse: Can I see?
Me: Sure.
Nurse: Wow, that looks like it hurts.
Me: Yeah, it does.
Nurse: The doctor’s going to have to look at it.
Me: Sigh.

Fast-forward to 11:50, still at the doctor’s office:

Doctor: So what brings you in today, Mrs. Furness?
Me: I have a second-degree burn. Can I please get a prescription for some burn cream?
Doctor: Oh, yeah, that is a second-degree burn. Bet it hurts.
Me: Yes, it does.
Doctor: Let me write you a prescription.

That burn cream is awesome, let me tell you, and completely worth the trouble I went through to get it. And the experience is a good reminder of all kinds of important things—like that I suck at multitasking and I’m glad I don’t work in food service anymore and, really, it’s a good thing that I don’t know how to use a power saw—but, like so many character-builders, I could have done without it.

Posted by adrienne at 07:51 PM | Comments (13)

December 24, 2008

As If You’re Doing Anything More Exciting this Christmas…

One of the birthday presents I was most excited about this year was this one from Olivia and Sabrina, the Crossword Puzzle Puzzle:

Look at it in all its nerdy glory. I’ve been working on it while listening to The Princess Diaries IV, which is a match made in heaven, if you ask me. The Puzzle Puzzle even comes with a dry-erase marker and clues, so once I’m done putting the puzzle together, I can solve the crossword. My goal is to finish listening to all the Princess Diaries books before book ten, Forever Princess, comes out on January 6th and to finish the Puzzle Puzzle before 2009. I have my doubts about The Princess Diaries, which is okay because it’s not like I haven’t read them all before, but I think I may just make it with the Puzzle Puzzle.

Posted by adrienne at 02:18 PM | Comments (5)

December 18, 2008

Quotable Thursday

“You see, whenever I start feeling sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead.”
-Barney in “How Lilly Stole Christmas,” How I Met Your Mother, Season 2

I went to bed last night telling myself that I would wake up awesome instead of sick this morning, but I woke up sick. Whatever happened to my Immune System of Steel? I’m blaming Lucas, who has been coughing nonstop for two weeks, although I suppose it could have been any of the whippersnappers who are forever in the library coughing and sneezing. And, on the bright side, Lucas felt badly enough for me this morning that he dried my dishes and put away the ones that went in cupboards he could reach. He’s an awfully good egg, that kid.

As for me? I think it’s time to crawl back to the couch and nap again.

Posted by adrienne at 10:08 AM | Comments (12)

December 11, 2008

35

According to Wikipedia: “35 is the highest number one can count to on one’s fingers using base 6.”

How bad is it that I am 35 and there is a way to count on my fingers that I do not understand? I only know how to count to ten on my fingers. Ah, well, there’s always 36 next year.

Posted by adrienne at 08:20 AM | Comments (16)

December 08, 2008

Another View

I am home now. It is sunny, but it is also 27 degrees.

Let us not speak of it.

On Saturday, I went back to Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. I seem to find the parrots endlessly amusing, and I wanted to try the staircase I hadn’t the first time I was there. (I walked the Greenwich stairs on Friday, the Filbert on Saturday.) The walk and the views are an antidote to the monochromatic winter we’ve settled into here in WNY; if I had been there another day, I might have gone back again.

I also kind of fell in love with the WPA murals in the tower. The murals are worth spending time with, full of activity and detail, and it’s moving to stand in the midst of a financial crisis mulling over the way our country decided that one good way to deal with a past crisis was to put artists to work. We aren’t that country anymore, and those murals tell a story about why that’s a shame.

On Saturday, I also rode the F train and did some shopping and spent some quality time at City Lights bookstore. I walked a lot.

Today, I am doing laundry. Sigh. Let us not speak of it.

Posted by adrienne at 03:06 PM | Comments (7)

December 05, 2008

San Francisco, Coffee, and Sunshine

When you live in WNY, it takes a while to notice the way the sun has forsaken you. I mean, I knew it was getting dark early at home, but I always think of January and February as being the truly dark months. Most people put their Christmas lights up at home around Thanksgiving; I think they fool us into thinking there is more light than there truly is, at least for a while.

Here in San Francisco, though, there is sun. Lots and lots and lots of sun. There are also coffee places every block or two, including one right across the street from my hotel. This morning, I ran across the street in the morning twilight in my pajamas to get my large peppermint latte. I’m prone to dashing around in my pajamas from time-to-time at home, but here it seems like a way more normal thing to do.

So there is coffee, there is sun, and the workshop I’ve been planning for and fretting about for months is successfully behind me. WOO HOO!

Today, I’m riding the cable cars. I’m going to eat breakfast in that place Jeffrey told me about. I’m going to see some parrots. Maybe I’ll even see some seals.

I love being here.

Posted by adrienne at 10:26 AM | Comments (10)

November 30, 2008

Documentaries that Have Helped Me Realize that I’m Not So Abnormal After All, Part 2 in a Continuing Series

Over a year ago now, I wrote an entry about documentaries I’d seen and enjoyed primarily because the people in them were perhaps more eccentric than myself. I really like this in people, and I have continued to pursue more documentaries in this vein. I thought it was time to add a Part 2 to my list. Here goes:

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Let me just say that Billy Mitchell is kind of the Wendy Pepper of videogaming, and Steve Wiebe is kind of my hero. After watching this documentary, I, too, wanted to put a Donkey Kong machine in my garage (or maybe my basement—I do live in the Northeast, and our winters are c-o-l-d). Plus, how bad do I want to visit Funspot now? It’s not even that far away. 4/5 jazz hands.

Helvetica
Typographers are weird and opinionated, and there is an amount of controversy in the world of fonts that I never would have guessed before watching this film. It made me think as much as it amused me. Got to love that. 3.5/5 jazz hands.

Vernon, Florida
This film was released in 1982, when I was in the second grade, but it’s a movie that could have been made yesterday, although I shudder to think what Vernon—a relatively rural place at the time this was made—might be like today (BOO overdevelopment). The film is only about an hour long and follows several people around town, basically just filming them while they talk and talk and talk. There isn’t a boring minute, and these people are (or were) all way crazier than me. 5/5 jazz hands.

Posted by adrienne at 11:13 PM | Comments (10)

November 27, 2008

You Know It Was a Happy Thanksgiving When You End the Day with All Ten Fingers (Mostly) Intact

Dinner was, I think, a success. Everyone pitched in and helped out, as they always do, and everyone ate. They laughed; they played the Wii (Thanks, O and S!). Several years ago, we made a Big Mistake on Thanksgiving and played Twister. Now Lucas believes that Twister is just what you DO on Thanksgiving, and we have to play it every year. So we did that, too. What with the yoga, I’ve always been a somewhat formidable Twister opponent, but this year I was having a tough time. I was feeling kind of badly about it, like maybe this was the result of my impending 35th birthday, but then I realized that it was probably because I a.) spent most of the day standing and cooking yesterday, and then b.) went to an hour-and-ten-minute-long spinning class this morning, and then c.) spent several more hours standing and cooking/cleaning up before the game. I think maybe my legs earned being a little sore and tired.

My most exciting Thanksgiving discovery was learning how to use the electric knife. My dad always used an electric knife to carve the turkey for all the years he was here for Thanksgiving, and the knife has been there in my kitchen for all the years since. I’ve been way too afraid to use it, though. To me, it looks an awful lot like a power saw without a power saw’s nifty safety features. And so for the last few years, I have done something to the turkey that could be loosely described as carving, producing pieces that are edible but not very slicelike.

This year, I decided I wanted slices. This year, I decided to try the electric knife.

The electric knife is AMAZING. Scary, but AMAZING. It was like I knew how to carve a turkey. There were slices and everything. Brilliant, brilliant.

Now, I think, it’s time to veg out on the couch and watch some TV. I hope you all had as happy a Thanksgiving as I did. I feel so thankful for all of you.

Posted by adrienne at 09:17 PM | Comments (8)

November 24, 2008

Thanksgiving Dinner: A How-to-Do-It Manual

If you are cooking Thanksgiving dinner, today is exactly the right time to panic, because if you don’t have a lot of preparations in place, you’re kind of screwed.

I am not going to be screwed. I’ve been cooking Thanksgiving dinners every year for about a decade now, and I daresay I’m getting good at it. For instance, I had today off work, and so I spent four hours driving around the city running errands and getting all the food I’ll need for the rest of the week, including the holiday. I accomplished this through the liberal use of post-its. I have one post-it that lists everything I plan to serve (turkey, gravy, squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, veggies with hummus, stuffing, homemade applesauce, this awesome cranberry-apple relish I made the other day, angel food cake, and pumpkin pie). I have another series of post-its that tell me what I need to do each day leading up to the holiday (Monday: take turkey out of freezer; Tuesday: make applesauce, take pumpkin out of freezer; Wednesday: take squash out of freezer, bake pumpkin pie, bake angel food cake, make hummus; Thursday: do everything else). This is maybe the most organized approach I’ve taken to anything ever.

