What Adrienne Thinks About That

March 13, 2010

Ways to Lose an Hour

I obviously have a bit of a reputation where daylight savings is concerned because every single person I have seen or talked to in the last 24 hours has reminded me to spring ahead tonight. Around 5:00, I decided that if I was going to lose an hour of my weekend, I might as well lose it already, so I turned the clocks ahead early. Then I put on my pajamas and started making dinner because, hey, it was 6:00. By the time I’d finished the Béchamel sauce for the vegetable gratin I was making, I looked at the clock and thought, “Wow, it got late quick.” Then I remembered that it was just daylight savings.

When I turned the timer off on the oven when the gratin was ready to come out, I thought, “Wow, it got late quick.” Then I remembered it was just daylight savings.

When I got done washing the dishes, I noticed the clock and thought, “Wow, it got late quick.” And then I remembered yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s been happening ALL NIGHT.

I could use this as an opportunity to complain about daylight savings or to meditate on the fluidity of time as a construct or to expound on exactly how hopeless my sense of time really is. Instead, I’d like to tell you that the vegetable gratin I made was freaking awesome.

But daylight savings really is stupid. Arizona has the right idea ignoring it.

Posted by adrienne at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 11, 2010

Time to Start Getting Your Peeps Ready for Easter

The new salt and pepper set is courtesy of my father. I’ve been so focused on getting ready for PLA that I keep forgetting that it will just about be Easter when I get back from the Pacific Northwest. At least I have my decorations taken care of.

Posted by adrienne at 10:21 PM | Comments (7)

February 28, 2010

Yesterday I Made a Snowperson Instead of Going to the Gym

Once you have it made, a snowperson is basically a really big doll, and as you will see, my snow doll is not limited by gender.

Jayne (from Firefly)

Axle Annie

Someone Who Obviously Forgot that It’s Winter

Someone Who Stole the Hat and Scarf Jen Made Me for Christmas Several Years Ago and Who Is Probably Just Moments from Getting Beaten Up Because I Really, Really Like that Hat and Scarf

After a While, I Got Cold and Hungry and Went Back Indoors

Posted by adrienne at 07:48 PM | Comments (8)

February 22, 2010

Flour, Cheese, and Harry Potter

I do not understand how people who do not eat carbs make it through winter. Personally, I’m at the point in my winter journey where every time I see snow, I think piles of lively and descriptive words I do not want to write here, as Lucas sometimes reads this blog. (He and I have a strict rule about swearing, incidentally: No Swearing Before Eight in the Morning. This rule is null and void, of course, when we are reading Harry Potter because, after all, it is JO who is swearing, not US, and we respect Jo’s artistic vision. Speaking of which, I keep meaning to tell you all how Lucas spotted a grammatical error—a pronoun not agreeing with its referent—in HP#4. The only thing that could have made me prouder would have been if he’d used the word “referent” in describing the problem. Maybe that will come in sixth grade next year.) Today, for instance, the forecast was snow again, so I decided to retaliate by making soft pretzels from this recipe.

I enjoy reading “Cooking with Dexter,” but the recipes don’t normally tempt me, and I have never eaten a soft pretzel I’ve liked, so it’s hard to say what, aside from the weather, made me want to try this. The photo? In any case, the pretzels are amazing, especially with mustard, which I am not particularly fond of, either. There’s just something about soft pretzels, though, that makes the mustard absolutely necessary.

The other thing I did today was run to the store to get a few turnips and some nice Gruyère for a dish I intend to make tomorrow—potato, carrot, and turnip gratin. You could really rewrite that as, “carbs, carbs, carbs, and fat.” It is going to be awesome, completely the reason I’ll be getting out of bed. (Well, that and the fact that Lucas will be here at 6:30 am, and we have Harry Potter to read. Between the swearing and the occasional grammatical issues and the, you know, plot, it’s been quite exciting. Lucas has become increasingly aware of the differences between British and American English, too. Just today, he decreed that “vicar” is “a really weird word.” Someone please alert the UK.)

Obviously, I am also going to have to go to the gym.

Posted by adrienne at 10:04 PM | Comments (10)

January 29, 2010

What Lucas Shouted Up the Stairs When I Got Out of the Shower This Morning

“Adrienne! The Animaniacs are from when BILL CLINTON was in office!”

Remember you heard it here first.

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

January 23, 2010

Regrouping

When I look at my life, I see it in phases: when Brian was sick, when I was depressed, when I was writing my book, when I was traveling to California all the time. My latest phase has been teaching my online homeschooling course, which is now very nearly over. That was a fun phase, but WOW busy. I got behind on EVERYTHING. One week, I was so busy and bereft of food that I considered buying bread at the grocery store. I didn’t, but it was close. (I did stop at McDonald’s to get an Egg McMuffin for my breakfast one morning, though, which served the same need in a much more delicious fashion than a loaf of store-bought bread would have, in my opinion.)

Today, I took a day to regroup.

It was a perfect day for it—sunny and above 40 degrees. Mostly, I read (The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, which I wouldn’t recommend for people who, like me, live by themselves—nonetheless, I cannot stop reading it), but I also went for a long walk, washed some curtains, vacuumed under and behind some furniture, cleaned the floors near the entrances to the house, started some vanilla extract, and made granola. I’ve been going through papers. I made a couple phone calls. I feel not quite organized, but lighter and a little closer to something like organized and almost ready to take on whatever my new phase will be—when I am on the Batchelder committee, when I start taking piano lessons, when I am working on my novel again, when I maybe (hopefully) start contributing to my retirement accounts again. I like to give life a little room to help me figure it out.

Posted by adrienne at 08:04 PM | Comments (8)

January 10, 2010

Weeding and Weeding

Over the last week or so, Jason has embarked on a project to seriously weed the children’s VHS collection. VHS is a splendidly durable format—much more so than those frail DVDs—but they are bulky, their cases and covers are aged, and they do not circulate like they used to. VHS tapes spend whole weeks and months on the spin racks waiting for someone to check them out, while most DVDs are lucky to be on the shelf a couple days. This has created a problem of space and aesthetics—thus, Jason’s efforts to thin things out a little.

Jason has worked at WPL for six years now, I think, and he has undertaken other weeding projects, but this is the first one I’ve seen him attack with gusto. He’s one of those librarians who hems and haws over every little thing, fretting and worrying about what will happen if he lets an item go. I, on the other hand, love to weed and remove items from the collection on an almost daily basis. I have always found it irritating when Jason passes by, asks me if I’m weeding, and stops to examine my piles to double-check that I’m not getting rid of anything vital. (“Why are you getting rid of this?” “Are you weeding this?”) I knew something fundamental had changed in the fabric of the universe this last week, though, because I’ve wanted to do that to him about 400 times. On Friday, though, I was glad I’d checked that urge when he went on and on about how good it felt to realize that there were things we didn’t need and could let go.

A solid week of seeing this must have penetrated my brain, because yesterday I went on a weeding project here at home. Ever since my late husband died (i.e. five years ago), I’ve been wanting to get rid of this artificial tree that’s been down in my basement doing nothing but sitting in its box and making me feel bad. I kept thinking I needed help to get rid of it, but yesterday, something snapped. I went down into the basement, dragged that thing upstairs, and put it in my car. Then I packed my car with a bunch of other stuff that’s been bugging me—more things that do nothing but sit around making me feel bad—and I took them to Goodwill. I felt freer driving away from that place than I’ve felt in months.

One of the things I got rid of? My own VHS collection. The patrons aren’t the only ones learning something at the library.

Posted by adrienne at 10:09 PM | Comments (25)

January 06, 2010

Running Club

Today was the first day of Running Club, which meant that I had to get Lucas to school early so he could spend a half hour running in circles around the gym. We started our morning the usual way, reading Harry Potter--the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, to be exact (poor Frank!). After that our pre-Running Club run began. I took a shower, got dressed, and then launched into the kitchen to get breakfast. Lucas decided on grapefruit, and since we were in a time crunch and the dishwasher needed emptying, I put away dishes while having him do the prep work on the grapefruit (get the grapefruit out of the fridge, take the sticker off, wash it, dry it).

That’s when I had one of those moments.

Last year, I had one of those moments one morning when we were making pancakes. It came time to break and separate the egg yolks from the whites—something I had always done because Lucas has trouble breaking them, so much as going the extra mile to separate them—when I realized that the only way Lucas was ever going to learn how to crack eggs or separate eggs was if someone gave him the opportunity to ruin a bunch of eggs. I mean, *I* ruin the eggs sometimes. Why was I so worried about him doing it? It turned out to be a teachable moment for both of us. He’s still not adept with eggs, but that morning he did, in fact, crack one cleanly and begin to separate it on his own.

This morning, what I realized was that there was no earthly reason Lucas should not be able to cut that grapefruit in half himself, other than the fact that no one has given him a sharp knife.

This is probably the time when I should admit to you that my efforts to teach Lucas how to use a butter knife to cut his pancakes are not going particularly well. He still struggles. So what made me think this was a good idea? I don’t know. I am worried lately about middle school, which he starts next year. This school year is almost half over already, and I feel like middle school is when he’s going to start breaking out of the confines of the controlled little world we’ve been keeping him in. I want him to be prepared. Knife skills seem essential. Certainly I could be trusted with a sharp knife at his age. I started using sharp knives when I started ordering prime ribs in restaurants, when I was about eight or nine. Lucas is accident-prone, of course, but so am I. You have to figure that out.

So I made this crazy snap decision and said, “You know, you can do this.”

I grabbed a plate and a sharp knife, and Lucas’s eyes got pretty big. I showed him how to hold the grapefruit so as to keep it steady while also keeping his hand out of harm’s way. I explained to him how it’s actually more dangerous to use a dull knife than a sharp one because dull ones don’t stay where you want them. I told him he had to go slow and pay attention. I started cutting the grapefruit and then handed the project over to him.

This is when years of pretending like stuff doesn’t really matter pays off. I kept a close eye on him while I was putting away the last few dishes, shooting off little bits of cheerful advice and encouragement. It took him a very long minute to cut that grapefruit in half, but he did, in fact, cut the grapefruit in half.

And nothing else.

After breakfast, we found we were—amazingly!—ready to leave a little early, so we sat down in the living room. In the rush of getting breakfast, I’d noticed that my world had gone a little bizarro. Things were close to where I’d put them, but not quite. I wondered if I was imagining it. I wondered if my father-in-law had been moving my stuff around when he was here last night. It was a little annoying, to tell you the truth. When I sat down in the living room, though, I noticed a pattern. If you’ve been to my house (or even my office), you know I always have this and that sitting around—letters, newspapers, magazines, books. It’s a professional hazard. Anyway, what I noticed is that everything was in neat piles. My house looked quite as good as it ever does.

And that’s when I realized it was Lucas. He neatened up my house while I was in the shower. He didn’t even say anything about it, just did this extraordinarily kind thing instead of, you know, whatever else he might have done. I tell parents all the time that their children do not gain skills on a nice continuous line. Progress requires steady work, but the results come in rapid jumps and followed by plateaus. Today I thought not for the first time that sometimes this isn’t about the kids—it’s about we adults who care for them. Sometimes we forget to see them growing, we forget to give them opportunities, we forget to challenge them to show us what they can do.

Between that and the return of Voldemort, it was kind of an intense morning.

Posted by adrienne at 09:37 AM | Comments (15)

January 02, 2010

Remember When?

Remember way back in 2008 when I lost one of my shoes? Well, I found it today, in a box of Christmas lights in my basement. You know, where everyone keeps the spare shoes.

The irony? A few weeks ago, I gave myself a stern talking-to and told myself to accept that the missing shoe was not coming back and that I needed to get rid of this one lone shoe I had sitting around. So I threw it out. There’s a moral in that, but I come out on the bad end, so let’s not think about it too much.

Even better, last night, I was getting ready to go out and decided I had to find my brown sweatshirt. I stopped looking after about five minutes. When I realized I was wearing it. I own a house, people. I drive a car. We should all be a little scared.

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

December 31, 2009

2010

Some people watch 30 Rock as a fairly straight-forward sitcom. Those people, I’d wager, are not single people over a certain age. For some of us, there is pathos in the way poor Liz Lemon is constantly forced to ask herself if she’s missing something by giving so much to the career she loves. Unlike the parade of simplistic romantic comedies that tell career-minded women that the key to their happiness is to lighten up, 30 Rock shows us that life is not nearly that simple. Liz doesn’t have everything she wants, but on a daily basis, she’s cheerful and engaged in her world. Her biggest trials and tribulations are often nothing more than the result of trying to be someone she’s not, someone she thinks she should be as opposed to who she is. She stands in contrast to Jack, a single, powerful, career-minded man who claims to be completely satisfied with his life but is shown over and over again to have the exact same kinds of frustrations and insecurities about his life that Liz does. You can enjoy the show’s pratfalls, absurdism, and snappy dialog without ever thinking about its emotional core, but it’s there, a real thing—the acknowledgement that we can’t have it all, that real happiness might be more about accepting what is than striving for something that can’t be. I love that about the show.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because, of course, it’s that time of year when we’re supposed to ask ourselves about what we might do differently in the year ahead. Earlier this year, I told myself I was going to find a better balance between work and life and rest, and I think I have—although I’m still definitely leaning toward the slightly-too-busy side in 2010. The truth of the matter is that I’m not happy unless I’m slightly-too-busy. I like a lot of stuff going on. The balance part is remembering to schedule quiet time to write and think and process—days like today, in fact, where I have no reason to get out of my pajamas until after dark. Earlier this year, one of my coworkers told me that she tells her kids that they should do something every day that is good for their minds, something that is good for their bodies, and something that is good for their spirits. I think I’m going to take that one on in 2010.

Happy New Year!

Posted by adrienne at 12:10 PM | Comments (6)

December 24, 2009

Traditions

Tammy started a tradition a couple years ago where we drive around on Christmas Eve to see how people have decked out their yards with lights and whatnot. Tammy, Ron, and I love this tradition, but apparently the children feel differently about it. At first, both kids were mostly quiet while we adults went on about what color lights we like better and how cool it is that we can use big Christmas lights again due to the advent of LED. Finally, though, Max started asking, “Can we STOP at one of these houses?” We explained that we didn’t know any of these people and attempted to move on, but one thing about Max is that if you answer a question in a way he doesn’t like, he will just ask it again, more loudly, until you come up with something better. “Can we STOP at one of these houses?” he asked. “How about that one, with the nice tree?”

He tried getting us to stop at a house with a “nice tree” several more times, the subtext being that he’d rather take his chances with strangers who have a little taste than spend another stinking minute in the car with us, especially if all we were going to do is keep making fun of all the inflatable lawn ornaments that were falling down.

We couldn’t even interest the children in singing Christmas carols, although Lucas did supply some verses for “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (mostly, I think, because he couldn’t take his father goofing up the order any more—and, truly, Ron’s knowledge of the days disintegrates appallingly after “five golden rings”), and he also joined in for “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” (although Tammy’s the only one of us who really knows the words to that song anyway).

Meanwhile, periodically, Max would shout, “Can we STOP at one of these houses? How about that one, with the nice tree?”

At least he didn’t tell us to be quiet so he could think, which is something he also does every once in a while.

Finally, when Lucas started griping, we did go back to their house (which has a perfectly nice tree and no deflating inflatable lawn ornaments), and we commenced reading: Christmas in July by Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski, Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present by John Burningham, Santa Duck by David Milgrim, Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman, and Who Will Help Santa this Year by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki. The boys went off to bed one by one during the stories, Lucas being the last holdout, but then it was one last check-in with Santa on NORAD and then off to bed so Christmas would be here sooner. I just checked in with Santa myself; he’s still in South America. Maybe I have time for just one or two episodes of The Office before it’s off to bed with me.

Merry Christmas!

Posted by adrienne at 10:53 PM | Comments (5)

December 23, 2009

Five Years

Today is watat.com’s five year anniversary. Or birthday. Or blogiversary. Whatever term you prefer. In any case, it’s a fine occasion to say hello. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for reading. It’s a gift that you take time out of your days to stop by and see what’s going on. This blog has enriched my life in ways I never could have guessed five years ago when I blundered my way into starting a website, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next five years might bring.

And now, I really need to go eat some Christmas cookies. I mean salad. No, cookies. Definitely cookies.

Posted by adrienne at 08:30 PM | Comments (18)

December 22, 2009

Photographic Evidence that I Really Did Do Storytime for Lil K’s Birthday

Striped socks were not required, but encouraged. K’s the one with the most stripes, because it was, after all, her party.

Also, I do look a bit like I’m about to attack the book in this photograph, but I assure you that the book was not harmed in the course of this storytime.

Thanks to Jeffrey for the photo.

Posted by adrienne at 07:14 PM | Comments (2)

December 17, 2009

Movies that Tim Burton Has Directed and that I Have Seen, from Awesomest to Least Awesome

Today, I accepted an invitation to serve on the 2011 Batchelder Award Committee. I was so excited about this turn of events, that I decided to celebrate by going to see The Nutcracker and the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA in NYC this weekend. Some people might point out that I bought those tickets WEEKS ago, but those people should just remember that Santa is watching them.

Anyway, I am pretty excited about this Tim Burton thing. Here goes with my best-to-worst list of movies Tim Burton has directed (that I’ve seen—I’m missing a major one):

Edward Scissorhands
Beetlejuice
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Big Fish
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
Mars Attacks!
Corpse Bride
Batman
Batman Returns
Sleepy Hollow
Planet of the Apes
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The thing about Tim Burton is that the first five movies on my list are so good, I had trouble picking which order they should go in. Conversely, the last four movies on the list are so bad that I had trouble picking which order they should go in. (I know this is not a popular opinion, but I actually liked that original Batman movie he did, and I thought that new-fangled Batman Begins was boring. There, I said it. Boooorrrrrring.)

Posted by adrienne at 09:38 PM | Comments (9)

December 11, 2009

36

According to wikipedia, it is a semiperfect number that exhausts the numerals. Here's hoping it doesn't exhaust me. I have a busy day planned.

Happy day to all of you!

Posted by adrienne at 09:38 AM | Comments (12)

December 08, 2009

Attack of the World’s Christmas Tree’s

by Lucas
(illustrations currently unavailable)

3 days before Christmas tree’s refused to be cut down. But al the hospitals were full from the H1N1 virus. The tree’s stomped children. The tree’s shot needle’s. The burnt down the empire state building. They were sick of the ornaments. They plot revenge. But all pine tree’s had to hide. They hid for weeks …and weeks …and weeks …and weeks …and weeks. They went mad. They ran to get back at the humans. But the government caught them.

THE END

Posted by adrienne at 08:35 AM | Comments (13)

December 04, 2009

Someone Has to Put the Closet Back Together

For the last couple years, I’ve been on this whole kick of attempting to take care of my house. I don’t know. I pay the mortgage every month. You’d think the rest would just take care of itself, but no. In fact, according to the History Channel, the earth can hardly wait to eat my house for breakfast. Constant vigilance, people. Constant vigilance.

Anyway, it’s long been my goal to do something about the insulation here because it is in various ways inadequate and I live in Western NY, where it is cold. Part of the reason I was avoiding doing anything is because insulation is expensive, but the real reason I was avoiding it was because I hadn’t been in my attics since before my late husband died (over five years ago now, in case you’ve lost count), and I had this mental image of them being kind of like crack houses with things dripping down the walls and trash all over the floor and squatters living in a corner. In order to even reach the one attic, I have to take EVERYTHING out of one of my closets, including the shelves, which I didn’t really know how to do. It seemed like maybe it would be best to just leave everything be until someone else took care of it.

Then the government started this whole business with the stimulus package and tax rebates and whatnot, and I did some research and realized that if you have some insulation issues to take care of, now’s a pretty good time to do it. So I broke down, had an energy audit done, and hired some people to take care of the insulation.

They installed it today.

As part of the audit, I actually went into my attics, and it turns out that it’s not at all like a crack house up there. There wasn’t enough insulation (in fact, in a couple key spots, there was NONE), but it was dry and relatively clean and nothing appeared to be living there. So that part was cool. The rest of it was terrifying, even though it all seems to have turned out very well. First of all, it’s just awkward being here while there are all these people running about doing heavy labor. Ella handled it by hiding in a closet. Benny handled it by hiding under the couch. I handled it by sitting in a corner of my office with my laptop. I really would have preferred to be under the couch with Benny, but I cannot fit there, and Ella did not seem inclined to share her closet and the other closet is the one I spent a half-hour taking apart this morning. (It was an hour-long project when I had to do it for the energy audit. I’m hoping to cut my time down to five minutes the next time I need to get up there.)

This house is a continual struggle, even with the help people give me. It’s too big for one person, and I’m a little out of my league as a homeowner, but I kind of love my house. I like my neighborhood, and I use all of my too many rooms. Right now, I feel kind of good. Kind of competent. Like maybe I am equal to this home after all.

Next thing to tackle: cleaning out the scary corners of the basement. Or maybe putting the closet back together. Or maybe going to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. We’ll see.

Posted by adrienne at 05:03 PM | Comments (4)

December 01, 2009

Lucas, Used Car Salesman

And the first snow of the season:

December first is late, but appropriate.

Shout out to RuthAnn for the mustache. As she suspected, Lucas put it to good use immediately.

Posted by adrienne at 07:44 AM | Comments (10)

November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving

“A good story, no matter how modest, is a form of prayer.”
-Lee Siegel, “Children’s Books” in the New York Times Book Review (February 11, 2007)

May your Thanksgiving be full of stories, and food. Lots and lots of food.

Have I mentioned that it's smelling really good here? Two hours until we feast!

Posted by adrienne at 10:57 AM | Comments (10)

November 22, 2009

My Slow Acceptance of the iPod Touch

So I'm writing this entry using the library's new iPod Touch. Terri got two of them with the idea that we could use them to access the Internet and the catalog when we're out in the stacks (which, if you've never been to WPL, are pretty far away from the reference desk). It's a brilliant idea except for the part where only a couple staff members know how to use these things, which is why we've been taking turns taking them home to learn how to use them.

Now, I am a good typist, a FAST typist, and I didn't anticipate how frustrated I would get trying to learn a new way to type. The first day gave me a fresh empathy for people who don't know how to use a mouse, and I thought there was no way I was going to get better at it, but I've surprised myself and am typing at maybe one-sixth my usual speed, which is still not shabby.

Of course, what's really made me stick with this whole thing is that Greg (our adult fiction/Apple product librarian) loaded Scramble on here, which I suck at and also can't stop playing. That and the fact that this thing loads up faster than my laptop won me over. It's kind of sad that I'm so easily won, but there you go. There's other stuff on here, like a link to wikipedia (yawn), a game where the goal is to try to keep a sheep in the air (boring), and a cheating Pac-man game that only has one board. What I REALLY need is Tetris. Hm...

Posted by adrienne at 09:20 PM | Comments (3)

November 14, 2009

RAH!

Love that gingerbread house display at the George Eastman House.

Posted by adrienne at 07:14 PM | Comments (5)

November 10, 2009

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Mousetrap

Needless to say, the unwelcome appearance of a dead mouse in my house yesterday caused me to rally the troops. By “rally the troops,” I mean, “call my father-in-law.” Usually seeing one ant is enough to get me cleaning for days. After seeing the mouse, I felt like I needed to maybe burn the place down and start over. My father-in-law assures me this is not necessary but that maybe we could take some steps to try to figure out how the mouse got in and maybe set some traps.

Anyway, I have long known that there are a couple significantly-sized holes between the basement and my laundry room (which is on one of those half above/half underground levels), and I suggested maybe we should plug those up (which he’s doing for me—I am useless at this sort of thing). So I came home from work yesterday and he’d been looking around, and he said he was wondering if the mouse might have gotten in via “that crawlspace behind your furnace.” When he said this, I thought, What crawlspace? He must mean the space between the furnace and the wall.

But no.

We went down there and he shone my brightest flashlight into what might very well be the portal to the underworld. It’s been there all these years I’ve been living here, and I had no idea. I can’t imagine what it’s doing there. A person my size (i.e. smallish) could maybe crawl in, but why would they want to? I’ve always wondered where the spiders that invade my house in the spring come from, and that is it. It’s like Aragog’s set up shop with Shelob back there.

My father-in-law, intrepid thing that he is, decided that it would be a good idea to put a mousetrap just outside the portal, so that’s what he did. Today, though, he called me at work. Here was our conversation:

Intrepid Father-in-Law: Um, I’m at your house. Did you move the mousetrap?
Me: Oh, no. I was going to go look at it before I left for work, but… no.
Intrepid Father-in-Law: Huh. That’s weird, because it’s gone.
Me: Gone?
Intrepid Father-in-Law: Yeah, gone.
Me: Well it’s got to be on the floor or something.
Intrepid Father-in-Law: No, I looked.

Then he listed all the places he looked. I just looked again when I got home. I even [*shudder*] shone my flashlight into the crawlspace. That trap is gone.

Oh, boy.

Posted by adrienne at 11:01 PM | Comments (9)

November 09, 2009

That’s Not Good, or Why I am Blogging Instead of Eating Breakfast

So this morning, I was reading the part in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Crookshanks first attacks Scabbers out loud to Lucas.

You’ll see how this detail becomes relevant.

While I was reading, Ella was in the next room, running around and playing. Periodically, I’d say things like, “Good kitty, Ella!” “You get that mousie!” Ella can be kind of a lazy girl, so I was glad she was up and about being active. I caught a glimpse of her toy at one point and thought it didn’t look familiar, but I figured she’d just managed to find a previously lost toy, which, if you have cats, happens all the time.

Anyway, Lucas fell asleep toward the end of the chapter, and I got up to make breakfast. I passed Ella to give her a pat on my way to the kitchen, which is when I noticed that what she had was a real mouse.

Notice how I didn’t say a “live” mouse.

I thought, “Boy, someone is going to have to do something about that.” Then I thought, “Crap. Someone is me.” As if it weren’t enough that I climbed up on the roof all by myself this past weekend to clean the gutters, now I had to get rid of a dead mouse before I’d even had breakfast.

I was glad Lucas was asleep. I might tell him this story, but I think if he saw Ella with that dead mouse, he would have FREAKED OUT. Aside from the mouse’s cuteness and deadness, Ella did not want to give that thing up. As soon as she figured out what I intended to do with the dustpan, she was like, “Hell, no.” She picked the mouse up in her jaws and commenced growling at me. This is when we entered the bargaining phase, where I promised Ella all kinds of things if she would only drop the dead mouse. She just kept backing away. Finally, I came to a place of acceptance and picked my sweet growling kitty up, took her into the garage, and held her over the trash can until she dropped the mouse. Then we went inside and tried to pretend like nothing unusual had happened. At least I’ve had practice.

Posted by adrienne at 07:55 AM | Comments (13)

November 08, 2009

“Aww, Flip. It’s a Zombie Apocalypse.”

As if my nerdishness weren’t deeply entrenched enough, I’ve become a reader of single issue comics. I’ve been reading comics forever, of course, but previously I limited my comics reading to a.) the newspaper, b.) online, and c.) issues collected into graphic novels. To me, it seems somehow more respectable to read comics in collections, probably because you can get the collections in bookstores and libraries, whereas you can only get the individual issues in comic book stores, which, well, smell funny. I do like going into comic book stores every now and again, as it always creates something of a stir when a girl walks into one of those places, but there aren’t any close to my house. Luckily, I have a supplier, Jason, who brings me my comics in exchange for food.

It all started with the Buffy Season Eight comics. Those were the first ones I heard about where I was like, “I CANNOT wait for those to be collected. I must read them THE MOMENT THEY BECOME AVAILABLE.” Being a Buffy fan himself, Jason was happy to oblige my request to pick up comics for me when he picked up his comics for himself. And so it went for a while. Jason would bring me my comics, I’d bring him some muffins or a salad or something, and everyone was happy.

Then I subscribed to a couple comics—Marvel Adventures Spider-Man and Marvel Adventures Super Heroes. This happened maybe last year. When the kids were doing magazine-selling fundraisers, I would always renew my Entertainment Weekly. I know a lot of kids. At this point, I will be getting Entertainment Weekly until the end of time, so I had to subscribe to something else. I picked these because I thought they’d broaden my horizons and that I could share them either with Lucas or the kids at the library. I’ll admit I don’t love these ones, but I read them.

Now, I’ve taken another step on the slippery slope. Some canny person at Marvel decided to resurrect a comic called Models Inc. and do a little mini-comic of Tim Gunn wearing the Iron Man suit in the first issue. Jason was skeptical when I asked him if he could obtain this thing for me, but he did it, and he’s gotten me the next two issues besides. I don’t want to like this comic, but it’s delightful. The clothes the models are wearing are generally not even slightly fashionable, but the writing’s surprisingly tight. It’s funny, and there’s a mystery. I can’t wait for the next issue. As a bonus, in the third issue, there is a mini-comic featuring A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. I am constantly surprised that there are enough people who share my interests to make things like this marketable. In this case, hallelujah that there are.

I should note that Jason is clearly trying to turn me into a comics junkie. In spite of his grumbling, he’s getting Models Inc. for himself, and he slipped me the first issue of a new series, 28 Days Later, with my last stash.

I guess I owe him some salad.

Posted by adrienne at 07:12 PM | Comments (6)

October 31, 2009

Don’t Let the Pigeon Carve the Pumpkin

It was an experiment. Stop judging me. Judge me instead on my other pumpkin.

I’ve been doing some version of a cat silhouetted against the moon for a few years now (and, whatever, I know that moon should be rounder), but this is my first VAMPIRE kitty—a nod, naturally, to the current vampire craze in pop culture. It is not the only pop culture reference currently in my yard.

Children dressed as Star Wars characters get extra candy when they come to my house. Tonight, there was only one, a storm trooper. In the house, we had Harry Potter.

Well, let’s face it. He looks more like Voldemort there. There was also an EXTREMELY VERY, VERY SCARY DINOSAUR.

Okay, so don’t panic. That isn’t really a dinosaur. Halloween is just so CONFUSING.

Posted by adrienne at 10:43 PM | Comments (10)

October 21, 2009

So I’ve Been Thinking of Cultivating a Video Game Problem

The thing about today’s video games is that they’re complicated and expensive, and I don’t have the time or money to invest in them, which is why I don’t play them. Back when I was a kid and arcades were the thing, though, I played them quite a lot. My game?

Yeah, Ms. Pac-Man (which is superior in every way to regular Pac-Man—don’t even get me started). I hardly ever see a Ms. Pac-Man game anymore, but whenever I do, I’ll spend a couple dollars playing. This has not kept up my Mad Ms. Pac-Man Skillz at, say, 1988 levels, but I bet I can still beat you.

Of course, right now, there is a very easily accessible Ms. Pac-Man game at the Strong Museum (a.k.a. The National Museum of Play) in their awesome Videotopia exhibit, which Tammy and I visited this past Sunday. It was Tammy’s idea to go, but she didn’t seem as excited about playing the games as I was. Here she is playing Donkey Kong (a fine game, too, vastly preferable to the inferior Donkey Kong Jr.):

Tam looks so calm there. Me, I was jumping around shouting, “Oh my God, Tammy, THEY HAVE FROGGER!!! AND PAPERBOY!!! AND DIG-DUG!!! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO PLAY FIRST!!!” Basically, they have a whole room set up like an arcade from my youth, with token machines and everything. You get four tokens with admission; further tokens are 25¢ each. I had so much fun there that I’ve been seriously thinking about getting one of the special passes they’re offering for adults that allows you unlimited admission until the exhibit closes in January. Who needs to write books and teach classes and cook and whatever when Ms. Pac-Man needs my help? You should see the high score on that machine. I got halfway to it on my first try. I can beat it; I know I can.

Posted by adrienne at 07:51 AM | Comments (16)

October 12, 2009

Things You Might Find When You’re Looking for Your Passport, Which You Can’t Recall Having Seen in at Least Three Years

* Your baptismal certificate, which reveals you were baptized in Boonville, NY, even though you’d always assumed you’d been baptized in Rome, NY.
* Your late husband’s two-dollar bill collection, which you thought you’d already spent.
* Your marriage license, which leads you to wondering if anyone might ever ask to see this thing again.
* A savings bond you do not recall being given, even though it is quite clearly in your name (further research will reveal that now is not such a great time to be cashing in bonds, at least not this one).
* A quarter from 1944.
* A Ren and Stimpy comic book, which puts the Log song in your head for the next 24 hours (“It’s better than bad, it’s good! From BLAMMO!”).

Maybe next I should go looking for my college diplomas. Haven’t seen either one of them in a while, either. (Oddly, like my marriage license, no one’s ever asked to see them.)

Posted by adrienne at 07:49 PM | Comments (9)

October 06, 2009

Where the Zombies Have Already Taken Over

Also, you should probably read "5 Reasons You Secretly Want a Zombie Apocalypse." I wouldn't say that I *want* a zombie apocalypse, but it's true that I kind of hoard blankets because whenever I consider getting rid of them, all I can think is how valuable they'll be in any apocalyptic scenarios I might find myself in someday.

Sometimes I think I should watch fewer movies.

Thanks to Chuck for the link and to Ron for noticing the store.

Posted by adrienne at 07:49 PM | Comments (5)

September 28, 2009

“We Can Go Where We Want To”

Third generation, baby.

It’s a bit of a coincidence that I have been increasing the amount of work I’m doing with tweens at the library at the exact moment Lucas seems to have turned to tweendom. Friday, he got the happy news that he made the Safety Patrol. My earliest memories of his mother, Tammy, are from one of my fifth grade Safety Patrol assignments, when I had to stand at the top of the stairs and make sure no one ran up them. I didn’t really care if someone ran up the stairs, then or now, but I remember what a sense of pride it gave me to be on Safety Patrol, and how much I enjoyed my other assignments—working the school bookstore (Why was that a Safety Patrol duty in our school? I have no idea.) and helping the Kindergarteners at dismissal.

Lucas’s pride was much in evidence this morning, as well it should be. He seems to be happy to contribute to the school in some way. Along the same lines, he’s been spending his lunches in his classroom so he can help clean out the class pets’ cages. I went to open house this past week, and I can personally attest that those animals’ cages are cleaner than Lucas’s room.

The whole thing has me thinking even more about a couple articles I’ve read recently about giving older kids freedom and something real to do. One is “Why Can’t She Walk to School” in the NYT a couple weeks ago (which, thanks for the idea, but no way). The second, more compelling one, is Rebecca Stead’s “Tweens—Who Are They?” (Thanks to Fuse #8 for pointing the article out.)

This freedom thing is a balance. Different kids have different abilities and needs, and it’s really a lot easier to say that tweens as a group need more freedom than to even contemplate the idea of letting your godson walk to school by himself. I think I’m going to come down more strongly on the side of giving the kids something useful to do. Lately, I’ve been teaching Lucas how to use the blender to make smoothies and a butter knife to cut up his own pancakes. You have to start somewhere.

Posted by adrienne at 09:20 PM | Comments (12)

September 27, 2009

Fame, or Why I Don’t Blog Sometimes

Yesterday, I baked an apple crisp. Sometimes, I bake apple crisps instead of blogging.

Sometimes, too, I take the apple crisp over to Tammy’s house so we can all eat some before we go to see Fame (ha, ha, song’s stuck in your head now—“Re-mem-ber, re-mem-ber, re-mem-ber”), and when I sit down at the kitchen table and ask Lucas what he is watching on his laptop, he says, “The video you posted on your blog.”

Then I say, “The zombie one?”

And he gives me a look that says, “This is about a zombie?”

And I crane my neck and go, “I’m not sure you should be watching that.”

Which makes him look right back at the screen.

Yeah.

Lucas informed me about mid-year last year that he reads my blog sometimes, although he confessed that he didn’t read as much as he looked at the pictures. He hasn’t complained about me blogging about him yet, but I worry about making him uncomfortable, and, well, he’s more interesting than I am. This leaves me at a bit of a loss.

I suppose I’ll have to start writing about the little one quick before he figures out how to use the Internet on his own.

Posted by adrienne at 08:14 PM | Comments (3)

September 22, 2009

The Real Advantages and Disadvantages of Schooling

Professionally, I don’t really like when school starts up again in the fall. I vastly prefer summers when the Children’s Room is packed with kids of all ages all day long. It can be overwhelming at times, but, mostly, it’s fun. Once school starts, the kids get busy, and they aren’t in as frequently, and it’s a bummer.

The thing is, though, during the summer, Lucas isn’t here at my house in the mornings. I’ll tell you the truth: not having him here means I can sleep later, which is fun for maybe a week. That’s when it starts to feel like the reason I’m sleeping late is that there’s nothing all that interesting to get up for, and, honestly? I’d rather have Lucas here for two hours in the morning than a room full of kids in the library all day.

School has only been in session a couple weeks, but we’ve been having a rollicking good time so far. We’ve made pancakes. We’ve made smoothies a few times. We’ve played with the cats. We’ve listened to the Chipmunks’ Christmas CD.

We’ve also been reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone out loud to each other, which is way more fun than I anticipated. Both of us have read the entire series before, so this reading involves a lot of pausing to discuss foreshadowing, character motivation, and where plot threads lead. I also think I’m getting better at reading chapter books aloud. You’d think it would be like picture books, but it’s not. I find it’s harder to maintain energy, and my throat seems to dry out more quickly when I’m reading a chapter book. Practice does, however, seem to be making improvements. We’ve also got a system worked out where Lucas [the enabler] reads aloud while I putter around getting my coffee, and when the coffee’s done, I take over reading.

Coffee, books, good company. What more does anyone need?

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

September 09, 2009

Fifth Grade

First Grade

Second Grade

Third Grade

Fourth Grade

Fifth Grade

Lucas’s new teacher and classroom seem nice enough, but fifth grade also seems entirely unreasonable to me as a concept. The boy was very excited about his first day, so I had him walking all over Chili this morning to burn off some energy (to the Leaf and Bean for breakfast, back home, then to school). We sang “Black Socks” and “I Found a Little Baby Bumblebee” and talked about other first days and middle school starting next year.

My cat Benny was so terrified of Lucas’s hat that he got all puffy and hissed and tried to slink away. Other people we saw complimented the hat. You really can’t please everyone.

Posted by adrienne at 09:45 PM | Comments (13)

September 06, 2009

The Children "Help"

Posted by adrienne at 09:17 AM | Comments (4)

September 05, 2009

How to Get Ready for a Shed Razing

The morning before a shed razing is no time to be sitting around drinking coffee and blogging. In an hour, I will regret this decision, but the beautiful thing about an hour from now is that it is an hour away.

And right now, I have coffee.

A few months ago, I blogged about the sad state of my shed and how I have to deal with it. I am finally doing so. As is so often the case, I am using “I” loosely, as what I have done is asked for help in the form of inviting a bunch of people over who are bigger, stronger, and more knowledgeable about construction and destruction than myself. I have promised to feed them. I decided that if I really want my shed destroyed, the food better be good.

I’ve been laying in supplies and cooking for two days. Here is the menu:

* Sloppy Joe (This is the first time I’ve made the recipe from my elementary/high school, which I got from JJ via Facebook. I know everyone says that Facebook is a big time suck, but I find delightful things like this there all the time. This recipe smelled so good last night when I was done making it that I was tempted to eat the whole batch and just go ahead and order pizza today.)
* Corn Bread (A new recipe that includes corn along with the cornmeal. Smells good.)
* Cole Slaw (I had this enormous cabbage in my fridge. Something had to happen to it.)
* Salsa and Chips (Fresh, of course. It’s that time of year.)
* Watermelon (Another no-brainer.)
* Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
* Katherine Hepburn’s Brownies (The last time I made these for a party, they were gone in ten minutes flat, so this time, I made a double batch. They are in the oven baking even now. Smell them? Mmmmmm.)

I also bought the usual selection of beverages and a couple bags of potato chips. Oh, and a box of those little cups of yogurt, since that seems to be what all the children eat these days, and there will be quite a number of them about today. I find that the children are also among the most avid fans of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and Katherine Hepburn’s Brownies, which is just another good reason to make them. Nothing like getting all the kids hopped up on sugar before sending them home with their parents.

Wish me luck!

Posted by adrienne at 09:47 AM | Comments (6)

September 01, 2009

The Mysterious Case of Bonnie

I know normal people can keep track of how long they’ve lived in a house, but with me we’re going to have to settle for an estimate. It’s eight or nine years for sure. Almost a decade. In that time, there are things about my life in this house that I’ve come to accept. They include:

1. There is always going to be something going on with the house that I cannot cope with.
2. The interior is never going to be the kind of place people envy, at least not while I’m in charge.
3. I cannot successfully get my late husband’s name off the mortgage or the tax rolls, no matter how many copies of the death certificate I send to the bank or various governmental agencies.