The thing about Thanksgiving is that it’s a meal you don’t want to mess with. If people don’t get what they expect, their reactions will be swift and strong. For instance, personally, I think that serving people cranberry jelly that you slide out of the can and put out in slices on a plate is not nice, as it is barely even food, but at least two (2) people who regularly come to Thanksgiving at my house consider this an essential part of the holiday. The one year I didn’t serve it, I had multiple complaints. When I brought up the idea of maybe not baking a pumpkin pie this year with one of my guests, his reaction was silent horror; I could see him flipping through the rolodex in his head considering where else he could go for the meal. One year I cooked a ham instead of a turkey, and that was just a big mistake. A really, really big mistake. I’m using the folly of youth as my excuse on that one.

I’ve also tried various things to make the meal more healthy, which exactly no one appreciates. I purchased two (2) pounds of butter and two (2) dozen eggs today, most of which will be gone by Friday morning. Well, “redistributed” might be a better word, but, hey, it’s a holiday.

Another word of warning, from this morning on, the closer it gets to Thanksgiving, the more crowded and picked-over the grocery stores will be. Just *try* to find some decent celery on Wednesday afternoon; I dare you. It won’t happen.

Other mistakes I’ve made that you should probably try to avoid:

1. Forgetting to purchase and/or defrost your turkey.
2. Forgetting to make the stuffing until the turkey’s on the table.
3. Forgetting to take the ginormous green salad you’ve made out of the fridge when the meal starts and then not realizing it until the next day when you, one person, find yourself in possession of a day-old salad made to feed 15 people. (This error is what finally drove me to institute the post-it system.)

The irony? While I’m very well-prepared for the meal I will be serving this Thursday, I am completely unprepared for the trip I’m taking to San Francisco next week. I have a flight booked and dinner plans for the day I get in (Hi, Heidi!), and of course I’m fairly well-prepared for my workshop. What I’m doing with the rest of my time, though? No idea. Maybe I’ll get a chance to read my travel guides on the plane….

Posted by adrienne at 05:30 PM | Comments (20)

November 22, 2008

Everyday Things that Shouldn’t Be Scary, Except They Are

Hot Tea in Containers with Lids
About seven or eight years ago, I ordered tea at a coffee shop (NOT the Leaf and Bean, by the by), and when I took off the lid to take the bag out, water spilled on my hand and gave me a second-degree burn. Ever since this incident, I do not like tea in paper cups, tea in containers with lids on them, or walking around while holding tea in any kind of container. This feels completely rational to me.

The Yogurt Container in the Back of My Fridge
It may have been yogurt once; it may have been leftovers. It’s been in there so long that I have no idea what it could be, and I am afraid.

The Car Wash
I have been afraid of the car wash since I was a little kid, when I would insist on getting out of the car before it went in and walking around to wait on the other side. I’ve been through the car wash plenty of times since then—I even take my car there myself on a semi-regular basis—but I am still fairly convinced the big round brushes that clean the sides of the car are up to no good, so I just close my eyes during that part. Max, bless his little heart, shares my concern.

Making Phone Calls
Tammy calls people all the time like it’s no big deal, but I confine most of my phone use to calling her or one of my parents. I feel all awkward when I can’t see people I’m speaking to, which is, I think, related to the discomfort I feel when I’m being recorded or videotaped, as I do not like the thought of people who I can’t see seeing me. That’s rational, though. Isn’t it?

The Broiler
The broiler is just so dramatic. Turning it on always feels like a bit of an event, and I spend the whole time it’s on worrying that something (like what I’m cooking) is going to burst into flame.

Posted by adrienne at 08:32 PM | Comments (17)

November 18, 2008

The Deconstruction of Tom and Jerry

“Today,” says Lucas. “I am going to compare Benny to Tom.”

Pause.

“One thing I know is that they’re both, uh, well…not the smartest cats.”

Posted by adrienne at 07:59 AM | Comments (5)

November 17, 2008

What I’ve Been Eating Lately, Since We All Know My Life Revolves Around Food

Macaroni and Cheese
Because of my weekly produce deliveries, all of my meals over the last six months have in some way, shape, or form involved a fruit or vegetable. This past week was my last week of produce. I felt a little sad about it, so I decided to cheer myself up with something fatty and wonderful—and what could be more fatty and wonderful, more far from produce, than macaroni and cheese? I used a recipe I found in one of my Cook’s Illustrated magazines that I’d never tried before and that I think is now my Official Favorite.

Butternut Squash with Ginger, Pepper, and a Wee Pat of Butter
I’ve been eating this every single day for the last week, and it is not getting old.

No-Mayo Cole Slaw
I have a conflicted relationship with cabbage that stems from the seasons in which they’d plant cabbage in the fields surrounding my house when I was a child. If you’ve never had to endure months of smelling rotting cabbage, then you may not understand why sauerkraut is one of the very few foods in this world I avoid. It’s a smell you don’t get used to. So, anyway, I’d never made anything much with cabbage, but I got a couple heads in my last two produce deliveries. I decided to make a No-Mayo Cole Slaw with Apples this week from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Cole slaw has always been my cabbage weakness, and this no-mayo variety dressed with a vinaigrette is really yummy and not nearly as high in fat as the kind with mayo. It kind of made up for the macaroni and cheese. Did I mention that I used whole milk in the macaroni and cheese?

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Elegant Expressions Bakery
I’m a little snooty about cookies because my chocolate chip cookies kick ass, but Elegant Expressions’ are better than mine. If you live in the Rochester area, you need to know that a.) these cookies freeze very well, and b.) you can eat them right out of the freezer, no thawing required. If you don’t live in the Rochester area, I offer my condolences, because Elegant Expressions' chocolate chip cookies make up for a lot of bad things in the world. Matter o’ fact, I think I’m going to go eat one right now.

Book mentioned:
Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. (HC: 9780764524837)

Posted by adrienne at 09:53 PM | Comments (16)

November 10, 2008

The Long-Term Effects of Going on a Midwestern Extravaganza Instead of Doing Your Spring Cleaning

So today I was playing with the cats and realized that it had been quite some time since I had knocked the toy mice out from under the refrigerator. I have a yardstick I keep around for this purpose. This is what I found:

#1-Seven toy mice. SEVEN.
#2-Enough cat hair to make an entirely new cat. Now I know I am prone to exaggeration, but I put Ella next to the hairball that emerged from under my refrigerator, and it was almost as big as her. Ella weighs TWELVE POUNDS.
#3-The word “hit” (on a magnet).

I was going to see if there were any toy mice to knock out from under the stove, but I lost my nerve. Maybe tomorrow.

[Note: Mulling over this incident put me in mind of one of my all-time favorite posts at Read, Write, Believe: “Where Ideas Come From.” I reread it today, and I think you should, too. If you’re participating in the Comment Challenge (I am), you can leave a comment HERE and then follow the link over to Sara’s blog and leave a comment THERE, and that will be 2/5 or 20% of the comments you need to leave for the day. How efficient is that?]

[Note #2: Maybe today’s sludge will turn into an appliance repairperson who has to go fix the crazy cat lady’s refrigerator because it gets all clogged up with cat hair and toy mice. The crazy cat lady is, needless to say, the main character.]

Posted by adrienne at 10:52 PM | Comments (10)

November 08, 2008

Apples and Oranges

Ever since Max was a baby, I’ve been singing him the “Who’s a Good Boy?” song. JJ suggested it was unoriginal back in the day (which, okay, she had a point), but Max kind of loves it and now when I sing, “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” He sings back, “MAXWELL IS! MAXWELL IS!” This is basically the cutest thing he does.

The second cutest thing he does is recite one of my favorite fingerplays, “Here Is a Beehive.” He does that great thing where he can only remember every second or third word, and he never manages to count to five properly because he’s too busy concentrating on scrunching up his neck because he knows I’m going to tickle him.

When Lucas was two-going-on-three, he had very little use for rhymes and songs. He hated “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” so much that he would yell and holler “TURN IT OFF!” whenever he heard it.

They look alike, but they are very different children.

Posted by adrienne at 09:42 PM | Comments (8)

November 04, 2008

“I Always Pick Up All My Playthings”

I voted this morning, but I have been trying to tell myself all day that I’m not that invested in who wins and that it will all be okay no matter what. 2000 and 2004 were hard election years for me; I think I’m a little scarred. Everyone I’ve talked to on the phone tonight has been watching election coverage. Here’s a partial list of what I did instead:

*Made a batch of party potatoes.
*Made hummus.
*Washed dishes.
*Packed up three boxes of stuff to take to the VOA.
*Cleaned out the cat boxes.
*Put away the Halloween decorations.
*Did two loads of laundry.

This was after working two hours over yesterday and one hour over today. I was, in theory, tired. When I start packing things up to take to the VOA, though, you can tell I have some nervous energy going on. At least my preferred method of avoidance is productive.

Books referenced in post title:
Seuss, Dr. The Cat in the Hat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. (You can get an ISBN off the copy in your bookcase.)

Posted by adrienne at 10:24 PM | Comments (9)

November 03, 2008

Blog the Vote

You all should run and check out Blog the Vote 2008, a multi-blog effort to remind people to vote tomorrow. Like there are any watat.com readers not voting, but, still, it makes me feel better to see that there are all kinds of people who are just as passionate about voting as I am. Not to get all braggy, but at my polling place, they give me a cookie AND a sticker when I vote. As if the ability to exercise my rights wasn’t enough.

Posted by adrienne at 06:31 PM | Comments (5)

November 02, 2008

Adrienne vs. Multitasking… ROAR! ADRIENNE WINS!!!

Contrary to the image I think I project, I’m not a very good multitasker. I can be very efficient, and I get a lot done, but I tend to do it by focusing on one thing at a time. If there is a television on in a room, for instance, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything else. I generally read books in a day or two, mostly because I’ll just keep reading the darned things until they’re done. I’m at my happiest when I’m immersed in something. If I spend too much time thinking about the big picture, I just freak out.

I’ve always been like this, but I note that I’ve gotten more so since my husband died. For a long time, I’d get really cranky from time-to-time and not be able to understand why, but I came to realize that part of it was having a really low tolerance for a lot of things going on. I’ve been trying to cope with this in a lot of ways, one of which is making sure I’m not overloading my schedule, but what I have noticed about life is that you cannot control it, no matter how hard you try. So this week, I had the deadline for getting my materials ready for my homeschooling workshops, Halloween, Lucas’s birthday, Jason’s knee surgery (which not only involved a scary hospital visit but also doing all five of Jason’s storytimes in addition to my one this past week), and two presentations looming this week coming up.

At the beginning of the week, I looked at the big picture, and I freaked out.

But you know what? I did everything. I started to freak out a few times, but I stopped myself and ignored the big picture and concentrated on what I had to do NOW and got it all done. I feel like maybe it’s a little step in the right direction.

Books mentioned in a manner one might call willfully obtuse:
Shea, Bob. Dinosaur vs. Bedtime. NY: Hyperion Books for Children, 2008. (HC: 9781423113355)

Posted by adrienne at 09:07 PM | Comments (4)

November 01, 2008

Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate...

The first one said, “Oh, my, it’s getting late.”

The second one said, “There’s magic in the air!”

The third one said, “But we don’t care!”

The fourth one said, “Let’s run, run, run!”

The fifth one said, “We’ll have some fun!”

Then WOOOOSH went the wind,

And OUT went the light,

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Posted by adrienne at 12:22 PM | Comments (3)

October 29, 2008

Into the Wild

At the beginning of the school year, Lucas decided to read the first book in the Warriors series, Into the Wild by Erin I’m-Really-Three-Chicks Hunter. He talked about it quite a bit while he was reading it, and I came to think of it as the book that introduced the phrase “lifeless body” into his vocabulary. I don’t mean that as criticism: the phrase is hackneyed, sure, but occasionally bodies are, indeed, lifeless.

Anyway, this turned out to be the first book Lucas read that I hadn’t read first. He sensed the profound wrongness of this state of affairs, and a couple weeks after he finished the book, he gave it to me to read.

Now, I have been vaguely interested in Warriors because the children are all rabid about it, but I’ve been interested in the way that hasn’t led me to, you know, read one of the books. But LUCAS gave me this book. Clearly I had to read it.

I started it a week or so ago. I can tell I’m not loving it by the way I haven’t finished it yet. In fact, I’ve done something completely uncharacteristic for me and started another book entirely (I may read the ending of a book before I start it from time-to-time, but I do NOT start a new book before I’ve finished the one I’m reading), HomeSchooling at the Speed of Life by Marilyn Rockett, which I do, in fact, love. It’s a book for Christian moms on how to keep their homes clean and orderly while homeschooling their children (chapters include “Paper by the Pile” and “Clutter, Clutter Everywhere and Not a Spot to Think”). I am not a Christian homeschooling mom, nor do I plan to implement any of Rockett’s strategies, wise and sensible though they are. I love reading about them, though. I’ve been using the book over the last couple days as a reward for doing the chores that keep my house from being condemned, mainly laundry and the dishes. It’s not that I dislike cleaning or organizing; it’s just that reading about it is so much better. Or maybe it’s just better than reading about the lifeless bodies of feral cats. I’ll finish Into the Wild and let you know.

Books mentioned:
Hunter, Erin W. Into the Wild. NY: HarperCollins, 2003. (HC: 9780060000028, LIB: 9780060525484, PB: 9780060525507)
Rockett, Marilyn. HomeSchooling at the Speed of Life: Balancing Home, School, and Family in the Real World. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007. (PB: 9780805444858)

Posted by adrienne at 09:09 PM | Comments (5)

October 28, 2008

Reason Number 457 to Love Facebook

Today when I logged onto Facebook for the first time in a couple days, I was reminded of why I should not let too much time pass without checking in. For there, on my Wall, was a message from Pat telling me that she had just seen a Halloween Special Edition Magic 8 Ball at Target. She even offered to pick one up for me. This was such exciting news that I had to run and try to find one IMMEDIATELY, though, which is exactly what I did.

For a dismaying thirty seconds, I thought they were sold out. It was only when I was shuffling along muttering to myself on the way out of the Halloween section that I saw them way up on a top shelf, as if they weren’t the number one most requested Halloween item Target sells. Please.

I bought two: one for me and one for an eight-year-old boy I know who will be turning nine on Monday. I don’t want to name names, but he really likes Halloween.

Question: Will I ever figure out how to navigate the new Facebook interface efficiently?
Halloween Special Edition Magic 8 Ball: Scary but true.

Question: Isn’t Pat one of the awesomest people I know?
Halloween Special Edition Magic 8 Ball: It’s in the bag!

Question: Does candy have calories on Halloween night?
Halloween Special Edition Magic 8 Ball: It might be a trick.

Drat.

Posted by adrienne at 10:07 PM | Comments (6)

October 27, 2008

“Do One Thing Every Day that Scares You”

I cannot tell you how many days my husband spent at Strong Memorial Hospital during the last three years of his life—100, even 150, doesn’t seem unlikely. We spent a lot of time exploring the place while we were there, even when Brian was inpatient or post-op or neutropenic (or, heck, all three at once). Whatever was going on, we’d take his entourage of medical equipment along, and so people who worked all over the hospital knew us, the young couple where the husband was so increasingly obviously dying of cancer.

I’ve avoided the hospital since Brian died, but I had to go there today.

I thought I might throw up on the drive over, but the moment I drove into the front loop and realized that the multimillion dollar project they’d done to improve the parking situation hadn’t improved the parking situation, I went into a routine I know so well: stalk someone on the way out to their parking spot, remember what floor you’re on, turn off your cell phone on your way into the building.

Everything about that hospital smells like Brian dying.

Back in the day, I never used elevators at the hospital unless Brian wasn’t well enough to walk on his own. In fact, we regularly raced to see if he could make it to whatever floor we were going to faster on the elevator than I could running the stairs. Only the occasional staff person and health nut ever uses the stairs at Strong—I think people are generally in too much of a daze over whatever illness brings them there to bother with health—and sometimes if I felt like I wasn’t getting enough exercise, I’d run the stairs from the sixth floor (where Bri usually stayed) down to the basement and back up a few times.

Today, my business was in the basement, and, in a daze, I took the elevator down.

I’ve gotten used to some of the smells. My weekly allergy shots have taught me to stop passing out every time I smell rubbing alcohol. My cleaner has taught me to stop retching whenever I smell bleach. People will say the hospital smells sterile, but it does not. They’ll say it smells like urine and vomit, but it does not. It smells like all of that at the same time, and there’s more mixed in—new babies and tomato soup and Jell-o and crackers and magazines and spare change and coffee and people who have stayed there overnight unexpectedly.

I couldn’t decide if I should breathe shallowly or deeply while I visited with my friend who was recovering from surgery. I relaxed, finally, talking to the nurse, remembering that language I knew so well about things like antibiotics and heart rates and hydration and pain management. I kept telling myself it was okay if I had to leave after half an hour, but I stayed nearly two.

On the way out, I took the stairs. I kicked off my clogs and ran up to the sixth floor. I don’t know how long it took me to open the door. A while. I went and looked down the hall of what used to be the cancer unit. I’m not sure if it is anymore or not, but it smells just the same. I put my shoes back on, I walked down the stairs, and I came home.

Posted by adrienne at 09:44 PM | Comments (24)

October 25, 2008

Service to Homeschooling Families: Workshops for Library Staff in California

I’ve been preparing for these workshops for months, but it’s only now that I’m doing the final preparations for my first presentation in San Francisco at the beginning of December that I truly believe it’s all going to happen.

WOO HOO!

I try to confine my homeschooling thoughts to articles and my Homeschooling and Libraries blog (which, okay, I don’t update enough), but this is too exciting not to share with the rest of you. First, I get to spend a lot of time talking about homeschooling, which I love. Second, California is a big state with a lot of homeschoolers who are well-organized and influential on a national level. Third, it turns out I have quite a few friends here and there in California. And, last, it’s CALIFORNIA—and in the winter besides. There is a very real possibility that I will see the sun.

If you’re a librarian and want to learn more about the workshops (program description, dates, times, locations, registration info), please do visit the Infopeople website. In the meantime, I think I need to take a few minutes to bask in how very fortunate I am.

Posted by adrienne at 02:32 PM | Comments (11)

October 20, 2008

My Invisible Friend, or The Other Godson

You can’t hear him, but Max is chanting, “Get in the car with ME, Adrienne! Get in the car with ME!”

Well, it really sounds more like, “Get in ca’ wi’ ME, A-ren! Get in ca’ wi’ ME!” You kind of have to speak Max. He was talking about train tracks yesterday for a while, too, but “train tracks” sounded more like “brain box,” which sounds way more interesting than train tracks, if you ask me. It’s worth noting that Max gets kind of annoyed if you mention this.