I feel two ways about the mortgage and the tax rolls. There’s a part of me that wants exclusive credit for paying the mortgage and taxes these last five years, and it seems like Brian’s kind of riding on my coattails at this point. On the flip side, when I’m having a bad house day, I think that maybe I’ll stop paying the mortgage and that when the bank calls me about it, I’ll tell them it was Brian’s turn to pay the mortgage and suggest they call him.

One interesting thing is that even though the tax people can’t get it through their heads that Brian is no longer paying taxes, the Board of Elections was right on it. About a month after he died, they even sent me a letter to let me know he wouldn’t be eligible to vote in the next election, and I hadn’t thought to send them a death certificate at all. How do these things happen? It’s a mystery.

Anyway, because of item #3, one truly irritating thing I’ve had to put up with through the years are the credit card offers and direct marketing ads that come to Brian. I, at least, now get more credit card offers than him, but still. It’s bad enough to have to deal with your own junk mail.

Over the last month or so, I’ve developed a new house-related issue. I’ve been getting mail for a woman named Bonnie. The people who lived here before us—the ONLY people who lived here before us, since they’re the ones who built the house—were not Bonnie, either. It’s not even the same last name.

The first time I got a piece of mail for Bonnie, I wrote “not at this address—return to sender” on the envelope and put it back in the mail, like you’re supposed to. I did this when I got the second and third pieces, too—all on hand-written envelopes from different cities, mind you, so it’s quite a number of individuals who think Bonnie is here. I’ve gotten about six pieces of mail for Bonnie so far. The sixth one came today, a small pink envelope. The zip code was originally miswritten, but the Post Office very helpfully fixed it and got it to me so I can put it back in the mail with my “not at this address-return to sender” note. Every time I do this, I think maybe the PO will get the hint and stop giving me Bonnie’s mail, but maybe the more direct route would be to complete a change of address form for Bonnie and have her mail sent to the vacant house across the street. Then, of course, I wouldn’t have the fun of wondering who this Bonnie is and why she’s getting so much mail.

Sometimes, you just have to roll with it.

Posted by adrienne at 08:03 PM | Comments (18)

August 09, 2009

“Ten Thousand Thousand”

As I was explaining to Jeffrey the other day, I often fear that writing a novel is a sign that I have officially become mentally unhinged. Yet I persist. I’ve been telling more people that this is what I’ve been doing in my spare time, but I mention it in the same way I might mention that I decided to try a new zucchini recipe for dinner tonight (which I totally did—thank you, Mollie Katzen). This revelation (about the book, not the zucchini) leads people to ask me all sorts of questions I have trouble answering. “What’s it about?” is a biggie. My standard answer, which I really need to work on, is, “It’s a teen novel.” That doesn’t even answer the question, but no one’s called me on that yet. “How far are you?” is another favorite. I give a variety of percentage answers to this question—15% if I’m having a bad day, 25% if I’m feeling good. They’re all flagrant lies, of course, as I have no idea how long the novel’s going to be in the end. I guess there are some writers who approach their work rationally, but they are Nicholas Sparks, and one thing that is clear to me at this point in my life is that no matter how much I like money, I am not destined to be Nicholas Sparks.

The other thing that is very clear to me is that my novel is not nearly done yet.

Yesterday, I decided maybe I should start giving a word count as an answer to the how-far-are-you question, so I sat down to count how many words I’d amassed. I was just shy of 10,000, so I wrote the 100 or so words that threw me over the edge. So there’s my new answer: it’s a teen novel that is currently about 10,000 words long and not nearly done.

I think I like that.

Posted by adrienne at 06:56 PM | Comments (11)

August 01, 2009

"If You're Worried about the Weather, then You've Picked the Wrong Place to Stay"

I understand they've been hogging summer and the long-absent Jennifer in North Carolina, so I'm going there for a few days. I have packed more printed matter than clothing. Here are some key items:

* Newest issue of Games magazine (you are basically a certified nerd when you subscribe to Games
* A mid-week NYT Crossword Puzzle book
* 3 issues of EW
* Alive and Well in Prague, New York by Daphne Grab
* Exodus by Julie Bertagna
* Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

What I've left out? My laptop.

See you all again in a few days!

Posted by adrienne at 09:32 AM | Comments (9)

July 18, 2009

July

The July a year after Brian’s death, I saw his uncle at our hometown’s carnival. He said he was sorry he’d been out of touch, that he didn’t know how to handle these things, that all he could do was ride his motorcycle until he felt better. “You have to find something,” he said.

I didn’t tell him that I knew, that I drove at night when I couldn’t sleep, when I was restless on long afternoons. I’d drive the edges of expressways out to roads where I didn’t have to see anyone, music blaring, until I got too tired to think anymore.

Five years later, dismay still puts me in my car. The other day, when I found out that I had strep throat for the second time in two weeks, I got mad at everything my body wasn’t going to let me do. I drove as far as I could think, until hunger forced me back among people. I stopped at the Brockport Wegmans and got some pasta salad and ate it in my car, where I couldn’t infect anyone. Sitting there, I remembered another hot July day, twenty years before, when that lot was new, introducing my father to Brian, who was wrangling carts. “This is Brian Furness,” I said. “He’s a grade ahead of me at school.” Like it was no big deal.

That led to another July and another and another until the one we spent in the living room, Brian trying to tell me what it was like to be alive in a body that was dying all around him.

In the present, I knew it was time to go home and take Advil and drink my fluids and rest. I finished my salad, I turned up my radio, and I took the long way back.

Posted by adrienne at 10:26 AM | Comments (13)

July 12, 2009

Why My Arms are Scratched, My Shoulders are Sunburned, and My Hands are Stained Purple

It has been abundantly rainy in WNY this summer, so much so that sunny, warm days put me in a panic because there is just so much I want to do. This past Friday was, to my way of thinking, a perfect summer day—sunny and HOT. All I cared about from the time I left the house until I got to work that morning was whether or not I had enough personal hours left to leave early. Happily, I had enough to take a half day and decided to use my time to drive out to Brown’s Berry Patch to pick cherries.

The thing about picking cherries if you’re five feet tall is that the kids have already picked most of the ones you can reach, leaving all the best bunches right up past the signs on the trees telling you not to climb them. Not that I paid any attention. Hardly anyone was at Brown’s on Friday afternoon, and my mother was with me, totally egging me on and holding my basket while I climbed about in my flip-flops. It was wonderful—warm and quiet and breezy because we were by the lake.

Today I woke up to sun and 70°, so I decided I’d run over to Whittier’s to pick raspberries. I’m at an advantage with the raspberries. People don’t bring their kids to pick them en masse because of the thorns, so there is much less competition for the good berries, and the canes, like me, are close to the ground. This morning was divine. I was the only person picking, and the canes were overflowing with ripe berries. On the down side, I wore a tank top and foolishly kept going for berries in the middle even though there were plenty on the safe edges. It offended my inner hunter-gatherer to just leave them, though. I’d reach in, get some scrapes, and think, “Yeah, don’t do that again.” Then I’d see another bunch of berries and think, “Oh, just this one last time.” Between that and the delicacy of the fruit, it’s no wonder raspberries cost about $4 a pint at the market. Imagine what they’d cost if they paid the people who pick them a living wage.

So, much of my weekend has been full of freezing, drying, and making jam. Yesterday, I dried cherries and made cherry jam. Today, I froze cherries, froze raspberries, and baked a couple loaves of cherry almond bread, which I don’t mind telling you is amazing. And my house smells fantastic. If Hansel and Gretel walked by, they’d totally stop. One thing I love about putting food up is that when you eat it in the dead of winter, you remember the circumstances of obtaining it—remember that, in fact, summer does exist. In February it becomes doubtful (well, even lately it’s been kind of doubtful).

Right now, though, I could kind of use another day off. A sunny, 80° day during which I would sit on the porch and read, although, if that happened, I know I’d just go pick more berries and start this whole thing over again.

Posted by adrienne at 08:50 PM | Comments (14)

July 05, 2009

Books in which Someone Gets Cancer

A few weeks ago, Meg Cabot wrote an interesting post on her blog about bibliotherapy. She didn’t use the word “bibliotherapy,” but that’s what she was talking about—calling into question what kind of reading people find therapeutic when coping with major woes. Cabot says that when her life was at its worst, she didn’t want to read about other people in her situation. Instead, she started reading romances.

This seemed fitting to me because when my life was at its worst, I started reading Meg Cabot.

Mostly, I’ve avoided books in which someone is dealing with cancer the same way I avoided the young widows craze (which conveniently happened right about when I became a young widow myself). My life has been story enough; I’d rather read about something I don’t know. Lately, though, I’ve been quite inadvertently going through a streak of cancer books. They can be hard to avoid. If you’re a writer, cancer is a great go-to disease because almost everyone knows someone who has had it.

For me, there is little surprise in cancer plots. When I read Jenny Han’s lovely The Summer I Turned Pretty, for instance, on the second or third page, one of the characters is taking a nap during the day. This was all the foreshadowing I needed to realize that a.) this character has cancer, and b.) the dénouement of the novel would involve everyone realizing how petty they’ve been when The Big News is revealed. This didn’t impact my enjoyment of the novel. The cancer was one of several subplots in a story that subtly explores how physical changes have a very real impact on the way you and the world interact, whether you want that to happen or not—something every girl has to deal with in her life. Han does a bang-up job exploring that, and the cancer ties in, since I’m not sure there’s anything outside of surgery that can change your appearance faster or more noticeably.

Stitches by David Small is another thing altogether. It’s an autobiographical graphic novel intended for an adult audience about Small’s journey from childhood to adulthood. It usually makes me angry when writers use cancer as a symbol, but Small gets the award for using the disease symbolically in a way that only inspires my sympathy and awe at the way he knows how to tell a story. Here, Small’s cancer symbolizes his parents not taking care of him, but that’s on account of the way Small got cancer because his parents were really not taking care of him. It is shocking and surprising, the way it should be. And in the end, the story is one of the most hopeful and inspiring ones I’ve read in a long time.

Nearly five years after my husband died, it’s nice to be able to read books in which someone gets cancer a little more objectively. I still can’t take it when someone’s spouse dies. I recently watched Up, for instance, which I loved but also found somewhat harrowing. (I’m still kind of pissed off about the way Carl left those chairs at the top of the falls, to tell you the truth of the matter. Someone should tell Pixar that it’s actually not super-healthy to get rid of every darned thing that belonged to the dead person. (Incidentally, my use of “pissed off” in a complete sentence is probably why Kristen won’t let her son read my blog. Oh yeah, Kristen. Zack told me. At first I was like, “Why?” Then I was like, “Oh, wait. Don’t answer that.” And, seriously, when did Zack get taller than me?) Ahem.) Of course, I think I am now inadvertently reading a book about a woman whose husband is going to die of cancer, and I can’t seem to put it down.

Books mentioned:
Han, Jenny. The Summer I Turned Pretty. NY: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2009. (HC: 9781416968238)
Small, David. Stitches. NY: WW Norton & Co., 2009. (Forthcoming in September) (HC: 9780393068573)

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

June 27, 2009

Strep Throat or Swine Flu or Maybe Mono

I have been a children's librarian for about a decade now. When I tell people who don't know much about kids that I am a children's librarian, most of them respond with an "Oh, that's nice" in a tone most commonly reserved for children, as if my life is full of sunshine and puppies and it would not do to converse with me with too much attention or conviction.

When I went to the doctor with a very sore throat the other day, though, and when he asked if I'd been around any kids lately, I said, "Well, yeah, about three or four hundred this week. I'm a children's librarian."

Then the doctor said, "Oh, God. You could have anything."

Thanks to my years of working with kids, I hardly ever get sick--certainly nothing that sends me to the doctor begging for help the way I did the other day. It was he who had to tell me that the aching in all my joints was probably caused by the fever I didn't realize I had. (Him: "Didn't you take your temperature before you decided to come in?" Me: "No.") I knew I might be in trouble when I woke up Thursday morning and my throat hurt so badly that I didn't want to make coffee. I knew I'd regret not having caffeine, so I got a frozen coffee, which I could manage. It wasn't until about noon that I felt like lying down on the floor in the Children's Room and going to sleep.

Still, I thought I probably had a sinus infection and was just being a wimp. The doctor said no, it's strep or the swine flu or maybe mono. He prescribed an antibiotic, ran some tests, and told me to come back Monday if I wasn't better.

So I've been doing this "sick" thing I've heard so much about. It's kind of a drag. Mostly, I sleep. My throat and aches started feeling better pretty quickly once I started the antibiotic, but the least little thing tires me out. This means I have to reserve my energy for the basics: showering, eating, maybe reading a magazine or doing a crossword puzzle. I don't have the attention span for a novel (or even to complete a crossword puzzle--in the last two days, I've started about five of them, but I abandon them as soon as I come across a section I can't solve). I see why people avoid and complain about this so.

On the bright side, I've let myself eat as much ice cream as I want, and I've still somehow dropped a pound. A weak huzzah to that.

Posted by adrienne at 12:22 PM | Comments (14)

June 16, 2009

The Drug Talk, or We Are Not Cocaine People

Lucas: Guess what I learned? Caffeine is a gateway drug.
Me: [Almost spits out coffee. Swallows.] What? Who told you that?
Lucas: I read it. In a book. At school.
Me: Do you even know what a gateway drug is?
Lucas: Yeah.
Me: What?
Lucas: It's a drug young people use, like inhalants, alcohol, marijuana, stuff like that.
Me: Well, that's one way to put it. It's a drug that leads you to using another drug. Like the way using cocaine can lead to using crack. Do you know what cocaine is?
Lucas: Yeah.
Me: Now that's a really bad drug, but crack is even worse. Did they teach you about crack?
Lucas: Mom says there's crack in the chocolate milk from the Dairy.
Me: She's being sarcastic. There isn't really crack in the chocolate milk. What your mom means is that the chocolate milk is highly addictive, the way crack is. Crack melts your brain.
Lucas: Didn't you guys put cocaine in the peach jam you made last year, but then cooking it took all the bad stuff out?
Me: NO! That was chocolate liqueur, alcohol. We are not cocaine people.
Lucas: Oh, yeah, alcohol. [laughs]
Me: Caffeine isn't so bad if you don't have too much of it.
Lucas: The book said kids shouldn't drink coffee.
Me: No, you shouldn't. It will stunt your growth. I don't have to worry about that. My growth was stunted a long time ago.
Lucas: Yeah, you're short.
Me: I have to get ready for work.

Most notable about this conversation is my use of the phrase "It will stunt your growth" in a completely unironic way. As if that particular warning ever stopped anyone in my generation from doing anything. The part of the conversation I found most disturbing was Lucas's use of the words "inhalants" and "marijuana." I know he's at exactly the right age to teach kids about this stuff, but ACK. I didn't realize it was happening.

Now I have to have an extra cup of coffee.

Posted by adrienne at 09:05 AM | Comments (19)

June 06, 2009

"Bicycle! Bicycle!"

Today, I decided to go out for a bike ride. Through the year, I spend a lot of time riding fake bikes. I like spinning class at the Y because it burns a lot of calories, and I like the plain old exercise bikes out on the floor because I can ride them and read. But riding real bikes out in the world is so much better than riding fake bikes at the Y. Riding my bike is one of the few things in my life that makes me feel like I am absolutely entitled to act like a 10-year-old. I like to cut through parking lots and see how fast I can hit speed bumps and coast down hills with my feet kicked out to the sides. This spring, Tammy (without whom I wouldn't even have a bike) ensured that the Easter Bunny brought me a bell with yellow flowers for my bike, so now I can add randomly ringing my bike bell to my usual shenanigans, which I do.

I love summer.

Posted by adrienne at 04:58 PM | Comments (11)

May 31, 2009

Dill and Stuff

One advantage of neglecting my gardens late in the year last year is that I suddenly find myself with a quite unexpected bumper crop of dill. Turns out if you let dill go to seed and ignore it, it will sprout up all over the place the next spring, even the sidewalk cracks. Since the neighbor's lilacs went south, dill is the first thing I smell when I walk out the door every morning.

Currently, my favorite thing to do with dill is to make cucumber salad with a yogurt dill dressing, but it's also quite nice on roasted potatoes or in mashed potatoes, with lots of butter. Mmmmm.

Speaking of butter, the thing is that I've had this cold. Everyone KNOWS you have to feed a cold, and it was only about fifty degrees here today, which made a cold cucumber salad sound a little eh. So I decided to make a nice, big, melty batch of homemade macaroni and cheese. I even had some breadcrumbs in the freezer, which I whipped up with some butter (because the five tablespoons I'd used in the Bechamel sauce really just wasn't enough) and spread all over the top before I put the whole cheesy, yummy mess in the oven. Yes, it had everything good: butter, cheese, and lots of white flour. I ate three helpings.

Tomorrow, it's back to the cucumbers and dill, and probably the gym.

Posted by adrienne at 08:22 PM | Comments (12)

May 27, 2009

Library Club in the Newspaper

Read it here.

I would like to point out that while there is an *entire paragraph* devoted to what Jason was wearing, there is no mention of what *I* was wearing, even though my outfit included my very favorite black clogs with the silver flowers on them. Other than that, though, it's a great article and an accurate representation of what we do in Library Club.

Posted by adrienne at 04:30 PM | Comments (13)

May 26, 2009

Max and His Gats

So my younger godson, Max, is three now. In many ways, Max is scary-smart, but at this point in his life, he's not doing much with enunciation. The thing is that Max would much rather put his time into riding his bike and taking apart the remote control. If he wasn't so short, I'd be worried about him taking off in the car one day. He's that kind of kid.

Anyway, due to Max's busy schedule, he's developed a number of speech habits that are pretty funny. My current favorite is "gat," which is what he calls cats. So the other day he came running into my house exclaiming, "Adren, 'ere are your GATS?" He also had fun playing with the gat toys and wondering where the gat food was.

Also, when he says "train tracks," it still kind of sounds like "brain box." I don't know what a brain box is, but I think I want one.

Posted by adrienne at 07:21 AM | Comments (6)

May 25, 2009

"I Saw Something Nasty in the Woodshed"

When I bought my house eight years ago, the shed was listed "as is." That's because it was starting to rot.

And it's still out back there, rotting away.

Sadly, I have to do something about it, and the something I've decided to do is take it down. The first step, however, is cleaning it out. I don't have much in the shed anymore, partly because I'm afraid to go in there as it has become a bit of a wildlife refuge with a family of birds and a little bitty squirrel and also, I suspect, bugs. These bugs are not cute little ladybugs, either. They are the kinds of bugs that live in dark, dank places that no one wants to go.

Anyway, two of the biggest things in the shed are these two bikes that have just been sitting doing nothing for years now, but I've found someone who would like to take them. I am meeting this person tomorrow, in fact, after assuring her that of course I could fit those bikes in my car.

I was forgetting how many points I lost on the spatial relations portion of my SATs.

So today was moving along and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I have to put the bikes in my car."

The bikes were in the back of the shed. I had to go there not once. But twice. The first time, I had to jump up and down in the open doorway for a while to get ready to RUN, and then once I had the bike back out in the open air, I dropped it and shuddered for a while. I repeated this process for the second bike.

Then I had to try to get the bikes in my car. My Honda Civic. After spending fifteen minutes figuring out how to fold down the back seat, I realized I had a problem. What a smart girl would have done at this point is call Tammy and beg for help in the form of her bringing over her truck, but no. It seems like I have to ask for help with so many things. I decided I was going to figure this out myself. Thus began the forty-five minute adventure of putting two bikes in my car. I got grease all over myself and the car, and I had to take one of the wheels off one of the bikes, but, eventually, they were both in there and I was able to shut all the doors and the trunk. I admired my accomplishment for a bit, and then I went to get a paper towel to wipe off my sticky hands-hands that were sticky, I realized, with blood, on account of the way I somehow managed to scrape all the skin off the side of one knuckle.

Now here I am. I still have some dirt caked under my fingernails and my knuckle is all bandaged up with my favorite Peanuts band-aids. I am one step closer to getting rid of the shed. And I have no idea how I am getting those bikes out of my car tomorrow. I believe I will be begging for help.

Posted by adrienne at 06:04 PM | Comments (15)

May 13, 2009

Remember to Smile

Today I finally watched one of the two storytimes we taped this past November to air on the public access station in Webster and which have been running every Saturday morning at 9:30 for months now. I've had quite a number of people tell me how much they've enjoyed the storytimes-sometimes they tell me they've taped them or they say to their children, "Look! It's Miss A! Remember her from the TV?"

I've found this somewhat disconcerting given that I hadn't seen either of the storytimes myself and generally prefer not to think about them. I seldom consent to be taped for anything, and when I encounter one of the few recordings of myself that are out there, I react like I'm watching a really scary movie. I cover my eyes, plug my ears, and maybe run from the room. I think what made me sit and watch today was the fact that I couldn't stand not knowing what other people were seeing.

It wasn't nearly as horrifying as I expected.

I expected to be preoccupied with my voice or how I looked or if I did something people might make fun of, but what captured my attention was how darned cheerful I was. I seemed friendly and relaxed and like I was having a fantastic time-which I was if by "having a fantastic time" you mean "barely suppressing the stress-induced nausea." The entire time we were taping, I kept a loop of "Remember to smile. Remember to smile. Remember to smile." running in the back of my mind. I wouldn't have thought smiles I had to tell myself to make could look so genuine.

Far from horrifying me, watching the recording was kind of encouraging. I liked the way I came across. I realized, too, that I can fool people. I remember when we taped thinking that I did an okay job but that probably my nervousness was going to be glaringly obvious, but it wasn't. I'm not sure this makes me all that much less nervous at the thought of watching the storytime I still haven't seen or the thought of the two storytimes we'll be taping to add to the rotation in a couple weeks. But I think it will be easier to remember to smile. It will at least seem worth the effort.

Posted by adrienne at 09:00 PM | Comments (6)

May 08, 2009

Poetrylike Friday: MC Lars at the Lilac Festival TONIGHT!

"Hey, Ishmael, can I call you annoying?"

Posted by adrienne at 07:17 AM | Comments (3)

April 30, 2009

Spring Cleaning, the Saga Continues

There are two things that spark my energy to clean like nothing else-one is seeing an ant in the house, and the other is seeing a big spider in the house.

In the last week, I've seen both.

I am currently concentrating my cleaning efforts on dark spaces where I think big spiders might hide, which involves a lot of vacuuming behind things and under things. Mostly, I'm finding a lot of cat toys. I have visions of moving and cleaning behind the stove and refrigerator, which satisfies my need to clean out dark spaces while also helping to ensure that I am denying the ants any reason to come in. Of course, I'm also defying logic, as the one ant I've seen was wandering around in the upstairs bathroom.

If I go, say, a week without seeing an ant or big spider, I'm sure I will forget all about this cleaning and go back to my previously scheduled disinterest in what's going on behind the refrigerator, especially given that I do not have enough metachlorians to even consider moving the refrigerator by myself.

Posted by adrienne at 06:55 AM | Comments (4)

April 28, 2009

Spring Cleaning, the Prequel

This past weekend, I started one of my favorite rituals of spring, cleaning the windows. I have approximately five million windows in my house. When you are someone who needs a lot of light and are looking at houses, this seems like a fine selling point, but, later, when you're washing the windows, it seems less so. The cats and I can't give up the sunshine and fresh air, though, and washing the windows has always seemed like one of the best ways to let the sun know I appreciate its return in the spring.

Of course, because my windows are legion, I either need to devote an entire day to washing them or parts of several days. This year, I'm devoting parts of several days. So far, I've done all the windows on the main floor and a couple on the bottom floor. Four more windows on the bottom floor, six more upstairs, and I'm done.

You can wash your windows much more quickly if you do a bad job, but since this is something it only makes sense to do about once a year, you might as well do it right, and washing windows starts with a vacuum cleaner. I use the brush attachment to vacuum the screens as well as the window sills, sashes, jams, and etc. Then I use an all-purpose cleaner and LOTS of cloths to clean all the non-glass parts of the window, especially the sill, which, if you're like me and clean the windows once a year, is probably filthy.

Now that everything AROUND the window is clean, you can focus on the glass. My favorite glass cleaner is the one I learned about in one of my favorite books, Green Up Your Cleanup by Jill Potvin Schoff. It's one part water to one part distilled white vinegar with some drops of essential oil so it smells prettier. I use lavender oil with the idea that it might help calm me down if I see something nasty in the window jams. Anyway, every cleaning guide worth anything that I've ever read recommends spraying or sponging the cleaner onto the window (I used to sponge, but now I spray-Heloise is the one who got me started on the bucket, but even she's come around to the spray bottle) and then using a squeegee to wipe it off. If you can make the squeegee work for you, rock on. I seem to be squeegee-impaired and can only get good results with newspaper.

Which reminds me, DO NOT USE PAPER TOWELS TO WASH YOUR WINDOWS. It's expensive, wasteful, unnecessary, and leaves a bunch of little paper blots all over the place. Newspaper works just fine, although I recommend wearing some gloves when you're using it, otherwise you will have newsprint all around your fingernails for a couple days. If you don't mind that, though, use your bare hands. You aren't using any chemicals that are going to hurt you, after all.

When you're done with the windows, maybe you can find a little energy to tackle the closets. Or maybe you'll just want to sit and stare at your nice, clean windows with a lemonade or a beer and something you cooked on the grill. There's a right choice there and a wrong one, but I'll let you be the final judge.

Book mentioned:
Schoff, Jill Potvin. Green Up Your Cleanup. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Creative Homeowner, 2008. (SPIRAL: 9781580113953)

Posted by adrienne at 09:49 AM | Comments (8)

April 27, 2009

Spring Cleaning

I had this kick-ass day at work today where I cleaned off the floor in my office. This is saying something: a large factor in my decision to do something about the floor was my increasing concern that someone was going to seriously injure themselves in there when they were delivering me a memo or whatever.

All high on success, my big plan for the evening was to enjoy the tail end of yet another beautiful summerlike day by mowing the lawn.

So I get home and change and head out to the garage. The mower was kind of buried, so I unburied it. The handle was kind of unscrewed, so I screwed it back in. I was feeling really darned competent. Anyway, I saw the gas tank was empty, and when I went to fill it I found that the gas can was empty, too. So I closed up the garage and went to the gas station, got some gas, and came back home.

That's when I put the gas in the tank and it poured all over the floor of my garage, on account of the way the gas line was disconnected.

To review, I spent an hour-and-a-half attempting to mow my lawn, but all I really managed to do is absorb the smell of gas. My cats won't even stay in the same room with me. When I came in from the garage, Ella kind of pointedly smelled the air and then went and hid under the couch downstairs.

I think I'll just go ahead and spend of the rest of the evening focusing on tasks I am confident in my ability to accomplish, namely reading a book, watching 30 Rock, and then going to bed.

Posted by adrienne at 07:29 PM | Comments (6)

April 26, 2009

You Know When You've Had Just a Little Too Much Sun and You've Been Running Around and You're Tired?

Isn't that the best?

Posted by adrienne at 07:06 PM | Comments (6)

April 21, 2009

"But Here on Earth There'd Be No Life Without the Light It Gives"

Unlike, it seems, 99.9% of the population of the United States, I like to sleep with the curtains in my bedroom open. I don't know why anyone does anything different. I have my bed situated so that if it's a sunny day, the sun wakes me up in the morning, because after a long winter, if we're going to have a sunny day, I want to be the first to know about it. Today, for instance, they were forecasting the same rainy cold day we had yesterday, but right now it's blue skies and sun, sun, sun as far as I can see. It's got to be a good day, right?

Posted by adrienne at 07:57 AM | Comments (7)

April 15, 2009

Why After a Year-and-a-Half I Have Decided I ♥ My Allergy Shots, or My Transformation into ROACH GIRL is Complete

So a year-and-a-half ago, I started weekly allergy shots. I didn’t write about them much once they got going because they were uniformly depressing. I got one shot in each arm every week, and, invariably, one of my arms would swell up and be sore for two days, and it was really no fun. As a bonus, I didn’t even notice my allergies getting better. My allergist and I agreed that our goals with these shots were twofold: to get me off one of my allergy medicines and to improve my general quality of life. At my one-year checkup, I was still on two allergy medications and noticing no difference in anything.

In sharp contrast, once my allergist got over the disappointment that my cats hadn’t died since I’d last seen him (“How are those cats, Adrienne? Still in good health? Oh, too bad.” As if I wouldn’t get a new cat, anyway, Dr. Q. Bah.), he was thrilled with my progress. When you’re asthmatic, doctors give you something called a pulmonary function test every single chance they get. It basically measures how well you breathe. I have years’ worth of them on record, and I was forever flunking them. Perhaps you’ve been led to believe that breathing is an autonomic function, but I can tell you from a great deal of experience that when you flunk one of these tests, the doctors and nurses all cluck their tongues and make you do it again, encouraging you to TRY HARDER, as if you are breathing poorly on purpose. Anyway, at that one-year visit, I, for the very first time, passed my pulmonary function test.

Dr. Q was so pleased about this development that he decided to bump me down to getting a shot every two weeks instead of every week. I was skeptical about how well this was going to work out for me allergy-wise, but I was really okay with the prospect of having to deal with my arm swelling up once every two weeks instead of once a week, so I agreed to this plan. Dr. Q must not have been as confident as he sounded, though, because he decided he needed to see me again in four months.

Well, four months was in January. My pulmonary function test was again improved, and something else odd had happened. When I was on my trip to California in January, I didn’t have to take Benadryl even once. You see, even though I have been on two allergy medications on a daily basis for years, when I travel, I’ve always needed to take a third—Benadryl—to get through sleeping in hotels. Dr. Q says this is partly because of my dust allergy but way more due to my roach allergy (which is gross). Dr. Q’s a serious sort, but he was practically bouncing up and down at this news, and he decided to move me to once-every-three-weeks shots. I found myself once again skeptical but also unwilling to argue the counterpoint.

Since then, I’ve decided that Dr. Q is freaking brilliant. A few weeks ago, I tried going off my second medication (again), and I’ve been fine—in early spring, one of the most difficult times of year for almost anyone with allergies. What’s more, yesterday I went to visit my eye doctor, and he said the undersides of my eyelids (an area that gets red and blotchy-looking pretty quick if you have any kind of allergy thing going on) looked better than he’d ever seen them, “almost like you don’t have allergies. Are you on a new medication?”

SCORE!

This is some kind of lesson in the value of tenacity or maybe listening to health professionals or whatever. All I really care about is the fact that I haven’t had to use my inhaler in a month. Rock on, medical science!

Posted by adrienne at 09:48 AM | Comments (7)

April 13, 2009

So Much for Being Brave

I was a regular walker in my neighborhood for at least a year and a half before I moved into it. Before, I lived in a townhouse in an adjacent neighborhood and would walk here a lot because I liked the winding streets and tall trees. My late husband and I found this house when we were out on an early spring walk, in fact, and I’ve been living here ever since.

Now, of course, it’s early spring and the snow has melted and I am out walking again. One of the nice things about walking around your neighborhood is that you get to know your neighbors, at least by sight. One of my favorite neighbors has always been a guy who lives around the corner. He’s operating some kind of business out of his garage, and he has always had a couple dogs. One day years ago, I was walking by when he was out with the pooper scooper cleaning up the front yard, and he looked up at me and said, “Every day, it’s the same old shit.”

That’s when I decided I really liked him.

That’s also when I got to know his dogs. Dogs make me nervous. I got bit by one when I was a preschooler, and it was kind of a big brouhaha, and I think I’ve just never gotten over it. I don’t mind dogs I know, though, and his dogs were aging when I first met them. They’d bark at me, but I learned he had invisible fencing and that all they really wanted me to do was walk up to the fence line and pet them, which I did.

Last year, the dogs were gone. They were old, and I was sure they died, but I never really talked to my neighbor about it. He wasn’t outside as much.

This year, I was glad to see that he has two new dogs. Of course, by “glad” I mean, “happy for him but also slightly terrified.” These dogs are big and young and exuberant. They start barking when I’m still three houses away.

Now here’s the thing. I haven’t yet seen my neighbor when I’m walking by and the dogs are out, so the dogs and I have not been formally introduced. I know in my head that they MUST have invisible fencing because they aren’t on leashes and we have leash laws and the other dogs had invisible fencing besides, but I cannot make myself walk by those dogs on their side of the road. Yesterday I was out, and they were out by themselves barking like maniacs again. I tried to tell myself that they have the fence. I tried to tell myself to just keep walking by. But I had to cross the street. I don’t even know why crossing the street makes me feel safer, but it does.

In the ten years I’ve been walking around this neighborhood, my husband’s cancer relapsed, we went through a few years of treatment, he died in my living room, I figured out how to keep my house, I wrote a book, I bought a car. I conquered my fear of heights so I could take care of the gutters. I traveled all over the United States. I’ve climbed mountains (small ones, but still). I’ve driven in LA. I’ve talked in front of rooms full of people I don’t know. What defeats me? My neighbor’s dogs. Who I know darned well can’t hurt me.

Sorry, Eleanor. I’ll keep working on it.

Posted by adrienne at 07:53 AM | Comments (15)

April 07, 2009

Cinnamon Toast

Lucas subsists on a diet mostly comprised of the few things I avoid—hot dogs, bologna, chicken nuggets, and snack foods that come in bags. I have a hard time with this, partly because I’m concerned about what a diet like this is going to mean for his health and well-being in the long term, but mostly because I just don’t understand not eating a wide variety of foods. It’s a personality thing. Lucas is not by nature a risk-taker. He seems to think that if he tries a new food and doesn’t like it, the world will end. He also seems to believe that he is biologically incapable of eating a food he doesn’t love entirely, which leads to these spectacularly dramatic scenes of gagging when his mother insists he try at least one bite of whatever she’s made for dinner.

Lucky for me, I get Lucas for the one meal a day he really seems to love, breakfast. I love breakfast, too, so we have all manner of wonderful things—yogurt-and-fruit smoothies, pancakes, muffins, breads, grapefruit. I make all the pancakes and breads, so I pack them with good things, like whole wheat flour and fruit. One of Lucas’s specially favorite breakfasts is cinnamon toast, which, in case you are some sad person who doesn’t know, is toast with butter and cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. A couple months ago, Lucas had a rare moment of culinary daring and suggested that we try topping our cinnamon toast with some of the peach jam Tammy and I put up in the fall. This was such a good idea, and now it’s how we always eat our cinnamon toast. Just when I thought cinnamon toast could not get any better, when Lucas asked for cinnamon toast this morning, I realized that I only had apple walnut bread in the house. I asked him if he wanted to try it, and he said yes, and boy I’m glad he did, because toasted apple walnut bread topped with butter and cinnamon (you can really skip the sugar here) and peach jam is freaking awesome. Highly recommended.

Posted by adrienne at 09:30 AM | Comments (15)

March 22, 2009

Benny Actively Engaged

My plot to keep Benny from waking me up at night is working!

At first when I started feeding the birds again, I was disappointed because so few were coming to eat. After about two weeks, though, I started seeing more traffic, and this morning when I looked over Benny's shoulder to see what he was seeing, I saw two blue jays, a cardinal, a bunch of chickadees, a squirrel, and a rabbit. I've been frightening rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks pretty much every day when I go to refill the feeder. (They aren't getting into the feeder, by the way, since a few years ago, I invested in a feeder that foils them, but they do like to eat the seeds the birds drop, which is fine with me.) Benny is thrilled with all this activity. He has two favorite windows for watching everything that's going on. Occasionally, he goes into Wild Kitty mode and runs between them like he's chasing something.

Of course, if I see Benny sleeping during the day, I'm still waking him up and trying to get him to play. My father-in-law helps with this when he stops by, too.

The side benefit here is that my older cat, Ella, is also enjoying the activity in the yard. She's never been prone to waking me up at night, but she does sleep too much, so this is good.

And, okay, I also like watching the birds out the window. Why did I ever stop feeding them?

Posted by adrienne at 10:01 AM | Comments (11)

March 17, 2009

“Does Not Happen”

“Reality so often fails when it comes to small, satisfying details, she thought.”
- Nation by Terry Pratchett

Lately, I’ve been reading the much-discussed-and-awarded Nation by Terry Pratchett. I’ve never met a Pratchett novel I didn’t enjoy, but this one has grown particularly dear to me. It’s the story of Mau, the only person left alive in his community when a tidal wave tears through the island chain he and his people call home. As Mau tries to cope with the devastation and then reluctantly takes on a leadership role when survivors from other communities start congregating on his island, he decides that no one else is going to die. He develops a mantra: “does not happen.” He mutters this mantra to himself over and over whenever he feels he has to defy the god of death, a god he’s decided isn’t so all-powerful after all. The opposite of “does not happen,” of course, is what does, and that is what Mau is really clinging to. In the face of despair, some people give up. Some, like Mau, take comfort in the notion that while they clearly can’t control everything, they can control some things—and darn it, that’s what they’re going to do.

(It isn’t a leap to see the parallel to a novelist who decides to keep writing in the face of a devastating degenerative disease, is it? Talk about being brave.)

I bring this up because I bought a dishwasher today. Maybe this is a small thing in your world, but, in mine, this is the first major appliance I’ve bought in a decade. It won’t be delivered until next week, but I felt so good just walking out of Sears with my receipt. When my late husband was first ill, I told myself everything would work out. When it became clear to me that everything was NOT going to work out, I started singing myself a new song, a version of “does not happen” that I like to call “I’ll figure it out.” This has been especially true of my house, which is a place I love but also something a little out of my league. I’ve panicked a lot through the years; I’ve had days where I thought I should just sell it and move into an apartment. But what I keep telling myself is that if I keep working hard and moving forward, I’ll figure it out. The dishwasher in this house sucked the day we moved in here (eight years ago now?). Replacing it myself with money I earned feels like hope. It feels like a step in the right direction. Maybe it will all be okay after all.

If not? I’ll figure it out. That’s what happens.

Books mentioned:
Pratchett, Terry. Nation. NY: HarperCollins, 2008. (LIB: 9780061433023, HC: 9780061433016)

Posted by adrienne at 09:55 PM | Comments (12)

March 15, 2009

Remember Back When He Used to Be Small?

He's starting to look like a teenager with those headphones on all the time.

Posted by adrienne at 07:41 PM | Comments (8)

March 05, 2009

Another Tour of California

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I get on the plane tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by adrienne at 09:35 PM | Comments (8)

February 27, 2009

“Although You Can’t See It, You Know They Are Smiling,” or Why You May Not Want to Forget to Feed the Birds

I haven’t been blogging every day for quite some time now, but this last week or so, I’ve really let things slip. I blame sleep deprivation. My younger cat, Benny, has taken to waking me up every couple hours at night to ask me to pet him or turn on a water faucet or feed him. My theory is that he’s experiencing the same blahs the humans get around these parts in February. The days are somewhat relentlessly snowy and cold and dark, and Benny’s favorite recreational activity—aside from checking out his forts, which he does quite religiously at least twice a day—is watching what’s going on in the Not House. Benny doesn’t want to go into the Not House, but he thinks it’s fun to watch the birds and squirrels and whatever else is running around out there. Unfortunately, in February there isn’t a whole lot going on animal-wise in the Not House, especially when the resident human neglects to put birdseed in the feeders for a few months.

Basically, I think Benny’s bored.

I’ve taken several steps to try to combat The Sleeping Problem:

Step #1: I used to give Benny two scoops of food in the morning and two at night. Now I give him ONE in the morning and THREE at night. Of course, I have to *pretend* to give him two scoops in the morning, but what I really give him is two half-scoops. Anyway, with three scoops of food at night, he’s more full and less likely to crab at me about that particular issue.

Step #2: I’ve also been making an extra effort to make sure he spends time playing volleymouse every day. If you’ve never played volleymouse, this is when you throw a toy mouse high in the air, and the cat spikes it down to the ground. Benny is a good jumper, and he loves this game. He loves it so much that sometimes after he spikes the mouse, he picks it up in his mouth and brings it to me to throw again, which is really more like fetch, but I wouldn’t mention that to Benny if I were you.

Step #3: When I see Benny sleeping during the day, I wake him up. SEE HOW IT FEELS, BENNY? SEE??? IT’S NO FUN WHEN SOMEONE DOES IT TO YOU, IS IT???

*ahem*

Step #4: I’m filling the bird feeders every day again.

Last night, Benny only woke me up once, which is reasonable. I am not sure I’ve ever slept eight hours without waking up at least once on my own. We’ll see how tonight goes.

Posted by adrienne at 10:20 PM | Comments (10)

February 19, 2009

You. Me. Dark Side. Now.