Here he is engaging in his favorite pastime, irritating his mother by playing in the dirt:

And here he is trying to feed a goat’s butt:

That didn’t really work out for Max or the goat, but it was pretty funny.

Posted by adrienne at 03:03 PM | Comments (7)

October 19, 2008

“Abracapocus”

“I Am a Little Fat-ee-gued.”
-Bugs Bunny in “Transylvania 6-5000”

When I was a little girl, LONG before the days of VHS (or even Beta), my mother taped the audio from the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Transylvania 6-5000” on a cassette for me, which I would listen to over and over and over and over. I think the tape’s still in a box in my basement somewhere: that’s how much I love it. It’s the one where Bugs ends up in Transylvania instead of Pittsburgh and mistakes a vampire’s castle for a hotel and the vampire himself (“Count Blood Count”) for the hotel’s head waiter. I suppose it’s no wonder that I grew up to be the sort of person who loves B-grade horror and cannot seem to resist Halloween attractions, and so even though I was so tired last night that I had a hard time finding the will to steam some cauliflower for my dinner, when Ron called and asked if I was up for going to the Boy Scouts’ annual haunted house, I said yes.*

Troop 292 knows how to put on a haunted house. We’ve gone the last three years, and it’s always a good time. For starters, we never have to wait in a huge line, which is nice with Lucas since he breaks out with the annoying routine after about five minutes of line-waiting.

The second thing I love about this particular haunted house is that it observes what I have decided are my two rules for haunted attractions. Rule #1 is NO CHAINSAWS. Rule #2 is NO ONE TOUCHES ME. We went to a haunted hayride a couple weeks ago that I mostly enjoyed but, seriously, my body belongs to me and I don’t care if you have a scary mask on if you touch me I am totally hitting you. I mean, DUH. As for the chainsaws, when I told Ron last night that I didn’t want to go to any more scary things with chainsaws, he very patiently explained to me that they take the chains off so the saws can’t hurt me. And I very patiently explained back that chainsaws are loud and smelly and inherently scary. Since I went through all that effort to conquer my fear of heights, I think chainsaws are the closest thing I have to a phobia, and you know what? I am okay with that. I don’t want to be around chainsaws, I don’t have to be around chainsaws, and that’s the end of that story.

The third thing I love about Troop 292’s haunted house is that they do an amazing job with it every year. It’s family-friendly but still makes me jump a few times, the kids in masks are considerate of little ones and how they’re feeling, and they always put a maze at the end that is genuinely difficult to get out of in a way that is fun rather than irritating. We solved it in about five or ten minutes this year, but one year it took us about twenty—and even then we wound up following someone else to find our way out.

And you know what’s the best thing in the world to do after that? Remember that you have a cold and go to bed.

*For the record, I was also being emotionally manipulated into going, as Lucas said he wouldn’t go if I didn’t, which I think his father put him up to, but still. Manipulators.

Posted by adrienne at 05:40 PM | Comments (6)

October 18, 2008

Sick and Tired

The combination of germy people in my vicinity and completely overdoing it this week has penetrated the immune system I’ve spent years working with children building, and I have a cold. It’s not a bad cold, I guess, but it’s making me tired and cranky. For instance, this morning I didn’t put in my contact lenses because it seemed like too much effort. I drank lots of caffeine to get through my shift at work, and then I came home and took a nap. It took me about an hour to convince myself it was a good idea to walk upstairs and turn on the laptop.

Sigh.

I can totally hear my allergist—the only doctor who has the ability to convince me to do something I don’t want to do—lecturing me about getting a flu shot. He started in on me about this last year. I was all like, “I don’t get the flu. I don’t think I’ve ever even had the flu.” And he was all like, “You aren’t supposed to wait to get the flu to get the shot.”

I already get allergy shots every two weeks: ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?

He says no.

Of course, this is terrible timing. I need to get on the ladder (again) to clean the leaves out of my gutters. I need to haul some stuff to the VOA. I’m writing a couple articles on deadline.

I don’t even care. I just want to watch DVDs and nap, which is, I think, what exactly what I’m going to do.

Posted by adrienne at 07:49 PM | Comments (4)

October 15, 2008

Okay, So I Am Doing Three Presentations on Three Different Topics this Week

The third one’s really short, but, seriously, who plans my life? Shouldn’t I be better at not scheduling my time this way by now?

The first presentation was on Monday as part of our library’s annual staff training day. I think I managed not to “um” too-too much. Part of that was because I had a small group (nine people) and part of that was because they were a ridiculously kind audience—attentive and smiling and whatnot. I was talking about what’s new with art in children’s books and began by reading Wolves by Emily Gravett. Thank heaven they laughed, or I probably would have melted into a puddle on the floor.

Tomorrow, I do a presentation on science materials for K-2 teachers from the local school district. I am looking forward to it and fretting about it in equal measure. I really hope that everyone who attends finds at least one thing they can fall in love with and use in their classrooms.

Friday is ten minutes about flickr and the Kodak Gallery, which is not going to be hard but, still, I’ll be in public, speaking.

Wish me luck?

Posted by adrienne at 10:15 PM | Comments (6)

October 08, 2008

The Word of the Day is “Icosahedron”

When I went to Florida this past June, my cousin’s stepdaughter gave me a magic 8 ball she’d found in a thrift shop a year or so before and saved for me, a magic 8 ball I had no idea even existed, the Ruby Gloom Magic 8 Ball.

Q: WHY have I not told my faithful readers of your existence before today?
Ruby Gloom Magic 8 Ball: Yeah

Q: That doesn’t make sense.
Ruby Gloom Magic 8 Ball: Not a chance.

Q: Is it true what wikipedia says about you being a clothing line that was made into a television show?
Ruby Gloom Magic 8 Ball: Yes, and don’t doubt me!

Ruby Gloom is not all that’s new in my collection. A few months ago, Patty U. gave me a cute little half-sized silver Time Warner Magic 8 Ball right out of the blue. She was like, “I got this Time Warner Magic 8 Ball? Do you want it?” And I was like, “OMG! Can I come pick it up NOW?”

Q: Are you planning to take over the world?
Time Warner Magic 8 Ball: Can’t say now.

That’s what I thought.

A few months ago, Sabrina sent me a link to one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen: a Magic 8 Ball autopsy. As you might suspect, I have more than one regular magic 8 ball and have long considered sacrificing one and doing just such a thing myself, but I was kind of scared of the blue fluid, which these crazy people TASTED. If that doesn’t prove the Internet a worthwhile venture, I don’t know what does.

Personal Affirmation Magic 8 Ball: The sky’s the limit!

Indeed.

Posted by adrienne at 10:17 PM | Comments (7)

September 30, 2008

Alternative Stand-Up Comedy in Rochester

An upcoming event for those of you who are local:

Del Rivers Presents: A Night of Alternative Stand-Up Comedy – featuring Del Rivers, Kenyatta DeCosta, Chuck McCoy, Richard Gagnier
For ages 16 and over
8 pm show, doors open at 7:30
Friday, October 24th
The lodge in Brighton Town Park, 777 Westfall Road
$3 admission to be donated to local charity. For more information, email: Frankinstamm@hotmail.com. For more information about the performers: www.groupofsix.bravehost.com.

Posted by adrienne at 02:27 PM | Comments (2)

September 29, 2008

In Which Our Heroine Eats a Bacon Doughtnut and Visits the Oregon Coast

Those of you who know Chuck and Jeffrey know that they have this thing about bacon. Now the rest of you know it, too. At any rate, several months ago Jeffrey alerted me to the existence of a place called Voodoo Doughnut in Portland that serves maple bacon doughnuts. Some people go to cities to discover art: I went to Portland to buy a new bag and try a doughnut two of my friends want to eat.

Alkelda got into the spirit and made a video of my first maple bacon doughnut experience:

And, heck, I was there, so I got their signature Voodoo Doughnut, too. He’s a little squished here, but you get the idea:

The filling is raspberry, naturally. Well, I don’t know what was natural about it, but it was yummy. Alkelda wisely chose a vegan variety.

I wish I could say that the above was my only caloric indulgence of the weekend, but that would be lying. A lot. I made up for some of it yesterday, though, when I rented a car and drove to the coast. It was a beautiful, amazing drive through the mountains that ended with this:

I guess the weather was crap here at home yesterday (it sure is today!), but yesterday in my corner of Oregon, it was 80 degrees and sunny. I walked the beach for about an hour and a half. I didn’t particularly want to leave, but I knew I had to do storytime tomorrow. Sigh.

Posted by adrienne at 07:31 PM | Comments (17)

September 28, 2008

The Things They Carried, or There is No Sales Tax in Portland

I know that I was in Portland (Oregon, in case you, like me, are having trouble keeping up with my timezone changes) for a conference or whatever, but for several months now, I’ve been thinking of the trip as a pilgrimage to visit the Queen Bee Creations studio.

For review purposes, this is the Queen Bee purse I originally fell in love with, The Purse that Rendered All Other Purses Useless (“TPTRAOPU” for short):

If this purse looks familiar, it’s because I carry it everywhere, and also because it is in 9 out of 10 photographs of me, even when I’m at the beach in Cape Cod:

I like to keep it near me at all times, as Eisha is forever threatening to steal it, and that Eisha is wiley.

So, anyway, Alkelda came down to Portland a day early so we could have a day of wild-and-crazy fun before the conference started, and she very indulgently agreed to make the Queen Bee studio our second stop on Friday. This is what we found:

AND:

There was even more, but I stopped taking photos because I didn’t want to be a pain in the ass. Plus if I’d looked at those bags any longer, I would have bought more than I did.

Regarding my purchases, what you must bear in mind is that most everything in the studio is on sale. Also, Oregon doesn’t have sales tax. I don’t know what sales tax is like in other areas, but in my county, it’s 8%. It felt like EVERYTHING was on sale here.

Okay, so I got a bag for Tammy:

How much do I want to keep this bag for myself? A lot. I will give it to Tammy, though, because I also bought myself a nice bag I can put my laptop in:

So I guess a lot of people are blogging about the Kidlitosphere Conference, and soon I will be, too. But first I’m going to spend some more time admiring my new bag and wishing I’d bought one or two more....

Posted by adrienne at 11:44 PM | Comments (11)

September 23, 2008

Things I Wouldn't Mind Doing When I Visit Portland, Oregon Later This Week

I leave extremely early in the morning on Thursday to go to Portland to a.) hang out, and b.) attend the 2nd Annual Kidlitosphere Conference. (Can you believe it's been a year since the last one? I can't.)

For the record, I should be packing right now.

Instead, I am going to tell you some things I'd like to do:

1. Visit the Queen Bee Creations studio so as to acquire another bag perfect strangers will compliment me on profusely everywhere I go.
2. Drink coffee.
3. Spend quality time at Powell's.
4. Go on an Underground Portland tour.
5. Go to the Portland Saturday Market, which is conveniently also open on Sunday.
6. Drink a few local beers.
7. Drive to the coast.
8. Do this walking tour that's in one of the travel guides I bought.

I will report back on what I actually accomplish. #2, #3, and #6 are definites. #1 is a very likely.

None of it will happen if I don't get on the plane Thursday morning with luggage. Really packing now.

Posted by adrienne at 10:36 PM | Comments (17)

September 13, 2008

“Now There’s Nothing Dark and There’s Nothing Weird,” or How Public Speaking Might Be Improving My Personal Life

As long as I’ve been a librarian, I’ve been speaking in public on a regular basis for one reason or another. As a children’s librarian, I’m in front of audiences all the time, but most of that time I’m reading books or telling stories and that’s nothing like what it is to be a lone person attempting to educate and/or entertain a room of adults. Just for starters, most children think I am brilliant because I can read and tie my own shoes. Reading is, in fact, my most honed skill, and adults aren’t impressed with that at all. They tut a lot if you can’t read, but they miss the fact that you can read really well entirely.

Anyway, since the publication of Helping Homeschoolers in the Library, my public speaking engagements have ramped up. I’m doing more of them over a larger geographic area, and I’m also getting paid. This is a whole new realm for me. I can speak in public, which is something since a lot of people refuse to speak in public entirely, but it’s always frustrated me that I’m not as good at it as I am at writing. I am not polished. I have a tendency to “um” and “yeah” and say “like” a lot. I tell more truth than is probably prudent from time-to-time, and I always laugh.

And so I’ve been puzzling over this and watching the more refined speakers I see on a fairly regular basis in my personal and professional life trying to figure out how *I* can become *them*. This is what I have learned: those people who are polished, they *think* before they speak—and they do it ALL THE TIME.

What do I mean? I mean that even in one-on-one conversation, these are people who speak in slow, measured tones. They take the pause to process. I first became aware of this when I asked Tammy how she avoids saying “um” when she teaches, and she was like, “I don’t know. I just don’t say it.” So I started watching her, and it’s true, she hardly ever says “um.” On the other hand, “um” is one of the words I use the most, and I’ve realized that it’s because when I’m speaking, my thoughts aren’t very well-organized. I hardly ever take the pause to think through what I’m going to say before I say it.

My loved ones have been suggesting that this is a problem for years, but I thought it was just, you know, a me-and-them thing. I never noticed how it impacted other ways I communicated.

This has been a bit of an epiphany.

I’m not sure what I can do with it. I have a hard time organizing my thoughts even in normal conversation, partly because groups of people make me anxious (ironic for a public librarian perhaps, but whatever) and partly because oh my gosh my thoughts are all over the place, which is why I write. Writing gives me time to pause and reflect and make some kind of sense out of all the things I see and hear and feel all day long. I mean, remember that outdoor storytime when I forgot where I was in “Little Bunny Foo-Foo”? It was totally because someone in the back of the audience was doing something and I was trying to figure out what it was and I got so preoccupied with it that I forgot to pay attention to what I, myself, was doing. This used to happen to me a lot more, but mortification has really helped my self-awareness in this area. When I asked another librarian how she sounds so polished when she speaks, she says it’s because she over-prepares. I’ve been trying that, too, with good results.

I remain a bit suspicious of the process, though. This way I think, it makes me a good writer. It makes me a good problem-solver. It makes me someone who will go ahead and try stuff other people won’t. Should I be messing with that? (Chorus of Loved Ones: “Yes!”)

Okay, so I can probably retain the benefits of my thought processes while still becoming a slightly more refined speaker. I could probably stand to be less spontaneous. And in the end, no one’s asking me to give a speech like Obama. People are really just interested in whether or not I can communicate what I know in a way that is helpful to others, which I already know I can do. I just have to learn not to “um.” But can I just tell you? It’s really, really hard.

Posted by adrienne at 03:26 PM | Comments (13)

September 11, 2008

The Planes Fly Low Over Chili

Lucas announced during breakfast that it was a good thing I wore red because today is Patriot Day.

“Do you know why it’s Patriot Day?” I asked.

“Because of the towers,” he said.

I told him I remembered that day, that it was a day much like today—chilly and bright. I’d gone for a walk that morning, so I didn’t know a thing about it until I got in the car. The plane hit the second tower on my drive to work.

“There were three planes,” Lucas said. “Mommy said so.”

I explained about the Pentagon and the fourth plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. I told him how small he was when it happened, that he played while we watched the news for days and days. I told him how weird it was not to hear planes flying by. I thought about what it was like when they started again.

Lucas took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for a while.

“Well,” he said, “it won’t happen again. All those people who did it died in the planes, right?”

“Right,” I told him. “Of course.”

Posted by adrienne at 09:56 PM | Comments (3)

September 06, 2008

Adrienne vs. the Volcano

This is what you need to know: I love airplanes. As many times as I’ve flown, I still make sure I have a window seat and always spend a fair amount of the flight staring out the window.

So, anyway, today I was staring out the window about an hour before my flight was due to land in Seattle. We were flying over mostly solid cloud cover, and I saw this smudge on the horizon and thought, “Is that a mountain? No, that’s not a mountain. You just WANT it to be a mountain. It’s really just an optical illusion.”

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a mountain. It was Mount Rainier, which is a volcano and is also the biggest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. And that isn’t my hyperbole talking. I seriously have never seen anything that big in my entire life. Of course, until today, I had never been to the Pacific Northwest. They have big old mountains all over the place out here. Ditto coffee. Well, if you rate it by volume, the mountains are probably winning. If you compare cups—or even pots—of coffee to the number of mountains, though, the coffee’s taking it.

I know it’s only 9:00pm here, but I got up at 6:00am EST this morning and it’s hard not to notice that it’s now midnight EST. Coffee can only help so much.

Posted by adrienne at 12:11 AM | Comments (5)

September 04, 2008

Adrienne Goes International

Okay, so I don’t want to get all braggy, but some libraries in other countries have purchased Helping Homeschoolers in the Library, such as:

*Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Germany, where homeschooling is verboten. By the way, bonus points for me figuring out how to search a catalog in a language I don't understand. (Type “helping homeschoolers” in the box next to "titel," then click the "Suchen" box.) I AM A LIBRARIAN! HEAR ME ROAR!!!
*The Chinese University of Hong Kong
*The National Library of New Zealand

I feel like I need to get on a plane and go visit my book in all these libraries.

Posted by adrienne at 08:39 PM | Comments (20)

September 03, 2008

Fourth Grade

*insert drumroll*

First Grade

Second Grade

Third Grade

Fourth Grade

Lucas: WHY does EVERYONE want to take a picture of me with the sunflowers?

Me: It’s what they teach us to do at grown-up school.

Lucas’s new classroom is way at the end of the big-kid hall. For some reason, I didn’t think they moved into the big-kid hall until fifth grade, which is silly as the school only goes up to fifth grade, but that doesn’t really make me feel any better about this big-kid hall business.

*sniff*

Posted by adrienne at 09:29 AM | Comments (12)

August 31, 2008

Ten Rules to Help You Survive Widowhood, a Reprint

[Ed. Note: I first published this post a couple years ago, and it has since remained one of the most-viewed entries on my blog. You’d be surprised at how often—at least once a day—the Google search “how do you survive widowhood” leads to my blog. I remember what it was like to be at the other end of that search. Reposting my rules seemed like a decent way to honor the fourth anniversary of Brian’s death, partly because they remind me of how far I’ve come and partly because it seems there’s nothing else to say.]