Posted by adrienne at 10:19 AM | Comments (10)

February 04, 2009

Anniversaries and Surprises

This past weekend, I spent an evening with friends, having dinner and playing games. I also got to spend some time with my friends’ kids, who I don’t see nearly enough. They are precious to me for a lot of reasons, one of which is because their daughter, Kate, was born not quite two weeks before my husband died, a little spot of happiness in a dark time.

Today, Kate is four and a half, energetic and bright. She was upstairs when I got there on Saturday, and she bopped down and up the stairs a few times before she settled on down and presented me with a card. An index card, to be exact, decorated with Christmas stickers. While I was exclaiming over the different stickers the way I do when children give me this sort of thing, Kate sidled over to her mother and whispered in her ear.

I gave her mother the eyebrow what.

“She says she wrote you a message on the back.”

So I flipped the card and, indeed, there were lines, scrawls that reminded me of the very best writing Max knew in Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells.

“Will you read it for me?” I asked Kate.

“I can’t,” said Kate, one hand in front of her mouth. “It’s a surprise.”

Hanging out with this child who is as old as my grief, it’s hard not to feel like Kate’s done a little more with her time than I have. She’s learned to walk and talk and write her name and give guests nice gifts when they come to her house. She beat me at BINGO. She’s also arguably better at the Disney trivia game than I am. Most of the time, I feel like I’m just starting to get the hang of daily life, simple stuff, like getting up in the morning. That’s the thing about kids, though, one of the reasons I work with them—they are a constant reminder of everything that’s possible in this world. And so I’m keeping that index card pinned up next to my desk now, scrawl side out.

So I don’t forget.

Posted by adrienne at 10:40 PM | Comments (8)

January 30, 2009

The Book as Meditation

My recent trip to California was probably the best trip I’ve ever taken in my life. Everything went perfectly: I was so independent and competent, I saw amazing and interesting things, and I got to spend time with two of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

Truly, though, I have got to be done with all this traveling soon.

I notice that since I’ve gotten back from California, I seem to lapse into ennui every time I get off the couch. And what have I been doing on that couch? Reading. Reading and reading and reading. And reading. I haven’t even been writing. All I want to do is read.

At least part of what keeps me on the couch is the fact that the books have been so interesting. A smattering:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
People have been telling me to read this for months. Part of me wishes I’d gotten to it sooner, and part of me wishes I’d waited longer so I wouldn’t have to wait so long until part two of this planned trilogy is released in September. Collins has given us a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel of the highest caliber, using a brand-new world to talk about all the problems in the one we currently inhabit. And, whatever, the website’s kind of awesome.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (advance reader’s copy)
This is not your average teen problem novel about eating disorders. No, what Anderson has given us is intense and disturbing—and I couldn’t put it down, although I debated not finishing it more than once. That would, of course, have involved leaving the couch, though, so it really wasn’t much of an option.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
I have long loved this movie, so I’m kind of surprised how long it took me to get around to reading the book. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh so much that I got to the end and read it through again.

The New York Times Easy Crossword Puzzles, Volume 7, edited by Will Shortz
I was complaining about this book of crossword puzzles to someone recently, and he was all like, “What’s the difference? A crossword puzzle’s a crossword puzzle.” I just shook my head and pitied him. I have to acknowledge that the Monday puzzles are kind of brain candy for me at this point, but every time I think that one kicks my butt. Besides, I like Mondays. My favorite in this collection is one that plays around anagramming “post.” I’d tell you the puzzle’s title, but I don’t know what it is on account of this volume doesn’t include any of the puzzles’ titles, which I find irritating. I mean, when did that become optional?

Posted by adrienne at 08:07 PM | Comments (19)

January 10, 2009

These Aren’t the Exact Routes I’ll Be Taking, But This Does Indicate Every Place I’ll Be Stopping Between Today and Next Thursday

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Posted by adrienne at 10:12 AM | Comments (6)

January 09, 2009

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

No, one of these things is not the same.

Posted by adrienne at 05:41 PM | Comments (4)

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 (18)

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 (12)

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 Buffalo and All I Got Were a Bunch of Lousy Dents in My Brand-New Car

You know, I’ve always stuck up for Buffalo. They get some snow, yes, and they killed a president. They have a bit of a problem with money. Being a city is HARD, though, and Buffalo has a lot of cool things like that fun little food place in their central library and the Albright-Knox and a nice theatre district and the Allentown Arts Festival. If not for Buffalo, we’d all be eating sweet-and-sour chicken wings. We wouldn’t have sponge candy from Fowler’s. So every once in a great while they need to call in the National Guard to deal with the snow. So what? They don’t get earthquakes. Much.

I had the great good fortune to go to Buffalo yesterday to celebrate Jen being sworn into the NYS Bar. WOO, JEN! I can tell you from watching Jen work hard that getting to the point of being sworn into the Bar is no freaking joke. It’s also had her home twice in the last several weeks, so I’m a fan of this particular event on many levels.

Hail, though? Not so much.

We were having drinks with friends at Shango when the second hail storm started. Outside, it was that weird it’s-not-quite-dark-but-not-quite-light where there’s still light in the sky but the streetlights are on, and the hail fell for a few good minutes. I caught a small piece in my hand; some of the larger pieces were about the size of a jawbreaker. I was fully expecting the storm to be followed by a plague of locusts or perhaps a zombie uprising that would force us to become a rag-tag band of survivors and lock ourselves up in the bar to wait out our troubles, just like Shaun of the Dead. I think between Jim and I, we’ve probably seen most of the zombie films currently available on DVD. We would have had the situation covered. It didn’t come to that, though. We had another round, waited out the storm, and then went home in our freshly dimpled cars. Maybe next time. You never know with Buffalo.

Posted by adrienne at 10:30 PM | Comments (8)

June 14, 2008

Why Going to the Ocean is Better than Going to Work

That one’s pretty much self-explanatory. I just wanted to rub it in. It was great to spend some time yesterday sitting in the sun, breathing all that good air, listening to the waves, reading, and swimming. Plus, when I was swimming, nothing tried to eat me. I also didn’t drown. That qualifies as a Good Day.

I’ve been having other adventures. It’s fun here in Lake Worth.

Posted by adrienne at 08:45 AM | Comments (4)

June 09, 2008

“The Best Lack All Conviction”

Oh, my, did I fall down on the 48 Hour Book Challenge. There’s always next year. In the meantime, you should check out the winners over at MotherReader’s site. WOO to them, and to MotherReader for putting this together. Every year, it gets bigger and cooler.

Posted by adrienne at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2008

48 Hour Book Challenge—First Post, Late

Okay, so I started my 48 hours yesterday morning at 7:00am. At that time, I was three essays into the new David Sedaris book, which I had to finish before I could move on to a new book. I had some other things going on, but I have finished the Sedaris, and now I’m moving on to The Adoration of Jenna Fox. I have some other things I know I have to do today, but I’m mostly hoping that I manage to beat the two books I managed to read last year. If I make three books, huzzah. Hope to report again soon….

Posted by adrienne at 12:41 PM | Comments (3)

May 26, 2008

Memorial Day Mad Lib, a Group Effort Faithfully Compiled by Lucas

“A Concert Review”
-from Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Libs

Throughout last night’s glass, the cheering for the performance of Pearl Banana was so deafening, you had to hold your pianos over your walls. Many well-known glasses are calling it the fuzzy concert of the decade. For their opening number, the band played their hit song, “Gobbledygook,” followed by their soft rendition of “I Can’t Get No Sleepy.” Then, as a tribute to the Beatles, they played several loogeys from the hit album, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Uvulas. Unfortunately, throughout the performance, lead singer Paige moved about the stage like a caged mongoose, singing at the top of her baskets, giving this critic a terrible butt ache. However, the concert ended with the audience standing on their sandals and applauding heartily, forcing the group to come back for three trees before the car finally came down.

Posted by adrienne at 08:39 PM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2008

Adrienne and Tammy Go to the Prom

So Tammy talked me into going with her to chaperone her school’s prom. This prom had many things my own high school prom did not. Numero uno, Tammy:

(She was all like, “Why are you taking a picture of me getting out of the car?” And I was all like, “Tammy, it’s your FIRST PROM.”)

Because the prom was at Artisan Works, there was also all kinds of cool stuff all over the building, such as this swell 50s-esque kitchen:

(Whenever I’m trying to be good, I fold my hands. In this case, I was trying to be a Good Example, which isn’t nearly as easy as it looks.)

And a fainting couch:

And this sculpture of a mannequin with an egg on its boob:

(This sculpture REALLY BOTHERED Tammy, so I had to take her picture with it.)

And this cool stained glass thingy:

Of course, what I was most envious of was the tray of magically-reappearing cupcakes:

Mmmmm.

After a while, though, I’d seen all the girls’ pretty dresses, and I was full and cold and tired and completely ready to go home. I didn’t go to bed until sunrise when I went to my own prom. I’ll be in bed before midnight tonight, as well I should be.

Posted by adrienne at 10:45 PM | Comments (11)

May 16, 2008

Quotable Friday

“I’m not much interested in moons—ours, Jupiter’s, whoever’s. Going to Mars doesn’t excite me. In fact, I’m pretty lukewarm about the whole solar system. For me, the farther away, the better. Stars. Galaxies. Quasars. That’s what makes me tingle.”
-Will in Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli (from the ARC)

Posted by adrienne at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2008

Sometimes We All Have to Eat Our Words

Seriously. That is cool.

Posted by adrienne at 10:27 PM | Comments (9)

May 13, 2008

I’m Not Sure I’d Ever Clean Any of the Floors in My House if My Cat Didn’t Periodically Throw Up on Them

Tonight I made a trellis with netting and stakes for some of my bean plants. This involved the use of two tools—a hammer and a staple gun. I am not sure that I have ever even held a staple gun before today, and it look me a while to figure out how to use it. *I* am the reason the company etched “EXIT” into the metal with a big arrow pointing to where the staples come out, because for a while I was afraid to pick up the staple gun, as I wasn’t at all sure that I wouldn’t grab it in the exact spot where the staples come out and wind up impaling my hand.

The second problem was that it took me a while to figure out that there weren’t any staples in the staple gun. *I* am the reason the first item on the manual’s troubleshooting page suggests checking to make sure that the staple gun is loaded.

Don’t even get me started on loading the staple gun. I managed it after, like, ten minutes, when I consulted the manual. Again.

I am not a builder. The trellis is crooked, and I have grave concerns about what might become of it if we were to have a sudden windstorm. Still, I managed it, and I don’t want to say this too loudly, but it was kind of fun.

I’ve also grown kind of fond of the staple gun. I shouted the first time I made a staple come out of it, but then, I laughed.

Posted by adrienne at 09:46 PM | Comments (10)

May 11, 2008

“Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!”

In the past, I’ve grown tomatoes and cucumbers and a few herbs in my yard, but this year I’m trying to go a little bigger with the produce. I figure I can mow the lawn or take care of gardens, and, while I don’t particularly mind mowing the lawn, in the end, the gardens are more rewarding, as they leave me with all kinds of good food to eat.

Check out my seedlings:

Aren’t they sweet? I’m so proud of them.

I’m also kind of proud of this little baby bunny that is living in my yard this year:

Sorry for the quality of the photo. I had to take it through the window, as the little baby bunny doesn’t find me nearly as enchanting as I find it. Of course, I’m also kind of worried about my little baby veggies.

So is my neighbor.

My neighbor has had that trap up for, oh, I’d say five years now. As far as I know, he’s never caught any of the many rabbits that have lived around our yards. (Note the little tree starting to grow inside. At one time, my neighbor thought there was ONE rabbit. Tee hee, but I wasn’t going to be the one to enlighten him on that.) The little baby bunny has wisely built his den on the other side of the house.

I’m hoping the little baby bunny and I can find some middle ground, where he gets to eat a little and I get to eat a little. It’s hard to strike a bargain when he runs away every time I walk outside, though. I’ll keep you posted.

[Editor’s Note: Whenever I use quotes in my blog titles, I am referencing/quoting something, which I usually like to leave unstated. You people know how to Google. Anyway, just now, I feel compelled to mention that I borrowed the title of this entry from the title of a picture book by Candace Fleming and illustrated by G. Brian Karas that is a must-read for any gardener, particularly suburban gardeners.]

Posted by adrienne at 10:49 AM | Comments (9)

May 09, 2008

Things I Used to Believe About Bruschetta that I No Longer Believe

I used to be kind of intimidated about the idea of making bruschetta, but then I made some and now I’m kind of addicted to it. There’s something about bruschetta that’s very satisfying. It’s crispy, there are vegetables cooked just right on it, and it involves the deliriously wonderful combination of olive oil and garlic. According to Mr. Bittman (who I love) in How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food (which I love), “bruschetta is grilled (or broiled, or even toasted) bread, rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil. There are two requirements: Good coarse, crusty bread… and good olive oil.”

Hm.

Having good olive oil in the house is a basic requirement for getting out of bed, and, in my mind, at least, a drizzle of olive oil is what lets bruschetta have a cool Italian name instead of being called an open-faced sandwich (which is what bruschetta *is*, of course, but “open-faced sandwich” doesn’t sound nearly so exotic). I take exception with the crusty bread, though. I know Mr. Bittman is suggesting that we use Italian bread or a nice baguette, and, presentation-wise, baguettes are the way to go. Still, I’ve been making bruschettas out of my everyday whole-wheat bread here at home, and they’ve been awesome.

I also used to think that chopped tomatoes were essential to the bruschetta process, but since you can’t get a decent tomato this time of year, I’ve been making bruschetta with onions, yellow peppers, garlic, and capers. Yum. If anything, I’d say that CAPERS are essential to bruschetta because they come in those little bitty jars. And they’re very Mediterranean. And yummy.

I think I’ll go make some now….

Posted by adrienne at 09:46 PM | Comments (7)

May 07, 2008

Lucas on Shoes

[Conversation with Lucas during our recently-reinstituted weekly breakfast at the Leaf and Bean.]

Me: Did you see my new sandals?
Lucas: [Looks.] They’re nice.
Me: I bought three pairs of shoes last weekend!
Lucas: [Raises eyebrows.]
Me: I know. Your mom was supposed to get one pair of sandals, and I was supposed to get one pair of sandals, but your mom couldn’t find any shoes she liked and I found three pairs I liked.
Lucas: [Rolls eyes.] Girls like shoes.
Me: Yeah, well, your mom and I do.
Lucas: [Rolls eyes.] I always look at the design on the sneakers before I buy them. [Shrugs. Takes sip of chocolate milk.] Did I tell you about the doughnut tree I got for my Webkinz?

Posted by adrienne at 10:39 PM | Comments (7)

May 05, 2008

“So You Wanted to Take a Break”

I want to believe that if one is attuned to one’s body and its needs, then all will be well. You know, things like that you’ll crave foods that contain vitamins your body needs and that your body will give you discernable signs if something is suddenly, say, going wrong in your spleen. I started clinging to this particular belief when I was living with a lot of evidence that this isn’t always so, when my husband was sick with cancer and so much of what was going on made no sense at all. My theory about the human body made sense to me at the time, but I was also chronically sleep-deprived.

As I get older, I still put effort into trying to take the path of listening to my body, but I can’t help but notice that my body’s kind of a moron. It’s my immune system. I shouldn’t call it a “moron,” because that’s judgmental, and I think my immune system really has something along the lines of panic disorder. It’s on my mind because the other day I unwittingly spent way too much time near a balloon and have been suffering ever since. I am severely allergic to latex, so much so that I carry around an EpiPen™ just in case being too near a balloon for too long sends me into anaphylactic shock, which is, basically, my immune system having a panic attack. There is nothing inherently dangerous about a balloon. Unlike most common phobias, such as spiders or snakes, being balloon-phobic doesn’t even have an evolutionary benefit. When I get too near latex, though, my body thinks a perfectly appropriate response is to kill me. The only reason it hasn’t killed me yet is because I take a lot of drugs to stop it, which my immune system is none-too-happy about. Even a few days after this recent exposure, it’s still waiting for some kind of break in the drugs so it can really freak out. I can tell because even with the drugs, my eyes are swollen and my nose itches and I have to keep using my inhaler. I have kept my body far away from other things my immune system is afraid of, like penicillin and bananas, but it’s holding a grudge about this balloon thing. It’s unreasonable. My allergist has been working with my immune system on its issues with dust, roaches, fur, and tree pollens, but he won’t even talk to it about the balloons because it’s pointless. I can’t say I disagree. Maybe we should try some kind of group therapy.

Posted by adrienne at 10:48 PM | Comments (13)

April 30, 2008

“Three Bucks, Two Bags, One Me”

In honor of my rapidly approaching trip to NYC, I thought I’d share some of my favorite children’s books about the big city.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
This is the book that convinced me that someday I was going to have to visit NYC. It’s one of those books I reread periodically, and every time I do, I am ten years old and want to live at the Met. Every time I go to the Met, I am ten years old and want to live at the Met. Basically, I want to live at the Met. I’m not sure if I’m going to even manage a visit this trip, though.

Seen Art? by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
This book always reminds me of how much I love visiting The Starry Night and all the rest of the art at the MoMA. I’m a sucker for Scieszka and Smith, but this light introduction to some high-concept art is a winner. I am hoping to hit the MoMA this trip. The museum owns one of my all-time favorite paintings, Hide-and-Seek by Pavel Tchelitchew (sorry, that reproduction is completely crappy—the real thing is amazing), which the rat bastards hardly ever hang, but you never know. (Sometimes I call and ask if it’s hanging before I decide whether or not I’m going to the museum. Is that bad?)

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
When I first read this book, I had no idea that people lived in buildings with elevators, but once I realized that people did, I decided that was the life for me. I was really pissed off when Peter’s parents decided to move out of the city in Superfudge.

Fireboat by Maira Kalman
Doesn’t this book make you cry? It makes me cry.

While I’m in the city, I’m going to be catching up with Susan from Chicken Spaghetti and visiting the Ambrose. And oh, yes. I will also be seeing the mysterious Lil Baby K. I will not, however, have Internet access, so I’m afraid it will be a few days without blog entries.

Question: I have to leave in an hour. Is now a good time to pack?

Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: It is decidedly so.

Okay then.

Posted by adrienne at 02:51 PM | Comments (8)

April 28, 2008

An Interview with My Newest Magic 8 Balls in an Effort to Better Understand Why I Keep Watching the Tourment that is Lost

Over the last few months, I have acquired three new magic 8 balls to add to my collection.

#1-Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball
I found this one myself at Archimage. Love that place.

#2-Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball
Pat and Hannah got me this one. Thanks, guys!

#3-A Newer Model Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball
My dad found this one in Florida, and it has better sayings than the original. Score! Thanks, Dad!

I believe an interview is in order.

Question: Do normal people survey their magic 8 ball collection when making major decisions?

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball: Talk about your mother.
Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: Signs point to yes.
Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: You wish.

Question: Yeah, then why didn’t any of you stop me from watching the last episode of the first season of Lost tonight? Because I don’t think that was good for me.

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball: Let’s channel that anger.
Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: Rock out the no.
Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: Whatever.

Question: When I was making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies as a way to cope with my intense feelings over the situation with Walt, I noticed that the oven needs cleaning. Could one of you take care of that for me tomorrow?

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball: Less guilt more smiles.
Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: Smokay dokay.
Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: What do you think?

Question: I’m not sure it’s a good idea to let Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball near the oven.

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball: Free your inner child.
Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: The fans say yes.
Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: Oh, please.

Question: Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball, I wasn’t really talking to you that time.

Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: Don’t count on it.

Question: Okay. Well, last one. Do you think I’m going to get to watch Michael inflict some major harm on the Others in season two of Lost? Because, if so, it might be worth watching.

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball: Sorry, time’s up.
Disney’s Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: My sources say no.
Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: Forget about it.

Damn.

Posted by adrienne at 10:49 PM | Comments (7)

April 17, 2008

“When He Lunged onto the Hood, She Stopped to Tell Him She’d Been Wrong”

My house sits on the inside of a curve. One of my favorite winter pastimes is waiting for the day when someone takes the curve too quickly and hits my across-the-road neighbor’s mailbox. They’re pretty philosophical about it over there since it happens every year. Sometimes twice. A year or two ago, it got so bad that for a few weeks their metal mailbox rested atop a pile of snow on the side of the road. When the snow melted, they put up one of those one-piece Rubbermaid mailboxes, which seems to be vastly more resilient than anything else they’ve owned.

My keen interest in the neighbor’s mailbox woes has obviously built up some bad Adrienne mailbox karma, because when the snow finally decided to melt this year, this is what I realized my own mailbox had become:

Mea culpa on the rust, but I think that huge dent in the side might be the result of someone hitting it with something. I want to say it was teenagers with a baseball bat, but that can’t be. I’m the neighborhood widow. Widows have privileges. One of them is that even the rowdy local teenagers are supposed to have enough compassion to not be smashing up your freaking mailbox.

The world in my head is such a happy place.

Posted by adrienne at 01:12 AM | Comments (6)

March 16, 2008

Things I Have Been Doing that Are the Opposite of Getting Ready to Go on a Big Trip, Including Rationalizations

1. Watching Season One of Lost
As if I need to rationalize this. My life is this annoying thing that prevents me from watching more episodes.

2. Reading A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
I’ve been wanting to read this book forever and Libba Bray is going to be at TBF and I realized yesterday that the copy I checked out three weeks ago was due today and that it wouldn’t renew because someone has it on hold and I knew I could read the book all in one day so I went ahead and (almost) did. It really got in the way of watching Lost.

3. Hanging Out with Emily and Tim, Who Were in Town for the Weekend
I never get enough time with Emily and Tim, and they are so much fun, even if hanging out with them did prevent me from watching Lost.

4. Eating the Country Fried Steak Emily and Tim Made Us for Dinner
Because, you know, I couldn’t be rude. And it’s not like I eat country fried steak every day. I could have watched Lost while we ate, but Certain Parties indicated that this would be rude.

5. Going to the Leaf and Bean for Breakfast
Because, you know, I have to eat. And we always have to go to the Leaf and Bean the morning Emily and Tim leave. That’s the rule. They do not have a television at the Leaf and Bean.

6. Going to the Leaf and Bean for Lunch.
Shut up. They don’t have a television at lunchtime, either.

7. Exercising at the Y
See plethora of sedentary activities in #s 1-6.

Good thing I have tomorrow off work. Speaking of which, here’s the video to the best song off the new They Might Be Giants album, Here Come the 123s:

Posted by adrienne at 09:19 PM | Comments (6)

March 12, 2008

Packing It In

So I’ve started to mull over what I’m going to bring on my two-week PLA Road Trip Extravaganza next week. I really want to be one of those people like my friend Jennifer who always travels with just one itty bitty bag, and in that itty bitty bag she somehow has everything she needs and looks fantastic every day of her trip.

That is so not me.

I pack, like, my entire house, and somehow I still manage to leave behind whatever it is I really need to keep myself together while I’m away. I love to travel, but I hate to leave my stuff behind. And I really hate not having all my clothes to pick from every morning when it’s time to get dressed. I also worry endlessly about possibly running out of paper/pens/reading material while I’m away, so I stuff the nooks and crannies of all my bags with pads of paper and pens and pencils and CDs and books and magazines and, if I bring my laptop, DVDs. Most of the time I don’t even touch a fraction of the things I bring, but it makes me feel infinitely better to know they’re around. Just in case. A lot of packing is just in case. Just in case I get dirty or just in case I’m cold or just in case it’s wet or just in case the weather decides to shape up and get warm. This trip will be a particular challenge because part of it will require professional clothes and part of it will require doing-whatever-comes-along clothes, and the trip’s just so darned long. There’s a lot of just in case in two weeks.

Posted by adrienne at 08:31 PM | Comments (18)

March 02, 2008

Miscellaneous Fun and Games

Last week, Susan at Chicken Spaghetti pointed out a new-to-me blog, Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle. Basically, the guy does the puzzle every day and then posts what he thinks about it—was it easy, was it hard, was it interesting, did the theme hold up, that kind of thing. It comforts me to know that other people have opinions about the puzzles and think about them more than I do. Of course, I’m the one who purchased a wedge of Edam at Wegmans yesterday exclusively because Edam is in the crosswords so frequently and I got to wondering what it tastes like. It’s good.

In other entertainment news, last season, Robot Chicken did a sketch about how the studios were going to start turning board games into movies. They did this full trailer for Hungry Hungry Hippos: The Movie, which was hysterical, because who would make Hungry Hungry Hippos into a movie?

Well, there I was reading EW yesterday, which informed me that, hey, look, Hasbro and Universal are teaming up to make movies out of board games. (Here’s the Variety article.) The first game they’re going to tackle is Monopoly. After that, Candyland and Battleship are on the table. The Hippos are a Hasbro property, but, apparently, someone on the inside’s watching Robot Chicken and doesn’t want the company to look foolish.

It’s hard to know what to think about this. Clue: The Movie is, obviously, one of the best films of all time. (“I am your singing telegram!” Thanks to YouTube, I can now easily watch that scene over and over and over, which makes me oddly happy. It was so much harder to do back in the day when I would watch it repeatedly on the old beta machine.) Pirates of the Caribbean was good, and it was based on a theme park ride. Stranger things have happened. Still, MONOPOLY? No one even knows how that game ends. Maybe that’s what the movie will be about.

Posted by adrienne at 09:36 PM | Comments (8)

March 01, 2008

Putting on My Big Girl Pants

One of the benefits of our annual sabbatical week at WPL is that we’re allowed to wear jeans to work. Everyone gets excited about this except me, because when I hear “jeans,” I think, “Can’t I still wear a dress?” But I made an exception and wore jeans to work on the Wednesday of my sabbatical last week.

Everyone commented on them. Everyone.

Not only was it probably the first time I’ve ever worn jeans to work, it was the first time I’d worn jeans at all in at least half a year. Maybe longer. Up until a couple weeks ago, I didn’t even have a pair at home that fit. I probably still wouldn’t if I hadn’t decided that I wanted to become a responsible car owner, and I realized that I wasn’t going to be putting air in my tires and checking the oil in whatever I wore to work.

After this realization, it took me a couple weeks to work up the nerve to go out and buy some jeans. And even after that, it took me a couple more weeks to decide to do anything to my car that involved possibly getting dirty. My plan was to check the air in my tires the day I wore my jeans to work, but I put it off again.

This has been so much of my life since Brian died. I come up against yet another new thing I need to learn or do, and I put energy into avoiding learning or doing whatever the new thing happens to be.

Monday was a beautiful day for February in WNY this past week. It was about 40° and sunny, and when I got home from work, I decided that dammit I was going to check the air in my tires, which I did. In the dress I wore to work and my nice red wool coat. I hadn’t used the tire gauge in years, and when I had it in my hand, I couldn’t remember exactly how it worked or how to use the compressor in the garage or how to let air out of the tire if I overfilled it. When I crouched down, though, and took the cap off the tire nozzle, I remembered everything Brian taught me when he gave me the gauge years ago, like he was watching me and telling me what to do. My tires needed air; I filled them.

After that, I went inside and put on my jeans and came back out and checked the oil in the car. Then I went out into the yard and dragged all the cut-up pieces of the pine that fell over in January’s wind storm out to the road, another thing I’d been avoiding. It took about half an hour. I was surrounded by the smell of mud and sap, and I uncovered a patch of grass unaccountably growing under a pile of pine. It snowed the next day, of course, but I felt a little closer to spring.

I like taking care of my car, and I like my new jeans. I’ve been wearing them when I don’t have to, even when I’m home sometimes and could be wearing my yoga pants. The next time I have to do something new and I’m avoiding it because I’m worried about screwing it up, I need to remember this about my jeans and the tires and the mud. Most of the time, this is how it works out, just fine.

[I should note that Chuck has helped me on the road to responsible car ownership, so a big WOO HOO to him. It’s also worth noting that Robin put on her big girl pants just this past Friday. Maybe it’s something in the air.]

Posted by adrienne at 09:45 PM | Comments (14)

February 27, 2008

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Many mornings, Lucas likes to tell me things that his friend—let’s call him Pinocchio—said at school the previous day. It starts like this, “Aunt Adrienne, do you want to hear what Pinocchio said yesterday?”

In my head I think, “The pathological liar? Oh, yes, do tell.”

What I say is usually something more along the lines of “sure.”

Pinocchio has told Lucas things ranging from that he has 400 Webkinz at home to that his name is going to be in the next Guinness Book of World Records for “something he can’t remember.”

Pshaw.

Most of the time, I tell Lucas that I have my doubts about Pinocchio’s latest whopper and leave it at that. Lucas has his doubts, too. He doesn’t tell me he does, but I think that’s why he keeps telling me what Pinocchio has said. He’s trying to figure it out. Lucas is oddly trusting for someone whose narration of facts and events must regularly be called into question. I half wonder if Pinocchio’s stories are in response to Lucas’s own. If only I could be a fly on the wall of that classroom...

Posted by adrienne at 11:14 PM | Comments (3)

February 22, 2008

And I Thought My Disguise Was Working So Well

I found this in the Children’s Room last weekend. Maybe it’s from the same kid who put in the suggestion about the brownies, but, really, what sequence of events led to this? I have no idea. It made my day, though.

Speaking of things I found in the Children’s Room that made my day, a few weeks ago, I walked in on this. No matter what I do, I cannot keep that alligator under control.

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

February 15, 2008

PLA: Five Weeks Away!

So is anyone else in the Kidlitosphere heading out to Minneapolis for PLA 2008 at the end of March? I’m going, and I am very much looking forward to it. First of all, Meg Cabot is speaking at a luncheon on Tuesday, March 25th. (Chuck is soooooo jealous that I get to see her live. Sorry, Chuck, but this does kind of make up for the fact that you get to meet LBSS before I do. Kind of.) Second, I will be leading a Talk Table discussion about homeschooling on Thursday, March 27th from 10:30-11:45 AM. Speaking of homeschooling, PLA will be the first time I’ll see my book on the shelves at the ALA Store. You’ll know me because I’ll be the one grinning and taking pictures.

Posted by adrienne at 04:49 PM | Comments (6)

February 13, 2008

“Girl, Why Not Take Out the Trash?”

“I’m really determined to become agoraphobic, so it’s a huge deal for me to actually put on shoes and find my keys to go break bread with someone whose face I’ve never seen.”
-From “The Bronze is Dead. Long Live the Bronze!” in Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? by Allyson Beatrice

Lately, I’ve been on this kick where I’m feeling motivated to put on something besides my yoga pants and leave the house to be among other people a little more frequently. I love my yoga pants, and I love being home, but I worry about letting introversion rule my life. I worry about letting anything rule my life, because nothing rules my life except me.

I’m not worried about that right now, though. Right now, I’m worried about my yoga pants.

It’s true that I have several pairs of yoga pants, but when I’m talking about my yoga pants, I am always really thinking of one particular pair that I’ve had for about six years and love perhaps more than any other article of clothing I’ve ever owned. They’re a heavier fabric that keeps me warm in the winter and is soft and comfortable without being shapeless. They’re pants that, when they’re dirty, motivate me to do the laundry.

Yesterday morning, I was folding this particular pair of yoga pants when I realized that the fabric is starting to disintegrate in a way I can’t fix. I am disconsolate over this. I knew that what I needed to do was to take them and throw them out right away so I wouldn’t be tempted to wear them anymore, but I couldn’t do it. Right now, they’re folded in a tidy square on the dining room table. Tammy says that we need to go out and buy some new yoga pants, and I know she’s right, but I won’t be able to find another pair of THESE yoga pants. I know; I’ve looked. And do you see how this shopping is going to involve me putting on something besides my yoga pants and leaving the house to be among other people? I don’t think I want to do that anymore.

Posted by adrienne at 08:48 PM | Comments (5)

February 11, 2008

Ella and the Hovercraft

Ella’s going to have to go to the vet’s in a few weeks. We’ll be talking about her weight again, I’m sure. I swear, I don’t overfeed this cat. I hardly ever give either one of my cats treats. Olivia’s taken to making her cat run up and down the stairs a couple times before she feeds him; I’m considering this as an option for Ella.

Posted by adrienne at 10:10 PM | Comments (14)

February 06, 2008

The Eyes Have It

As you know, I am a children’s librarian. One of the things children’s librarians are expected to be is crafty, which I am not. (Well, I am crafty, but not in the making-crafts kind of a way.) I am, however, obsessed with wiggle eyes. You can bet that pretty much any craft I think up for the kids to do is going to involve wiggle eyes. We have a large stock of different types on hand in our supply closet at WPL, including glow-in-the-dark wiggle eyes (which I love so much I have a hard time letting the kids use them), colored wiggle eyes, and my new favorite thing in the world—GIGANTIC WIGGLE EYES.

I know that purchasing things from Oriental Trading is wrong, but every time I get close to deciding that I’m not going to buy anything from them anymore, they come up with some new wiggle eye that we absolutely must have at the library. The GIGANTIC WIGGLE EYES have a diameter of 40mm. If you don’t have a sense of that in your head, check it out on a ruler: when they say GIGANTIC, they mean GIGANTIC. I had the kids use them on their bear face crafts at the end of our 4 and 5 year old storytime yesterday, and they were awesome.

Please feel free to bring this up the next time I go on about Disney or Starbucks. Seriously, I’m a total hypocrite.

Posted by adrienne at 12:06 AM | Comments (17)

February 04, 2008

“That Harsh, Irregular Flame”

In the month or so before Brian died, when I was trying to get used to the idea of him dying, I didn’t really think that I was going to exist after he died. I didn’t think I was going to do anything bad to myself, because that’s not on my list of options, but I regarded the time after Brian’s death the way I now regard being eighty. I know that, in theory, someday I will be eighty, but I cannot wrap my mind around my soul inhabiting an eighty year old body. Similarly, I could not wrap my mind around my soul inhabiting a world where Brian wasn’t.

I’ve changed a lot since then.

Today would have been my fifteen year wedding anniversary. I’ve noted my last few wedding anniversaries, but this one’s kind of gutting me today. For whatever reason, my post-death anniversaries put me in mind of Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Quarrel.” (Read the poem here.) I think maybe it’s because even though I’ve learned how to live a new life, sometimes I am still just so pissed off that Brian died.

Now I am going to go get the taxes done. Probably wasn’t the best day to schedule that....

Posted by adrienne at 06:40 PM | Comments (18)

January 31, 2008

What Tammy and I Really Like to Do Is Take Pictures of Signs

This is especially true when we find ourselves at the airport three times in one week.

Posted by adrienne at 11:18 PM | Comments (3)

January 28, 2008

Way to Go, FDA!

Last week, I ordered a refill on my Zyrtec from Wegmans, something I do every three or four weeks. The next day, I got a helpful call from someone at the pharmacy letting me know that Zyrtec is now available as an over-the-counter drug and I was going to save myself some money buying it that way. I thought it was awfully nice of them to call, and then I thought that maybe this would be the perfect opportunity for me to stop taking Zyrtec.

I have these stupid thoughts from time-to-time; my allergist talks sternly to me about them, but I can’t seem to give them up. I have this fantasy that I’m going to wake up one day with an immune system that doesn’t periodically try to kill me.

Today isn’t that day. Today my eyes are swelling.

So I decided to go to Wegmans and buy some Zyrtec. When I got there, I learned that Zyrtec is one of these drugs you have to get a ticket for and go pick up at the pharmacy, which I did.

They were out.

Seriously, can someone please explain to me how this system makes any kind of sense? First off, controlling cold and allergy medications doesn’t seem to be slowing up the illegal drug trade, which is, I believe, the goal of the controls. Second, why did they make Zyrtec an over-the-counter drug if they still wanted to control it? What was wrong with that cool system where I told the pharmacy I wanted more and then went and picked up a nice bottle with my name on it the next day? It was working just fine for me.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to go forage for my Zyrtec in the wilds of CVS or Rite Aid. Benadryl (still a fully over-the-counter drug!) will be solving my allergy problems tonight. I suppose I am thankful for that.

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

January 25, 2008

Non-Verbal Communication

I am a tragic victim of stereotypical non-verbal communication.

I am, in my heart, a shy person, but you can tell that I’m comfortable in a conversation when my speech begins to involve a lot of movement. I start with illustrative gestures and, as I become more absorbed, I use gestures, faces, and sounds in place of the words I can’t always remember when my mind is tripping along.

Ironic, given that I’m a writer and everything.

Anyway, you can tell when I’m uncomfortable in a situation because I start to close up in all the typical ways. I cross my arms, I hunch, I take up less space. When I am watching films that cause me stress (for instance, the Cloverfield/No Country for Old Men double-feature I took in last night), I will start shoving my arms in the direction I want characters to go (AWAY FROM MIDTOWN, YOU MORONS! AWAY! NO! NO! THAT WAY!), and, if things get really dire, I ball myself up in the corner of my seat and watch the action from under the arm I’ve flung over my head.

I’ve developed the presence of mind to notice myself doing these things, but not enough to stop myself from doing them most of the time. Today, for instance, I went back to work, and after I’d been there about an hour, I had to put my hair up because I started getting to that point where I wasn’t sure which high-priority thing I should deal with first. It’s like I start to have anxiety, and all of a sudden I can’t deal with having my hair all over the place anymore, certainly not touching my face. This is completely irrational, but when I tried to tell myself that earlier, my self didn’t care. I threw my hair in a sloppy bun, and then I dug into some work, which made me feel better right away.

Well, it was that or the coffee. Hard to tell.

Posted by adrienne at 10:28 PM | Comments (7)

January 21, 2008

Desert = Dry

One thing I remembered most keenly from my last visit to the Mojave Desert (back when I didn't know it was the Mojave Desert) is that my hair and skin dried out very uncomfortably after I’d been here maybe two days. This visit, I decided to take preventative action, which has included:

1. Drinking plenty of water. Duh.
2. Making sure I eat fresh fruits and vegetables with every meal, which I should be doing anyway. (And, seriously, the oranges here are to die for. I’ve been eating them at every opportunity.)
3. Lotioning up twice a day with Eucerin Plus.
4. Washing my hair only every other day.
5. Consistently using my spray-in conditioner/detangler.
6. Reapplying lip gloss/chap stick at least every couple hours.

This regimen has been great for my skin.

My hair, however, is now officially dry. I never have this problem in my normal daily life, so it’s kind of a novelty, but not so much of a novelty that I’m not annoyed about my hair looking like crap. I thought maybe letting my hair air dry today would help, but that experiment resulted in a pony tail. It was the same story yesterday and is very likely to be the same story tomorrow.

I have a conditioner at home that will fix this (and which I MUST remember to bring with me the next time I visit). The humidity of my native land will also help. The sunny days here are energizing, but it’s hard not to notice how much this environment isn’t into humans—even with all of the layers of illusion and protection the city of Las Vegas has created to keep its residents and visitors comfortable. I feel a little panicky now and again when I think of how far I am from any kind of decent source of fresh water. It helps me understand why they call my lake back home “Great.”

Posted by adrienne at 06:27 PM | Comments (1)

January 20, 2008

Helping Homeschoolers in the Library in the D&C

Here it is. I'm not sure how long the link will stay live.

Posted by adrienne at 11:36 AM | Comments (8)

I Thought We All Agreed That Guy Was Sleeping

You can see some photographic evidence of my adventures in California over at How Daddy Is Doing.

Chuck didn't mention it, but we also saw a jack rabbit while we were at Vasquez Rocks. I guess I thought "jack rabbit" was just another name for "rabbit," but, no, jack rabbits are different. And kind of weird. I don't think I'd cross one.

Posted by adrienne at 04:06 AM | Comments (6)

January 18, 2008

The Mojave Desert

Okay, so I guess I always thought the Mojave Desert was in some other country, but, apparently, it's here. I drove through big parts of it on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. It's pretty, with lots of mountains and tumbleweeds and stuff.

I've never really seen a desert before, but this is what I've learned: the desert is BIG. And dry.

This is the other thing I've learned: Vegas time is more right than Rochester time because in Vegas they have sunshine every day. EVERY DAY. When the sun comes up, my body is convinced it's morning. When it goes down, my body is convinced it's night. It's weird to talk to people at home where this is not the case. Sad, sad Western New Yorkers.

Ah, well, must go get a pedicure now. I'm keeping a very busy schedule here in Sin City.

Posted by adrienne at 12:53 PM | Comments (3)

January 14, 2008

Wirelessless

Yes, it’s true, I’m going off the grid.

I’m going to be visiting Chuck and Kelly while I’m out west, so I may pop up on How Daddy Is Doing. Other than that, though, I’m not bringing my laptop, and I’m not sure what the computer/Internet situation is at my aunt’s house, so I’m not anticipating being online much. Instead I’m bringing a couple books, a stack of magazines, and a crossword puzzle book. I’m planning on doing some work on my newest project, but I’m going to be kicking it old school with a pen and a notebook. I prefer writing first drafts by hand anyway.