About a week after my husband died, I started reading a book that cited some less-than-encouraging statistics about how many widows die and/or experience severe injuries or illness within a couple years of their loved one’s death. I got completely freaked out and decided that I wasn’t going to read any more books about grief. Instead, I made up my own list of rules for surviving widowhood. They’ve served me pretty well, so I offer them to you*:

1. Don’t let fear control you. Your scary thing already happened, and – look! – you’re still here.
2. If you need to cry, just cry. If you avoid it, you’re just going to feel like crap.
3. If you’re tired, sleep. Grief is exhausting.
4. You should look as good as you can as often as possible. Aside from the fact that this will help you feel better, it will encourage people to stop treating you like you’re completely sad and pathetic, even though you are completely sad and pathetic.
5. Eat three meals a day. This sounds easy, but it’s not when you’re grieving.
6. Exercise on a regular basis. It will help you work through anger and depression, and it will also help you accomplish Rule #4.
7. Speaking of anger, find ways to deal with it that don’t involve taking it out on your remaining loved ones. You’ll take it out on your loved ones without meaning to, of course, which is why it’s important to try to channel as much anger as possible in another direction, such as picture books by Madonna.
8. Talk about your grief and the person you lost. Your existence is going to make people uncomfortable whether you talk about what happened or not, and people are probably wondering what you’re thinking and feeling even if they can’t figure out how to ask. Talking about grief is part of what makes it real and helps you work through it. Some people choose to, say, start a blog and then insist that their friends, relatives, acquaintances, and even perfect strangers start reading it.
9. Travel. You’ll be sorry if you spend a lot of time avoiding your grief, but it’s good to take a vacation from it every now and again.
10. Avoid people who aren’t loving and caring. This is a good rule for life in general, but you really aren’t emotionally stable enough to deal with a bunch of nonsense when you’re grieving.

*Note: I left off the rules that should be obvious, such as, “Don’t jump in front of a bus.” I mean, if you’re jumping in front of busses, it’s hard for me to believe that you’re taking surviving seriously.

Posted by adrienne at 12:33 AM | Comments (16)

August 30, 2008

Dick’s is Probably One of My Least Favorite Places in this World, but You Have to Appreciate the Irony of a Sporting Goods Store with Escalators

You know how when you walk by an Abercrombie & Fitch, you don’t want to go in because every single thing about the front of the place tells you that this is not the store for you?

That is exactly how I feel about sporting goods stores.

I think my problem stems from the fact that when I am in a sporting goods store, I never know when I’m going to turn a corner and find a huge display of knives or guns or bottled deer urine or whatever, and all the camouflage makes me feel like maybe I’ve wandered into “The Most Dangerous Game.” And while I am nearly always in these places to get stuff to wear to the gym, I don’t self-identify as someone who is into fitness, and I am certainly never going to learn to love performance fabrics more than I love cotton. From the clothing selection at Dick’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a sizable subculture of teeny tiny fit people who like to exercise in clothes that show off all that work they’ve been doing.

I don’t want to do that.

When I exercise, I want to wear something soft and roomy and cozy enough to sleep in because I just know I’m going to lose consciousness in the middle of spinning class one of these days, and I figure I might as well be comfortable when I wake up on the floor. That is my approach to fitness. My approach to sporting goods stores is to ask Tammy to go with me, but in a fit of independence, I went by myself the other day and did manage to find everything I was looking for—namely a couple new pairs of yoga pants and a pair of swim goggles, which involved a ride on the store’s ironic escalators and a bonus perusal of a display of the aforementioned bottled deer urine. And, heck, I even stopped and looked at the backpacks and sneakers. It’s back-to-school time, so they had a fun little display of pens. The store’s not so bad, I guess, but I would still rather stay home and read a book.

Posted by adrienne at 02:26 PM | Comments (6)

August 27, 2008

My Father Just Taught Me How to Download a Ringtone to My Cell Phone

Around the library and even in my personal life, people think of me as kind of a techie. I think this is because I run a few blogs and buy videogames for the library and have a cell phone and yammer on about how much I love my iPod. This really only goes to show how untechie most librarians are, though, because it was only this morning that my sixty-year-old father taught me how to download a ringtone to my cell phone. “I downloaded a Godsmack song,” he said. “It’s easy.”

He told me how to do it, and it is easy, kind of, if you don’t get frustrated by hitting a lot of buttons and reading fine print and not being able to find the first two songs you were looking for. I got frustrated.

This is the story of me and a lot of technology. For instance, I’ve been wanting to transfer this here blog to Wordpress for well over a year now (Could it be two years? Yikes.), but I just can’t make myself read up on what I need to do to make that happen. One of my problems? I’ve lost the login for the server and don’t want to admit it to the server administrator, on account of he already knows enough about how I don’t know how to run a website. Sometimes I still lock the doors when I mean to roll down the windows in the car I’ve had for eight months; I don’t think I’m going to be figuring out Linux anytime soon.

This summer, Tammy and I have been canning. Technologically speaking, canning is my speed. It took me about fifteen minutes’ worth of reading to get the basics of the process a few weeks ago, and there are nice, clear step-by-step instructions we can follow that just about guarantee useful results. So far, we’ve made and canned blueberry jam, peach jam, peach fondue jam (with chocolate!), and peach rum sauce. We’re talking about moving into pickles or maybe some kind of pear jam or who knows what. It’s like playing Little House on the Prairie with the benefit of indoor plumbing and no parents telling us we can’t use the stove.

I think, for me, the major difference between downloading a ringtone and making jam is this concept of guaranteed useful results. The technological things I tend to love (my iPod, online shopping, WORD PROCESSING) are the ones that aren’t cumbersome and help me do things I want to do more easily (listen to music, shop, write). The ones I avoid are like the ringtones: they’re bound up in weird rules, they involve way too many steps and keystrokes, and, in the end, I can’t be sure I’m going to get what I want out of my time investment. The thing that fascinates me is that companies don’t have to create complicated products. In the long run, it doesn’t really take that much more time and energy to make a decent product as opposed to a crappy one, but companies keep putting out unnecessarily complicated products and people keep buying them. This problem is endemic to libraries, where our motto seems to be something like, “We’ll be happy to spend thousands on your crappy database.” I keep encouraging people to stop this practice, but it’s kind of an uphill battle in an environment where so many products are, in fact, crappy—which might be more the truth about why so many librarians resist technology. Conference speakers would have us believe it’s because we have so many Luddites in our midst, but I don’t think so. I think we have a bunch of smart, busy people who are sick of trying to figure things out that ultimately confuse patrons and make our work lives more difficult when we could be spending our time reading a book or watching a movie or talking to our friends or seeing a show or any of the million other things we want to do in the average day that don’t make our brains melt and start oozing out our ears. Ringtones aside, a fair amount of consumer-driven technology isn’t so frustrating, but library technology? Woo boy. I could write a book. Instead, though, I think I’ll make more jam.

Books mentioned:
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie. New York, Harper, 1953. (HC: 9780060282448, PB: 9780060885397)

Posted by adrienne at 09:58 AM | Comments (6)

August 25, 2008

Overheard in the Children's Room

"You should just ask her. She knows where everything is because of her computer."

So *that's* my superpower.

Posted by adrienne at 10:18 PM | Comments (10)

August 22, 2008

“You Can’t Hide Behind Social Graces,” or Ways in which Dealing with Library Vendors is a lot like Dating

I’ve had a sales rep from a company hoping to sell me something stalking me via telephone at the library for over a week now. This is not uncommon. Back when I was in charge of an $8000 budget at the Maplewood Library, hardly anyone ever called, but now that I’m in charge of a larger budget, these people all want to talk to me.

I very seldom want to talk to them, though, and I’ve found that many of my strategies for coping with the onslaught are not unlike my strategies for dealing with men. Here we go:

#1-I don’t care how slick you are, if you don’t have a quality product, I am not interested.
The vast majority of sales reps who cold call you are selling crap. I’d liken cold-calling reps to the type of guy who will ask for your phone number before he knows your name. You don’t talk to the guy, and you certainly don’t talk to the vendor. If what this person to sell is so great, you already know about it or you’ll find out about it some other way.

#2-Modern technology provides us many useful ways to avoid/control telephone calls.
Just because someone wants to talk to you DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO TALK TO THEM. I don’t know how single women and librarians coped before caller ID and voicemail, but thanks to the combination of the two, I haven’t had to talk to too many people I haven’t wanted to for years. I know some librarians who feel badly about not calling reps back, but, seriously, I don’t know who you are, I didn’t ask for your call, and I’m busy. Leave me alone.

#3-If I’m not calling you back, it’s because I’m just not that into you.
The calling a few times a day? It makes me uncomfortable to watch you do this. I know it’s you even when you call and hang up. Please stop.

#4-I am almost always really busy right now.
I regularly talk to and welcome conversation with about three sales reps. What these reps have in common is the golden combination of quality products and basic manners. Most reps who manage to break through my caller ID/voicemail defense system try to pressure me into scheduling an appointment, which is a shocking display of poor manners and only leads me to steadfastly insist that I’m going through a really busy time. The beautiful thing about this is that since I’m always busy, it’s always true. I’ve found this one equally useful for men I’m done with.

As in dating, you can often count on a rep to buy you dinner or at least a drink, but sometimes—quite often—it’s just not worth the bother.