That said, I doubt I can manage a WHOLE WEEK without blogging. I’ll probably find a way to get online at some point, even if it’s just for a quick hello. Or two. We’ll see.

Posted by adrienne at 03:49 PM | Comments (8)

January 13, 2008

Packing

I am thinking of this post over at How Daddy is Doing this evening because I am doing my typical freaking-out-before-a-trip thing. Every time I think of everything I mean to do before I get on the plane at 6:00am on Tuesday, especially the packing, I start panicking.

I could TOTALLY use one of Kelly’s lists right now.

Even so, I know that by 6:15am, when we’re safely in the air and I am happily doing a crossword puzzle while listening to my iPod, I won’t care about any of it anymore.

The rest of you might consider handling me with soft words of encouragement until then. With all of the traveling I’ve done, you’d think I’d be better at this.

Posted by adrienne at 10:04 PM | Comments (3)

January 12, 2008

See What the Writer’s Strike Is Forcing Me to Watch?

Solidarity and everything, but when are my shows going to be back on? I blame greedy executives. Stupid, stupid greedy executives.

Posted by adrienne at 10:03 PM | Comments (3)

January 09, 2008

Happy Windsday

Yesterday, it was 65 degrees and sunny in Rochester.

This was clearly a sign of the apocalypse, which I celebrated by wearing a short-sleeved shirt and getting a cherry chocolate milkshake at Hank’s.

Even yesterday, the news was saying that the weather was going to change suddenly and that there was going to be some severe wind, but you know how it is with the weathermen: blah, blah, blah. It’s not like native western New Yorkers to pay much attention.

I had trouble sleeping last night and had been up for a few hours when I started to doze just before 5:00 this morning. That’s when the wind hit. I never heard wind make so much noise. I kept wondering if I should go into the basement in case it was a tornado.

It wasn’t a tornado, but woo boy did it make a mess. Today the temperature was 45 degrees, and one of the pine trees that used to stand in my side yard is now laying down at an angle pointing to the driveway (instead of inside my bedroom, thank God, as that was another option). The tree was still standing when I left the house this morning, which was good since I burst into tears when I saw it when I got home from work.

I think I’m going to go to sleep and see what happens tomorrow.

Posted by adrienne at 10:01 PM | Comments (6)

January 06, 2008

I Must Be Experiencing a Vitamin Deficiency Because I Went to Wegmans Today and Bought a Bunch of Tropical Fruit

Avocadoes
I bought two, made them into guacamole, and ate in a way that reminded me why it’s dangerous to make guacamole when there aren’t other people around to notice how much you’re eating all at once. Whenever I eat guacamole, I wonder why anyone ever eats anything else.

Grapefruit
Grapefruit is probably one of my favorite foods. I think this is at least in part because you can only get decent grapefruit for two or three months here in western NY. Last year, when I was in my annual few weeks of eating grapefruit every morning, Lucas decided that he also loves grapefruit, and he has been bugging me for WEEKS to get some. Tomorrow morning, he will be very happy.

Pineapple
Although Lucas will also want to eat some pineapple. Much as I love pineapple, I can’t eat it for breakfast. (Lucas can, but, then again, he’ll also eat sweet pickles for breakfast. He’s such an odd child.) Eating pineapple is like eating sunshine. It makes me feel better when we’re having these endless stretches of days that are short and cloudy.

Posted by adrienne at 09:29 PM | Comments (9)

January 05, 2008

Folding Sweaters, an Alternative

This is a response to Kelly’s post over at How Daddy is Doing—although, Kelly, you may not want to look. It’s bad.

Step #1: Try to convince the cats to let you touch the sweater.

Step #2: Fold sweater in half lengthwise.

Step #3: Fold the arms in.

Step #4: Fold sweater in half the other way.

Step #5: Put sweater on one of the “piles” in the closet.

Step #6: When one of the “piles” falls, find a sweater you forgot you owned and be like, “Hey! I forgot about this sweater! I love this sweater! I am wearing it tomorrow!”

Even I have to admit Kelly’s way is better.

Posted by adrienne at 09:57 PM | Comments (6)

January 03, 2008

“Leave Them Alone, And They’ll Come Home”

You know how sometimes you lose a sock in the wash and so you have this one sock floating around for months and no idea where the other one is? That’s happened to me, except it’s happened with a pair of shoes.

I noticed the shoe was missing a few weeks ago. It happened sometime between the garage door breaking and the car dying. I saw the one shoe sitting alone on the mat next to the door one day and didn’t think much of it. I figured the other one was in the closet and didn’t have time to investigate. When I did investigate, though, no shoe. Then I thought maybe one of my godsons had taken it and put it under the couch or something, so I crawled around on the floor looking underneath and behind everything. Still no shoe. That’s when I took the Little Bo Peep route and trusted that my shoe was just going to show up one of these days.

My shoe has not shown up.

How does someone lose a shoe? I mean, it has to be here somewhere, right? It couldn’t have gotten up and left without telling me. Yet, here I am without one half of one of my favorite pairs of shoes (black clogs, in case you’re wondering). It’s hard to even know how to proceed. I can’t think of anyplace I haven’t already looked for it, and the other shoe is useless without its mate. It’s still sitting there on the mat, looking all forlorn and reminding me every day that there is this thing of value that I have somehow very weirdly misplaced.

What I really want is the shoe back.

Posted by adrienne at 11:17 PM | Comments (13)

January 01, 2008

“I Just Can’t Rid of You Like You Got Rid of Me”

The thing I didn’t tell you when I bought the new car is that I also gave up my cable television.

The decision was mostly financial, but it’s something that had been on my mind anyway. It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying television. Quite the opposite, I love it. That’s the problem. It was eating into time I used to use for other things (Exhibit A: Writing a Book), and, while I still maintain that a DVR is one of the best gizmos out there, it became another one of those things I couldn’t quite keep up with. In the end, I decided that my Netflix account satisfies the same entertainment need for less money with the added benefit of slowing my viewing down every once in a while when I have to wait for the next DVD to arrive in the mail.

I’ve been without the DVR for about three or four weeks. I’ve been watching DVDs and have gone out to see at least four movies, but I’ve also read several books and have been writing like crazy. I’m writing in my journal; I’m catching up on correspondence; I’m trying to write a halfway decent blog entry. For me, the difference was immediate, and thanks to the writers’ strike and a bunch of reruns, I don’t even feel like I’m missing anything. I kind of feel like I flunked being a part of my generation, though, and I know I’m going to miss having the occasional clue about what people are discussing when the subject of television arises. I guess this is part of recognizing my own limits.

That said, someone needs to be in charge of reminding me about this if I ever decide to get cable again.

Posted by adrienne at 07:21 PM | Comments (11)

December 31, 2007

Resolutions

Robin’s talking about the new year and fresh starts over at her blog, which got me to thinking about the best New Year’s resolutions I ever wrote. I reread them, and I still believe in them 100%. I am reposting and reresolving. Over the next 12 months I will:

1. Eat plenty of fried egg sandwiches.
2. Watch plenty of movies.
3. Support the local economy by purchasing food and/or beverage items at the Leaf and Bean on a regular basis.
4. Get my money’s worth out of my YMCA membership.
5. Keep my house untidy.
6. Read every day.
7. Write every day.
8. Work very hard at the last minute to complete my writing assignments within 24 hours of deadline.
9. Let go of hate. It is the path to the dark side.
10. Update watat.com on a daily basis.

Yee haw. That is a good life.

Posted by adrienne at 10:49 AM | Comments (14)

December 30, 2007

Home Sweet Home

The four days between Christmas and today have been filled from morning to night with work and social functions. I got to spend lots of time with a whole bunch of people I love (Hi, people I love!), but oh my gosh it exhausted me. When I don’t get enough unstructured time, I start getting weird, so it felt like a blessing to have today at home to read and do the dishes and drink coffee and putter around. I’ve been more acutely aware this past year that I need to protect my time at home—that I need time to read and to write and to let my mind wander if I want to be sane. I also know some of the world’s coolest people, and I love spending time with them. Finding balance has been one of the things I’ve struggled with most in life. It’s a good struggle, though, a healthy one. Tomorrow I’ll celebrate the coming year with a long, unstructured day at home followed by a long, busy night among friends. If that isn’t a good omen for 2008, I don’t know what is.

Posted by adrienne at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Posted by adrienne at 03:17 PM | Comments (5)

December 24, 2007

Look What Arrived Just in Time for Christmas

Wow!

How nerdy is it of me that I am the most excited about the fact that the book has an index? It’s the only part of the book that I didn’t write myself:

Also, look at how nice the layout is:

Someone else did that, too. The biggest thing I learned about the publishing process with this book is that your publisher is just bursting at the seems with people who want to help you make your book the best thing it can possibly be. How awesome is that?

Not half as awesome as 0-8389-0955-3 or 027.6 FUR, but, still, awesome.

One disappointment is that the book doesn’t weigh nearly as much as I’d expect from two years’ worth of work. If it weighed as much as the work I put into it, though, people wouldn’t be able to carry it around, and I still think I could break something with the book in the event I was under attack and had to throw it.

If you really squint, some of you might see your names here:

I would have put more names, but, you know, they said my acknowledgments couldn’t be longer than the book itself. Sheesh. Any particular names that are missing are in the spaces between the lines.

Okay, well, whew. That was a lot of excitement. I guess there’s some holiday or something and I’m having people over and should really think about cleaning the bathroom. Glamorous life of a published author and all that.

Posted by adrienne at 11:46 AM | Comments (15)

December 22, 2007

You Can’t Expect Me to Accomplish a Whole Heck of a Lot on the Shortest Day of the Year

Seriously, it’s already getting dark. Get me a hot chocolate: I’m reading until it’s time to go to the movies. (How else would I celebrate the longest night of the year? Please.)

Posted by adrienne at 04:22 PM | Comments (4)

December 21, 2007

“The Nothing that Is:” Poetry Friday

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow
-from “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens

There must be something of late December in this poem, because I see that I wrote about it on December 22 last year. Whatever, I’ll write about it again. Jay Keyser thinks it’s the best short poem in the English language; it’s certainly one of my favorites. Like Keyser, I love the way the poem keeps you on your toes, asking the reader to think again, look again, consider a little more. Why do more people not expound on the beauty and wonder of the word “and”? Look at how Stevens is using it there: freaking amazing. I love what this poem is about, too—perspective, I think, growing older, learning to see things for what they are instead of what others tell us they should be. It is the poem I’ve been trying to memorize, although with all my unexpected activity over the last few weeks, I’m lagging behind. It might be a good holiday weekend project.

Gina at AmoXicalli is rounding them up today. Woot, Gina!

Posted by adrienne at 11:13 AM | Comments (8)

December 20, 2007

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The letter “h” is currently being brought to you by the new keyboard on my laptop—the one I just changed MYSELF.

I am feeling so self-actualized right now. Not so self-actualized that I am going to take the itty bitty screwdriver back out to where I found it after an exhaustive half-hour search in the cold, cold garage, but still.

Posted by adrienne at 10:45 PM | Comments (1)

December 19, 2007

THWAP!

I have always believed that driving a car should involve some level of difficulty and discomfort. I saw very few new cars growing up, and, in fact, spent a lot of time riding around in cars whose special features included, say, a door salvaged from another car or the passenger window boarded up with cardboard. My own first car, a 1986 Dodge Charger named Zippy, featured doors that frequently froze in winter so that I had to climb in through the hatch. To me, this seemed a normal part of car ownership.

Today I prefer a car with fully functioning doors, but I retain a basic distrust of automatic and computerized features, a distrust that caused me a great deal of anxiety over the last several months as I slowly began to admit to myself that I was not going to be able to avoid getting a new car for much longer. I am someone who misses the days when I didn’t have power steering or power breaks; I’ve had a hard time imagining myself adjusting to a car whose operation involved a remote control.

This is why I don’t want to tell you about how much I love my new remote control door locks.

I am sure a lot of you are already familiar with the joy of hitting the unlock button enough steps away from your car that you are able to open the door without pausing when it’s snowy outside. But do you know how wonderful it is to be able to unlock the doors before Lucas gets to the car so that you don’t have to listen to THWAP! “Aunt Adrienne…” THWAP! “…the door…” THWAP! “…is locked…” THWAP! every day of your life, wondering if today is going to be the day that he finally manages to break that cheap plastic handle off the door?

Plus, I have a CD player.

Of course, the car also has something called Lockout Protection or, as I prefer to call it, the You Are Such a Moron Feature. This feature prevents the doors from locking if the key is in the ignition. I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve locked my car doors while the key is still in the ignition, but let’s just say the quality of my life got a little better when I finally took my father’s advice and started carrying a spare key in my purse (which I hardly ever forget, as my purse contains my iPod). Maybe automatic features aren’t as bad as I feared.

Posted by adrienne at 07:50 AM | Comments (19)

December 16, 2007

Rare Kristen Sighting, Plus Video

I see regular watat.com reader and commenter Kristen about once or twice a year outside of the Internets. Last night was it. When she and her husband Terry weren’t stripping, they were telling us about their dog that moos. Sometimes they tell stories, but this one, apparently, is true:

motorcow

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Now I have seen it all.

Posted by adrienne at 03:09 PM | Comments (5)

December 13, 2007

Lucas Knocks Over a Domino Candycane

Posted by adrienne at 09:43 PM | Comments (1)

December 12, 2007

Erasers

The other night, Lucas asked me to check over his math homework. This is exactly the kind of thing I hate to do, but I want to be positive and supportive, so I smiled and said okay. Lucky for me, the worksheet was about estimating weight and mostly required one to say whether things weighed more or less than other things. This involved words and estimation, things an English major such as myself can get into. One of the questions had to do with whether an eraser weighed more or less than two pounds. I believe that the answer is supposed to be “less,” which is what Lucas wrote, but I spent a lot of time thinking it over. Did his teacher mean the kind of eraser one can pull out of a pencil? A Pink Pearl? A chalkboard eraser? A markerboard eraser? The worksheet didn’t say. I suppose this issue has no bearing on the correct answer, but it made me want to go out and find an eraser that weighs more than two pounds.

I didn’t mention any of this to Lucas, of course. I told him that his answers were what I believed his teacher was looking for and pointed out two problems he neglected to do. This is how I approached my own schoolwork back when I had it. It’s no wonder I never excelled in math.

Posted by adrienne at 07:12 PM | Comments (8)

December 10, 2007

Breathe, Adrienne, Breathe

As much as I like to make fun of the Escort and the way it’s pushing 190,000 miles, I kind of love my car. It’s small, it gets decent gas mileage, and I know what to expect from it—important things such as how to operate the windshield wipers and the likelihood of picking up WBER on the radio in different parts of town. I take pride in the car’s lack of features and even appreciate the way I have to shout at passengers to compete with the road noise. These qualities are part of its charm. Less charming is the way it’s been leaking fluids and making strange noises and not providing me with any heat until halfway through my 30-minute commute.

The thing is that this is only the third car I’ve ever owned, and I’ve been driving for eighteen years. (I seriously had to do that math, like, twelve times, and I’m still convinced it must be wrong.) I get kind of attached to my cars, and I don’t like getting rid of them.

The other thing that I learned today is that my car $1400 worth of doesn’t pass inspection. I have been planning on getting a new car this summer, and by “planning on,” I mean, “putting off having to deal with.” Aside from the fact that I love my car, I’m kind of afraid of buying a new one. I was about two steps away from breathing into a paper bag when I was talking to my dad on the phone after I got the news earlier today, and finally he was like, “Adrienne, you have to calm down. Your car’s broken. This happens to people every day.”

I guess that’s true, but, jeez, am I ever having a run of stuff breaking lately. I can take a lot of it stoically, but my car? In December? The day before my birthday?

This is so unfair.

I am solving this problem the way I solve so many of my problems: by consulting the Magic 8 Balls.

Question:
Is it time for me to get a new car?

Answers:
Simpsons M8B: “Mmm…something.” [That doesn’t even make sense.]
Traditional M8B: “Signs point to yes.” [Hm.]
Spongebob Squarepants M8B: “Want to see it again?” [How does this apply?]
Financial Advisor M8B: “Sell real estate.” [Ew. No.]
Shrek M8B: “No, go far far away.” [Okay, I currently have no way to get far, far away. Sometimes I think the Magic 8 Balls don’t really listen.]

Posted by adrienne at 01:45 PM | Comments (14)

December 06, 2007

Lucas and I Celebrate the Domestic Arts

Lucas asked me to make a hat for one of his stuffed animals this morning.

Turned out pretty cute, if you ask me, especially for not quite 7:00am.

Then we ate cinnamon toast for breakfast. I think cinnamon toast may be another of the dying arts, which is a shame.

Posted by adrienne at 07:57 AM | Comments (6)

December 01, 2007

“I Know that Now, That’s Why I’m Staying Here”

The other night when I got home, I dropped my keys when I was getting out of the car, and it took about five minutes of digging under the seats in the dark to find them and then when I got in the house I realized that only one of my gloves—my favorite gloves—was in my coat pocket. The other one wasn’t on the floor and it wasn’t on the porch and it wasn’t on the sidewalk and it wasn’t in the driveway and it wasn’t in my car not even under the seat and it was freezing outside and my car is leaking some kind of fluid and it needs a couple new tires and the breaks are making a noise I don’t like and the inspection’s due and my garage door broke twice in one week and I need a new door opener and I was sick on my day off last week and I just want to sit around my house and read and not have to worry about anything but no, no, I can’t ever do anything I want because everything’s always happening to me.

The next morning I found the other glove in my purse.

Posted by adrienne at 07:10 PM | Comments (11)

November 25, 2007

“And the Funny Thing Is It Has No End,” or Curious George Visits the Webster Public Library and Never Freaking Leaves

One day five years ago, back when I was still the newest librarian at WPL, a guy came into the library and told me how his children had outgrown this big Curious George stuffed animal he’d gotten from one of the stores in Midtown when it closed and asked me if I wanted it for the library.

“Sure,” I said. “Bring it in.”

Five years later, here we are:

Today, I nurse a hatred for this particular incarnation of Curious George that borders on something irrational. I realized I’d crossed a line when my hopes that someday old George would sustain an injury so grievous that we’d have to throw him out recently turned into fantasies about inflicting said injury myself. With a pocketknife. I was considering a lateral slash across the back of his head. I don’t think anyone could fix that.

Why do I hate George so much? Just for starters, he doesn’t have enough stuffing, so he always looks like he’s drunk and doing something lewd, which is one of the reasons I relegated him to the back corner of the room a couple weeks after his arrival. I also put him back there because the children love him, and they most frequently express this love by jumping on George and screaming. Now, I am all for letting kids be kids, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

George also smells—bad, like an amalgam of the snot and dirty diapers and spit and sweat that have been his constant companions these past five years.

I tried to get rid of the germ-ridden disease machine a few years ago, but I wound up caving to everyone complaining about it and brought him back. WHY DID I DO THAT? I ask myself this all the time. It was the second-dumbest thing I’ve ever done at WPL. The first? Saying I’d take him in the first place.

Lesson painfully learned.

Posted by adrienne at 11:15 AM | Comments (21)

November 24, 2007

I Am NOT Jealous of the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Central Children’s Room

So what if they have a water fountain with fish and plants and a sculpture in their Central Library?

At WPL, we have a degenerate monkey:

Our Children’s Room isn’t in the basement, either. So there.

For real, though, I love this shelving the folks at Enoch Pratt have built on the walls for the fiction and magazines:

I want to have some shelves like this built in the back of the Children’s Room at WPL for the comics and the magazines, so they can all live together in harmony on something attractive, durable, and timeless. I’m envisioning three ranges of regular adjustable shelving about as tall as me flanked by a row or two of the slant shelving on each side. I like the idea of housing these collections near each other because I think they appeal to the same kinds of kids. I also want to put these collections in the quieter/sane area of the room I’m trying to create for older kids (by “older,” I mean third-fifth graders who, I understand from the comments they write me, are sick of having to deal with the preschoolers when they visit the library).

Someday.

Posted by adrienne at 07:51 AM | Comments (4)

November 23, 2007

Jason Contemplates the Sad Circumstances of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: Poetry Friday

The cemetery was closed when we visited, and Jason suggested we consider climbing over the fence. I said NO. It’s a nice view from the wall, though, eh?

Posted by adrienne at 10:16 PM | Comments (6)

November 22, 2007

This Thanksgiving I Am Thankful for the Urine of a Dormouse

If you ever find yourself in Baltimore, I highly recommend visiting the Walters Art Museum and its most excellent CHAMBER OF WONDERS. The museum is in a lovely part of town where you can also see the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church (built on the site where Francis Scott Key died), another phallic monument to George Washington, and a lot of wrought ironwork all over the place. Admission to the Walters is free, and there is a lot to see. What you will really want to do, though, is spend all your time in the CHAMBER OF WONDERS. The CHAMBER OF WONDERS is designed to look like the kind of room a wealthy person in the 19th century would have kept to store all the stuff he gathered during his many travels. (For those of you in the Rochester area, George Eastman’s entire house is pretty much a CHAMBER OF WONDERS, although it isn’t quite as much fun because they don’t let you touch as much stuff there.) My favorite thing in the CHAMBER OF WONDERS, by far, is a book called The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents* by Edward Topsel:

In this three-volume set, you can learn about unicorn sightings, sure, but you can also learn all the medicinal properties of dormouse fat and urine:

Tell me that isn’t the best thing ever. It is the best thing ever, and all three volumes are like that. These days, even the reprinted set is out of print, and used copies cost something crazy like $500, but you can go ahead and spend as much time as you want reading the books in the CHAMBER OF WONDERS. For free. If that isn’t something to be thankful for, I don’t know what is.

[*Is Mr. Topsel suggesting that there are four-footed serpents? I didn’t have enough time to read all three volumes cover-to-cover, so I’m not sure. Intriguing, though, isn’t it?]

Posted by adrienne at 10:20 AM | Comments (3)

November 21, 2007

The Other Queen

In my normal daily life, I don’t eat at chain restaurants. This goes double when I travel, with one exception: a road trip means that I must, simply MUST, stop and get a Blizzard at the DQ.

In fact, I have a favorite DQ. It’s on Route 15 in Pennsylvania, after you’ve been driving an hour or two. Here’s a photo:

(That’s Jason in the picture. If you don’t let him jump around every once in a while, he gets troublesome.)

For as many times as I’ve stopped at this DQ, I can never remember what town it’s in, but that’s part of Route 15’s charm. The next bend in the road could bring just about anything—another place that sells fireworks, another porn shop, or my very favorite DQ in the whole wide world. Look, they even have this informative sign on the back of the bathroom door:

My favorite is step #2, “Apply soap.” So important!

This trip, I got my usual, a vanilla Blizzard with Oreo cookie. Yum. I also wound up eating a #6 value meal at Wendy’s and okayokayallrightidrankcoffeeatstarbucksbutiwassocaffeinedeprived. All in all, it wasn’t much of a trip for cuisine.

Tomorrow, though, if you’re lucky, I might tell you about the CHAMBER OF WONDERS, which is now officially my favorite place in Baltimore.

Posted by adrienne at 09:31 PM | Comments (1)

November 20, 2007

Sick Days

Hello, Friends. Sorry for my unplanned absence. I’ve been ill these last two days, although I feel like I’m coming out of it. I hope to resume normal blogging (and life) tomorrow.

Posted by adrienne at 04:56 PM | Comments (11)

November 16, 2007

“We’re Taking this Back, Way Back, Nineteenth Century Style:” Poetry Friday

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is, and nothing more.”
-From “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Ah, yes, one of my favorite poems from when I was a small child. I offer it to you in honor of the trip I’m taking to Baltimore this weekend, where, I hope, I might see good old E.A.P.’s gravesite. It seems appropriate.

And just in case you’re wondering, the stanza I’ve quoted above is the best one in the poem. I studied literature in college, so I can tell you that this is a fact derived from scientific studies performed by literary researchers using high-tech bestology equipment. It has something to do with using the word “purple” in a description of a feeling everyone has had at some point in their lives. Sadly for our narrator, it isn’t all in his head. OR IS IT? Yeah, I’m not going to debate that one. Honestly, I don’t care. I love this poem because the meter and rhyme and strong images combine to create and sustain a wonderfully dark, questioning mood. Everyone makes fun of this poem, but read it aloud. It has power. Rock on, E.A.P.

[Kelly's doing the roundup over at Big A little a today. Check it!]

Posted by adrienne at 12:05 AM | Comments (8)

November 07, 2007

“I Get the Strangest Looks from that Bitchy Crowd”

I live in a town where Republicans outnumber Democrats seven to one. I am a registered Democrat, which is, you know, whatever. I don’t love the Dems wholeheartedly. I’ve voted several times for Green Party candidates, and I also very occasionally vote for a Republican. Yesterday I even voted for a Marxist (mostly because I wanted to lodge my protest against the candidate I knew would win—the Marxist had no chance—but still).

Yesterday my crazy little conservative town voted in the Democratic candidate for Town Supervisor.

Woo hoo!

There were some good reasons for the conservative people of Chili to vote for David Dunning. Our current Supervisor, Tracy Logel, screws up really basic politician stuff, things like acknowledging her constituents and not speaking of them with contempt in public. I have written her several times about issues (a couple of times when she was still on the Monroe County Legislature), and she’s never made any kind of attempt to let me know that she cared at all about what I thought. That’s because she doesn’t care, of course, but I expect my elected officials to at least pretend they care. Besides that, Ms. Logel has some crazy ideas about how Chili should be developed.

As far as I can tell, Future Supervisor Dunning has thoughts a lot more in line with my own about how things should be happening in Chili, little things like not calling people names in public forums. All told, he’s pretty conservative, which is cool. Our Supervisor doesn’t need to bring about world peace. Like most people, I want my town to spend money sensibly and pick up the leaves on the side of the road before the snow falls. I would prefer that some thought went into the town’s growth. I feel optimistic that these things might be part of the new administration, and I just really, really love seeing the voters do something a little wacky. Go democracy!

Posted by adrienne at 11:46 AM | Comments (3)

November 05, 2007

Overheard at the Allergist’s

A boy of about five years wails after he gets his shot. “It really hurts!”

His mother, who doesn’t seem to notice that her son’s anger is as bright as his blond hair, murmurs something about how it can’t hurt that badly.

“It does!”

Because we all go through this every week, the nurse has a cold pack waiting, which she lays on the child’s arm. “Does that make it feel better?”

“Not at all.”

I’m with the kid on that one.

Posted by adrienne at 05:06 PM | Comments (4)

October 31, 2007

This is Just to Say

I have given
Lucas
a cupcake
for breakfast,

one with
orange frosting and
bat and
ghost sprinkles.

Forgive me
it’s a holiday
and I
wanted one too.

My apologies to WCW.

For some reason, Lucas was all hyper this morning. There was much jumping up and down and singing of The Chipmunks’ version of “Witch Doctor.” Lucas wrote another book (“The Peeps in The Haunted Mansion”), and he puzzled over how anyone could be scared of skeletons (“They’re just dead bodies without skin and blood and organs and stuff. And, by the way, I know how they make dead people into mummies, but I can’t tell you right now because it’s too gross.”). He virtually sang “Happy Halloween!” to the crossing guard when we got to school, and then he ran toward the building so fast that he almost neglected to open the front door before attempting to enter.

I’m glad I’m not a schoolteacher most days, but today I am doubly glad.

Posted by adrienne at 10:20 AM | Comments (6)

October 28, 2007

Proselytizing Pens

Everyone knows that the number one best writing utensil is a Flair pen by Paper Mate. I like Flairs because they come in fun colors and write well in almost any circumstance. They also don’t bleed through the paper (I’m looking at you, Ultra Fine Point Sharpies). A Flair is a great pen to keep in your bag and use for things like writing lists and random notes and drafts of essays in your notebook.

Tammy got me hooked on the Flairs, and she also got me hooked on these EnerGel pens by Pentel. I normally prefer blue ink, but I like the black in this pen—and check out the purple! What I love about the EnerGels is that they feel just right in my hand and make a smooth, steady line, even when I’m sitting sideways in a chair with my notebook propped up at an angle on my lap (which I do not advocate as it is not ergonomic, but this is nonetheless the way I often find myself writing).

As someone who still does a lot of writing by hand, a pen I really like is a wonderful luxury, one of those little things that makes life good.

Posted by adrienne at 08:27 AM | Comments (6)

October 22, 2007

The Book

See? I wasn’t making it up.

Posted by adrienne at 06:37 PM | Comments (20)

October 21, 2007

Public Speaking: A Comparison/Contrast

Very seldom does a week go by in which I don’t spend some of my time speaking in front of other people. Most of the time, these people are preschoolers and their grateful caregivers, and the subject matter involves things like “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” Most often I’m in my little blue rocking chair in the Story Room at the library, where everything’s just the way I like it. I’ve had a nice breakfast, some wonderful coffee, and I feel comfortable and happy.

Other times, I do professional presentations for other adults at a conference or meeting or what-have-you. I did one just this past Friday on homeschooling at the NYLA Annual Conference, in fact. I’m so glad I did it: a lot of my friends came (thanks, friends!), the conference organizers were excessively good to me, the audience was kind and asked interesting questions, and I enjoyed being able to talk about homeschooling for a while. That said, the anxiety I endure leading up to one of these events is hideous. For weeks, it’s been interrupting my sleep. This past week was the worst. I hardly slept at all, and I’m still sore from how tense I got. I know people walk into conferences and conference presentations with certain expectations, but I am never sure what those expectations are and if I’ll manage to meet them. Basically, I’m in a strange place talking to a bunch of people I don’t know. It gets easier, but, still, I fret a lot.

That is why today I have a big plan that involves yoga and coffee and puttering and enjoying our freakish good weather. Ah, nice.

Posted by adrienne at 11:26 AM | Comments (3)

October 17, 2007

Life with Lucas

It isn’t quite light out yet. Lucas decided that we should turn off all the lights in the house except the Halloween ones and listen to the Chipmunks’ Christmas CD, so that’s what we’re doing. As if that child does anything more interesting when he goes to school.

Posted by adrienne at 07:17 AM | Comments (4)

October 14, 2007

Talk of the Weekend

New glasses:

New skull:

New wolf:

In spite of my multiple assurances that all the coolest people are myopic, he is not entirely pleased about the glasses. Ah, well, who is?

Posted by adrienne at 04:36 PM | Comments (5)

October 12, 2007

I’ve Got a Fireplace, Who Could Ask for Anything More?: Poetry Friday

Last Friday, I was wandering around Wicker Park and Bucktown in a sundress, comfortably shopping and eating good meals and sipping coffee.

Today, I am home. It is 45° and rainy—40 degrees cooler than last week and ever-so damp. I am instituting a variation on my Fall Health and Fitness Regimen:

1. Mix up some chocolate chip pumpkin muffins.
2. While they’re baking, turn on the fire.
3. Wonder why the couch isn’t closer to the fire.
4. Move couch closer to the fire. Notice how much easier this makes getting around the room. Wonder why it wasn’t always like this.
5. Light a few candles.
6. Get your fuzzy blanket, a pile of books, and your laptop (yay, wireless!).
7. Take chocolate chip pumpkin muffins out of the oven. Put “several” on a plate.
8. Make some hot chocolate.
9. Take your goodies to the couch, wrap up in a blanket, and log on to read the Poetry Friday roundup over at Two Writing Teachers.

Okay, today’s looking better.

Posted by adrienne at 12:06 PM | Comments (10)

October 07, 2007

Reality Calls at 4:30am

I took a shower before I went to bed and didn't even get to sleep long enough for my hair to dry before I had to get up in an attempt to make my plane. (What’s my motivation? Oh, yeah, THAT.)

Posted by adrienne at 06:03 AM | Comments (4)

The Conference

When people at home asked me why I was going to Chicago, I got so I started saying “a conference” and leaving it at that. I didn't want to have to try to explain (again) why I was so excited about flying somewhere to meet all these people I knew from the kidlitosphere.

The 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference turned out to be even better than I thought it would be. Everyone was fun and interesting and nice. At first it was surreal to see the faces and hear the voices of people whose writing voices I’ve gotten to know, but after a while I started integrating the images I’d had in my head with the reality in front of me. And there was so much to talk about—what software we’re all using, how we approach our work, what our goals are, some of our favorite blogging moments, what we’re reading, what we’re watching, pigeons, appendixes, and when were going to go get some coffee already. I am so glad I came, so glad to meet the people I already knew, and so glad to meet the people I didn't know. I am definitely going to have to figure out a way to get to the conference in 2008.

Plus everyone kept complimenting my bag. That was awesome.

Posted by adrienne at 01:13 AM | Comments (13)

October 05, 2007

Today I Thought I'd Go Ahead and Pick Up Some New Stuff for the House at the Art Institute of Chicago

This for over the front door, obviously:

A new set of windows for the dining room:

Some Corning Glass, also for the dining room:

A new desk:

And something a little subtle for the yard:

Posted by adrienne at 12:22 AM | Comments (5)

October 04, 2007

Red Bird, Red Bird, What Do You See?

I see an Odd Half-Woman-Half-Chicken Kind of Thing looking at me.

Odd Half-Woman-Half-Chicken Kind of Thing, Odd Half-Woman-Half-Chicken Kind of Thing, what do you see?

I see a Disembodied Head with Wings looking at me.

Disembodied Head with Wings, Disembodied Head with Wings, what do you see?

I see Adrienne taking pictures of us. That’s what I see.

(No disrespect to Marc Chagall. I’m a fan, and I like this piece.)

Posted by adrienne at 09:24 AM | Comments (11)

October 03, 2007

“And When You’re Out of Fuel, I’m Still Afloat”

My Usual Weekday Morning
6:00am – Wake up (no alarm), go downstairs, unlock front door, sit on couch with cats. Usually fall back asleep.
6:50-7:10am – Tammy drops off Lucas and a latte from the Leaf and Bean. Commence morning routine.
8:30am – Leave for school if walking.
8:40am – Leave for school if driving.
9:00am – Drive to work.
9:30am – Start working.

This Morning
5:00am – Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
5:09am – Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
5:15am – Get up, stumble to bathroom, take shower with light off.
5:30am – Realize must turn light on. Finish getting ready.
5:40am – Freak out, finish packing.
6:00am – Leave house, stop at ATM.
6:20am – Arrive at airport.
7:00am – Through security—YES! There is time for coffee and an Egg McMuffin.
7:01am – Hear final boarding call for flight. Think “FINAL BOARDING CALL?!?!?!”
7:02am – Give up on breakfast. Sprint to terminal.
7:20am – Plane leaves gate.
7:30am – Pilot announces that we are going to spend the next half hour sitting on the runway.
7:40am – Finish cursing.
8:10am – Plane takes off.
8:30am – Obtain ridiculously small cup of watered-down orange juice from the flight attendant. Am truly grateful while thinking fondly of the coffee and breakfast sandwich that must surely await me in PA.
9:00am – Plane lands in Philadelphia. (Yes, I had a layover in Philadelphia. I know it’s stupid, but the flight was cheap.)
9:10am – Realize that the only adequate sustenance in the terminal is at Auntie Anne’s. Love cinnamon pretzel. Bear hideous coffee. Dream of eggs.
9:25am – Realize the airport doesn’t have WiFi. Sulkily read Entertainment Weekly until connecting flight starts boarding.

I didn’t wind up eating again until I bought a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms at a drugstore in downtown Chicago. I made up for all of this with a bottle of Sam Adams and a deep dish Hawaiian pizza at Giordano’s.

I love Chicago.

Posted by adrienne at 11:25 PM | Comments (3)

October 02, 2007

Things I Am Participating in that I Am Excited About

Some of you have duly noted the way I’m all behind on everything all the time lately. Part of the reason is that I’m overcommitted, but, seriously, I can’t give anything up. It’s all so exciting! Here are just a few of the things I’m looking forward to in the coming months:

The 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference
Back in June, Robin had this crazy idea to host a shindig so a bunch of us kidlit bloggers could hang out IRL, and look at what it’s turned into! I’m flying to Chicago tomorrow, and the conference itself is on Saturday, which leaves me a few days for exploring the city, shopping, and going to museums. Someone has to keep the economy going. The weather forecast for Chicago is 80° and sunny. Rough.

NYLA
I will be speaking about homeschooling for the Youth Services Section at the Annual New York Library Association Conference on Friday, October 19th at 8:00am. I’m not sure “exciting” is an entirely accurate way to describe my feelings about this event; “waking up with nightmares in the middle of the night” might be better. If any of you attend my talk, that would be cool. One of my nightmares involves no one coming. Of course, another of my nightmares involves a LOT of people coming. Other nightmares revolve around equipment failures and me forgetting what I want to say, but I’ve never had prophetic dreams before—no reason to believe they’re starting now. Right?

Blogging for a Cure
If any of you don’t know that I lost my husband to cancer a few years ago, you haven’t been paying attention. When I learned that author Grace Lin’s husband Robert died of cancer at the end of August, my heart went out to her. That experience, that grief… it’s unspeakable. I’m sorry to know that someone else is going through it. Anyway, it turns out that a lot of hearts were feeling for Grace and Robert long before Robert’s death. Robert’s Snow is a long-standing project that benefits the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. What’s more, in an effort to give bloggers an outlet to show their support, Jules at 7-Imp has organized Blogging for a Cure to showcase the illustrators who are donating pieces of art to this year’s effort. I’ll be featuring four illustrators here on watat.com over the next couple months. They’re exciting illustrators, and I’m grateful to Jules for the opportunity to participate in something so hopeful.

Cybils
I’m also going to be participating in this year’s Cybils. I’d been wanting to get involved but didn’t take the plunge until Eisha from 7-Imp asked me to serve on the Judging Panel for the Non-Fiction Picture Book category, which is thrilling. I think some of the most interesting work for kids is happening in non-fiction picture books, and I’m just happy to be participating in this whole wonderful grassroots effort.

My next report will be live from Chicago. Talk about exciting!

Posted by adrienne at 07:34 PM | Comments (8)

September 28, 2007

Song Meme

MotherReader tagged me for this meme approximately five hundred million years ago, but it’s better late than never and all that. When I got down to it, I was surprised by how many songs I dislike or can’t remember, but the whole thing was fun to mull over. I think I may have spent a lot of my senior year listening to Led Zepplin.

Loved It!
Liked It
HATED IT!
Don't Remember It

Top 100 Hits of 1991

1. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Bryan Adams - THIS was the top song of 1991? Seriously? For real, for real?
2. I Wanna Sex You Up, Color Me Badd
3. Gonna Make You Sweat, C+C Music Factory
4. Rush Rush, Paula Abdul
5. One More Try, Timmy T
6. Unbelievable, EMF
7. More Than Words, Extreme
8. I Like The Way (The Kissing Game), Hi-Five
9. The First Time, Surface
10. Baby, Baby, Amy Grant
11. Motownphilly, Boyz II Men
12. Because I Love You (The Postman Song), Stevie B
13. Someday, Mariah Carey
14. High Enough, Damn Yankees
15. From A Distance, Bette Midler
16. All The Man That I Need, Whitney Houston
17. Right Here, Right Now, Jesus Jones
18. I Adore Mi Amor, Color Me Badd
19. Love Will Never Do (Without You), Janet Jackson
20. Good Vibrations, Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch Featuring Loleatta Holloway
21. Justify My Love, Madonna
22. Emotions, Mariah Carey
23. Joyride, Roxette
24. Romantic, Karyn White
25. I Don't Wanna Cry, Mariah Carey
26. Hold You Tight, Tara Kemp
27. You're In Love, Wilson Phillips
28. Every Heartbeat, Amy Grant
29. Sensitivity, Ralph Tresvant
30. Touch Me (All Night Long), Cathy Dennis
31. I've Been Thinking About You, Londonbeat
32. Do Anything, Natural Selection
33. Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
34. Coming Out Of The Dark. Gloria Estefan
35. Here We Go. C+C Music Factory
36. It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over, Lenny Kravitz
37. Where Does My Heart Beat Now, Celine Dion
38. Summertime, D.J. Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
39. Wind Of Change, Scorpions
40. P.A.S.S.I.O.N., Rhythm Syndicate
41. The Promise Of A New Day, Paula Abdul
42. I'm Your Baby Tonight, Whitney Houston
43. Love Of A Lifetime, Firehouse
44. Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave), Roxette
45. This House, Tracie Spencer
46. Hole Hearted, Extreme
47. Power Of Love-Love Power, Luther Vandross
48. Impulsive, Wilson Phillips
49. Love Is A Wonderful Thing, Michael Bolton
50. Rhythm Of My Heart, Rod Stewart
51. Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..., C+C Music Factory
52. I Touch Myself, Divinyls
53. Tom's Diner, DMA
54. Iesha, Another Bad Creation
55. Something To Talk About, Bonnie Raitt
56. After The Rain, Nelson
57. Play That Funky Music, Vanilla Ice
58. Temptation, Corina
59. Can't Stop This Thing We Started, Bryan Adams
60. I Can't Wait Another Minute, Hi-Five
61. 3 A.M. Eternal, The KLF
62. Time, Love and Tenderness, Michael Bolton
63. Saideness Part I, Enigrna
64. Around The Way Girl, LL Cool J
65. I'll Be There, Escape Club
66. Cream, Prince and The N.P.G.
67. Now That We Found Love, Heavy D. and The Boyz
68. Show Me The Way, Styx
69. Love Takes Time, Mariah Carey
70. Cry For Help, Rick Astley
71. The Way You Do The Things You Do, UB40
72. Here I Am (Come and Take Me), UB40
73. Signs, Tesla
74. Too Many Walls, Cathy Dennis
75. Crazy, Seal
76. I'll Give All My Love To You, Keith Sweat
77. Place In This World, Michael W. Smith
78. Something To Believe In, Poison
79. Wicked Game, Chris Issak
80. Get Here, Oleta Adams
81. Round and Round, Tevin Campbell
82. Silent Lucidity, Queensryche
83. I'm Not In Love, Will To Power
84. Piece Of My Heart, Tara Kemp
85. Real Real Real, Jesus Jones
87. Just Another Dream, Cathy Dennis
88. Everybody Plays The Fool, Aaron Neville
88. Strike It Up, Black Box
89. Rico Suave, Gerardo - For sentimental reasons. Tammy will understand.
90. Disappear, INXS
91. Groove Is In The Heart, Deee-Lite
92. All This Time, Sting
93. The One and Only, Chesney Hawkes
94. O.P.P., Naughty By Nature
95. Freedom 90, George Michael
96. I Saw Red, Warrent
97. Miles Away, Winger
98. Do You Want Me, Salt-N-Pepa
99. The Motown Song, Rod Stewart
100. Shiny Happy People, R.E.M.