Have I mentioned that I really wish that rep would stop calling me?

Posted by adrienne at 12:06 AM | Comments (8)

August 20, 2008

The Edward Gorey House

We didn’t do a whole lot while we were in Cape Cod, but Tammy and I did make a point of visiting the Edward Gorey House Museum. If you’re a Gorey fan, I highly recommend going to see it before someone realizes that they could be charging a much higher admission rate and the house starts to lose its no-they-don’t-REALLY-have-that-sitting-right-there-do-they charm. For instance, apparently Edward liked to collect stuff he found at garage sales, and they have a lot of his collections just kind of sitting around where you can touch them:

Like you wouldn’t. Please.

They also have Ombledroom, their 24-pound housecat:

And a display case sponsored by Daniel Handler:

And a Gashlycrumb Tinies Graveyard:

And some Doubtful Guests:

How much do I want a Doubtful Guest topiary of my own? A lot.

The museum is also a widow-friendly environment, which I always appreciate:

I think part of what I love about Edward Gorey’s work is that in his world, I am completely and totally normal.

I think what I loved most about the house tour was that the docent told us that one of Edward’s favorite television shows was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How cool is that? I guess he liked to sew while he watched TV, and the house is full of all these little stuffed things he made:

I have been a Gorey fan for a good many years now, but touring his house made me love him that much more. It’s a five-star destination in my travel book.

Books mentioned:
Gorey, Edward. The Doubtful Guest. NY: Peter Weed Books, 1957. (HC: 9780151003136)
-The Gashlycrumb Tinies, or After the Outing. NY: Harcourt, 1963. (HC: 9780151003082)

Posted by adrienne at 10:54 PM | Comments (15)

August 19, 2008

Running the Boston Marathon

Everyone wears a skirt for the marathon, right?

Posted by adrienne at 09:45 PM | Comments (3)

August 18, 2008

“We Roll and We Roll and We Roll and We Roll”

Our trip involved a lot of time in the car. Personally, I could ride in a car forever. I love staring out the window and listening to music and talking, and I’m a very good navigator when I remember that I’m supposed to be paying attention to where the car is headed. Tammy loves to drive, so this is a functional combination, and we spend much of our time together in her Highlander.

Of course, we had two children with us on this vacation, and while kids can often be amusing, they can also turn on you after a few hours and kill your serene musings. We have various strategies for dealing with this. We make sure they have toys, and when Ron’s around (as he was on this trip), we put him in the back with them. We also play road trip games, but Tammy and I are way faster than the rest of them at the ABC Game, and our other game is completely inappropriate for children (and Ron) and is normally played when the children are asleep or by whispering or by saying “blank” instead of the offensive word. (At one point when we were saying “blank,” Lucas was like, “Why is that funny?” Ron was like, “No one understands Mommy and Aunt Adrienne. Don’t worry about it.”)

The kids like music, and so we listened to some of our favorites (They Might Be Giants, “Cheesecake Truck,” “Rock N Roll McDonalds,” etc.). We also brought along the new Lisa Loeb CD, Camp Lisa. I like Lisa Loeb, but I’m always suspicious when someone who’s been making music for adults decides to put out a CD for kids. It often works out better than, say, when an adult musician tries to write books for children (AHEM, Ms. Ciccone), but I try not to get my hopes up. Camp Lisa is totally fun, though. It wasn’t too long before we were all laughing and singing along. Our favorite song is a song called “The Disappointing Pancake” that I’m going to ask Jason if he would pretty-please-with-syrup-on-top consider learning for storytime. Other highlights are a fun rendition of “Peanut Butter and Jelly” (one of my own childhood favorites: “First you take the peanuts and you pick them, you pick them”) and a song called “Grandma’s in the Cellar” that had Lucas all wide-eyed and laughing (sample lyric: “Grandma’s in the cellar, Lordy can’t you smell her?”). Recommended for road trips and iPods everywhere.

Posted by adrienne at 11:47 AM | Comments (7)

August 17, 2008

The Pit and the Pendulum

(l-r: Sal, A Child I Don’t Know, Max, Tammy, Lucas, The Other Max)

This pendulum was by far the most interesting thing in the Boston Museum of Science. I played with it for a good half hour and would have played with it longer if a bunch of kids hadn’t come along and ruined my fun. Rotten kids.

The Naboo Starfighter was also pretty cool.

Posted by adrienne at 11:05 AM | Comments (6)

August 16, 2008

Learning a Little More About Our Independence

Since it’s always snowed on my previous visits to Boston, I’d never realized what a handy navigational tool the Freedom Trail can be. I’d also never seen the tops of many of Boston’s buildings. The unicorn on the roof of the Old State House was, for instance, news to me.

I’d also never seen the frogs in action.

Nor had Max.

Water was a bit of a theme this trip.

Posted by adrienne at 10:22 PM | Comments (5)

August 11, 2008

AH, HA! I Managed to Snag Some Time on the Hotel's Computer

Our hotel expesses its disdain for its guests by serving truly horrible "free" coffee in the mornings and not heating its "heated" indoor swimming pool. Tammy, Lucas, and Max tried the pool. I'd call them fools, but I'm the one who tried the coffee.

Boston shows its love for us with wonderful food and things to see. The highlight so far was definitely Sunday, when we spent a day at the science museum with friends and then ran laughing through a downpour dragging the kids on our way to a Malaysian restaruant. I was sopping wet (my shoes are *still* wet), but the meal was totally worth it.

Today, I saw a sea dragon. Sea dragons are totally awesome.

More soon?

Posted by adrienne at 10:07 PM | Comments (9)

August 08, 2008

“Since I Still Tell You My Every Day”

When I’m using my best posture, I’m 5’1¾”, which is short. Still, those sunflowers are really freaking tall. I’m a bit concerned that they’ll take over the house or eat my car while I’m on vacation, but on vacation I must go. It will be a week in Boston and Cape Cod with the Pritchards (including my invisible friend Max, who becomes more entertaining by the minute), and I’m really looking forward to a break. I hate to leave you all in the lurch while I am Internetless, though, so I thought I’d suggest a few diversions.

Diversion #1: Beaker’s Ode to Joy

Thanks to TadMack for the link!

Diversion #2: Paris Hilton for President

Thanks to Robin for the link!

Diversion #3: Read a book!

I’ll be doing one last post tomorrow morning (a tri-blog, no less), and then I’m off and running. Have a lovely week!

Posted by adrienne at 08:00 PM | Comments (5)

August 01, 2008

“My Spine Hurts”

It was weeks ago when I took Lucas strawberry picking, but I want to remember that on the way there he asked me if strawberries grew “on trees or bushes or what.” He also asked me if Irondequoit Bay is Lake Erie. He also decided that strawberry picking is a lot of work.

Posted by adrienne at 07:35 AM | Comments (2)

July 31, 2008

But, Adrienne, What Are You DOING When You Aren’t Blogging?

A little over a month ago, Alkelda posted photos of the peaceful sanity that reigns in her yard. As a little comparison-contrast, I thought I’d show you what I have (and haven’t) been doing this summer.

Exhibit A: The Sunflowers that Grew Way Taller than I Expected

Exhibit B: Actually, They’ve Grown about a Foot Since I Took These Photos

Exhibit C: But the Fuchsia and Hummingbird Feeder Are So Pretty

Exhibit D: And This Heirloom Variety of Basil with Little Bitty Leaves is Awesome

Exhibit E: But My Four or Five Tomato Plants (Who Can Even Tell Anymore?) Have Turned into One Great Big Tomato Bush

Exhibit G: Tomatoes. YUM.

Exhibit H: This is, Technically Speaking, a Garden

Exhibit I: See How My Neighbor Finally Decided to Trim the Side of My Hedge that Faces His House? I Totally Can’t Blame Him, as I Got Pretty Sick of Those Branches Hitting Me in the Face when I Was Mowing the Lawn, Although that’s Been Less of a Problem Since I Hired the Kid Up the Street to Mow My Lawn

Exhibit J: Do You Think the Neighbors are All Like, “YOU Go Tell the Widow Lady to Trim Those Hedges.” “No, YOU.” “No, YOU.”?

Exhibit K: I Like Mint in My Iced Tea, but Not Quite this Much

Posted by adrienne at 09:05 PM | Comments (11)

July 19, 2008

The Neverending Salad, or Why I Believe Barbara Kingsolver May Be Dangerous Even Though I Don’t Believe She is Screwing Up America

After many years of debating the potential merits of signing up for one of those deals where you pay in the spring to get a box of produce every week from a farm during the growing season, I finally decided to take the plunge and used part of my tax return to enroll to get produce from Windy Meadow Farms this year.

There are two reasons I did this:

#1-Deb raved about the produce she got from Windy Meadow Farms last year in her weekly kidsoutandabout.com newsletters.
#2-I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

In his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, Bernard Goldberg lists Barbara Kingsolver as offender #73. I don’t think Kingsolver’s screwing up America, but I do think she may be a bit dangerous. I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle on the recommendation of several friends, I went on about the book so much that my boss read it, and now my boss and I are BOTH growing vegetables in our yards and getting produce from Windy Meadow Farms. Do you see how subtly Kingsolver works her magic?