Find your graduation year here.

Posted by adrienne at 09:48 PM | Comments (11)

September 26, 2007

One Plus One Equals Two

1. Every time I see my gynecologist, she asks me if I’m making sure that I get my three servings of dairy every day.
2. Everyone knows that supporting locally-owned businesses is an easy way to help ensure the long-term economic health of one’s community.

That’s why it’s okay that I stopped at the Corn Hill Creamery on the way home from my 1-9 shift, picked up three containers of ice cream, and then met Tammy at my house, where we sampled the flavors and discussed them at length. If you live in the Rochester area and don’t know about the Corn Hill Creamery, I must enlighten you. It’s a place in Corn Hill Landing (where, I should note, there is also a swell Thai restaurant) that serves homemade ice cream. As if that weren’t enough, they also make their own waffle cones, which are light but sturdy and oh-so-tasty. Instead of using a marshmallow, they use a Hershey’s Kiss to stop the drips from coming out the bottom of the cone. Is that not brilliant? Of course it is! They also have really fun flavors. Tonight I got Cherry Cherry (self-explanatory, but I freaking love cherry ice cream), Chocolate Orange Chip (also fairly self-explanatory, this tastes kind of like one of those chocolate oranges you can buy and whack on a table so that it falls apart in tasty little wedges), and Chocolate Crunch (not quite like it sounds, this is chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream with swirls of the chocolate crunchies they use in ice cream cake—essentially, it’s ice cream cake you scoop instead of slice, which may just make it my new favorite ice cream).

You know, maybe it’s time for seconds.

Posted by adrienne at 11:07 AM | Comments (8)

September 24, 2007

“Oh Brave New World”

“You know, a human can go on living for several hours after being decapitated.”
“You’re thinking of a chicken.”
“What did I say?”
-Creed and Dwight in “Grief Counseling,” The Office, Season 3

This weekend, I spent a lot of time hiking up mountains and canoeing and lolling about admiring the fall colors, which gave me plenty of time to consider what I’d be DVRing with the new programming season hitting high gear this week. It’s weird to go from not watching television for several years to having so many programs I’m excited about, but there you go. Here is my hot list:

The Office
This is my favorite show. I love this show so much that I’ve been thinking of buying it on DVD. To give you a sense of what this means, I need to tell you that I’ve never purchased a DVD in my life, so much as whole seasons of a television show. I. Love. The. Office.

Heroes
I watched all of season one over the last couple weeks, and I am so hooked. I’m apprehensive that season two might not rock as hard as season one, but I’m going to enjoy finding out. (Note: The Office is set in a paper company. A paper company also features strongly in Heroes. Coincidence? I think not.)

Jericho
I still haven’t managed to watch all of season one, but I like what I’ve seen. I am a complete and total sucker for apocalyptic/survival stories.

Beauty and the Geek
Shut up.

Ugly Betty
I started getting hooked on this show back when I was going to the Y to ride the exercise bike while watching The Office this past winter and spring (before I got television in my home again). Ugly Betty plays in the same timeslot, so I’d watch it during the commercials. Even those little bits grabbed me, so it must be a good show. (I’m going to start watching season one on DVD, probably tonight.)

Reaper
It kind of sounds like Angel to me, but Kevin Smith directed the pilot. I’m in.

Pushing Daisies
Jen’s boyfriend tells me this is going to be THE show of the fall, and so I am caving to peer pressure and watching it. I am skeptical, but I also like what I’ve read/seen about it.

How I Met Your Mother
Another one I plan on watching on DVD real soon. You know, because I have a lot of time to devote to watching DVDs. Right.

Posted by adrienne at 08:44 PM | Comments (15)

September 20, 2007

Inadvertent Blog Vacation

Obviously, I am not keeping up with my blogging duties. Maybe I’ll blog about some of the things I’ve been doing instead of blogging when I get back.

“When you get back?” you ask, the question in your voice.

Yes, it’s true. Lynn, Tammy, and I are leaving tomorrow for a women’s retreat-type-thing in the Adirondacks where we will do things along the lines of hiking and canoeing. The place we’re going is supposed to be “relaxing,” by which they mean there is no Internet access or cell phone reception. In other words, we will be a group of beautiful women in the middle of nowhere with virtually no ability to communicate with the outside world. That doesn’t sound relaxing; that sounds like the plot of a horror film.

This is how it could happen.

After everyone gets a little goofy at the wine tasting reception tomorrow night, we all go back to our cabins to giggle and braid each other’s hair. Just as one woman finishes telling a story about a series of murders that happened nearby back in the day, there is a scream out in the woods. Everyone argues about what to do. Someone says, “Let’s go call someone on the pay phone!” Some idiot (NOT Tammy or Lynn or I) says, “I’ll go by myself!” When the idiot doesn’t come back, Tammy, Lynn, and I bravely volunteer to go find out what happened to her. We see the phone. It is hanging by its cord. There is no sign of the idiot. Lynn tries to get a dial tone, but the phone is dead. Suddenly, we hear a cacophony of screams from the cabin. That’s when Tammy says, “Hey, I brought the key for the truck!” And we leave. I understand there are some nice spas in Lake George.

More likely someone will get poison ivy or something. But still. We’ll see what I can manage on Monday.

Posted by adrienne at 09:46 PM | Comments (7)

September 18, 2007

My Nine Favorite Kinds of Pie

I always thought Harold was just being a pig in the original Harold and the Purple Crayon until I started thinking about my own nine favorite kinds of pie and realized that nine didn’t manage to cover all the kinds of pie I like.

1. Strawberry (Obviously, it’s the best pie.)
2. Blueberry (Close second.)
3. Cherry
4. Lemon Meringue
5. Raspberry
6. Blackberry
7. Key Lime
8. Pumpkin
9. Peanut Butter

Thanks to Alkelda for starting this train of thought in the comments a few days ago.

Posted by adrienne at 08:24 PM | Comments (12)

September 17, 2007

Maybe I’ve Been Spending Too Much Time Watching Heroes

Remember how I had my allergies retested a few months ago? Well, last week, I began the shots that are eventually supposed to make me more like normal people whose immune systems aren’t always trying to kill them. I don’t know what that is like, but it sounds like a good idea.

One of my worst allergies, it turns out, is to roaches. It’s hard for me to believe that a roach allergy isn’t something that should be considered functional and normal, but my allergist disagrees. One of the shots I’m being given is designed to combat this roach allergy. Put another way, I am currently paying $20 a week to be injected with ground-up roach.

Gross.

This is where I went wrong. When you go to the allergist, they give you a questionnaire to fill out. It’s full of lifestyle stuff, the sorts of things you may or may not do that would have an impact on your allergies and their potential treatment. The questions seem straightforward and innocent enough.

Here is my advice to you: tell those people NOTHING they do not need to know. Otherwise, you, too, might find yourself driving to Brighton and paying $20 a week to be shot up with roach. It was the series of questions about travel that did me in. I confessed to having particular difficulty with my allergies when I travel, and I revealed that past and upcoming trips included major cities like Washington, Boston, New York, and Chicago. When my allergist told me he wanted to treat my roach allergy, I got all, “Why? I don’t need that. There aren’t roaches in my house.” That’s when he got all, “The roach allergy is why you’re having trouble when you travel.” He’s probably right. The roaches are what made my arm swell up when I had my tests done, but still. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

On the bright side, I like to think that in the event of a nuclear attack, the roach goo will bond with my DNA, turning me into Roach Girl: The Only Human Who Can Survive Nuclear Fallout. It could also come in handy if someone tries to poison me. You can never be too careful.

Posted by adrienne at 04:14 PM | Comments (14)

September 12, 2007

Here’s How It Works

My collection currently contains two purple Magic 8 Balls: The Mystical Orb (my newest acquisition, pictured above) and the Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball. If you post your yes-or-no questions in the comments, I will consult both my purple Magic 8 Balls as well as my High School Musical Magic 8 Ball (we need a tie-breaker) and report back on their answers.

I should go first.

Is this a good idea?
The Mystical Orb: “Unlikely” (HEY!)
The Sarcastic Magic 8 Ball: “Oh, Please.”
The High School Musical Magic 8 Ball: “Stick to the Status Quo”

Whatever. We’re doing it anyway.

Posted by adrienne at 09:08 PM | Comments (15)

September 10, 2007

Purple Week, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms

Here is a true thing: I am not a big fan of candy. I eat it when it’s around, sure, but it’s not something I normally buy or keep around the house. When I do eat candy, though, my favorite candy – the only candy I eat with any kind of zeal – is peanut M&Ms. I don’t know why people eat regular M&Ms, to tell you the truth, and I have no idea why anyone would eat the ones with peanut butter or crunchies and whatever-all they’re putting in M&Ms now. Several years ago, my love of peanut M&Ms took a fateful turn when they started selling dark chocolate peanut M&Ms as a promotional tie-in to Star Wars: Episode III (Revenge of the Lack of Tension of Any Sort Between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen). I ate those things by the big one-pound bagful. It was heaven.

Then, about a month after the film’s release, they were gone.

Regular dark chocolate M&Ms have remained available in some markets through the ensuing years, but the peanut variety disappeared entirely. I couldn’t even find them at M&M World in Las Vegas when I visited, and, believe me, I asked (Clerk: “We have the regular dark chocolate ones.” Me: “That's not what I want.” Clerk: “They’re practically the same thing.” Me: “I don’t think so.”).

A few weeks ago, though, I noticed an ad for dark chocolate M&Ms in my Entertainment Weekly that made me think, “Oh, maybe they’re bringing them back!” Then I told myself to stop being silly and concentrate on something else before this cruel world once again dashed my hopes and dreams. Then, yesterday, there they were in the checkout line at Wegman’s:

Naturally, I purchased a bag, took all my groceries to the car, ate the M&Ms (which were EXACTLY as good as I remembered), and then went back in to see if they had them available in a one-pound bag.

They didn’t.

So I went ahead and bought another little pack in the checkout line.

Then I found one-pound bags at Eckerd today: ON SALE, BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!

Before this happened, things like Chasing Ray’s kidlitosphere-wide Recommendations from Under the Radar week and 7-Imp’s Picture Book Week and my usual obsession with the color purple had me thinking that maybe, just maybe, I should have an entire week devoted to purple here at watat.com

Did you happen to notice the color of the dark chocolate peanut M&Ms package?

Oh, yeah, baby. It’s a sign.

And so I think that my entry introducing Purple Week is going to be longer than any of the entries I plan to post during Purple Week, but at least we know that, thanks to the fine people who make M&Ms, I should have plenty of energy.

Posted by adrienne at 05:17 PM | Comments (11)

September 09, 2007

Dishes with Flowers

It’s amazing how flowers can brighten up a counter full of dishes waiting to be washed.

Maybe not.

I guess I have some work to do….

Posted by adrienne at 10:43 AM | Comments (1)

September 06, 2007

Quotable Thursday

“After a while, Mr. Lovingood, a middle manager there, said, ‘Mr. Feynman, we’ve been going for two hours now.’”
-Richard Feynman, “An Outsider’s Inside View of the Challenger Inquiry” in Our Future in Space, ed. By Steven Anzovin (c. 1991)

For two supposedly mild-mannered children’s librarians working in a virtual paradise, Jason and I have a large number of… disagreements. Part of this is because we’re both always right (although it should absolutely be noted that I am always righter), and part of it is because WPL is a busy, busy place and we’re kind of stressed out. Anyway, one of the reasons I so enjoy working with Jason (even when I am, for instance, actively considering throwing a chair at his head) is that occasionally I’ll be at the Reference Desk and he will read me some random thing out of an outdated book he just happened to pull off the shelf that – taken, clearly, completely out of context – really, really makes me laugh. The above is an example from yesterday that made me go, “What? No! Youaremakingthatupletmesee!”

Another thing about Jason is that when your car completely dies on your way to work (the second time, in theory, that your car has died THIS WEEK), he will drive over and pick you up and not complain about it or anything, even if he happened to be with you the first time it died and wound up not being able to see The Ten (which you probably wanted to see more than he did anyway, but still). Overall, a good deal.

Posted by adrienne at 02:32 PM | Comments (3)

September 05, 2007

I Don’t Have Kindergarten

First Grade

Second Grade

Third Grade

Holy crap.

Posted by adrienne at 09:21 AM | Comments (8)

September 04, 2007

The Best Thing Ever

One day I was going on about how something was “my favorite,” and one of my friends said to me, “Oh, Adrienne, EVERYTHING’S your favorite.”

That’s kind of true.

What I’ve noticed ever since this friend said that is that I am, truly, always calling things “my favorite” or “awesome” or “cool” or “the best thing about my life” or – and this, perhaps sadly, could be my catchphrase – “the best thing ever.” I know that as a reviewer and critic, I should be probably be more detached and bored and cynical, but instead I’m always going on about things that I love. I love people and my cats and books and movies and music and food. I love living life. More to the point, I love living my life, at least most of the time, and it’s a good thing because I never would have survived this long if I didn’t. This is why I so enjoy initiatives like 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks and Robin’s Friday Lists: they’re excuses to celebrate existing. That I can get into, even if I know I have to work on being more discriminating from time-to-time because I know, for instance, that my new Bartleby t-shirt isn’t the best thing EVER.

It is pretty darned good, though.

Posted by adrienne at 10:07 PM | Comments (8)

September 03, 2007

“What’ll We Do Tonight, Brain?”

“The name of this character is not Witchiepoo, but there are moments when Stardust resembles nothing so much as the world’s most deluxe episode of H.R. Pufnstuf.”
-Owen Gleiberman on Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Stardust: “Astral Protection” (film review), Entertainment Weekly, August 17, 2007

I take this reference to H.R. Pufnstuf (“Who’s your friend when things get rough?”) in a major mainstream magazine as a sign that Generation X is, at long last, taking over the world. I was kind of worried that our cynicism might get in the way of our making a mark beyond Reality Bites and Clerks, so, you know, whew!

Personally, I am preparing to give up my own slacker ways and go back to work and regular blogging tomorrow. While it’s undeniable that I’ve been slacking on my blogging, I haven’t been slacking on much else for a change. I did all kinds of crazy cleaning and organizing around my house while I was on vacation, and, while it’s still kind of untidy, I feel this odd sense of accomplishment, as opposed to that more typical nagging feeling that I should have done more work and less lolling. September’s going to be busy, though. Here’s a preview:

October is worse. Seriously, who planned all this stuff? Two trips, one presentation, several classes, work, Talk Like a Pirate Day. Sigh. I’m looking forward to it all, but, then again, I think I’m going to spend the rest of today pretending none of it is going to happen. Every once in a while, people ask me how I manage to do so much. Here’s the formula: plan without thinking, concentrate on what you have to do right now, try not to freak out, and drink lots of caffeine. Speaking of which....

Posted by adrienne at 02:56 PM | Comments (8)

August 31, 2007

In Which We Take a Break from Poetry Friday to Do Something Productive with Our Anger

Today is the third anniversary of Brian’s death, and in his memory, I’d like to encourage all of you to do a few things:

1. Friend of watat.com and two-time cancer survivor Shannon Case is busily fighting the good fight over at cyclingforcancer.org. You could buy a t-shirt. Shannon was a friend to Bri when he was alive, he’s been a friend to me since, and he has raised a lot of money to fight cancer. Rock on, Shannon!

2. Speaking of fighting the good fight, Duane, a friend of a friend (well, the boyfriend of a sister of a friend, but you get me), is currently undergoing a stem cell transplant as part of his third (THIRD!) battle against cancer. I’ve been following Duane’s story online for months now, and even though his situation is so stunningly unfair and difficult and stem cell transplant is a frightening procedure, Duane remains positive and strong. Please say a prayer for him or send along some good vibes.

3. While we’re at it, Emily (the friend mentioned in #2) is raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by participating in a Light the Night Walk. I encourage contributing to the cause.

4. Duane isn’t the only person I know being affected by cancer at this moment. One of our regular patrons at Webster is, after months of chemo, getting ready to undergo surgery in a couple weeks to combat breast cancer. She has two small children at home and is one of those amazing people who always manages to get things done. For instance, even in the midst of all this turmoil in her life, she took the time to buy the library a bunch of glue sticks a few weeks ago (and which we really, really needed). She could use some prayers, too.

5. Last, I am going to do the sentimental thing. Life freaking sucks sometimes. Be good to yourselves; be good to each other. And thank you, all of you, for being here and being so good to me.

Posted by adrienne at 08:29 AM | Comments (9)

August 28, 2007

The View from Suite 305

Sabrina had Olivia's birthday celebration at Frontier Field last night, which meant that all of us got to go hang out and watch the game in a luxury box. How sweet is that? Very. You can watch the games from the seats outside, but then they have a room with a TV so you can watch the game inside while you're getting food or talking with your friends or whatever. It was surreal, but in a cool way. Plus the Red Wings won! Go Wings!

Posted by adrienne at 11:50 PM | Comments (5)

August 27, 2007

...And That's When We Were Attacked by a Mammoth

I'm on vacation. Work with me here.

Posted by adrienne at 02:19 PM | Comments (12)

August 26, 2007

“Why I Live at the P.O.”

Whenever there’s a rate change, the selection of stamps is pathetic for a couple months while the Post Office figures itself out. (That is, of course, unless you’re into stamps in weird denominations, which I totally am. I mean, have you seen the Tiffany Lamp one-cent stamps? They are so pretty, and, at that price, you can use them like stickers. Don’t tell the P.O. I said that, though, or they’ll make the one-cent stamps ugly again, and then where will we be?) The P.O. launched the 41-cent rate with the Star Wars stamps, which are pretty much the coolest thing the Post Office has ever done. They also unveiled the triangular Jamestown stamp, which is novel (and which they don’t even seem to be selling online anymore). Aside from the shape, I really like the colors on that one. The P.O. also wisely premiered the universal stamp with the latest rate change. It’s a genius marketing ploy and undeniably convenient, but what good is a stamp that’s always going to be good if it’s always going to be ugly? I mean, points for symbolism and all, but someone could have made a stab at attractive design.

The Post Office has moved on, though, and so should we:

The Louis Comfort Tiffany Window
Seriously, how pretty are these? I wish this was a series with more designs, but this one design is pretty enough to make up for the lack of variety.

Marvel Comics Super Heroes
One of the reasons I was so sad about the rate change was that I knew it was going to knock out the DC Comics stamps, which were completely fun. The good news is that the Marvel stamps are, I think, even more fun. YES! Why didn’t they make this design universal?

Pacific Lighthouses
For Chuck and Kelly. This set has both variety and a classic design going for it.

Pollination
As a stamp theme, this is weird. Design-wise, though, WOW. That person earned his/her paycheck.

The Art of Disney: Magic
Whatever. They’re cute.

Celebrate
Funky. I haven’t bought a sheet of these yet, but I totally want to.

Beautiful Blooms
One of those all-purpose stamp sets. You can’t go wrong with flowers.

Wedding Hearts
Nothing will ever take the place of Puppy Love in my heart (as it is the best stamp they ever did ever), but these are really pretty – elegant, even.

Vintage Mahogany Speedboats
Um, what? All this has going for it is that it’s completely odd and plain and isn’t going to sell very well, so if you buy some, you’ll be unique.

Posted by adrienne at 10:38 AM | Comments (20)

August 25, 2007

I Had to Rouse Myself to Go to Byrne Dairy for More Cream for My Coffee, So I Figured I Might as Well Blog While I Was Up

“Violence begets violence, yo.”
-Adam in “No Bad Guy,” Joan of Arcadia, Season One

People are always all over me about my newspapers and making fun of me when I say that Vogue is well-written – which, whatever, it is, and, honestly, knowing when Anna Wintour is going to decide to let stores stop selling ridiculous tight high-waisted pants is going to have more of an impact on my daily life than, say, the NFL’s decision to take a stand against animal abuse (which, you know, bravo NFL, but I’m not currently speaking to the NFL since a stinking preseason game knocked out Jericho last night). Anyway, if I weren’t such a devoted reader of my newspapers, then I wouldn’t be able to share this tidbit from EW regarding the upcoming The Golden Compass film with all of you:

“Conspicuously absent, for instance, is any reference to Catholicism; instead, the malevolent organization that snatches children to surgically remove their souls is referred to in the movie only as the Magisterium. ‘It has been watered down a little,’ admits Kidman, who stars as the icily evil Mrs. Coulter. Not that she’s complaining. Quite the contrary. ‘I was raised Catholic,’ she says. ‘The Catholic Church is part of my essence. I wouldn’t be able to do this film if it were at all anti-Catholic.’”
-“Fall Movie Preview,” Entertainment Weekly, August 24, 2007

#1 – The writer used a semicolon. Nice.
#2 – My reactions to this passage were: “I must have read that wrong. Let me read it again…. No, okay, she really said that she wouldn’t have done the film if it were at all anti-Catholic.” This is when I laughed my head off. I called and tried to explain to Tammy why this was so ridiculous, but she hasn’t read the books and couldn’t really appreciate the whole thing. If you haven’t read the series, this is kind of like saying that because the NFL decided to suspend the dogfighter, it is a solidly anti-violence organization.

Ergo, spending my day drinking coffee and reading magazines has been completely worthwhile. As if there were any doubt.

Posted by adrienne at 03:24 PM | Comments (3)

August 19, 2007

“People Talk a Lot But They Don’t Know”

“Well, I’m pretty serious. It’s about time I had some supernatural powers.”
-Kim in “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers,” Freaks and Geeks, Season One

I can't talk
I gotta go
Don't call me back
I won't get the door
-“Climbing the Walls” on They Might Be Giants' The Else

“Climbing the Walls” is one of those songs that makes me feel like maybe I’m not as odd as I think I am. Of course, TMBG are odd. Tough call.

This is not a tough call: I won’t be blogging again until Wednesday or Thursday. Tammy and I are taking the boys to Amherst for a few days, and I’m not even taking my laptop. It’s a fast trip, and I’m going to have a million other things to concentrate on, such as the Eric Carle Museum and the Emily Dickinson house and that cool toy store and the Black Sheep café. It’s not that I’m saying that I don’t have time for you; I just think that a little space will be healthy for both of us right now. I’ll miss you, though.

Posted by adrienne at 08:05 PM | Comments (3)

August 18, 2007

What to Do with Tomatoes

I love fresh tomatoes, and at this time of year, they become the focal point of my diet. Currently, I am living on tomato sandwiches and extremely low-effort salsa.

Tomato Sandwiches
There are a lot of schools of thought about how a tomato sandwich should be made. My version is correct. Take two slices of some kind of whole grain bread. Some people insist on white bread; I don’t know what is wrong with those people, although I suspect that they also do not habitually keep baking chocolate in their kitchens. Next, put a slice of cheese on one side of the bread. If the cheese is small, you can use two slices, but the cheese is an accessory, not the point of the sandwich. Currently, I am grooving on a Colby jack cheese I’m getting sliced up every few days in the deli, but, you know, whatever. Slice up a tomato and put all the slices on top of the cheese. Some people prefer one layer of tomato, but I really like to have at least two. If the tomatoes are small, I will slice up a second one to achieve the desired effect. Spread a very thin layer of mayonnaise on the second slice of bread and settle it on top. Eat, sometimes twice a day.

Extremely Low-Effort Salsa
Cut up a bunch of stuff into little pieces, throw it in a bowl, and stir. The stuff simply must include tomatoes, some kind of hot pepper, and lots and lots of cilantro. I almost always include garlic, onion, and a little bit of green pepper. Sometimes if I’m feeling the need for protein, I throw in a can of beans, usually black. You can eat this with a spoon or shovel it in with the assistance of a vehicle food such as tortilla chips. If you’re in a meal-making mood, you can cook up a piece of fish and put some of this on top. I guess it would work with chicken, but I’ve never tried it.

And that, my friends, concludes today’s installment of Adrienne’s Obsession with Food. On our next episode: Adrienne’s Summer-Long Quest to Make the Perfect Iced Tea.

Posted by adrienne at 05:42 PM | Comments (7)

August 17, 2007

“And, Yes, You Can Feel Happy:” Poetry Friday

And I do feel happy on my first semi-official day of vacation. I love my job, but no obligation will coerce me to go to the library again until September 4, and I couldn’t be happier. To celebrate, I give you “Miracle Ice Cream” by Adrienne Rich, the woman I was named after. [Jazz hands, everyone! Smile!] I’ve never really understood what this poem is about, although it seems quiet and content and I do truly believe that ice cream is a miracle, particularly in summer when I seem to eat it every other day.

Today has also put me in mind of John Ciardi, but, then again, I’m always thinking of my man John.

[Let us go then, you and I, to check out the roundup over at Kelly Fineman’s LiveJournal. Jazz hands for Kelly, people! Look lively!]

Posted by adrienne at 03:35 PM | Comments (10)

August 15, 2007

The Price of Being Busy and Important

I know I’m in a weird place when I can’t wait for my schedule to die down so that I can get some time to clean the house. I’ve been running around this week thinking things like, “If only I could take time to scrub the sink right now,” or, “If only I had time to sweep.” I have the next two weeks off work. Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to it? The kitties and I need quiet time at home.

Posted by adrienne at 10:21 PM | Comments (5)

August 13, 2007

Stargazing

Last night, Tam and I went on a roundabout drive looking for the perfect place to watch the Perseids, finally settling on a street that dead ends on Lake Ontario. Then we spent a couple hours lounging on the hood of Tam’s truck, listening to the waves and critters, talking, marveling that the people in the house near us were watching TV when the sky was RIGHT THERE. We saw some amazing shooting stars. They’re a miracle every time I see one. We kept gasping and exclaiming and pointing.

I remember back in the day when I first read in my great big old National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe (1980 ed.) that shooting stars were really meteors burning up in the earth’s atmosphere. I got irritated because I felt that adults had been deliberately misleading me, letting me believe they were stars. I was grateful to the book, though, so much so that I only recently deleted that particular edition from WPL’s collection. I’d feel worse about waiting so long, except a fair number of other libraries still have the wildly outdated 1980 and 1986 editions in their collections. Many have the 1994 as well, which I daresay has also lived a happy life that needs to end.

Obviously, and in spite of my general scientific and mathematical ignorance, it’s important to me to have a first-rate up-to-date science collection in the library, particularly about stargazing, something I’ve always loved to do. I had a little girl come in to the library last week who told me she was “totally into astronomy right now,” so I got to show off a few of my favorite titles from our collection. Now I share them with you:

Children’s Night Sky Atlas by Robin Scagell
Say what you will about DK, but this book is interesting and engaging and beautiful. It’s a book I wish I had when I was a kid.

The Kids Book of the Night Sky by Ann Love and Jane Drake, illustrated by Heather Collins
Is it just me in love with Kids Can Press? I really like their books. Generally, they’re well-written, interesting, and well-designed. Plus their bindings hold up. I liked this book so much when I first encountered it that I purchased two copies for WPL.

Once Upon a Starry Night: A Book of Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton and Christina Balit
This book from my first love National Geographic tells the mythology behind various constellations, something that also fascinated me when I was small. The cover on this one doesn’t really do it, but if you tell the kids what the book’s about, they’ll take it.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman, illustrated by Loren Long
If one is going to bother learning about the heavens, it’s worth taking time to marvel at the wonder of it all. Besides that, I love Whitman and this poem and take every opportunity to subversively introduce children to poets I like.

Posted by adrienne at 10:27 AM | Comments (13)

August 11, 2007

“I Love Forget-Me-Nots, Fluffernutters, Sugar Pops”

Today, for the first time in many, many years, I played with Barbie dolls. Ironically enough, I was playing Barbies with the daughter of a friend who I played Barbies with when we were little girls. It was kind of awesome. Kate, the child I was playing with, is awesome, and I’m sorry to say that Barbie is also kind of awesome. She may promote unrealistic body images and all that, but it’s also really, really fun to dress her up. I did have the same urge I always have to cut Barbie’s hair, but they were Kate’s dolls, so I refrained. When I was Kate’s age (three), though, all I did with Barbie was cut her hair and dismember her and occasionally try to flush her and her pieces down the toilet. I was kinder to Barbie as I got older, but I never got over wanting one of those big Barbie head things where you could cut her hair and then make it grow again. I’m telling you: I’m getting old enough that I’m starting to go soft. It’s the only explanation for me regarding Barbie with anything other than disdain. This would also explain why I bought Kate a Disney Princess activity book for her birthday. With stickers and two little stampers. The kid loved it, of course, and, in my defense, I also bought her blank paper and a box of crayons….

Posted by adrienne at 10:52 PM | Comments (3)

August 10, 2007

“Hanging on to My Simplicity:” Poetry (and Sometimes a Song) Friday

I subscribe to five podcasts. One of them is KEXP’s Song of the Day, which is where I first heard one of my favorite making-me-feel-better-about-life songs, “This Song Will Ruin/Save Your Life” by the Born Ruffians (or, as they seem to put it, “BORN ruffians,” which, much as I enjoy their song, looks ridiculous). You can listen to the song on the band’s MySpace page. I recommend listening to it REALLY LOUD, but you can make an exception if you’re at work. I also recommend listening to KEXP as a general rule. My good friend Jen (who, thanks to the incompetence of the airline industry is NOT visiting me this weekend – BOO AIRLINES!) turned me on to the joys of listening to KEXP on my computer a few years back, and my life is much improved for it. Now if I could only convince the library administration that “casual business attire” should encompass yoga pants….

[Kelly’s on the roundup today over at Big A little a.]

Posted by adrienne at 10:46 AM | Comments (4)

August 08, 2007

“You've Got Your Airplane, I've Got the Plain Air of Here”

There are three ways that I begin to become aware that something’s bothering me that I’m not dealing with:

1. I either stop sleeping or want to sleep all the time.
2. I start throwing stuff out.
3. I ask for time off work, plan vacations, and/or – best – purchase plane tickets.

Lately, I’m averaging maybe 5-6 hours of sleep a night. The other day, I pulverized a few hard drives. At home I’ve been on a get-rid-of-stuff-I-don’t-need rampage, and at work I’ve managed to fill the recycling bin in my office every day this week. Today, when I meant to be reading the newest issue of The Horn Book, I found myself perusing JetBlue.com to find an affordable flight to get me – no offense, loved ones – the hell out of here.

Ugh.

It’s not like there’s anything huge going on. Mostly I think it’s a general malaise brought on in large part from pushing myself a little too hard the last few weeks. But do you see how pushing myself a little too hard is a wonderful way to avoid dealing with other stuff? If nothing else, life has taught me a cornucopia of coping strategies that I can pull out and apply without thinking. I should maybe think a little more before I buy a plane ticket, I suppose, but I want to visit my aunt anyway and having the ticket all settled will help me feel better – as will, I think, watching some episodes of Freaks and Geeks (in which the characters all have completely inadequate coping mechanisms, which makes me feel both superior and vastly relieved to no longer be a teenager – yay catharsis!). I think I'll go do that now.

[Ed. Note re: General Malaise. Above I link to one of my favorite episodes of This American Life, in which Act 2 features a much more entertaining bout of general malaise than I offer you today, so the link is like a consolation prize. Well worth a listen – yay This American Life!]

Posted by adrienne at 10:29 PM | Comments (2)

August 05, 2007

Author Bios

For me, one of the greatest shocks of becoming a Published Author has been learning that those author blurbs you see around are almost always written by the author him or herself. I don’t know how I thought these things got written before I learned the truth of the matter. I guess I thought there would be someone whose job it was to go to the trouble of interviewing/researching the author and then writing those blurbs, which, now that I write it, seems kind of silly. Thankfully, most of the blurbs I’ve had to write for myself have only had to be two or three sentences long. I did my bio for the book this weekend, though, and that had to be a paragraph.

Yuck.

While I obviously enjoy writing about myself, I do not enjoy writing my own bios. It’s unnatural and awkward and makes me feel sort of embarrassed. I am always tempted to write things like, “’Adrienne Furness’ has fifteen letters.” or “Adrienne is a freelance writer who hates writing about herself in the third person.” or “Adrienne is none of your business.” What I ended up writing was a nice, professional, straight-forward bio highlighting my professional work in libraries and with homeschoolers – exactly what I was supposed to do. Still, wouldn’t version two have been more fun? Ah, well.

Posted by adrienne at 08:45 PM | Comments (11)

August 04, 2007

Not Quite 39 Things

Journey Woman turned 39 the other day (huzzah!) and to celebrate she decided to start a meme: 39 Reasons to Be Happy Today. Jules and Eisha tagged me. How could I resist?

1. It is sunny.
2. It is HOT.
3. I have finally learned how to make the perfect iced tea, which I am now happily guzzling by the gallon because it is sunny and HOT.
4. I’ve acquired quite an array of outdated computers here in the house, which I’m finally getting around to getting rid of. This involved smashing a couple of the oldest hard drives with a hammer out in the garage. I could have reformatted them before tossing them, but smashing them was oh-so-fun and satisfying.
5. I went to cycling class, even though I never really want to.
6. I rewarded myself for #5 by getting a crème brulee latte with whole milk (instead of my usual skim), which was perhaps counterproductive but also totally worth it.
7. I got some excessively yummy peaches at the farmer’s market.
8. I only have to work 10 more days before I’m off for TWO WHOLE WEEKS.
9. Tammy made hotel reservations for us so we can take the boys for a couple days in Amherst, MA, where I will once again be visiting the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where there is currently an exhibit featuring art by Leo Lionni, which is cool.
10. Jennifer’s going to be here for a quick visit next weekend, and I’m already looking forward to it.
11. I’m going to copy Eisha and say that it is so exciting to see the list of people planning to go to the Kidlitosphere Conference in Chicago this October growing and growing. I’m way looking forward to that trip.
12. My book revisions were deemed satisfactory.
13. Dude, I wrote a book! This is number 13 because that thought is only cool for about sixty seconds until I start to think about things like proofing and reviews and potential errors and doing presentations and will the darned thing sell anyway. That’s when I usually do something else for a while.
14. Speaking of which, The Else.
15. I got a review copy of the forthcoming Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus, which I can hardly wait to read.
16. I have a whole pile of exciting books waiting to be read.
17. Plus magazines.
18. Um, 39 things is kind of a lot, isn’t it? I think I’m just going to try to hit 33, since that’s my age. That’s appropriate, right?
19. The sweet Williams in my garden were suffering, so I trimmed them earlier this week and they’re starting to bloom again.
20. My science-experiment tomato plants are starting to produce a tomato.
21. The Personal Affirmation Magic 8 Ball says, “Pure genius!”
22. It also says, “Brilliant idea!”
23. Okay, I’m stretching.
24. My friends.
25. My family. (I should have thought of #24 and #25 earlier.)
26. Ella.
27. Benny.
28. Happiness, as a concept.
29. The US Postal Service.
30. My laptop.
31. Post-it notes.
32. Pens and blank paper.
33. Finishing my blog entry for today – brilliant!

Posted by adrienne at 02:38 PM | Comments (15)

August 01, 2007

Max with Two of His Favorite Things

Like any sensible person, Max prefers real objects to toys. Here, you see him with two of his favorite things at my house: the watering can and his brand-new-Max-sized broom. Prior to my recent purchase of the Max-sized broom, the boy would happily carry around my full-sized one, which was kind of scary. Max also really likes any kind of electronics: cordless phones, cell phones, remotes. This is a way he’s very different from Lucas. Lucas has always had a low frustration threshold and never cared to, say, figure out how to take the back off the remote to see what’s inside, which Tammy tells me Max has already done. What’s more is that when he did this, Max correctly assessed that the broken remote Tammy had given him to play with was substandard because it didn't have anything inside (i.e. batteries) the way the other, functioning remote did. Clever boy. Plus he still smiles whenever he sees me. Also clever.

Posted by adrienne at 10:48 PM | Comments (3)

July 31, 2007

Guess Who Got Her Revision Letter?

Yes, that’s right: me! It’s not bad at all, but my publisher would like to have the revisions by Friday, which is kind of a few days away, so I’m just going to go ahead and work on that right now. I may be able to manage a real entry tomorrow....

Posted by adrienne at 10:48 PM | Comments (1)

July 29, 2007

“These Are a Few of My Favorite Things”

Thanks to Meg Cabot’s blog, I am newly addicted to a blog called Things I’ve Bought that I Love, whose primary writer is Mindy Ephron of The Office. (I should take a moment to note, of course, that I’m a week behind on pretty much all of my favorite blogs at the moment. This past week killed me: I had fun, but not a moment to breathe or read blogs much.) Mindy’s posts are light and funny, but my post in homage to Things I’ve Bought that I Love is going to be more of a love song to one of my favorite possessions:

For a long time, I was using a cheap insert-type thing to steam vegetables. It worked, but it didn’t have much capacity and was the complete opposite of sexy. This past winter, though, I decided to go hog-wild and purchase this wonderful three quart Farberware steamer. I know that it’s not really possible that the vegetables cooked up in my new steamer taste better than the ones cooked up in my old steamer, but in my head they do, and as we reviewed the other day, just because something’s in your head doesn’t mean that it’s not real.

We are at the height of string bean season here in Western NY, and I’m steaming up green beans, wax beans, and – a new favorite – Romano beans to eat on a daily basis. It’s awesome: a little salt, maybe some butter if I’m feeling naughty, and that’s all they need. Last week, I steamed some green beans just a bit, then I sautéed them with butter and garlic, tossed in some pine nuts and salt, and then ate up every last bit of the yummy goodness. I’ve got my steamer; I’ve got fresh beans. Who could ask for anything more?

Posted by adrienne at 01:35 PM | Comments (5)

July 27, 2007

Lucas, with Mohawk and Dæmon

I seem to be lapsing into an every-other-week Poetry Friday thing. It's not intentional: today I got sidetracked when Jason and I made a disastrous attempt to start working on our fall program schedule. Then I had to go to a Red Wings game. At least I managed to get a pic of Lu sporting his new 'do....

Posted by adrienne at 11:00 PM | Comments (3)

July 22, 2007

Harry Potter, Fresh Eggs, and My Relative Level of Maturity

I hadn’t gotten through all the HP books I wanted to reread before the new book was released on Friday. As I came to the realization that I wasn’t going to be able to finish what I’d started, I told myself that I’d just do the mature thing, calmly continue to read my way through the books I hadn’t finished, and get to book seven when I was done with the others.

When I had #7 in my hand, though, I thought, “Screw that.”

Matter o’fact, I let a lot go yesterday. My normal summer Saturday routine is to get up early, get to the farmer’s market by 8:00, cycling class at 9:00, wait for Lucas to do his swimming class (10:10-10:50), take the boy home, and then go about the rest of my day. Yesterday, I managed the farmer’s market, and that’s only because I’m the kind of girl who can’t resist the allure of fresh string beans and, even better, fresh eggs. (If you have never had really fresh eggs, I feel sad for you. One of my other summer Saturday routines is to figure out how I’m going to cook the first few of my deliciously wonderful fresh eggs for lunch. Yesterday, I ate two fried with hot, buttered toast, and I also used two to make my new favorite brownie recipe as my dish to pass at an afternoon barbecue. Serious yum all around.)

Other than that, I mostly read HP#7. I’m halfway through. I’ll probably finish it today, although I also hope to take care of some grown-up stuff: pay the bills, perhaps, do some laundry, clean, swim some laps at the Y. We’ll see how it goes.

Posted by adrienne at 09:17 AM | Comments (11)

July 14, 2007

“Have Mercy, Baby, on a Poor Girl Like Me”

So I forgot to post to watat yesterday for the first time ever.

That was weird.

What makes it even weirder is that it was Poetry Friday, and I had a post in my on-going “Casey at the Bat” series all planned. I just didn’t do it.

It’s not like anything all that earth-shattering was going on yesterday, either, at the library or at home. I slept in a bit, went to work, worked, came home, did my chores, made some chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, read, and went to bed. I usually start to get a Very Wrong feeling if I don’t post to watat by a certain time in the day, but I didn’t have the Very Wrong feeling at all. I could blame Harry Potter, I guess. I’ve been obsessed with rereading the books (from Azkaban on – I’ve read those first two about a bazillion times) ever since I saw the new movie (which, by the by, I thought was nicely done – for a movie), and I’m afraid that Hogwarts is occupying a fair number of my thoughts even when I’m not reading.

I have been led to understand that some people have never even read a Harry Potter book. It’s a sobering thought, like when I realized that some people really do prefer the tangy zip of Miracle Whip. Both things seem beyond all reason to me.

Anyhoo, I do plan to continue reading at a frantic pace, but I do not plan on forgetting any more posts, which means that I also do not plan to write any more posts about forgetting to post. Maybe I’ll even post about something interesting, like the rockin’ new version of Jane Eyre I started watching today or the fact that I was recently sent an advertisement for an adult “quiet living” facility or how much trying to learn how to play the guitar is hurting my delicate fingers. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Posted by adrienne at 07:15 PM | Comments (15)

July 11, 2007

The Joy of Laundry

Of all household tasks, laundry is my favorite. There is something very satisfying about throwing a load of wash in the machine and then sitting around somewhere reading a book knowing that even though you aren’t twitching a muscle, work is still getting done. Clean laundry means more clothes for me to pick from in the morning, which is pretty much the only reason I get up when Lucas isn’t here in the mornings during the summer. As someone with severe allergies, keeping up with the laundry is also one of the easiest and best ways to control allergens in my home, and, as a bonus, the cats and I love to play the laundry-folding game. Fun all around.

Part of my laundry routine is high-tech. I’ve been using a front-loading washing machine for about eight years now (do NOT get me started on The Evils of Your Top-Loading Washing Machine, as I see no reason on this particular subject), which means HE detergents, which are still kind of exotic in my part of the world. Other than that, though, I’m an old-fashioned girl, and two of my favorite laundry products are Biz Stain-Activated Booster and Fels-Naptha soap.

Most people can identify Biz in a lineup, but most people don’t buy it, which is sad as it is the stuff on miracles. If you have something that is especially dingy or that has something on it that you are afraid will stain, this is what you do:

1. Put a shake of Biz in a bucket. (Biz is a powder, btw. They make a liquid product, but yuck.)
2. Fill the bucket with hot/warm water.
3. Drop in dirty items.
4. Go do something else for a while.
5. Take items out of water and launder as per usual.

This always works, and Biz doesn’t give me hives – BONUS!

Equally brilliant is Fels-Naptha, laundry soap that comes in a bar. You use it to wash out stains in much the same way you’d apply soap to a washcloth. It’s awesome for when you spill something on yourself at home that you can take off and treat right away. A little water and scrubbing will take out most stains, and then you can just set the item aside to dry until you’re ready to do a whole load of laundry. It just doesn’t get easier than that.

Maybe, if you’re lucky, one of these days I’ll tell you all about my favorite way to clean windows. Until then, happy laundry.

Posted by adrienne at 09:05 AM | Comments (5)

July 08, 2007

Dead Animal Zoo

Sierra introduces us to Kendall's newest attraction:

"That's all! Goodbye, now. Weirdo."

Posted by adrienne at 12:28 AM | Comments (5)

July 07, 2007

The Monster at the End of My Dining Room Table

"Oh, wait, I forgot to show the pictures."

Ella's reaction:

Posted by adrienne at 01:20 PM | Comments (7)

July 03, 2007

Signs

I have eaten most of a pan of brownies in the last 24 hours, and I am only content when I am blasting CDs and reading Entertainment Weekly. (At work, I am forced to substitute my iPod and Kirkus, which is okay but not quite the same.) I know what this is about, and we’d all be better off if I could just continue peacefully damaging my hearing while reading ephemera for a couple days, but no. Happily, I have the world’s fastest and easiest brownie recipe, and I don’t care what the medical establishment has to say about it – the chocolate helps me feel better.

I originally found the recipe for Katherine Hepburn’s Brownies in More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend that you make it a priority, although I note that the brownie recipe is right there on epicurious. In How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman says, “Americans must have been sadly alienated from the kitchen for pancake mixes to ever have gained a foothold in the market, for these are ridiculously easy to make.” I think of this whenever I make brownies. Katherine Hepburn’s recipe takes approximately three minutes to mix and uses ingredients that are already in most kitchens. (Well, some people don’t keep baking chocolate in their kitchens, but I’m not sure what’s wrong with them. I fear that they suffer from self-hatred.) I dare you to find a boxed mix that takes less time, and these brownies are GOOD, as in I-think-I’ll-just-go-ahead-and-hide-these-so-no-one-takes-any good. Yum, yum, yummity, yum. I might just make some more. People eat brownies on the 4th of July, right?

Posted by adrienne at 12:10 AM | Comments (13)

July 01, 2007

Recurring Nightmares

“I just find it amusing that you came from somewhere.”
-Marcella in Grosse Pointe Blank

When I made the decision to graduate high school a year early, my chemistry teacher became fond of telling the entire class how I was going to live to regret not sticking around to take physics. Little did he know that I had no intention of taking physics had I stayed, and all I have retained from my year in chemistry is a recurring nightmare in which I am forced to go back to high school to take physics. I enjoyed high school while I was there, but, as I told one of my fellow alumni at our fifteen year reunion last night, that’s only because I had no idea that there were alternatives. Now, when I have my physics nightmare, I wake up in a panic and have to tell myself over and over that it wasn’t real.

The reunion was fun, though.

I’m still close to a couple people from the class of ’92, but I haven’t seen most of them since I graduated in ’91. We had very small classes, but, seriously, I didn’t even recognize some people. One of my classmates told me that she had studied the yearbook before she came to the mixer Friday night, which was brilliant. I’m a librarian; I should have thought of that. The weekend’s events turned out to be a great way to get some time with Terri, who I hardly ever get to see. Back in the day, we lived up the street from each other, we had our lockers right next to each other, and I spent most of the summer at her house every year. She’s one of those friends who I don’t get to talk to a lot, but we invariably always have a lot to say when we do. At the mixer on Friday night, we had a very Terri-and-Adrienne moment where we were standing off to the side kind of watching the various groups of people talking:

Me: We should probably mingle.
Terri: Yeah, we should.
Me: Yeah.
Terri: … [Staring at drink]
Me: … [Swirling around ice in drink]
[Both laughing]

We did finally decide to mingle. It was weird to talk to people who I haven’t seen in years who know things about me, like one of my classmates who was teasing me about how I used to love to have my picture taken (which is true but also very much NOT the case now). I was talking to another classmate about how crazy it was that Brian and I just decided to go out and get married when we were nineteen, and she was like, “Well, that’s how you make all your decisions, right? You’re impulsive” (which is still true). I had a few weird widow moments, which I expected. My favorite was one of my classmates who acknowledged Brian’s death and then said, “Well, you look beautiful!” People always worry about saying the wrong thing in these situations, so I feel that it is my duty to tell you that this is one of the right things to say.

For a small community, Kendall has managed to produce an odd number of people who have gone on to be extraordinarily interesting adults. One of my classmates is, for instance, a toy designer and another told us about his experience dropping bombs from a B-52 in Afghanistan (an activity I don’t particularly support, but it was definitely an interesting conversation). People asked me questions about my book. Being a naturally opportunistic self-promoter, I was like, “Oh, it’s not a novel or anything, just a book about homeschooling.” Then I’d make a face, but, no, they still acted interested. I got to talking to Gunnur, who is a teacher in Iceland, and she told me that homeschooling is illegal there, which I didn’t know. (It’s surprising to me how many countries don’t allow homeschooling.) People are always surprised at how many people from school I’ve stayed close to and how many I see on an at least semi-regular basis, but I don’t understand how one could know people like this and give them up entirely. I have never regretted leaving high school early, but seeing my former classmates again was surprisingly fun, probably because there were no science labs involved. Come to think of it, that probably would have improved my high school experience as a whole....

Posted by adrienne at 11:35 AM | Comments (6)

June 29, 2007

"The Tale of Mr. Morton:" Poetry (and Sometimes a Song) Friday

This weekend is my second fifteen year high school reunion. In celebration, I thought I'd share one of my favorite bits of childhood nostalgia. Schoolhouse Rock still rocks, and, as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Morton rocks the hardest.

This may be why watat.com is a G-Rated Blog. Today's Poetry Friday roundup, consisting mostly of blogs that rate at least an "R," no doubt, is at Shaken & Stirred.

Posted by adrienne at 06:20 PM | Comments (1)

June 25, 2007

In Honor of Chuck's Birthday

Chuck's family gave me a copy of this photo, and, obviously, I had to post it. Chuck is on the right; my late husband is on the left. Brian talked about things he'd done at Chuck's house when they were kids, but he certainly never mentioned this. And look at them! They're so pretty!

Happy Birthday Chuck! What age are we supposed to pretend you are again?

Posted by adrienne at 01:13 PM | Comments (8)

June 24, 2007

“Things Fall Apart”

This past week, we had some pretty serious thunderstorms here in WNY, and on Tuesday, I got a fair amount of water in the laundry room. It came in through a door that leads to a sunken stairwell that takes one into the backyard. Five years ago, if I had walked into the laundry room to find an expanding pool of water, I would have freaked out and let Brian handle it. On Tuesday, though, I looked at it, realized that the drain at the bottom of the stairwell must be clogged, went about unclogging it, and started mopping. It was kind of a pain in the butt, but I didn’t even swear. Even better, today I asked Tam to come over to spot me so I could clean out the gutter above the stairwell because it was also clogged (which had, needless to say, added to the problem), and I spent some more time checking out the rest of the lower gutters. It look a lot of nerve for me to spend that much time on a ladder, so I didn’t go the extra mile and check the gutters on the upper roof, but I think I might try it next weekend. Sometimes I'm not sure that I am the sort of person who should be trusted with a house, but this whole episode made me feel hope for myself as a homeowner. Lately, I’m just full of hope – hope that my life is going to keep getting better and hope that I might be able to do more than I think I can. Brian’s death sapped the hope from my life for what seemed like such a long time, but his absence is a large part of what’s forced me to find hope again. It’s hard to wrap my mind around this happiness, but I’m grateful for it. I’ve decided I’d like it to stay.

Posted by adrienne at 07:43 PM | Comments (10)

June 23, 2007

As Good as It Gets

It is summer.

Tracy’s been staying with me. She and Christina baked brownies last night, and there are still some left in the kitchen. Jen’s in town, so she and I spent most of the day together talking and doing things like drinking coffee at the Leaf and Bean, shopping at Parkleigh, and having lunch with some of her law school friends at the Old Toad. Now I’m waiting for Tammy to pick me up so we can drive out to meet Chuck, Kelly, and company for food and margaritas at the cottage. Life could be better than this, I suppose, but I’m not sure how.

Hope you’re all having equally wonderful weekends.

Posted by adrienne at 05:28 PM | Comments (1)

June 19, 2007

But Whatever Happened to Your Sidebar?

For those of you who haven't noticed, my sidebar has migrated south for the week. You can find it if you scroll way, way, way down. Something about the entry with footnotes did it, and I can't seem to undo it -- just a little more evidence that I have enough techie knowledge to create a mess but not necessarily to do anything constructive. Alas! I'm hoping that once the offending entry is off the main page, my sidebar will pop back up to its former happy home. If not, I don't know. I'll have to think hard, and that would take time away from my books and crossword puzzles.

No, sir, I don't like it.

Posted by adrienne at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2007

Random Photos, or Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Kitten

This is what you can do to Benny when he's too tired to pay much attention:

This is the front of my office door:

I don't know if Craig's keeping up with the blog these days, but he sent me the Sword in the Stone and Bambi postcards *years* ago, and he may not realize I have saved them all this time.

This is the dress I wore to my high school prom (discussed in the comments earlier this week), hanging where everyone keeps their prom dress, on the back of their office door along with their bathrobes that are currently out of favor:

Ah, Sunday. And now I'm off to a baseball game with my dad....

Posted by adrienne at 12:20 PM | Comments (6)

June 13, 2007

“I May Be Neglecting the Things I Should Do”

For the last three years, I’ve only had a DVD player and a VCR hooked up to my television. I couldn't even get the local networks at home. If I wanted to watch something that was being broadcast on television (i.e. The Office), I would go to the Y and ride the exercise bike while the show was on. Of course, I could only do this with certain shows, as the Y only has six or seven TVs (one of which is always tuned to FOX News – BLECH).

I went totally off the deep end the other day, though, and got a DVR.

I’m not one of those people who is all snobby about not watching television. I like TV. I only got rid of my DVR after Brian died because I was afraid that I would mope around watching television instead of dealing with my life, which, in retrospect, was a good decision. It’s interesting what one misses, though, when one doesn’t watch TV – new shows, for instance, and good commercials. (It irritates Tammy to no end that I never know what she’s talking about when she brings up commercials. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one who said whatever spurred Lucas into telling me that I should start watching television like a normal person, but I have no proof.)

I have mixed feelings about having TV again. First of all, I hardly know what to do going straight from no stations to having approximately four hundred billion of them. It’s a big step. I mean, I haven't quite been able to wrap my mind around what stations I have access to. That on-screen “guide” is no help at all. With Tammy’s assistance (she knows more about cable than the people at Time Warner), I was able to locate key stations so that I could start recording important programs – Comedy Central (The Daily Report, The Colbert Report), Cartoon Network (Robot Chicken), and NBC (The Office, 30 Rock). That was all I could handle before I had to take a break to read a book. I haven’t actually watched anything yet. Maybe tonight. One day at a time.

Posted by adrienne at 12:28 AM | Comments (11)

June 12, 2007

7-Imp Interview

I have been all a’flutter since Jules and Eisha asked if I would be interested in being part of their interview series at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. And look: there it is! Among other things, you can learn about my favorite word, more about my online activities than I thought anyone besides myself knew (Those crafty girls even link to my all-time favorite watat.com entry!), and more about what Tammy and Jeffrey were up to when they were in the sixth grade. Good times. And I am still all a’flutter.

Posted by adrienne at 07:00 AM | Comments (12)

June 11, 2007

LATE 48 Hour Book Challenge Tallies

My tallies are pathetic:

3 books read
775 pages
8 hours reading
1/2 hour blogging

1 book written (That's something. Not applicable, but something.)

Posted by adrienne at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2007

Inauspicious Beginning...

I was first tested for allergies in my early 20s, which is when I learned how very many things I was allergic to. I (unwisely) did not keep up with my allergist or take his recommendation to start getting shots, though, and last year my allergies suddenly took a turn for the worse. I kept hoping that things would resolve themselves, but they haven't, so now I am forging a relationship with a new allergist.

I had my first appointment this morning, which started with a retest of my allergies. It turns out that my allergies have gotten much more focused. I'm not allergic to as many things, but the things I am allergic too -- woo boy. Dust is the biggest winner, although feathers and roaches are close seconds. (Why do they test people for roach allergies? I mean, HELLO, I pretty much avoid roaches as a matter of course and assume other people do, too.) Anyway, the whole thing was very informative and the allergist and I have big plans to get me all fixed up and it all seemed to be going along swimmingly.

That is until not long after I wrote my last entry, which is when my upper arm had a delayed and very strong reaction to the skin tests I had this morning. Now my arm is all swollen and red and aching. I guess this isn't such an unusual reaction, although I note that no one mentioned it as a possibility when I was actually getting the tests done. When I talked to the doctor this evening, she said that I should put hydrocortisone cream on it and take some Benadryl, which I did but which has also left me dozing off even in the midst of trying to read a very good book. (The doctor also recommended cold compresses, which I haven't tried yet, mostly because I hate cold things on my skin.)

Sigh.

It is irritating when my body gets in the way of things I want to do. I am going to go try to read again....

Posted by adrienne at 09:05 PM | Comments (3)

48 Hour Book Challenge

Mother Reader's 48 Hour Book Challenge starts today. I'm also still finishing work on the homeschooling book. (I know, I know. I keep saying I'm going to finish it and then taking it back. I swear, I'm turning it in on Monday.) This means two things:

#1 - I'm skipping another week of Poetry Friday in favor of more time reading/writing, and
#2 - I'm officially starting The Challenge now -- 4:31 p.m.

I'll be blogging my progress throughout the weekend. Happy reading, everyone!

Posted by adrienne at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2007

Joy!

Look at what arrived in my office yesterday:

Yes, it's true: a High School Musical Magic 8 Ball from an anonymous donor. It came in this box with this note:

This person not only solved my dilemma over the High School Musical Magic 8 Ball, but she also wrote her note with a purple Flair -- MY FAVORITE. Plus, check out the ladybug on the box.

Here is the High School Musical Magic 8 Ball getting to know all my other Magic 8 Balls:

Look at how happy everyone is! (Well, aside from the Series of Unfortunate Events Magic 8 Ball, which said, "My sources say tragedy." Spongebob said, "Ask again in jellyfish season," which is so very typically random.)

I think I know who sent this treasure. The problem with guessing, though, is that it's so embarrassing if one gets it wrong. Let's consult the High School Musical Magic 8 Ball:

Question: Did the person who I think sent you really send you?
HSM: Call back Friday @ 3:30.
Question: Why 3:30?
HSM: Not another word.
Question: What?
HSM: Your head's in the game.
Question: ...
HSM: It is so not.

It is all clear to me now. (Plus I think I recognize the handwriting on the note. I have an uncanny knack for that.)

Posted by adrienne at 12:35 AM | Comments (7)

June 04, 2007

What Adrienne Has Been Doing Instead of Writing

I don’t want to get all braggy, but I was having fun.

First, here are just some of the books I picked up at BookExpo:

We shipped from the trade show floor on Friday, so I have another box of them a’coming.

I was most excited to get The Plain Janes, which my new best friend at DC Comics gave me when I explained to him how much I’ve been looking forward to reading it. Those folks at DC have been very kind to us at WPL. I was so excited when I got an ARC of Meg Cabot’s forthcoming Jinx that I was jumping up and down. I was also really happy to meet Rose Kent (author of Kimchi & Calamari), and Jason was very kind and got me a signed copy of the ARC of What they Found: Love on 145th Street by Mr. Walter Dean Myers. It was even kinder the way Jason carried my books around along with his most of the time, which saved me a great deal of pain and suffering.

In the box en route is my signed copy of An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, who seemed genuinely surprised when I said that I was a fan of Brotherhood 2.0. I mean, isn’t EVERYONE? Of course, the nanosecond after I got my book signed, I called Tammy and left a message in which I may have sounded a bit like a fangirl.

When we weren’t having fun obtaining mass quantities of books, we did a lot of other stuff. Mostly we ate. We also saw Spring Awakening, which was AWESOME. I might blog about it in more detail later this week, but, in the meantime, I want to highly recommend that all of you run out and watch it.

I will close with a picture of Jason and I and a very rare NYC tree that can make force lightning:

Now *that's* cool.

Posted by adrienne at 06:24 PM | Comments (8)

May 30, 2007

Eight Things Meme

YES! Wendy from Blog from the Windowsill tagged me!!! Here’s the deal:

Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Could there possibly be eight things about me that I haven’t already written on repeatedly and at length? Let us see.

1. As many of you know, I collect Magic 8 Balls, but, as no one would know because I haven’t been talking about it, I have been grappling with an ethical dilemma concerning my collection. Disney has allowed the creation of a High School Musical Magic 8 Ball. I dislike spending money on Disney products + I love Magic 8 Balls = I have devoted an absurd amount of thought to this contradiction. I haven’t yet allowed myself to buy the Magic 8 Ball in question, although I fear I could cave at any moment. (OMG! Check this out. I didn't even know that one existed!!!)
2. Even though I keep saying I’m not going to write another book, I totally have an idea for one. I wrote up some notes about it last week.
3. I love the catalpa tree in my yard better than all the other trees because it’s so odd.
4. Flairs are my writing implement of preference.
5. Lucas brought a cookie to my house yesterday (as he often does) and only ate half of it (as he often does) so I ate the remaining half last night (as I often do), but this time he remembered that he’d left the other half of the cookie (as he NEVER does) so I had to admit my sneaky ways.
6. I will happily listen to loud music but, aside from that, I am very skittish about any kind of loud noise, which is one of the many reasons I have so steadfastly avoided using power tools.
7. When I was a preschooler, I had an invisible friend named Max.
8. I have been experimentally not using the microwave at work and at home for the last couple months to see how I like life without one, and now I’m seriously considering giving mine the boot. I could use the counter space.

Now I'm supposed to tag eight people. That's a lot, and a lot of people have already been doing it. Here goes:
1. Jeffrey at Demanding Robot
2. Sarah at Confessions from a Life on Holiday
3. Stephanie over at Another Kick Butt Librarian
4. Sophie at It's a Dog's Life

Wow, it's like everyone else has already been tagged. If I missed you, and you need a tag, please take it. :)

Posted by adrienne at 10:32 AM | Comments (12)

May 29, 2007

Lucas, Mucas, Pukas

As some of you already know, I'm off to BookExpo America in NYC this weekend.

[Momentary pause while Adrienne does dance of joy.]

Lucas is the sort of kid who usually goes with the flow, but he prefers when he has some idea of what to expect. So I was talking to him this morning about how I was going to be in NYC this weekend ("You mean where the Statue of Liberty is? And the Empire State Building???"). I told him about some of the things I'd be doing, including seeing the show Heather's working on. I asked him if he remembered Heather and he was like, "YES!" Then he rolled his eyes like a teenager.

Then he said, "Adrienne, you need to think about Heather's name."

Me: "Um, okay."
Lucas: "If you replace the 'H' with a 'W,' what do you get?"
Me: "Oh, Weather!"
[Giggling.]
Lucas: "Let's think of another one...."
Me: "'L' -- Leather!"
Lucas: "F!"
Me: "Feather!"
[More giggling.]

We couldn't think of any more. I swear, though, this is a sign that Lucas is going to develop the ability to anagram in his head. I completely envy people who can anagram in their heads (Olivia), which just goes to show that I am a nerd exactly the way the survey said I am.

I guess we already knew that, though. At least I'm in good company.

Posted by adrienne at 04:23 PM | Comments (6)

May 28, 2007

Was Anyone Watching the Game or Were We All Too Busy Eating Fried Dough?

And, hey, look, the Red Wings were playing Jen's new home's team. And we won! Good day....

(Please note Lucas's lack of front teeth.)

Posted by adrienne at 09:19 AM | Comments (2)

May 26, 2007

“If You Wake Up and Don’t Want to Smile”

My essential dislike of anything that resembles labor is something of a theme in this blog. What I dislike isn’t really work – I rather enjoy, for instance, doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom and tidying things up – but is something more precisely rooted in quantity and pace. I love to lollygag and rail against too much structured time.

I kind of thought the book was taking over my life months ago, but I knew nothing then. I realized a few weeks ago that thinking “Gosh, I really ought to read that 800 page book” wasn’t getting the 800 page book read. It’s the essential problem of creating anything. I have these ideas in my brain, and making those ideas into real things someone could kick around is a real pain in the ass. When I sit down to write something, I have words in my head, but not all of them – a lot of what I have is a sense or a feeling. This is why first drafts can be such a disaster. One tries to capture the intangible with slightly inadequate and shifty symbols. I imagine it’s much the same thing when one is trying to paint a picture or sculpt something or take a photo, but I’m too busy not doing much to know that from personal experience. Research is even worse because I know I want such-and-such a fact, but facts can be very elusive.

So, anyway, the last few weeks I’ve been forcing myself to do only essential things and work on the book, skipping, for instance, eating anything decent, getting adequate sleep, or, even, exercising. I’ve done some incredible work on the book, but the abrupt lifestyle change has taken its toll. Today, I decided to give myself a break. I went to cycling class at the Y this morning. Yes, it’s true. It felt like recreation, like I was maybe even being a little naughty. I followed this up with eating a leisurely breakfast with Tammy and Max and then doing a little laundry. I felt so reenergized that I read a whole book that allowed me to write a two sentence annotation for my homeschooling core collection. Brilliant! Tonight, I’m going to a baseball game. Am I planning to eat a piece of the 1000-calorie fried dough at least two people a day visit watat.com to learn more about? You bet I am! Screw it all!

I am also going to bring the manuscript (which now weighs a whole pound!) with me. I still have some work to do.

Posted by adrienne at 03:20 PM | Comments (4)

May 25, 2007

“Yes I’ll Obsess on Splitting that Infinitive:” Poetry Friday

and right, I know I talk too much and think
too much about what I’m thinking and not
enough about what I say, and simmer too long

in the crock of myself, which is right where I
get when I get this way and want to say
shut up, Simmerman, just shut up . . . .
-from “Jittery” by Jim Simmerman

I don’t know Simmerman's other work, but I love this poem. It’s the story of my life always, but particularly lately. It’s hard to do stream-of-consciousness, but I think Simmerman manages it convincingly here. He’s telling a story but also getting into that frame of mind where one is nervous and the caffeine isn't helping. He succeeds by using small words and minimal full stops. Even though the poem is long on the page, it consists of only five delightfully punctuated sentences (colons! semicolons! yes!). He relies on lots of variations of “to be,” which is hard to make interesting, but look at how the “is” hangs in the air when you don’t quite know where he’s going in the line/stanza break in “what you get when you get too much of what it is/they’ve got to give you.” Beautiful. It’s one of the details that helps capture the experience. Even he doesn’t quite know where he’s going. It is the combined beauty and difficulty of interacting with other humans when one is shy and introspective and slightly hopped up on caffeine.

And now, my friends, it’s time for me to get another latte. Happy weekend!

[Today’s roundup is over at A Wrung Sponge.]

Posted by adrienne at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2007

The Flip Side

Left side: "Peep set."
Right side: "Darth Peep."

Posted by adrienne at 07:02 AM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2007

I Think I'll Just Let Lucas Take Care of My Blog This Week

(Click on picture to see larger image, which is so totally worth it.)

Posted by adrienne at 12:02 AM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2007

Lucas, A Monologue

"Where's the woodchuck today? The woodchucks in my yard have both chased me because they want to bite me. They aren't scared of me and they get on the ramp on my playset to try to bite me when I'm on it. They're scared of me now, for some reason. I am NOT looking at that dead possum today. [Makes yuck noise.] I don't want to see it. It makes me want to throw up when I look at it. I don't like dead possums because they have a lot of blood, and I NEVER want to see a dead lizard because they REALLY have a lot of blood. I know that. Sometimes they shoot blood out of their eyes. I can shoot blood out of my eyes, but most of the time I just don't. I got a cut yesterday and when I went in the house it was bleeding and I had to get a band-aid. Want to see?"

Posted by adrienne at 09:16 AM | Comments (5)

May 21, 2007

Homeschooling and Society

“If you are going to keep your children out of schools you had better decide what an education means because no one is going to do it for you.”
-David Guterson in Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense

When I talk to people who are seriously opposed to homeschooling, the conversation almost always leads me to realize that the person I’m talking to believes that the negative experiences that are part of most people’s school years are essential to surviving life in the adult world. This belief doesn't make a lot of sense to me, although I can see where it comes from. People who suffered in school want to believe that it was to some good end. People who are miserable as adults believe – somewhat ironically – that teaching children that they shouldn’t hope for good things in life will be better for them in the long run. People, as a species, sometimes have trouble imaging alternatives.

When the United States became a country, home education was the norm, and when leaders started talking more seriously about compulsory education in 1800’s, people generally hated the idea. It’s remarkable how quickly Americans turned to state-controlled education, though, when industrialization began having a strong impact on people’s daily lives – speeding up the pace of life and keeping parents more often away from home. People didn’t feel up to the task of educating their children, and, not unlike parents today, they worried that their children would be left behind in a time of dramatic changes. Still, it is remarkable to me that the idea of institutionalized schools took such a strong hold so quickly that just over one hundred years later homeschooling sounds like such a radical idea to so many people.

For me, the whole thing becomes a question of what, exactly, we as a society want for our children. Reading David Guterson’s Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense the other day, I was reminded that the end of education for so many people is about attempting to find wealth. This is something I’m kind of divorced from in my life in the non-profit sector. At 33, I can see myself happily laboring as a Librarian II for the rest of what promises to be a long career. I will never make a ton of money, but there are so many things that are more important to me – security, freedom, fulfillment, time off. I think I take it for granted that everyone can find a job that, like mine, is an excellent match for their personalities and interests. I operate under the assumption that this is the goal of raising children – not that they become wealthy but, rather, that they grow into healthy and happy adults. It’s weird to me to think that anyone could want anything else out of life, but, of course, I don’t know where we’d be if everyone was, like me, vastly more inclined to sit around drinking lattes and reading than, say, doing advanced math. People’s hostility toward homeschooling comes more from the belief that life, and by extension childhood, is and should be full of misery. Perhaps this is the real problem with our schools, with so much of life in general. Homeschooling is not the answer for everyone, but homeschoolers have had a lot of success raising relatively happy, accomplished, and well-adjusted adults. I think people should stop picking on them.

Posted by adrienne at 08:28 AM | Comments (7)

May 20, 2007

True Facts About the Current State of the Homeschooling Book

#1 - Tammy printed out most of what I consider done with the book (although I have since added a few things to what I had previously considered done and have finished yet another chapter), and if you were to bind the finished manuscript pages together and throw them at someone, I believe it would inflict pain. This seems to me a good sign.

#2 - Likewise, if you stand on a chair and drop the manuscript on a wood floor, it makes a very satisfying thump. (Serious bonus points to anyone who gets my reference, although I expect no one will. Sigh.)

#3 - I still haven't successfully committed my book's title to memory, so when people ask me about it, I get all, "Ummmm... it's like Libraries and Homeschoolers or Serving Homeschoolers in Libraries or I don't know. It's got the word 'homeschooling' and the word 'library,' I think." It's kind of embarrassing, yet every time I ask my brain to retain this bit of information, it slips away again.

#4 - I've been doing very little that isn't directly related to writing my book this past week, although I did go to Sierra and Paige's dance recital in the good old Kendall High School auditorium last night. I would like to report further on the recital as it was even more awesome than in past years, which is hard to believe since this event is, normally, quite awesome. (HINT: Ron sang loudly in public. HINT: Lynn danced ON STAGE. HINT: Paige screamed, "NO!" very loudly in public ON STAGE.)

Now I must go read more stuff about homeschooling because, goodness knows, I just haven't read enough.

Posted by adrienne at 03:02 PM | Comments (7)

May 19, 2007

Books in the Pile I Intend to Read When I Am Done Writing the Homeschooling Book

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (reread, on account of the fun newish cover)
The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci
Lucy Rose: Working Myself to Pieces & Bits by Katy Kelly (ARC)
Cassandra's Sister: Growing Up Jane Austen by Veronica Bennett (ARC)
Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller (ARC)
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (reread, just because)
Swollen by Melissa Lion
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Avalon High by Meg Cabot
Split Screen by Brent Hartinger

Just looking at that shiny, shiny pile of books makes me want to keep writing. I *will* finish my work, I *will* finish my work....

Posted by adrienne at 02:38 PM | Comments (3)

May 17, 2007

My Life is Very Exciting at the Moment...

...and I've been trying to write something cohesive about why and can't quite manage it. The biggest thing today was that I introduced the Children's Department's semi-radical plan for the summer at our full staff meeting this morning, and people were really cool and supportive about it. They asked good questions, and they seemed to be thinking it over. They nodded and smiled. They said nice things. It was so encouraging because we're making a big change, and I've been worried right along about how people would react. You know when things work out nicely, the way you hope they will? That was today. I am a happy librarian right now.

Posted by adrienne at 11:19 PM | Comments (3)

May 14, 2007

Define "Outrageous"

So Lucas and I were on our approach to school this morning when I started to wonder what was so stinky. That's when I noticed the little yellow flags all around the school lawn warning us not to let children walk on it for a couple days.

*sputters* *blinks rapidly* *sputters again*

It's not rare for me to think to myself as I drop Lucas off at school that he'd be better off staying home with me or even spending his day at the library, but it really hits a new level when I have to tell him to stay off the grass on account of his school decided it was a good idea to spread dangerous chemicals all over it.

This happens every year, of course, but it never fails to stun me that my tax dollars support the school district paying someone to bring known carcinogens into the place one of the most precious people in my life is forced to spend his entire day. I mean, I'm the one who brings him there.

*sputters again*

Ugh.

Posted by adrienne at 09:15 AM | Comments (17)

May 13, 2007

"Let Me Drive the Escort!"

Yeah, so, it turns out that problem with poop on my car? Not a robin.

You know, I have a book to finish. I can't keep washing my car every three days. I did the only thing I could do. I let the pigeon drive the Escort:

Posted by adrienne at 10:41 AM | Comments (8)

May 08, 2007

Lucas the Comedian

Lucas: I know a joke!
Me: Hit me.
Lucas: What's the scariest animal in Australia?
Me: A dingo?
Lucas: NO! A kangaBOO.
Me: [laughing] That one's actually good!
Lucas: [rolls eyes, then brightens] Wait! I know another one! What's the stinkiest animal in Australia?
Me: What?
Lucas: A kangaPOO. I know another one: what do you call a kangaroo that likes to dance?
Me: What?
Lucas: A kangaTUTU. Let me think of another one. Hmmmmm.... Got it! What do you call a baby kangaroo?
Me: A joey?
Lucas: That's not a joke.
Me: Oh.
Lucas: A kangaNEW.
Me: Got any more?
Lucas: Yeah, well, um, what do you call a kangaroo that holds everything together?
Me: [genuinely baffled] What?
Lucas: KangaGLUE!
Me: [laughing again] That one's funny.
Lucas: What do kangaroos name their baby girls?
Me: What?
Lucas: KangaSUE. You know, I could do this all day.
Me: Except you have to go to school.
Lucas: Yeah.

Posted by adrienne at 08:30 PM | Comments (16)

May 07, 2007

What a Difference an "And" Makes

So the day started at 4:00am when Benny batted my nose to remind me that it was time to eat.

Then again at 5:00am when Ella puked breakfast up on my bed.

Then again around 7:00am when Lucas got to my house. (Tammy had a latte for me, or else I probably wouldn't have gotten up.)

Then I got to work and found this on the shelf where the new children's books wait to be processed (much to my coworkers' amusement):

I think maybe I meant to order this*:

Is it time to go home yet?

*And, okay, so I KNOW I meant to order this. I freaking love Mary Downing Hahn. Wait Till Helen Comes is my absolute favorite scary book for kids, and I always look forward to Hahn's new books. Still, maybe Jason made the mistake....

Posted by adrienne at 02:20 PM | Comments (10)

May 05, 2007

More Publicity Photos...

Jeffrey developed a bunch of photos and sent me some scans. I posted them over at my flickr. Comments welcome!

And now comes the part where I spend the rest of the weekend slacking. Weeeee!

Posted by adrienne at 11:28 AM | Comments (6)

May 02, 2007

“Motionless Fascination”

The Internets have been bursting with exciting things lately.

#1 – Fuse #8’s gone and written an article for The Horn Book about blogging. Woo hoo, Fuse! (For the record, I understand that Fuse has a first name and that it is Betsy, but I have a hard time referring to her that way.) Woo hoo to The Horn Book, too. The article’s bound to bring blogs to the attention of a lot of folks who haven’t been reading them. Fuse also created a list of “Kid-lit Bloggers to Watch,” and watat is on it! Her annotation even makes my lack of focus sound like it might be fun. Brilliant!

#2 – If you are not checking Brotherhood 2.0 a few times a day in case Hank or John Green have updated and bloglines hasn’t bothered to tell you yet, it’s because you have never watched one of their videos. I’ve been trying to keep my addiction a secret, but this week John had M.T. Anderson on Monday and Hank had Neil Gaiman on Tuesday. I cannot remain silent any longer. I love the Nerd Fighters.

#3 – MotherReader is taking signups for this year’s 48 Hour Book Challenge, which will be held the weekend of June 8-10. I signed up and have been busily making a list of what I hope to read. It will be the kickoff to My Summer of Reading All the Fiction I Haven’t Been Reading While Writing the Homeschooling Book. I get all warm and fuzzy every time I think about it.

#4 – I don’t know how I missed this when she first posted it, but Alkelda from Saints and Spinners made a swell “Some Blog” graphic that she's inviting everyone to use. How cool is that?

#5 – I very recently made a last-round decision to go to this year’s BookExpo in NYC. Peer pressure from Jason, the siren song of NYC, and all the coolness the conference is promising all acted against thoughts like, “What if I need to finish up the book that weekend?” or “Won’t I be tired?” and “Haven’t I traveled enough lately?” This will be my third BookExpo, which is a busy, tiring conference that I love because it is entirely devoted to books. No conference has more authors and publishers, and no one talks about issues I’ve had enough of, such as the plusses and minuses of allowing cell phone use in the library (which is so 2005 – get over it, people). As a bonus, I think I may meet some other kidlit bloggers IRL. For the rest of you, there’s still time! Check out the schedule, register, and let’s plan to get together for coffee or drinks. Needless to say, I plan on picking up plenty more books to read during the 48 Hour Challenge and My Summer of Reading All the Fiction I Haven’t Been Reading While Writing the Homeschooling Book.

#6 – Don’t forget the Series Binder Wiki. I didn’t used to understand about wikis, but I have learned that they are almost as addictive as Brotherhood 2.0. We’re adding to and improving the Series Binder all the time. Link to it, become a contributor, use it for nefarious purposes. We made it for the masses.

Posted by adrienne at 09:22 AM | Comments (4)

May 01, 2007

Jeffrey Clearly Enjoys Feedback

Per Jason's and Jen's suggestions, Jeffrey took the face off the one photo and put it on the other:

It's kind of disturbing.

You can view a couple more pretty pictures in which I don't look like a nightmare over at my flickr. Comments are, as always, encouraged.

Posted by adrienne at 04:57 PM | Comments (9)

Picture for Book

When Jeffrey visits, we don't let him sit around and relax. No, we make him work. On this visit, his job was to get a head shot for me to send to ALA Editions to use for publicity purposes.

Yeah, that's right, a publicity photo.

To tell you the truth, the whole idea that I need a publicity photo kind of freaks me out.

Anyway, he sent me a couple of the digital ones he thought were candidates. Here's the one I really like:

This one's taken in my office at work. What I like about it is that I look happy (I was) and that the spine labels on the books behind me are saying "HI."

I blame the crow's feet on five years of working at the Webster Public Library. I didn't have those things when I started there. Ah, well.

I like this one less:

I love my forsythia -- so yellow and pretty this time of year. I, however, look uncomfortable (I was). It was nice and sunny that day, which, apparently, is better for Jeffrey when he's working with his digital camera, but I can't help but notice how much I'm squinting. Jeffrey kept telling me to open my eyes, but it was *hard*. I asked him if I could wear my sunglasses, but he said no.

I also want to reach in and tug down my shirt.

Other than that, though, I like the photo. I look like I may be up to something. That's always good.

Jeffrey took a bunch of photos on film which have yet to be developed, so we'll have more to pick from at some point.

Just for the record, all comments on this entry shall begin, "Adrienne, you are very beautiful and Jeffrey is very talented...." If your comment doesn't begin that way, do not blame me if it gets lost in the review process.

Posted by adrienne at 09:50 AM | Comments (17)

April 30, 2007

Happy Anniversary to Me

Yesterday was my five-year anniversary of working at WPL.

I celebrated by having a lovely weekend having my picture taken (thanks, Jeffrey!), eating wonderful food (thanks, Jeffrey!), and going to the Leaf and Bean twice a day (thanks, Jeffrey!). I was having so much fun, I forgot all about my anniversary until I looked at my calendar last night. It’s okay, though, because I have the rest of the week off to do more celebrating. Well, technically, I’ll be writing my book, but I’ll be at home and I still have the Leaf and Bean and leftovers from the dinner Jeffrey cooked. These are celebratory things.