The produce from Windy Meadow Farms is, indeed, awesome. I get two big bags of it every Wednesday—potatoes, radishes (and, wow, I think I ate more radishes this year than I have eaten in my entire life previously), lettuces, spinach, herbs, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers. I have been able to eat ice cream whenever I want this summer because outside of that, all I can eat is vegetables and the fruit I keep insisting on buying at the farmer’s market on Saturdays. Sometimes I feel like I’m so full of vitamins that my eyes must be glowing. I’ve been learning lots of new ways to prepare and eat vegetables, too, from dreamy Mark Bittman in my new second-favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (First favorite: How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Duh.) Mostly, though, I make salad. Lots and lots and lots of salad. I eat salad almost every day, but since the lettuces and other fixins change with what happens to be around when I make my salads, I don’t get tired of them. Currently, I’m eating a salad of romaine lettuce, the neverending radishes, sweet onion, cucumber, sliced almonds, and sunflower seeds. Yum. The salad I finished yesterday had red leaf lettuce, the neverending radishes, sweet peas (out of my backyard garden), string beans (also out of the backyard garden), sliced almonds, and sunflower seeds. (Sliced almonds and sunflower seeds are almost as common as lettuce in my salads.) Also yum.

At some point this summer, I will be getting beats from Windy Meadow Farms. I believe my exposure to beats has been limited to eating one pickled one once. Mr. Bittman tells me I will love them. Barbara Kingsolver says so, too.

Books mentioned:
Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food. NY: Macmillan, 1998. (HC: 9780028610108, PB: 9780471789185, and HUZZAH, a 10th Anniversary HC edition coming out in November: 9780764578656)
Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. (HC: 9780764524837)
Goldberg, Bernard. 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37). NY: HarperCollins, 2005. (HC: 9780060761288)
Kingsolver, Barbara, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. NY: HarperCollins, 2007. (HC: 9780060852559, PB: 9780060852566)

Posted by adrienne at 10:15 PM | Comments (11)

July 14, 2008

Guess Whose Mother-in-Law Gave Her the Atari She Found When She Was Cleaning Out Her Basement?

Oh, yeah, that was MY mother-in-law. I have the Atari all set up and was playing Frogger tonight. (And, seriously, I went through my whole life thinking I couldn’t set up electronics, but I’m turning out to be a freaking mechanical genius in my old age. Not only did I set the Atari up myself, but I did it WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS.) I totally got to the third level on Frogger, but then the traffic got too heavy and things didn’t go very well for my frog.

I also played Space Invaders.

As a side note, I used to think that Facebook Frogger was pretty fun, but it’s nowhere near as good as the original Atari version. Just saying.

I’m also just saying that tomorrow night I will be playing Pitfall and Donkey Kong Jr. Yee haw! Take that, unaffordable Wii!

Posted by adrienne at 10:34 PM | Comments (11)

July 06, 2008

Chili, the Fourth of July, and Why Kristen Should Consider Running for Town Supervisor

If you’re from the greater Rochester area, then you know that the name of the town where I live, Chili, is pronounced with long i’s instead of the more traditional—you could even argue correct—pronunciation commonly accepted for countries and peppers. In the summer, though, we go all crazy and call our town’s annual festival the Chil-E Fest.

They do know how to go crazy in a town where Republicans outnumber Democrats seven-to-one.

Speaking of which, the town supervisor we elected this past November was a Democrat. He ran on a platform of, among other things, making the annual Chil-E Fest less lame. Notice how he won; it’s a testament to exactly how lame the Chil-E Fest has been. I live about two blocks from the center of town, where the Chil-E Fest is held, and there are years when it’s taken me by surprise. (“That’s odd,” I’d think. “Why is there a marching band in the front yard?”) Other area towns’ summer festivals are destinations even for people who don’t live in the towns themselves, but when you say “Chil-E Fest” to most Rochesterians, they assume you’re talking about some kind of chili cook-off and wonder why it’s being held in the summer.

Anyway, you should note the way I say our town supervisor WAS a Democrat, because he stopped being a Democrat when he switched to the Republican party this past April. It was a controversial decision. Tammy, for instance, was ready to storm Town Hall. I told her we should wait, though. This man, after all, promised us a less lame Chil-E Fest, and I felt we should reserve judgment until the big event.

Unlike past years, this year’s Chil-E Fest was held on the Fourth of July, so I now feel free to judge this man.

The Chil-E Fest was, in fact, less lame.

First of all, EVERYONE was there. People were parking on my street and walking there—that’s how many people there were. I know this kind of thing bothers the people on Park Avenue, but I see it for the opportunity it is: maybe next year I’ll be able to charge people to park in my driveway.

One of the biggest downfalls of past festivals has been the quality of the fried dough, which was horrid. Tammy got some this year, though, and she reports it was good. (“As good as Frontier Field?” I asked. “I don’t know about that,” Tammy said.) I didn’t feel confident enough to risk the 1000 calories to try it myself.

The proof was in the fireworks, though. We had fireworks on the Fourth of July itself. Take that, downtown. We are just as cool as you—MAYBE EVEN COOLER. I watched the fireworks from the Wegman’s parking lot, where there were many, many drunk people (including the lady that parked next to me and got out of the driver’s seat HOLDING A MARGARITA, and all I could think was, “Why don’t I have a margarita?”). I didn’t mind the drunk people so much, and the display, I have to admit, was very nice.

Not as nice, though, as the one Kristen and Terry had in their backyard at their annual summer party the very next night. Here is how Kristen and Terry’s display improved on the Chili display:

1. The fireworks themselves were every bit as impressive as the Chili ones.
2. I knew—or had at least been introduced to—all the drunk people.
3. There was a bonfire that had been started with a dead Christmas tree, complete with decorations.
4. There was karaoke.
5. There were prizes, one of which I won. ROCK!

Right now, I’d say Supervisor Dunning is On Notice. He lost points for switching parties, but he gained some back for a slightly less lame Chil-E Fest that still was still not as fun as a party my friends threw in their backyard. Let me put it this way: if my leaves don’t get picked up on a regular basis this fall, Supervisor Dunning is in trouble.

Posted by adrienne at 08:24 PM | Comments (9)

July 03, 2008

Brainradio: A Challenge from Sara

The other day, Sara issued a challenge over at Read Write Believe to post about what songs we write to and why, and then she even offered us an opportunity to earn BONUS POINTS. Of course, if Sara was like, “Adrienne, let’s jump off a bridge.” I’d be all like, “Really? Okay. Which one?”

So obviously I am posting my playlist.

Unlike Sara, I am one of those writers who very often writes to music. The music generally has to be something I know well (otherwise it distracts me with its novelty and newness), and often changes depending on what I’m working on. Here’s what’s in my current writing playlist and why I think it helps me write:

“Finest Worksong” by R.E.M.
“I’m talking here to me alone.” R.E.M. makes LOTS of good songs for working, and I will often listen to R.E.M. albums when writing, but this particular song contains a lot of good advice.

“This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life” by The Born Ruffians
“Deadline, Deadline, Deadline. Write that essay, pray on the windowsill.” Pretty self-explanatory, that.

“Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac
“It’ll be, better than before.” You can only hope.

“Does This Mean You’re Moving On?” by The Airborne Toxic Event
“And the funny thing is it has no end.” We all need to be reminded to move on at some point.

“I Should Be Allowed to Think” by They Might Be Giants
“I should be allowed to shoot my mouth off.” Seriously, does it get better than a catchy song with a strong literary reference?

“Ahab” by MC Lars
“Hey, Ishmael, can I call you annoying?” YES! Another one! It’s also a good reminder not to take myself so freaking seriously.

“Song for the Dumped” by Ben Folds Five
“So you wanted to take a break?” I get a lot of energy out of the anger in this song when I’m stuck.

“This Year” by The Mountain Goats
“I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.” Or this essay or story or revision or whatever. I like the bit of narrative in this song, too.

“Extraordinary Machine” by Fiona Apple
“I still only travel by foot, and by foot it’s a slow climb.” If Fiona can fight her way through despair, so can I.

As for my BONUS POINTS, here’s my mix minus the two songs that weren’t on iTunes. (BOO iTunes.)

Posted by adrienne at 07:54 AM | Comments (8)

June 18, 2008

Please Look After this Cat. Thank You.

So this is what I found in my office the day I came back from vacation:

He came with this note:

I feel like I recognize that handwriting, but I don’t know where from. This mystery is vexing, especially since I think I love this puppet more than all my other puppets combined (if you’ve never seen my office, you might not realize this is saying something, but I find that being a children’s librarian is an excellent cover for my enduring fondness for puppets). Hopefully whoever gave me this wonderful gift reads this blog, because I FREAKING LOVE TUXEDO CAT. Whoever gave him to me should know.

Here we are together:

It was love at first sight for Tuxedo Cat and me. He is, by far, the highest-quality puppet I own. He’s made out of beautiful, soft cloth. He has great eyes that look like he’s really seeing something. I’ve never used a full-arm puppet like this before, but I’m amazed how expressive he can be with relatively simple movements. I’ve even been working on a voice for him. I’m trying to make it sound a little meow-ish, but in reality it might be a combination of Snarf and Fran Drescher. I’ll have to keep working on it.

Posted by adrienne at 11:37 PM | Comments (9)

June 17, 2008

I Went to Buf