The striking thing is that I have now officially worked at WPL longer than any other job I’ve held. Previous to this, my longest-running job was at McDonald’s, where I worked for four years while I was in college. When I go on interviews, potential employers always ask me how my experience at McDonald’s helps me in my work today, and I tell them that working reference is a lot like working the drive-thru, which is true. I also tell them that I once had a man throw a 22-ounce Coke at my head and another one tell me to die (on my birthday, no less), which is another way of saying that I’ve seen enough odd and inappropriate behavior that it takes something really off-the-beam to phase me.

Less so since Brian died, but that’s another story.

I’ve worked at a surprising number of libraries in my ten years as a librarian (TEN YEARS? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN???) – an earthquake engineering research center library (I’m not making that up), the Lockport Public Library, Genesee Community College’s library, Maplewood in the city, and then Webster. I feel like I worked for a number of years at a couple of those places, but when I subtract five years off my ten, I realize that’s not possible. I suppose I could figure it all out if I had to, but it’s funny how time gets all fuzzy in my brain. I was obviously restless in my early career, but I’ve settled right down in Webster. I’m comfortable. I’m happy. I get to do interesting things. I have enough challenges to keep me busy and engaged but not so many that I don’t feel like I can manage them (most days). I’m lucky enough to work with people who are also my friends. I make fun of the old “Where Life is Worth Living” slogan, but I like the community in Webster. People are serious about their kids, and the Children’s Room is almost always a happening place. Five years at WPL is a thing worth celebrating. So yay, more to WPL than to me.

Posted by adrienne at 09:31 AM | Comments (7)

April 27, 2007

Why I Don't Have a Poetry Friday Post, Yet Again

#1 - Jeffrey is here.
#2 - We had to go to the Leaf and Bean a couple times.
#3 - And the Eastman House.
#4 - And WEGMANS.
#5 - And a few other places, like work and Lori's Natural Foods.
#6 - After all that, Jeffrey was preparing food for our big dinner tomorrow, and I had an important job to do, which involved sitting and talking and occasionally playing with the cats.

Mostly we've been talking about how wonderful the Leaf and Bean is and what we might get there the next time we go. It's a more pressing issue for Jeffrey, since he's only here until Sunday. In 24 hours, Jeffrey pretty much took in all of my life routine -- hang out with Lucas in the morning, hang out at the Leaf and Bean, eat, take in the occasional cultural event, spend more time eating, lots of lolling, occasional work. It's a good life and good company. Next time we need Heather here, though.

Posted by adrienne at 11:10 PM | Comments (9)

April 21, 2007

The Bunny Peeps Get All Cliquey About the Newest Peeps in Their Midst

It's true that my friends spoil me. This Easter brought a Peep lollipop from Lori AND a Peep wind-up toy from Xandi, and then Patty emailed me a link to this photo essay that puts my efforts to shame.

The Peeps sure are busy.

Posted by adrienne at 09:27 PM | Comments (3)

April 20, 2007

I'm Behind on Things Again...

This is what happened:

1. I read fiction.
2. I also read a bunch of magazines.
3. I decided to finally do something about the disaster area I call an office -- both at work (less successful) and at home (more successful).
4. I watched a few movies.
5. I stayed up too late several days in a row.
6. I got up too early several corresponding days in a row.

So I feel great, but I haven't managed to do things like read all the blogs I like to follow or even write decent entries for my own blog. You can see that I missed yesterday entirely, and though I had an idea for Poetry Friday today, I never got around to actually writing it up.

Shocking, I know.

I have some things I want to write about, though, and I'm hoping to get back into my blogging routine this weekend. I'd hate to have you all thinking that I've turned into a slacker.

Posted by adrienne at 10:09 PM | Comments (2)

April 17, 2007

"You Take Up My Time Like Some Cheap Magazine"

While I was away, I got mail from a couple friends whose kids are doing magazine subscription fundraisers – one for school (Go, Kendall!) and one for Girl Scouts.

These fundraisers are brilliant:

#1 – I get mail.
#2 – It gives me an excuse to send mail.
#3 – I am forced to subscribe to magazines to support the education of my friends’ children.

This happened to be good timing because I’ve been thinking of resubscribing to a few magazines. When Brian was dying and then I was grieving, I let most of my subscriptions lapse (with the exception of Rolling Stone – a girl’s got to have something and, besides, my dad gets that one for me). Like everything else, my magazines got too overwhelming. But I miss them. I look forward to getting my hair cut and going to the grocery store primarily because I can at least take in the headlines. Now that I’m starting to see potential guilt-free reading time after I hand in the book at the beginning of June, I keep thinking that maybe I'll have time to read whole articles.

In the interest of irony, I want to tell you that I have chosen to support the education of my friends’ children by subscribing to Entertainment Weekly and Premiere. I also considered Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. One of these things is not like the other there, but, really, The New Yorker covers a lot of pop culture, which is one of the many reasons I love it. I decided that I’m not quite ready to have something that time-consuming hitting my mailbox once a week yet, though. Maybe later in the year. Until then, at least I’ll have my basic entertainment news covered.

It’s absurd how excited I am about this.

Posted by adrienne at 08:19 AM | Comments (19)

April 15, 2007

The Washington Post

Yes, it's true: the boy's gone national.

Awwwww.

Posted by adrienne at 10:53 AM | Comments (11)

April 14, 2007

Signs of Spring

I don't know why this keeps happening to me, but every spring, a robin or two goes crazy and tries to take over my house. It usually starts when some robin gets it into his head to start attacking his reflection in the window in my office that overlooks the backyard. It's hard to believe if you've never seen this phenomenon, but if you don't put a stop to it, the robin will energetically continue to attack his reflection until he injures himself so badly that he can no longer attack. My approach to the whole thing is to hang a piece of cheesecloth on the window to cut the reflection until the robins get a little less crazy.

Not that the robins stop there.

Once they're done attacking my innocent window, one of them almost always decides to build a nest on the front porch, either in the clematis or (last year) one of our hanging baskets. The mother bird then proceeds to act like she's never seen me before, like she had no idea people even lived in the house, and like we are the world's biggest threats to her and her offspring. It's kind of magical to have birds nesting on your front porch, but it also gets tiresome to have an overwrought robin screeching at you every time you walk in or out of the house.

Yesterday, though, the robins came up with a new one. I arrived home after my week away only to find that a robin had decided that my car was his territory to defend and protect, which means that my car doors were almost completely covered in bird poo. Now it's true that I exaggerate sometimes (okay, a lot), but I assure you that I am not exaggerating here -- when I say "covered," I mean COVERED, as in you could not see the door through the poo when I went out there this morning. I washed the car and, in an attempt to defend and protect my territory, parked the car in the garage, which I dislike doing, but I think I dislike seeing my car caked with bird poo more.

Ah, home.

Posted by adrienne at 02:14 PM | Comments (3)

April 13, 2007

Tammy Absolutely Refused to Leave Washington Until We Spent Some Time Dancing with Our Friend Teddy

This was the only memorial we visited where the only other people there were a number of groundskeepers getting the place spruced up (you can't miss a couple of them there on the left), so, you know, we played around.

Posted by adrienne at 07:50 PM | Comments (3)

April 12, 2007

I'm Here, Too

Posted by adrienne at 09:50 AM | Comments (1)

Jen Makes a Wish

Jennifer's here!!!

Here, she is pointing out a mean-spirited wish on Yoko Ono's Wishing Tree in the sculpture garden on the Mall. It's worth noting that media sensation Lucas was photographed by The Washington Post while we were there. The photo's likely to run this weekend....

Posted by adrienne at 09:46 AM | Comments (6)

April 11, 2007

Tammy Having Fun

Tammy was cheerful at this moment because Ron was carrying the stroller down the stairs, which meant that she didn't have to. (We're at the zoo, near the Bird House.)

Posted by adrienne at 08:49 AM | Comments (3)

April 10, 2007

Lucas Has an Accident at the Lincoln Memorial

Posted by adrienne at 07:18 PM | Comments (2)

April 09, 2007

Max Embraces Freedom

And that is not all. Oh, no, that is not all.

Posted by adrienne at 10:31 PM | Comments (11)

April 08, 2007

Transitions

It wasn't until a year or two ago that it suddenly dawned on me that I'm one of those people who doesn't transition well. For instance, tomorrow I'm going to be leaving for my first-ever trip to Washington DC. We've been planning the trip since last summer, and I'm really looking forward to it. Still, right now, I'm stuck in the middle of thinking that I have almost everything packed and ready to go but not quite everything and maybe I'm forgetting something and it's not time to go to bed and it's not time to leave and shouldn't I be doing this or that and will the cats be okay while I'm gone and I wish it was tomorrow morning and we were in the car and on our way because I'll feel better then. Once I'm en route, I'm fine -- until it's time to come home. Then it's the same thing in reverse.

Posted by adrienne at 08:59 PM | Comments (4)

Benny Protects Skippyjon from the Stay Puft Marshmallow S'more

Easter's off to a good start here. Hope you're all having a good one....

Posted by adrienne at 12:02 PM | Comments (6)

April 01, 2007

Don't I Always Have Them Eating Out of the Palm of My Hand?: The Video

Posted by adrienne at 10:08 AM | Comments (2)

March 31, 2007

Don't I Always Have Them Eating Out of the Palm of My Hand?

Of course I do.

Posted by adrienne at 10:35 PM | Comments (3)

March 28, 2007

Rituals

With things turning to spring, Lucas and I have started our nice-weather ritual of walking to school in the morning. When my husband was alive, he went to work much earlier than I ever have, and, as a consequence, I was up earlier most days than I am now. (You'll think I'm exaggerating, but, noise-wise, Brian eating his cereal for breakfast was roughly equivalent to a thunder storm. It was no use trying to sleep through it.) Back then, I went for a walk every morning. Even though I gave the habit up as soon as I no longer had someone waking me up, I have to admit that the walks were good for me. Exercise is a positive thing by itself, but it’s always helped me wake up in the morning. The time outside helps me feel more centered, as does the time to think.

Walking with Lucas is a slightly different experience. Because there’s not much to do on a walk besides look at stuff and think, we often walk in thoughtful silence, but this is also a time when Lucas will talk about things that have very clearly been on his mind (like the day last year when he told me that he didn’t want to grow up because he didn’t want to die). Yesterday, the boy seemed to be thinking about gender.

Conversation #1
Lucas: You know, everyone thinks the tooth fairy is a girl, but no one really knows because no one’s ever seen the tooth fairy.
Me: Wow, I never thought about it, but I don’t know why we all think the tooth fairy is a girl.
Lucas: Here’s what somebody needs to do. Somebody needs to set up a camera at night so they can get the tooth fairy on tape. Then we’d know.
Me: Wow, there’s an idea. [Thinking, “Good luck with that one, Tammy.”]

Conversation #2
Lucas: I really like praying mantises because they’re interesting and I read that after they mate, the female bites the head off the male.
Me: [pause] Yeah, I’ve heard that, too, but I’m not sure if it’s true.
Lucas: MAN! Why does it have to be the male? [mumbles] Maybe because he’s smaller.
Me: …

Posted by adrienne at 10:57 AM | Comments (3)

March 27, 2007

It's NOT Just Me

I'm sure you all remember how I wrote an article called "Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys" for the last issue of The Edge of the Forest. (You read that, right? Jen Robinson called the article "unexpected," which I LOVED since I am, if nothing else, a woman of mystery.) Anyway, within 24 hours of TEOTF going live, Alkelda the Gleeful from Saints and Spinners told me about this new book called... Everything's Coming Up Sock Monkeys by Bonnie Kraus Connelly. Within hours of that, I had an email from Ms. Connelly herself, who is perfectly lovely. We shared some of our fondness for sock monkeys, and I sent her a photo of his wonderful display of sock monkeys and other creatures at the Strong Museum. And that, my friends, is why the Internet is so cool.

Bonnie's looking at sock monkeys from a cultural and historical perspective, and she knows A LOT more about sock monkeys than I do. Enthusiasts will want to check out her book and her web site.

Posted by adrienne at 09:19 PM | Comments (4)

March 26, 2007

Second Annual Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival

This Saturday, March 31
10:00am-5:00pm
Fairport High School
www.teenbookfestival.org

I am sooo excited about this year's TBF. First of all, last year's was riotous good fun. Second, the events are completely free of charge (although I highly recommend buying t-shirts and books and stuff to support the cause). Third, they have an awesome lineup of authors, including Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon), Gail Giles (What Happened to Cass McBride?), and Tamora Pierce (You don't need me to offer titles here, right? Right.) If you're a writer or if you love teen fiction (or if, like me, you love both), it's so well worth making an effort to get there.

Besides all that, Olivia's been working like crazy in her second year serving on the committee that organizes and runs this thing. (You go on with your bad three-letter-word-memorizing self, O!!! WOO HOO YOU!!!) Not to mention that EVERYONE who's ANYONE is going to be there. You simply must go. I will hear no argument.

Posted by adrienne at 08:46 PM | Comments (6)

March 24, 2007

Yeah, Baby, It Is Spring!

Anatomy of a Spring Day

Yesterday was awesome. Technically, it was kind of today because I haven't yet gone to sleep, but, you know, whatever. I'm not real picky about time.

Anyway, among other things, while I was working on my book at Parkleigh, I got these cool paper doll notecards where you can use stickers to dress up the girls on the fronts of the cards. You can see the box along with a couple samples I plan to put in the mail soon here, along with evidence that I was really working on my book. See the computer? See the professional reading material? I like the girl on the left best. I love swingy dresses like that.

And look at the weather forecast! Right now, today, I feel like all things are possible. Sometimes it's scary how much the weather affects my mood. Of course, the three visits to the Leaf and Bean could have something to do with it, too....

Posted by adrienne at 12:37 AM | Comments (1)

March 23, 2007

“This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life”: Not-So-Poetry Friday

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
In ten more weeks
My book is due.

In other words, I’m afraid I don’t have time for a witty and/or semi-intelligent Poetry Friday post today, although it’s true I've been working on something I hope to post next week. We’ll see.

In the meantime, it’s Friday – and not everyone has a book due in ten weeks. If you’re looking for a way to make your day a little more fun, I humbly suggest:

Watch this “Banana Phone” video, by the people who brought you “The Llama Song” (so you know that it is joy personified).

Watch these videos Jim linked to at Buffalo Wings and Toasted Ravioli a while back. (“It's gonna be okay.” Tee hee hee.)

Enjoy 30 seconds of Bunnies and James Bond.

If you're a librarian, you could do something more directly work-related and read this PW article about forthcoming parenting titles. (I found the article most interesting and wound up ordering several titles based mostly on their titles, which were fun.)

And, last but never least, if you haven't started reading Jeffrey's blog, you should. He has begun addressing extremely important issues, by which I mean SHOES.

Posted by adrienne at 09:52 AM | Comments (7)

March 17, 2007

Girls Should Not Be Allowed to Gather in Groups of Three Even Though That’s What They Always Do

When Lucas and I went swimming at the Y yesterday, we ran into one of his friends/nemeses, Pearl (her mermaid name as opposed to her real name, which I don’t have permission to use and don’t know how to spell anyway). Pearl has been in Lucas’s classes since Kindergarten, and I am terribly fond of her. The way she beamed and dragged her friends straight over when she spotted us in the pool yesterday leads me to believe the feeling’s mutual. This is what happened:

Pearl: [TA DA! arms] THIS is Lucas’s aunt. She came to tell stories at our school this week!
Lucas: [mumbling while Pearl was still talking] Her name is Adrienne.
Pearl: [as if Lucas hadn’t just spoken] Her name is Adrienne! This [glance, dismissive wave] is Lucas. [looks more interested] Lucas!
Lucas: [looks alarmed]
Pearl: You’re still using a bubble! How cute!
Lucas: [sulking, not that Pearl noticed]
Pearl: [back to me] MY name is Pearl and THIS is Star and THIS is Cocoa. Those aren’t our REAL names, though. They’re our MERMAID NAMES. Cocoa isn’t really a mermaid, though.
Cocoa: I am a mermaid!
Pearl: Are not.
Cocoa: Are too.
Pearl: Are not.
Cocoa: IAMSOAMERMAIDTHETEACHERSAIDIAMI’MGOINGTOGOGETHERRIGHT NOW!!!
Pearl: Okay, you’re a mermaid.
Cocoa: Okay.

All I could think in my head was, "Must not laugh out loud. Must not laugh out loud."

Posted by adrienne at 12:11 AM | Comments (6)

March 14, 2007

Everybody Should Have Days Like This

My trip this past weekend was one of those ones in which a lot of things went right. On Saturday, we decided to explore Amherst, during the course of which we just happened to walk into a bookstore where Jane Yolen, Heidi Stemple, Brooke Dyer, and Jane Dyer were doing a reading/talk/signing. Here is photographic evidence (Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple):

Mother/Daughter Author/Illustrator Event

I had Jane Yolen, Heidi Stemple, and Brooke Dyer all sign a copy of Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep, and then I got Jane Dyer to sign a copy of Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons (which, as you may recall, was one of my favorite picture books of 2006). This was very exciting.

How much cooler can a day get? This much:

Financial Advisor Magic 8 Ball

It's been well over a year since I found a Magic 8 Ball that I didn't already own, but in the very next shop we went to, there it was -- something that would add to my collection *and* help me figure out my finances. When I asked it what I should do next, it said, "Start own business." Hm. Sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll ask again later....

Posted by adrienne at 07:40 PM | Comments (4)

March 12, 2007

10 Things I Learned at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Me and My Picture

#1 - Clean bathrooms in a public building that serves children are really impressive.
#2 - Clean bathrooms that are also cool are even more impressive.
#3 - When the bathrooms are clean, cool, and have really nice child-friendly features, I have to take photographs of them.
#4 - I did more than hang out in the bathrooms.
#5 - They had these bins filled with books all over the museum, and I love them.
#6 - I think this would be a cool project to do in a program at the library this summer.
#7 - So would this.
#8 - The museum has a special Friday night program once a month for families ("First Fridays @ The Carle"). It lasts a couple hours. The museum offers food, stories, a movie, and a craft. We could totally do something like this at WPL. People would like it, and it would be fun.
#9 - This play area for toddlers is lovely.
#10 - This is a fun idea for little ones, too.

Posted by adrienne at 06:03 PM | Comments (10)

March 11, 2007

Topsy-Turvy

Whenever I get home from a trip, I never know what to do first. I want to pay attention to the cats and call Tammy and eat and blog and download photos and unpack and start some laundry and read the mail and open the package that came while I was gone and do a little writing and play with my new stuff. This is all the more problematic when I don’t get home until 8:30 on a Sunday night and I have to work the next day. It’s all a matter of setting priorities. I’ve eaten, I’ve called Tammy, and my photos are downloading, but now the highest priority is kicking in. I’m telling stories to Lucas’s class tomorrow at 2:30. I know I do this sort of thing all the time as part of my job, but this is a higher-pressure situation: I really have to impress Lucas AND his classmates, and they’ve already seen me do a lot of my best stuff since I’ve been telling stories to his classes every year that he’s been in school. YIKES! I better get busy finalizing my plan, and then it’s off for my beauty sleep. More tomorrow….

Posted by adrienne at 09:56 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2007

"Give a Little Time for the Child Within You"

I'm at work this morning, but at 1:00, I'm leaving for a professional development trip to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

!!!

Excuse me while I do my Instead-of-Coming-to-Work-Tomorrow-I'm-Going-to-be-Looking-at-Original-Art-by-Quentin-Blake Dance....

Okay, I'm back.

!!!

The downside? My blogging activities may be severely curtailed as I have no idea where my next Internet access is coming from. My regular readers are always on my mind, though, and if I possibly can, I will post updates. In the meantime, try to be good.

!!!

Posted by adrienne at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2007

Is That All?

When I was nineteen, I married an engineer. He wasn’t officially an engineer back then, but he’d already developed the engineer’s most essential skill – the ability to make things operate without reading the instructions. This meant that stuff in my house worked without much interference from me, and I sure as heck didn’t waste my time reading a manual when Bri could tell me everything I needed to know over a cup of coffee. Since Bri died, though, one of the many things I’ve been forced to learn is that instruction manuals can, indeed, be instructive. They can also be unintentionally amusing. Take, for instance, the manual for our new phone service. I was reading the step-by-step instructions on how to use caller ID:

1.) First you receive an incoming telephone call.
2.) Immediately following the first ring, the Caller ID display device will show the name and telephone number of the person making the incoming call.
3.) You simply read the Caller ID display device and decide whether or not you want to answer the telephone call.

Maybe this is just another sign that I’m mentally imbalanced, but this made me laugh for five minutes straight. Part of it is because it’s absurd (you’ve received the phone call in step one, which does sort of make the rest of the steps moot, right?), but part of it is because it’s so darned clinical.

Of course, while we’re on the topic of manuals, I feel compelled to mention that when I got a new wireless router for the house a few weeks ago, I couldn’t get it running until I decided to ignore the manual and do what made sense in my head. Then I had the thing running in two minutes. Go figure.

Posted by adrienne at 10:33 PM | Comments (12)

March 05, 2007

So How About that Book?

My contract with ALA Editions stipulates that my homeschooling book will be 50,000-55,000 words long. If you aren't a writer who's ever had to worry about word count, you probably have some notion that this is a lot of words, but even being a writer with a fair amount of experience counting words, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around 50,000-55,000 of them. Currently, my longest published piece clocks in at just under 3000 words. Most things I publish are in the neighborhood of 200-600.

I like to joke that I don't understand numbers higher than twenty, but even I understand that 50,000 is a really, really big number.

I have faced any number of terrifying things in my life, but these 50,000-55,000 words are ranking in my top five list. This weekend, though, I hit a milestone: 20,000 words. 13,000 are in chapters I consider done, and the rest are hither and yon in chapters-in-progress. The shape of the book is ever-more solid in my mind. It's weird the way the book has gone from an abstract number to something I can almost see off in the distance. It's also really cool. It will be cooler when I hit 40,000 words, which won't be that far away. I could only manage to write a couple hundred words at a time when I first started working on the book (probably because I was devoting so much time to background research and reading), but now when I sit down, I crank out a couple thousand words without a problem. Then there's the editing, editing, editing. Have I ever mentioned how much I love revision? Yeah, I love revision. If it weren't for deadlines, I'd probably never call anything finished.

So the book? 20,000 words. And counting.

Posted by adrienne at 11:54 AM | Comments (9)

February 28, 2007

Things to Remember...

He's Kind of a Freak, But I Really Like Him

I may be screwing up any number of things in my own life, but I'm doing something right for this guy. We've been obsessed with a 300 piece jungle-themed puzzle the last few mornings, so that's been fun. And this morning, after weeks of watching me eat grapefruit for breakfast, Mr. Picky Eater casually asked if he could have some. Then he ate it and asked for more. If only all of life could be so rewarding.

When he's not acting like a freak, Lucas has told me that he's working on two new books. I will post more details as they become available.

Posted by adrienne at 06:14 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2007

“That’s All I Want Right Now, With Some Juice… No, Coffee”

Have you ever had one of those days where you screw up so many things that it gets hard to keep track of every stupid thing you’ve said and done? I’ve been having those days on a pretty regular basis for four or five weeks now. It’s getting tiresome. I keep wondering when Together Adrienne is going to come back and get everything under control, but that isn’t happening. No, instead, life seems to be getting more and more overwhelming and I’m getting more and more overtired, which I notice only leads to more stupid things. Vicious cycle and all that.

On the bright side, the news about my cholesterol has disturbed me enough that I’m paying attention to what I eat and – even more amazing – modifying my diet. I may do twenty five other stupid things in a day, but at least I’m eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and cutting down on my consumption of ice cream and cheese. I’ve also been trying the cycling classes at the Y, which seems to be the class for all the people who care about fitness. I don’t care about fitness, of course. I’m just trying to figure out how little I can exercise and still retain my youth/health, and cycling classes are efficient in this regard. They also make me feel like maybe my body is going to stop functioning. It hasn’t yet. I mean, my brain’s been malfunctioning, but I can hardly blame that on exercise. Maybe I’ll blame winter. I don’t know. Right now, I’m going to try going to bed. Tomorrow’s a new day, right?

Posted by adrienne at 09:33 PM | Comments (11)

February 25, 2007

It Only Took 4 Years, 9 Months, and 25 Days

April 29th will be my five-year anniversary of working at WPL. I started just a couple weeks before Webster opened a new library, and, in fact, the plans for the Children’s Room were what upgraded my interest in working at WPL from “vague” to “I must.” The Children’s Room is set up like a park – complete with a picket fence, a gazebo, a river, a bridge, a rainbow, clouds, and the sun. The great thing about coming into the project at the time I did was that everything was planned and almost done. I would just be responsible for finishing things up.

1763 days later, I’m still working on it.

There were a few things I noticed right away that were going to be problems or need attention in the new building, and there are things I’ve noticed since. That’s part of working in any building, really. One of the biggest problems that was driving me crazy for the 152,150,400 seconds leading up to this past Friday was that there wasn’t enough light in the most landlocked parts of the room (near the Story Room, for those who have visited us in person). The area has very high ceilings and, for some unknown reason, they decided to light it with little cans that only shed light figuratively. There were shadows and the whole area felt dreary. I told my boss at the time, Marvin, that it was a problem, and he kept selling me variants of, “Yeah, we’ll take care of that soon.” That went on for a few years. Then he retired. Then I started singing my song to my new boss, Terri, who finally gave me the go-ahead to do something about it sometime this past summer.

Then we ran into several of my anxieties: a lack of confidence when dealing with anything involving electricity, uncertainty over what needed to be done, reluctance to commit to big physical changes in my space, and outright hatred of talking to strangers on the phone. Between my anxiety and plenty of other things to do, I put off calling anyone until December. Then the first guy I called came in and treated me exactly the way that professional women hope men won’t treat them. This unhinged me enough that Jason volunteered to take over the project (whether it was out of concern for me or a desire to shut me up, I cannot say). It took him a couple weeks to come up with a solution, and then Terri took care of getting multiple estimates, getting the right approvals, and getting it scheduled.

So I came in to work Friday and found a clean, well-lighted place.

In the end, it took the electrician a couple hours to install those lights. I was so happy when I saw the light that I almost started crying right there in the middle of the Children’s Room. I’ve been in the library every day since, and I still have a hard time not staring at the radiant wonderfulness. It’s hard to say what amazes me more: how long it took to do something so simple or how satisfying it is to finally see it done. Seeing the difference, I realize that I should have worked more stridently to get it done sooner, but maybe the real moral of the story is that if I whine about something long enough, eventually someone will take care of my problem – if only to shut me up. Have I ever mentioned that they treat me really well at WPL? Because, yeah, they do.

Posted by adrienne at 11:02 PM | Comments (4)

February 22, 2007

If It's Good Enough for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus...

It's easy to underestimate Tammy's husband, Ron. On the outside – most especially around people he doesn't know – Ron is quiet. It's easy to believe that this is because he isn't thinking or doesn't have much to say, but it’s more that Ron won’t talk to people until he’s decided they’re worth the bother. He figures he has better things to do, and, generally, he does.

Of course, Ron’s displays of willful thinking aren’t always welcome. A few months ago, for instance, he decided that it would be a good idea to introduce Lucas to pro wrestling. We believe that Ron thinks this will give Lucas something to talk to other boys his age about, although why Ron thinks this is important, we don’t know. Lucas seems to get along just fine with other kids; he just prefers the company of adults, probably because we’re interesting and have the legal ability to drive. Anyway, when Lucas was telling me about his wrestling shows the other day, he started complaining about how one was only available in Spanish and how he was going to have to learn Spanish so he could understand what everyone was saying. I took the breath to say, “That show’s recorded in English. Someone has to be airing it.” But that’s when I realized Ron’s brilliance. Ron doesn’t mind if Lucas watches wrestling, but he doesn’t want him to hear what the participants are saying – and the show in Spanish provides a perfect solution. Lucas doesn’t understand the dialog, and he’s starting to see why it might be useful to learn a foreign language.

And people say you shouldn’t lie to your kids. Pshaw. See what good can come of it?

Posted by adrienne at 10:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 20, 2007

"Sleeping is a Gateway Drug to Being Awake Again"

It seems that we might be experiencing some technical difficulties with the comment function here in the land of pink. I love comments more than fried egg sandwiches, so I can only tolerate this for so long. My current plan is to hope that the elves come and fix things under the cover of night. If any of you experience commenting difficulty tomorrow, though, please send me email so I'll know that it's time to consider taking more direct action.

In the meantime, I'm exhausted. It must be time for good girls to go to bed....

Posted by adrienne at 10:35 PM | Comments (5)

February 19, 2007

Happy Birthday, Dear Tammy

Yeah, so, it turns out that Tammy's spending her birthday at home with two puking kids. She felt badly that I took the day off until I pointed out that I was having a perfectly lovely day as I had slept in and no one had yet puked on me. She said that this is karma getting her back from when she took my birthday off in December even though I had to go to work. I said that karma could not possibly be that cruel. Tammy's life is a bit cruel from time-to-time, though. We must send her vomit-free birthday wishes. I'll also be bringing her some cookies I baked, although I don't know if she'll want to eat them....

Posted by adrienne at 11:07 AM | Comments (3)

February 13, 2007

“But, Mama, That’s Where the Fun Is”

Conversation between Lucas and I in the car on Saturday morning:

Lucas: Aunt Adrienne, you should get a new TV, one with stations like, you know, 5 and 8 and 10, so you can watch TV shows like a normal person.
Me: Um, well, what would I watch?
Lucas: [pause] The Daily Show, The Colbert Report…. [pause] I’m not sure what else. I’m a kid. You’re a grown-up. We watch different things.
Me: I do like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but I could watch them on the Internet. I don’t, but I could.
Lucas: Oh, yeah! You could watch Robot Chicken at your house so Mom can delete the ones on our DVR.

It’s official: the 7-year-old has figured out that I don’t watch TV, judged me, and attempted to provide me with guidance to help me fit in better with the other adults. I guess the next step will be figuring out that I’m a bit of a hopeless case.

Posted by adrienne at 09:04 PM | Comments (5)

February 04, 2007

Of All the Stages of Grief, Shock Was My Favorite

I got married on a Thursday at about 1:00 in the afternoon at the Sweden Town Hall in Brockport. Brian and I wore jeans. Truly, I think I may have worn sweatpants. We were in college, and we both had to work that night. Tammy was with us, and Matt. As soon as the judge said, “This is a solemn occasion,” we all had to look at the floor instead of each other, since we were all about to laugh because this occasion seemed anything but solemn. It was surreal. We were nineteen, the first in our group of friends to get married. It was, at once, the most grown-up and amazingly childish thing I’d done in my life. After that day, our slogan for marriage was, “All it takes is $50 and a valid form of ID.” That was fourteen years ago today, though, and it might cost more now. I could look it up, but accuracy isn’t the point.

Acceptance is the most boring stage of grief – so final.

Give me a few points for anger, though. I’m mildly irritated that the Super Bowl is infringing on my thwarted wedding anniversary. (WHY are there not names for these things?) Bri loved the Super Bowl, which is one of the reasons I’ve been boycotting it the last few years. Brian was the only thing that made watching the Super Bowl even slightly interesting; if I can’t watch it with him, I’m not watching it. Instead I’m going to bake chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and watch Home Movies, an appropriately childish and grown-up response, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Posted by adrienne at 07:54 PM | Comments (15)

February 03, 2007

Genetics Suck

I knew going for that blood test was a Bad Idea.

I got a letter today: turns out my cholesterol’s high.

In my family, high cholesterol is something of a badge of honor. Everyone has it, and members of my family who haven’t yet suffered a cholesterol-related ailment like to brag about how high their cholesterol is with no visible effect. They report doctors saying things like, “I’ve never seen cholesterol that high” and “You should be having a heart attack right now.” The last time I had my cholesterol tested (several years ago now), my cholesterol was perfect. Now it’s high. Not bragging-rights high, but, still, a little elevated.

Foolishly, I thought my efforts to control my diet and get some regular exercise would save me from going down this path, but my doctor actually suggested that I’m going to need to work on my diet and exercise to get this straightened out. It’s true that I eat a lot of eggs, but that’s about as bad as it gets. I love dairy products of all types, but I don’t eat cheese and ice cream nearly as much as I used to. Most of my dairy comes in the form of skim milk, even in my lattes. I don’t eat that much processed food; I don’t even eat that much meat. I don’t think I’m overweight (although now I’m reconsidering that position), and I tend to think of myself as someone who exercises. I mean, I was at the Y doing *something* between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00 this morning. I was led to believe it was aerobics. I’m pretty sure I do that a couple times a week, plus yoga and swimming in between. I’m not Miss Fitness, but I don’t exactly live a sedentary life. There’s the writing, of course, and the reading and movie-watching, but there’s also things like running around with Lucas and cleaning my house and walking around that big library where I work.

Gah. I’m going to go call my dad and tell him it’s all his fault.

Posted by adrienne at 04:59 PM | Comments (4)

February 01, 2007

“Lolly, Lolly, Lolly”

As a librarian, particularly a children’s librarian, I abhor censorship, but when you work with children as long as I have, the urge to censor something is bound to creep up every now and again. And maybe it’s the stress and sleep deprivation talking, but I had my first true urge to censor something the other day, something that I felt in my heart maybe Lucas just wasn’t ready for.

Adverbs.

You heard me right. We’ve been doing Mad Libs in the mornings, and while Lucas has nouns, verbs, and adjectives down, adverbs are still giving him trouble. So we’ve been working on them, but the other morning I thought, “Why am I doing this?” I mean, people actually really totally overuse adverbs all the time, and I had this crazy thought that if Lucas didn’t know what adverbs were, maybe he wouldn’t wind up having to go through all the trouble of having to learn not to overuse them. I know this is crazytalk on any number of levels, but it’s interesting to me that the thing that activated my censorship gene wasn’t cursing or innuendos or nudity – no, no, my problem turned out to be with a part of speech.

Could I be more of a nerd?

Posted by adrienne at 06:16 AM | Comments (9)

January 31, 2007

“And the Undead are Like a Bunch of Friends that Demand Constant Attention”

[This morning.]

Lucas: I wish it was Thursday.
Me: What happens on Thursdays?
Lucas: I don’t know.
Me: That’s weird.
Lucas: But it will be FEBRUARY!!! [You could hear the exclamation points.]

[Later.]

Lucas: Aunt Adrienne, when are you coming to read to my class again?
Me: March.
Lucas: I love March! It's my favorite month! And April, too.

For those of you who patronize the Leaf & Bean (my condolences if you live too far away to do so), you simply MUST try their seasonal French Kiss Latte. Yum, yum, yum.

Randomosity: live it, love it. Perhaps I'll find coherence tomorrow.

Posted by adrienne at 10:02 AM | Comments (10)

January 29, 2007

The Five Stages of Writing a Book, or Thank You, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

1. Denial
“Writing a book is no big deal. It won’t take a lot of time out of my life. Really.”

2. Anger
“WHY CAN’T I GET ANYTHING DONE EVER??? WHY DID MY COMPUTER DIE??? WHY CAN’T I FIND MY NOTES??? I HATE EVERYTHING!!!”

3. Bargaining
“If chapter three writes itself while I’m sleeping, I promise I’ll start being someone people would describe as ‘patient,’ ‘sweet,’ and ‘kind.’”

4. Depression
“I am never going to finish this book.”

5. Acceptance
“All right. Short assignments. Back to work.”

It’s worth noting that writers don’t necessarily advance through these stages in the same way. Some go through the stages in order, some tarry longer in some stages than others, and some go back and forth between stages several times. Writing is a very personal business, and no two people experience writing in quite the same way.

Posted by adrienne at 07:19 PM | Comments (8)

January 23, 2007

Just Say No to Tetanus (and Diphtheria)

I’m not one of those people who avoids doctors, but, despite visiting a variety of doctors for issues that have come up through the years (read: hideous allergies), I somehow managed to go about fifteen years without having an actual physical. Brian was on my case about it before he died, but I told him I’d take care of it “later.” I finally got around to it yesterday.

It’s not exactly an experience I’d recommend.

Just to start, if you give medical professionals an excuse to look over your records, they’ll realize things like that you’re WAY overdue on your tetanus shot. And have you had a tetanus shot lately? They HURT. My arm, which was perfectly fine before I went to the doctor’s office, is still sore like someone punched it. Hard. They gave me a little informational sheet to go with my shot that informed me that I was getting two inoculations for the price of one: tetanus AND diphtheria. You can see the sheet here, complete with the misleading drawing of a little girl doing a “ta-da” pose, like she’s so happy that she is going to be protected from all that big, bad tetanus and diphtheria. Clearly no one’s punched her in the arm with a needle yet.

Also, thanks to my family history, I get to go for a fasting cholesterol test later this week. Fasting makes me pass out. Having my blood taken makes me pass out. At least I can count on getting adequate care when I pass out in a medical facility (as opposed to some random place on the street, which I’ve also done). I can’t get the staff to comprehend that I’m going to pass out before it happens, of course, but when I go ahead and lose consciousness, they’re very attentive.

The doctor also asked a lot of nosy questions about my eating and exercising habits. Then he judged me. I could tell. (Doctor: “Well, your eating habits are pretty good, and you’re getting more exercise than a lot of people.” Implying: “You could do better if you tried, Ms. Furness.”)

I guess it’s nice to get a little reassurance that my health is pretty much on track (sans bloodwork, which could reveal all manner of whatever). Preventative medicine is a good thing. Catching problems early is a good thing. I know these things in my head, but, ironically, my health isn’t something I worry about. My secondhand experience of Brian’s cancer taught me that, if you listen, your body tells you when something’s wrong, and I tend to assume that most of the time, even something that seems alarming turns out to be not that big of a deal.

Not to mention I’m kind of tired of doctors. (Doctor: “You can get a list of ACM labs at the front desk.” Me: “I know where they all are.” Doctor: “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”)

Posted by adrienne at 12:20 AM | Comments (11)

January 20, 2007

The View from My Front Porch Yesterday

Isn't it pretty? I love snowy days when I can just hang around the house and enjoy the view. Yesterday was a movie-watching day, so I'll have more to report soon enough....

(Jason shot the video, incidentally, not me. Credit where credit's due and all.)

Posted by adrienne at 08:19 PM | Comments (6)

January 17, 2007

Raising a Writer

A lot has been written about how one goes about raising a reader, but much less is written about raising a writer. Perhaps it’s because while many adults consider themselves readers, not so many consider themselves Writers. Most people write every day – things like letters, emails, memos, phone messages, and grocery lists. When most people think of Writing, though, what they’re really thinking of this is this compulsive thing I do that doesn’t net much cash, just the sort of thing many parents are reluctant to encourage their children to pursue (or so I understand from other writers – kudos to my parents for always encouraging my writing).

Reading Creative Communications by Sandra Garant over the weekend (see my review over at Homeschooling and Libraries) got me thinking more about the ways we’ve been making Lucas into a writer (and a Writer). That child has always been surrounded by words and books, a good first step for anyone, but our biggest goal, I think, was to make him a reader. When he was first starting to read independently, though, I worried about the horrid little photocopied-and-stapled-together phonics readers the school gave him to practice his skills. They covered phonics just fine, but they were also complete drivel. I brought home some decent readers from the library, but I also started sending Lucas letters. Little did I know that in addition to giving him a good reason to read, getting mail would spark his interest in sending mail – and so our two-year-long correspondence began (much enabled by Tammy, resident buyer of supplies, addresser of envelopes, and finder of mailboxes).

Of course, Lucas doesn’t just write letters to me, and he’s found numerous other applications for his writing skills. We encourage his story-writing and illustrating by reading everything he writes with interest and asking questions. We scan things and post them on the Internet. We show our friends. Now, much to my joy, Lucas claims he wants to write and illustrate books when he grows up. This morning before school, he happily worked on a story while I happily wrote letters. Honestly, how much better could life get? Lucas has also recently added song-writing to his list of things to do. Speaking of lists, thanks to his mother, he has also become a prodigious maker of them: things he hopes to do, places he wants to go, things he wants to eat. It seems to me that raising a writer is not only relatively easy; it's also hugely entertaining.

Personally, I can't get enough of watching this barely seven-year-old using writing to express himself, to communicate, to entertain, and for all manner of practical applications. Sandra Garant encourages homeschoolers to teach writing in this range of ways, which seems like common sense to me, but it’s not what the schools do. No wonder so many people grow up intimidated by writing. No wonder so many people learn to hate school.

Posted by adrienne at 11:38 AM | Comments (3)

January 16, 2007

An Entry from Everyone's Favorite Center of the Universe, Lucas

"When you're with Adrienne in the mornings, you can set up lots of Peep sets with a saber-toothed tiger or Skippyjon Jones. Or a Peep World Invasion from aliens in Jupiter. You could also make lots of books and pictures. We are making a big chapter book. It will be about four inches thick. You could make a sock monkey, or if it is in the directions you could make a sock creature or elephant. She will also bring you to the Leaf and Bean most of the time, but first before you come, tell your mom to get something from the Leaf and Bean for her so she doesn't get cranky. Would you like to come to Adrienne’s?"

[Ed. Note: Taken from Lucas's dictation. Clearly he must want to come here in the mornings, because here he is again. I was up at 6:30am. His mom brought a latte, too, thank goodness.]

Posted by adrienne at 07:53 AM | Comments (2)

January 15, 2007

Report on My Sabbatical Week

I thought I should report back on what I accomplished during my sabbatical week.

I only wore my yoga pants one day, but I took advantage of a couple other days to wear t-shirts I wouldn’t normally wear to work. I have to confess that I’m a little odd in that I don’t like wearing jeans and that I’m perfectly comfortable and happy in a skirt or a dress or cords.

I wound up helping patrons almost every day. As Terri and Sally suggested, I need a twelve step program to get over helping people. (“Hi, I’m Adrienne, and I’m a service-oriented professional.”) I’m getting more emails from patrons these days, so some of these weren’t face-to-face encounters, and it was extra-fun helping people out on the floor that day I was wearing my yoga pants.

I took Sarah Hodges (Librarian Trainee Extraordinaire) to her first-ever MCLS Children’s Librarians’ Meeting.

As for big projects? I did quite a bit of collection development work, although I didn’t get through nearly as many journals as I’d hoped to. I made a couple decisions I’d been avoiding for one reason or another. I wrote two columns for the MCLS Web Site and got started on a third. I converted Discerning Meat Cleaver to Wordpress, although I should note that Jason's been doing some reformatting over the last few days. Speaking of Jason, he and I fought for about 45 minutes about this Parent and Child Services Grant we’ve been contemplating, but then we worked out a great plan we’re both really excited about (and I’m extra-excited since Jason offered to write it up – WOO HOO!). I did a tour of the Children’s Department for the staff one morning and was pleasantly surprised at how many people came and how interested they seemed in what I had to say. I worked with Terri and Jason to put out a job announcement for a new Page position to give us some additional support to keep things running smoothly with our (insane) new storytime schedule: putting up tables, taking down tables, getting nametags in order, stuff like that. This is a dream come true for us and should make our lives much happier on those weeks the Children’s Department’s putting on eleven storytimes. (Who thought that was a good idea???)

A lot of the week felt really normal. I had to figure out the best time to eat lunch every day. I had conversations with my fellow staff members about important things such as the new Princess Diaries book. I obsessed about storytime registration. I watched a backhoe tear up the sidewalk in front of the library. You know, the usual.

Overall, I was most grateful to have some time to think and breathe and feel reenergized about what I do for a living. I feel calm and focused. I know what’s on my desk, and I have some clear ideas about what I want to accomplish over the next few months. My biggest goal? To hold on to this sense of calm and focus as long as I can....

Posted by adrienne at 08:11 AM | Comments (3)

January 13, 2007

"Well, I Talk About It, Talk About It, Talk About It..."

I finally moved my Homeschooling and Libraries blog over to Wordpress. See the happy results at http://homeschoolingandlibraries.wordpress.com.

Or you could always click that handy link on my sidebar three times a day. You can never tell when I'll update....

Posted by adrienne at 11:16 PM | Comments (3)

January 08, 2007

Sabbatical

About six months ago, our Adult Services Librarian, Diane, had this idea that we should all get one sabbatical week every year. The rules of the sabbatical week would be that we’d have to come in every day, but we wouldn’t have to work the Reference Desk, we could wear whatever we wanted, and no one could bother us unless we wanted them to. When Diane told me her idea, I thought it was the best thing I’d heard in a long time, but I didn’t think Terri and Lisa would go for it – but they did! We didn’t even have to argue about it. They were pretty much just like, “Okay. Fill out a form and let us know what week you want.”

I filled out my form the next day.

Today is the first day of my first-ever Sabbatical Week. I’m testing the “wear whatever you want” thing and wearing my yoga pants and a t-shirt. (No one should be surprised; it’s exactly what I said I’d do when we first discussed it. Of course, when I said it, everyone laughed in that she-doesn’t-really-mean-that-does-she-you-can-never-tell-with-the-children’s-librarians-around-here way they do.) I’m just as excited as can be. I’m sure I won’t get through the whole week without helping a patron. I can’t help but go into the Children’s Room every now and again to see what’s going on, and, once I’m there, I always ask people if I can help them find things. But it’s going to be great to have some concentrated time to finish catching up on my collection development, work on finding some new storytime material for the coming season, and start working on this Parent and Child Services grant I’m still not 100% sure I want to write.

I’ve never heard of a public library that does something this wonderful for its employees. It’s just another reason I drive way across the city every day to go to work.

Posted by adrienne at 08:15 AM | Comments (11)

January 07, 2007

Winter Cleaning

That's what I found when I came in to work the other day. A lot of people have been commenting on how neat and clean my office is lately, and for good reason: I've been doing a lot of cleaning. Still, this is what my office looked like when I got this latest compliment:

Yes, folks, this qualifies as improvement. It's okay, though, because Fuse #8 and The New York Times recently let me know that my messy desk is actually a sign of my creativity. Sweet!

Posted by adrienne at 06:21 PM | Comments (3)

January 06, 2007

Five More Little-Known Things About Me

I did this meme a couple months back, but Sophie over at Pop Goes the Library tagged me, and I feel inclined to reveal five more things.

1. I am one of those people who washes and reuses Ziplock bags. In a year or two, one can only assume that I’ll be pocketing ketchup packets in diners, but I’m not there yet.
2. I know how to rekey a lock. I’m not good at it, but I can do it. I’m a little proud of that.
3. Since I was a little kid, I have struggled to properly pronounce the word “magician.” I couldn’t say it at all when I was small, and I still have to think really hard when I say it or I stumble and just sort of make a noise instead of saying the word. I have no idea what that’s about.
4. Back in the day, I wasn’t too keen on the concept of home ownership, and I mostly agreed to buy this house I live in because I knew that Brian really wanted a house with a two car garage. I was quietly worried that he might get cancer again and die without having it. Turns out it was a good decision, for more reasons than that, though. I’ve grown to love this place.
5. When I was a kid, I used to sleep with the covers over my head even in the middle of summer because I was that afraid of the dark.

Posted by adrienne at 12:18 PM | Comments (3)

January 03, 2007

Adventures in Technology

When I was a teenager, I hated filmstrips, but, with the easy hypocrisy of adolescence, I also held teachers who couldn't operate the filmstrip projector in the highest disdain. Of course, I approached most classes the way I now approach most meetings. I would get to class, get out my pen and some paper, and proceed with my doodling/writing notes/not making eye contact with anyone who might ask me to do something. If the teacher got out a filmstrip, I'd groan inwardly because the lights were going to be turned off, which would make it hard to read the note I was writing, but, then, if the teacher wound up bumbling and mumbling at the machine in frustration, I would express my contempt in the most effective way I knew.

I would roll my eyes.

Anyway, the other night, I was watching the old Jamie Lee Curtis version of The Fog, and 29 minutes into the film, the DVD wouldn't play anymore. So I took the DVD into work and showed it to Sarah, our (young) staff person who takes care of cleaning and repairing our DVDs. I explained the problem, and she was like, "Well, the other side looks okay."

And I'm like, "The other side?"

And she's like, "Yeah."

And I'm like, "I can do that?" [I flip over DVD, noting makings that do, indeed, indicate that both sides can be played.]

And she's like, "Yeah."

And I'm like, "Oh."

And that's when she smiled and got this look on her face that was like, "Oooohhhh! Look at the technologically inept children's librarian! She's so cute!"

AND THAT'S WHEN I REALIZED THAT I WAS THE TEACHER WHO COULDN'T OPERATE THE FILMSTRIP PROJECTOR!!!

I hate being the teacher who can't operate the filmstrip projector. Sarah was kind and didn’t make fun of me and let me take the DVD back home so I could watch the side that worked. The whole thing kind of makes me wonder about karma as a concept, though. If this world was a place of justice, Sarah should have mocked me, but she's one of those nice people. I guess I get my karma back in other ways. My life seems to be one long lesson on the nature and quality of my various imperfections.

Posted by adrienne at 10:13 AM | Comments (12)

December 31, 2006

Resolutions, Including Obligatory References to the General Difficulty of Life and Joy at the Existence of Friends

Now is the time during which we’re all supposed to have tiresome discussions about ways we intend to improve ourselves in the coming year.

It’s not that I couldn’t stand some improvement, but, as my facetious resolutions of the past year (which I rocked) indicate, every year I get a little more realistic about what I can expect from myself. Especially since Brian died, I consider every day that I manage not to throw myself off a bridge to be a little victory. Matter o’ fact, I got all self-actualized and learned how to swim. I don’t even feel like throwing myself off a bridge anymore; it would short out my iPod. Life is good. This coming year, I intend to do nothing more than make the most of it.

And have I mentioned lately how glad I am that you’re all here with me? I should say it every day. Happy New Year to all of you.

Posted by adrienne at 12:37 AM | Comments (1)

December 30, 2006

Me and My iPod

It was only a matter of time before I started blogging about my iPod.

Yes, it’s true, thanks to Ron, I now have something I can slip in my purse that has as much memory as my laptop.

Sobering little thought.

My lack of musical taste is sort of a theme in this blog. I enjoy good music, but I don’t have a discriminating ear and when I find myself compelled to do housework, I love nothing so much as dancing around the house to silly music. For example, here are the three songs I’ve purchased from iTunes so far:

“Cheesecake Truck” by King Missile (You know you think this song is funny.)
“Rock N Roll McDonald’s” by Wesley Willis (Tammy says that I only like this song because Mr. Willis sings worse than I do and justifies the way I persist in singing in front of audiences at storytime, but there really is so much more to love about this song.)
“Dragostea Din Tei” by O-ZONE (If you don’t know about this song, you obviously don’t spend enough time on YouTube.)

And not that there was much doubt, but it turns out that Bob was completely right about the Justin Timberlake CD. I don’t like the new Gwen Stefani CD nearly so much, but Tammy says it will grow on me like the last one did.

I also put some of Jason’s songs on my iPod. It’s really funny the way he’s wedged in between Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake on my artist list, but it was weird – even a little disturbing – when one of his songs came up on shuffle the other day and I found myself singing along.

Seriously.

I made myself feel better by putting all of his songs on an album called “Snothead.” Tee, hee, hee.

Needless to say, putting all this music on my iPod is getting in the way of normal life, by which I mean watching DVDs and doing crossword puzzles. I’m sure there’s some other stuff I’m supposed to be doing, but whatever it is, I’ll deal with it in 2007....

Posted by adrienne at 03:07 PM | Comments (10)

December 27, 2006

Ella Wishes You a Merry Christmas or a Swift Death, It's Hard to Tell Which

Check out what we did at my house this Christmas.

The week between Christmas and New Year's is a pretty unrewarding time to be a blogger, since everyone's too busy to keep up with their blogroll. I will persevere, though, for those of you who, like me, blog no matter what else is going on. Prolific comments are encouraged.

Posted by adrienne at 11:03 PM | Comments (4)

December 26, 2006

"By the Time the Buzz Was Wearing Off..."

"No one knows why, but second only to eating the brains of the living, the dead love affordable prefab furniture."
-Christopher Moore, The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Ugh.

If you had to go back to work today, I am so sorry. If you didn't have to work today and still don't have to work tomorrow, well. Let's not talk about it.

Posted by adrienne at 11:25 PM | Comments (3)

December 24, 2006

In Case Anyone Needs a Dose of Perspective...

“It’s not unusual to have a bad Christmas. Even on the first Christmas, King Herod heard about another king being born in a stable and he thought it must be a plot against him, so he spent the whole time fretting which wasn’t exactly relaxing. And when he’d worried about it for a while, he decided that the safest thing for him to do was to send his soldiers to kill all the newborn boys in Judaea. So that year the baby boys of Judaea had an even worse Christmas than Herod did.”
-Damian in Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce

I’m loving the Christmas season this year, so, thankfully, I only need this passage for purposes of literary appreciation. I love that book.

Posted by adrienne at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2006

Happy Second Anniversary!!!

First, the winners of our Anniversary Trivia Contest:

First Place: Chuck
Second Place: Kelly
Most Creative: Craig
Most Thorough: Olivia

I posted Chuck's and Kelly's entries (which they emailed) in the comments. Winners, look for your prizes in the next week or so….

Second, a meme that’s been going around the kidslitosphere:

How many other kidlit blogs do you read?

A lot. You can see what’s on my bloglines here, but I tend to jump on and off a lot of blogs that aren’t on my bloglines, too. I’m as random in my blog reading as I am about most of my other reading: it has more to do with how much time I have on a given day and what kind of mood I’m in than anything else.

What's the most recent add?

Mo Willems’ blog, which rocks.

How often do you post a book review to your blog?

Irregularly. It depends on the week, what I’m reading, and what else is going on in my life. Films, in particular, are always competing for my attention.

Do you post about anything else?

Oh, yes. As my readers know, I have one of the world’s most unfocused blogs, talking sometimes about children’s literature but also delving into library service to children, libraries in general, film reviews, teen literature, adult literature, homeschooling, what I ate for breakfast, insomnia, etc…. I write about whatever the heck I feel like writing. It’s an antidote to all the assigned writing I do.

Do you only blog books you like, or the stinkers too?

I write about a whole range of things that I do and don’t like, and I think of my entries more as commentaries than reviews. I’m interested in where things fit in the world – where *I* fit in the world, certainly, but also, to take a recent example, how a particular picture book version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” fits in with others. Even when I write negative things about a book or film, the item in question has almost certainly engaged me. My life is way too short to consume things I’m not enjoying on some level. That said, I’m pretty easily entertained: I am, after all, a fan of zombie movies. It’s my assumption and hope that most things can be both flawed and worthwhile.

How do you keep track of what you want to read?

I can’t. I don’t even try anymore. I usually have a book that I must review for SLJ sitting around somewhere where I’ll see it and not forget about it, but, other than that, I just kind of bumble along reading whatever seems most interesting.

How do you keep track of what you've read?

I use LibraryThing, but you can’t count on that being 100% up-to-date, since sometimes I forget to put stuff in there. In some ways, I’m an excellent librarian, but in others, I’m a bit of a shame to the profession.

Do you work with kids?

Yes. I am a Children’s Librarian, HEAR ME ROAR!!!

In the age group you mostly blog about?

Yes, even though I’m a kid’s specialist, I wind up talking to teens and adults, too. There’s one child who frequents the library who I wind up discussing horror films with on a fairly regular basis, which should perhaps disturb me, but doesn’t.

Do you read grown-up books?

Yes, although vastly less than I used to. I’ve always read indiscriminately and widely, favoring teen fiction over the last couple years. I’m reading a lot more adult nonfiction than I ever used to. I love fantasy over any other genre, although I haven’t read as much of it this past year, mostly because I’ve been reading so much homeschooling stuff and fantasy books are always so big and fat and time-consuming (part of why I love them – alas!).

Posted by adrienne at 10:28 AM | Comments (2)

December 22, 2006

Yeah, So, It's My Second Post Today...

Becuase how much fun is this?

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Donnie Darko, The Big Lebowski

As if you're doing something more productive with your day....

Posted by adrienne at 12:24 PM | Comments (7)

December 18, 2006

Two Years, Already?

Yes, it’s true, watat.com will be celebrating its two-year anniversary on December 23. How to celebrate? How to celebrate?

I know, a trivia contest!

The first person to email (subject line: “LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!”) or post in the comments the correct answers to the following questions will win a FABULOUS PRIZE. (Chuck won the anniversary prize last year. You should ask him about it sometime.) If enough people answer, there may even be RUNNER-UP PRIZES.

WOW!

Here are the questions:

1. Name at least one of Adrienne’s favorite foods. (Extra credit may be given for multiple correct answers.)
2. Is it unethical for a Children’s Librarian to flatly refuse to stock Madonna’s picture books in her library’s collection? (WARNING: Incorrect responses may result in actual punishment. You have been warned.)
3. Which of Adrienne’s favorite Paris-based authors is taking way too freaking long to put out a new book?
4. Speaking of books, what is Adrienne writing a book about?
5. Name at least one venue (print or non) besides watat.com that publishes Adrienne’s work on a semi-regular basis. (Again, extra credit may be given for multiple correct answers.)

Good luck!

Posted by adrienne at 08:19 AM | Comments (13)

December 17, 2006

Adrienne Experiences Irrational Anger

I have long been lamenting the lack of easy access to high-quality coffee at WPL for our staff and patrons. Last year, someone (Marcia, I’m pretty sure) got us a swell two-cup coffee maker, and several staff members bring in very nice coffees for us to brew. That’s a world of improvement over our other option – a vending machine in our “café” – but, of course, does nothing for our patrons. We have a couple nice coffee shops in Webster (Earthtones and Joe Bean – both of which I try to get to every now and again), but they aren’t convenient to the library. As the plaza where the library is located has had more and more empty space, I kept wishing that some little startup would come and open up a café where I could get coffee and soups and sandwiches to eat for lunch.

Our new plaza owners clearly decided this was a good idea, too, since they’re tearing the whole place up, refacing the plaza, and building a few free-standing buildings out by the road. They’re telling us all sorts of new businesses are going to come in, but, so far, the only one they’ll confirm is – it’s even hard to type – Starbucks.

This is akin to wishing that someone would come along to clear up your trade dispute and getting The Empire. It kind of solves the problem but isn’t nearly worth the cost.

I don’t like Starbucks. I don’t much care for their coffee, and I have never had anything decent to eat there. They only serve crap, and it isn’t even yummy crap. Besides that, it seems that while they had cute little startup roots, they’ve turned to the Dark Side, where their corporate leaders hobnob with Wal-Mart, trying to figure out better ways to drive all the family-owned businesses out of town. Grrrrr. Add to this the fact that there are already two Starbucks within a mile of WPL (one in a Target and one in a Barnes and Noble – both of which are in the same plaza), and it feels like they’re trying to take over the world.

I know it’s sort of cliché and futile to find rampant capitalism annoying, but there you go. I’m adding Starbucks to The Official List of Things watat.com is Actively Boycotting (other boycottees: Wal-Mart and Lockheed Martin). I have my “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks” bumper sticker up in my office, and I’ll continue to go out of my way to patronize locally-owned coffee establishments. Keep irritating me, Starbucks, and I’m likely to express my anger in other ways you’re bound not to notice – YOU WON’T CONTROL ME!!!

And just for clarification, watat.com’s local coffee purveyor of choice remains the Leaf and Bean in Chili Center. I can’t talk about family-owned businesses or coffee without mentioning them.

Posted by adrienne at 09:55 PM | Comments (21)

December 16, 2006

The Benefits of Being Single

I really liked being married. As those who knew him can attest, my husband was one of the world’s most agreeable and kind human beings and was, unlike me, extraordinarily easy to live with. Still, I find that there really is something to being single. Say I decide to get up, stay in my pajamas, and give most of my day to drinking coffee, listening to Christmas carols, reading, and doing crosswords – no one says a damn thing about it. There’s no one here saying, “Oh, you know, maybe we should go out and get a few last-minute Christmas presents” or “One of us should do something about the bathroom.” Ella might decide that my pencil is her sworn mortal enemy, forcing me to abandon my crossword, but that’s just an excuse to get up and refill my coffee. And, heck, while I’m up, I might as well eat an apple and then, nutritionally fortified, dig into that leftover ice cream cake from my birthday. Then it’s back to my chair and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. I’m sure that eventually I might decide to pay some bills or do a few dishes, and I will surely put on something snazzy for the party I'm going to later. But why hurry? Johnny Mathis is singing and there’s half-and-half in the house. I have everything I need.

Posted by adrienne at 12:34 PM | Comments (6)

December 14, 2006

“Shitty First Drafts”

“I always consider the first draft sort of like throwing up, anyway, only on paper.”
-Meg Cabot, Meg’s Diary, November 4, 2006

In one of my favorite books, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, author Anne Lamott calls an entire chapter “Shitty First Drafts.” This is one of those books I turn to when I feel like maybe I should hang it up as a writer, and this chapter is the one I reread most frequently.

I mention it because the fact that one has to write shitty first drafts in order to get to something readable can get really discouraging.

I write every day, and almost every day that I face a blank page, I write something that is so bad that, upon reflection, it’s hard for me not to wonder why I do what I do. I love revision, though, and relish those second, third, and fourth – even twenty-fifth – drafts where I can fix things and get closer to what I really meant to say. My biggest weakness as a writer is that I’d happily spend a few years tinkering with a five-paragraph essay. If nothing else, having something still in the works delays the necessity of writing another shitty first draft.

This is how one develops writer’s block.

I don’t get writer’s block the way someone like Stephen King does, but I do have times where I struggle. I might have ideas, but I’m reluctant to sit down and start working on them because I know they’ll mean a commitment. I don’t know where that commitment will end. I know that sometimes those shitty first drafts turn into equally shitty second, third, and fourth drafts, and sometimes I have to abandon an idea entirely. Those days suck. Of course, I also know that other days I’ll be brilliant and funny and my shitty first drafts will quickly resolve themselves into something I’m proud of and enjoy. Other times I’ll work for months and months on something before I get it right, but I stick with it because I know I’m close. It’s funny because I write to see where an idea will go and to find out what I think, but the whole process can also be really freaking irritating. It seems like there must be an easier way to live. (There is: I call it “not thinking.”)

At least I have Anne Lamott. Bird by Bird reminds me that yes, I am mentally imbalanced, but so are most writers, and in this world, it’s perfectly normal to live with some ambivalence, even about something I love. It's not a bad lesson for life in general.

Posted by adrienne at 08:35 AM | Comments (9)

December 11, 2006

Why Isn't Every Day My Birthday?

Everyone's extra-nice to me, and I get all kinds of wonderful surprises. I like that.

Posted by adrienne at 03:51 PM | Comments (7)

December 09, 2006

The Real Party

And, yes, the rumors you've heard are true. Everyone's favorite baby is turning one today.

No, no, not Benny. (You know, people have been telling me that Benny isn’t a baby anymore, but just look at him….)

It’s really Max’s birthday.

What I remember best about the day Max was born was how very tired I was. Lucas and I were up pretty much all night. At about four in the morning, Lucas made me write a poem to illustrate one of the drawings he’d been working on in the wee hours. Patti took my reference shift that day so I wouldn’t have to go to work without sleeping or taking a shower, which was good, although the next time I went to work, I learned that I’d disappointed some of my coworkers who had done this lovely thing and decorated my office and left me all these presents in honor of my birthday (which is, one might note, only two days away even now). When we finally got to eat, Lucas had sweet pickles and cheese, and I had a fried egg sandwich. I got a letter from a friend that day that made me cry, although I’m sorry now that it did. I didn’t get to hold Max until that afternoon, but he was just as sweet as could be and didn’t cry at all, even though he’d recently been through what one can only imagine was a somewhat traumatic experience. It’s weird because I can remember what life was like before he was born, but it also seems like he’s always been here.

Happy birthday, Max!

Posted by adrienne at 01:06 PM | Comments (3)

You Can See What I Discovered When I Woke Up This Morning

And I can't even *find* the two other Peeps.

Posted by adrienne at 10:38 AM | Comments (3)

December 06, 2006

Obsessions

Thanks to the documentary Wordplay (94 mins., although most regular watat.com readers won’t be able to resist watching the couple hours of excellent special features and then possibly watching the entire film again with the commentary turned on), I am now obsessed with The New York Times crossword puzzle. Unlike many of my other obsessions, this one isn’t particularly good for my self-esteem. With a couple hints from friends, I can get through the Monday puzzle (a puzzle many consider too easy to bother with). I haven’t been able to completely solve a Tuesday yet, so I haven’t attempted a Wednesday.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to work my way up to a Sunday puzzle. I’ve seen those things. They’re scary.

Being a writer, you’d think I’d be good at things like crosswords, but I’m not. I’m not an exceptionally good Scrabble player, either, and I am in total awe of anyone who can anagram in their head. Still, I’m really enjoying sweating my way through the Times puzzles. Part of it is that they’re witty, and part of it is that my brain likes anything that engages it fully for a while (i.e. so it can forget about that silly reality thing it’s always dealing with). I also love the range and variety of words; it’s like visiting with a bunch of interesting friends. And there is something I find deeply, immensely satisfying in those “ah-ha!” moments. Even if I’m by myself, I can’t help exclaiming over them. It’s exciting when everything starts falling into place and things seem to make sense, at least for a little while. It’s the same allure good writing has, that here in this small space there is order in the world. If only, if only.

Posted by adrienne at 10:40 PM | Comments (15)

December 05, 2006

My Life

It took me over an hour to get home from work last night.

This screwed up my plan to go to the Y and ride the exercise bike while Lucas was at his swimming lesson (since by the time I got home, his swimming lesson was almost over), so I put on my PJs and started doing some reading. Then I realized that in my frustration on the commute home, I'd forgotten to stop by Wegmans to pick up my prescriptions. I sighed a big sigh, but then I decided that I'd just throw a coat on over my pajamas and go through the pharmacy's drive-up window.

You know where this is going: the drive-up window was closed when I got there.

And please don't think I was wearing some blending-in kind of pajamas -- nooooo. These were my flannel Halloween pajamas with the glow-in-the-dark jack o'lanterns. No one was missing them, and, besides that, they were completely out of season. But my evening had been twarted enough, so I plucked up my courage and went in and got my prescriptions. I held my head high, and no one looked at me funny -- or at least no more funny than usual. It's a bit of a metaphor for my life, though, me sort of muddling through things that never turn out quite the way I meant them to.

I ate a nice, big bowl of Cherry Panda Paws when I got home. That helped. I also read this account of the voyage on the Mayflower (based on true facts), which also helped put things in perspective. I mean, at least there were no worms in my Cherry Panda Paws....

Posted by adrienne at 06:59 PM | Comments (8)

December 02, 2006

Party, Party, Party

Yes, it's true. I have to leave The Great Gunambi in charge here at WATAT HQ because I have three -- THREE! -- parties to attend today, the third of which seems to be at my house. It's a little much, even for a Queen such as myself, but I'll manage somehow (i.e. food and caffeine at every stop).

In the meantime, you could always read my new article over at the MCLS Web Site: "A is for Alphabet, B is for Boring."

Ta, ta!

Posted by adrienne at 09:51 AM | Comments (2)

November 29, 2006

Ella Interviews the Girl

The girl keeps going on about how she’s writing that homeschooling book, so I decided to interview her about it.

Ella: So I understand you’re writing a book about homeschooling?
Girl: Yes, I’ve been working on it since last February, although I only started doing really concentrated work on it in May. It’s due this coming June.
Ella: Why do you only feed me three times a day?
Girl: What? Um, well, you know, that’s really plenty….
Ella: Yeah, I don’t think so.
Girl: The vet says…
Ella: Oh, “The vet says.” What does the vet know?
Girl: But…
Ella: Whatever. Back to your book. Do you really work on it? Because it just looks like you spend all your time sitting around to me.
Girl: Well, writing isn’t really the sort of thing you do while jogging, is it?
Ella: You don’t let me sleep on your keyboard.
Girl: I know, because then I can’t type.
Ella: The laptop’s warm. I like it.
Girl: You get hair all over it.
Ella: I get hair on it? What about the kitten?
Girl: He’s afraid of the laptop.
Ella: I see you looking at kittens online.
Girl: It’s just Cute Overload.
Ella: Aren’t I good enough for you?
Girl: Well, you know, I just like to look at the kittens. They’re so cute.
Ella: Yeah, right. Cute.
Girl: It doesn’t mean anything.
Ella: …
Girl: I mean, I’m not going to go out and get one or anything.
Ella: …
Girl: Do you want a treat? Here, let me get you a treat.
Ella: [crunching] Well, I guess that about sums it up for the book. Is it time for dinner yet?
Girl: You just ate a half-hour ago….

Posted by Ella at 10:00 AM | Comments (3)

November 25, 2006

The Other Godson

I’ve been taking lots of pictures of Max (and everything else) since I got my new camera, and last week Tammy commented that maybe someday Max would get to be as famous as Lucas.

Perhaps.

Max looks an awful lot like Lucas (and they both look like their mother), but Max seems to be a different creature entirely. He’s way more relaxed, for one thing, and, even before he’s one, he’s content to play quietly by himself in a way Lucas has yet to master. Max is a Sagittarian, a point definitely in his favor even though he stole my thunder being born two days before my birthday. He didn’t know that when he was stubbornly insisting on being born early; he didn’t even know me back then. Now that he does know me, one of my favorite things about him is that he can only very seldom resist smiling at me. His smiles are wonderful, slowly blooming things he can’t seem to help when I make funny faces or sing to him. Like most people, I think it’s partly because he doesn’t quite know what to make of me but suspects that smiling and perhaps giggling might be acceptable reactions. Max and I like a lot of the same games, especially “Where Did Max Go?” “Where Did Adrienne Go?” and everyone’s favorite “Where Did the Taggy Blanket Go?” Max, in particular, can’t get enough of these games, and, unlike some people I could mention, he’s a good sport who isn’t inclined to whine or attempt to distort reality when it looks like he might lose.

Max also seems to like my cats.

And, so, that is Max today. He’s written no books and he doesn’t talk or seem to understand a whole lot of what we say, but he’s interesting and fun, so I think we’ll keep letting him hang around.

Posted by adrienne at 01:43 PM | Comments (1)

November 23, 2006

And How Could I Forget?

A special Happy Thanksgiving from Lucas....

Posted by adrienne at 09:08 AM | Comments (1)

Thanksgiving

It's time for all of us to take a moment to contemplate how thankful we are that the Pink Peep didn't decide to TIE-jack any of us like he did this poor guy:

See him on the ground there under the ship?

Shocking.

Once a Peep starts down the dark path, forever will it dominate its destiny.

Posted by adrienne at 12:16 AM | Comments (4)

November 22, 2006

Give 'Em What They Want

Almost ten years ago when I got the crazy idea to start cooking Thanksgiving dinners, I had all these rules. I was on a health kick. I’d given up caffeine and was really into things like fresh fruits and vegetables and reasonable portions, things I tried to make a focus of my first couple Thanksgiving dinners because the most loving thing I could think to do for my guests was to provide them with a truly healthy meal.

Those meals weren’t very popular.

So, slowly, I began to give up my crusade against Stove Top stuffing and serving five hot things that involved lots of butter, mostly because I began to realize that, health considerations aside, Stove Top stuffing and hot things with butter are absolutely yummy.

It took me longer to see the light on jellied cranberry sauce, on account of the way it’s completely disgusting the way you kind of pop it out of the can and there it sits on the plate still in the shape of the can. Most civilized people wouldn’t consider eating such a thing on your average day, but they have some perverse need to eat it with turkey on Thanksgiving.

For a couple years, I called a moratorium on pre-meal snacking, a move that caused some outright hostility, but, seriously, it’s terrible to spend your whole day making a meal only to have everyone sit at the table groaning about how they can’t eat much because they’ve already filled up on pepperoni and deviled eggs. Dad was the most pained by my no-snacking rule, and he craftily reintroduced snacks the year Brian died. I’ve come to accept that people will be full when it’s time to eat, and I’ve just stopped worrying about it.

Ron and I have been having an ongoing debate for the past several years over whether or not there should be Cool Whip at the table. I think one should only have real whipped cream on homemade pies, especially if I make them, but Ron won’t eat anything besides Cool Whip. My response to this has been to refuse to bake pies. This is something I should have done years ago, if only because it’s much easier to force one’s guests to bring their own desserts. What with the snacking and then the actual meal, no one’s ever hungry for dessert anyway. A beautiful pie on Thanksgiving will get eaten but is never fully appreciated.

I think the thing is that I’ve come to realize that my job as hostess isn’t to make decisions for my guests but, rather, like a good librarian, I’m supposed to give them what they want. And so now I try to find out what’s important to people and make sure it’s there. So there are plenty of mashed potatoes for Tam and ketchup for Lucas and some dairy-free things for Olivia and a variety of meatless options for Sabrina and Stove Top stuffing for Ron and pepperoni for Dad.

For me? It’s easy: a turkey leg. Yum, yum, yum. My favorite, ever since I was little.

There will be lots of other stuff and other guests at dinner, but I don't want to spoil all the surprises. We’ve managed to purchase a truly obscene amount of food, and to tell you the truth, I can hardly wait to get up tomorrow and start cooking….

Posted by adrienne at 07:32 PM | Comments (3)

November 21, 2006

"This book is for people who are 4 and up tanks"

Some people who are planning to have fifteen people over for dinner on Thanksgiving might spend their Tuesday night baking pies or cleaning. Other people scan and post their godson's very first nonfiction book and set up important photo essays about Peeps.

You can see what I did.

Lucas's book is surprisingly good. It's hard to say what I like best: That it was made in the "Lucas Factory"? That he's renamed himself "Professor Pritchard"? That bears are "omnivorse"?

Posted by adrienne at 09:21 PM | Comments (4)

November 20, 2006

If My Friends Were Star Wars Characters...

Soooo Tammy and I were out getting all hopped up on hot caramel cider and Neapolitan Dynamite ice cream last week when we got to talking about who all of our friends would be in the Star Wars universe.

First, we had to figure out who we would be, which was more difficult than it might seem if only because there are so few female characters. We decided right away that neither one of us wanted to be Amidala. Even though Amidala is regal and cute and everything, she makes really, really poor choices when it comes to men (a fault, sadly, I have not entirely escaped myself – although I’ll defend myself with Bri, who was an excellent choice, and I have never made any decisions quite as bad as Amidala’s), and she dies a very unfortunate death (which neither of us is interested in doing).

After much deliberation, Tammy decided that she should be Han Solo. This, I can see. Tammy likes to drive, she’s sarcastic, and she prefers a direct approach to life.

I decided that I want to be Princess Leia. I had a few reasons for this. First, I flatly refuse to be a man. Second, while Leia never gets to be a queen, she is a princess and gets to boss a lot of people around. Third, everyone pays attention to her.

Of course, this throws an interesting bit of ambiguity in the relationship between Tammy and I, but let’s pretend it doesn’t.

Tammy’s having a hard time coming to terms with this, but Ron is so totally C-3PO. Luckily, she’s having an easier time coping with Lucas’s role as R2-D2.

But who is Luke Skywalker? Cute, clueless, and willing to risk it all for a cause we’re pretty sure he doesn’t understand? We don’t know clueless people. Well, we know a couple clueless people, but neither of them is willing to risk anything important because they’re chicken babies.

Tammy said that Chuck should be Chewbacca, but I think that’s just because she wants to be able to boss him around. We couldn’t figure out who Kelly should be because we were pretty much out of cool female roles.

I think Jeffrey would make a good Boba Fett.

That’s where we got stuck. I wish I could say that casting everyone else hadn’t been the subject of more conversations than getting ready for Thanksgiving over the last several days, but….

Posted by adrienne at 10:39 PM | Comments (17)

November 15, 2006

Benny Helps Make the Bed

It's funny because when it's just us at home, Benny is so cute – but as soon as Other People come into the house, all he can think to do is run and hide or stalk around acting neurotic. It's not that he's that much different from me, really, but I stopped running and hiding when company came over YEARS ago.

I'm not even going to try to create a segue that makes sense here, but have you guys encountered the comfort and joy that is Ben and Jerry's Neapolitan Dynamite ice cream? It's half Cherry Garcia and half some kind of chocolate brownie ice cream. It’s eat-the-whole-pint-right-now wonderful. If you haven't eaten it, you should. It almost makes up for the sad lack of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms in this world.

Posted by adrienne at 12:04 AM | Comments (8)

November 13, 2006

Conversations with Small Children, or Why I’m a Children’s Librarian

Over the weekend, I attended a going-away party where I didn’t know many people. I tried making conversation with strangers for a while, and when that got tiresome, I found myself a safe spot in the corner where I felt occupied and could keep an eye on what was going on. That’s when a kid who was probably about seven happened along with two Hot Wheels cars. Our conversation:

Me: Nice cars.
Kid: Eh, they aren’t mine. I have better ones at home.
Me: Really? Do you collect them?
Kid: Yeah.
Me: How many do you have?
Kid: About 50, but what I really want is 100.
Me: What kinds do you have?
Kid: All sorts, but my favorites have spoilers on them.
Me: [Thinking, “You can’t possibly know what a spoiler is.”] Really?
Kid: Oh, yeah, I have one – it kind of looks like this car [makes face toward car that let me know both which one he means and that this particular car is unconditionally sub par], but it has TWO SPOILERS. One goes out straight like this [demonstrates] and the other one goes up at an angle like this [demonstrates]. That’s my coolest car.
Me: I have a spoiler on my car, but my car’s not cool.
Kid: My car has flames.
Me: Mine doesn’t.
Kid: [sympathetic look]

That’s when he went into an extended description of some DVDs: Hot Wheels: World Race (which is good), Hot Wheels: Acceleracers Vol. 1 (which is okay), and Hot Wheels: Acceleracers Vol. 2 (which is the best). Finally, I asked him his name.

Kid: Alexander. I’m from Painted Post.
Me: I’m Adrienne. I got a speeding ticket in Painted Post once.
Kid: Really? How fast were you going?
Me: 75. It was dangerous, and I wasn’t paying attention to how fast I was going, which was really stupid. I deserved the ticket.
Kid: How much was the fine?
Me: $125. I don’t speed now.
Kid: My nanny gets a lot of parking tickets. They cost her a lot.
Me: Really?
Kid: Oh, yeah, she can’t keep track of whether it’s okay to park on the right or left side of the street. One time she parked on the right side, but then she blocked someone’s driveway. [rolls eyes]

It's easy to underestimate kids if you don't spend much time talking to them. They never fail to amaze me.

Posted by adrienne at 08:22 PM | Comments (4)

November 11, 2006

Painting...

Tammy and I spent a loooonnnng day finishing up painting my bedroom and, of course, talking. It was good to have quality time. Tammy has a bit of a cold, though, so she was hacking all day and will no doubt turn out to have pneumonia or whooping cough two days from now, in which case I will have to make a lot of soup while I’m wrestling with the guilt that painting my closet may have contributed to her illness.

Truth be told, though, I think she’d like a week or two off work.

And after two years, I’m starting to feel like I really, really want my bedroom finished. We’re almost there -- maybe an hour or so of work to finish tomorrow and then I can start moving my furniture back in.

!!!

I still have some decorating things to contemplate and take care of. I need new sheets, I need to figure out what to do about the windows (curtains? blinds? shades?), and I need to figure out the closet doors. I’m thinking about hanging beaded curtains instead of repainting and rehanging my boring, boring, boring closet doors. All decisions will be hampered by a.) the holiday season, and b.) two slightly big-ticket items I purchased this week (that are so completely and totally worth it). Anyone who's ever been in my house can testify that I'm not all that particular about the way it looks. As long as my laptop's working and I have clean clothes to wear, I'm good. If I can see the television from the couch, that's a bonus.

Posted by adrienne at 05:10 PM | Comments (1)

November 08, 2006

He Likes the Book....

You should have seen him when he was reading it. So fun!

Posted by adrienne at 12:33 PM | Comments (6)

November 04, 2006

Fall Health and Fitness Regimen

With its cooler temperatures and cornucopia of food-laden events, fall brings its own set of fitness challenges. We at watat.com have perfected a simple eight-step program that will work for almost anyone living within walking distance of the Leaf & Bean:

1. Bundle up.
2. Walk to the Leaf & Bean.
3. Order a Chocolate Milano latte or, if you’ve had your daily allotment of caffeine, a hot caramel cider.
4. Walk home while sipping your little bit of heaven.
5. When you get home, whip up a batch of chocolate chip pumpkin muffins.
6. Read a book while the muffins bake.
7. When the muffins are done, be sure to eat two or three while the chips are still melty. Maybe throw in a glass of milk.
8. Repeat as necessary.

Posted by adrienne at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2006

In Honor of Poetry Friday AND Lucas's Birthday...

Godzilla Pooped on My Honda

Don’t ever go to Tokyo.
I just heard on the radio
that Ghidorah has taken wing
to fight some sort of turtle thing.
And as the monster flew away,
they saw a zipper, plain as day.
It seems perhaps these giant brutes
are giant men in suits.

I swear I’m leaving Tokyo.
I watched as, just a week ago,
some robots crushed my mailbox flat.
And only two days after that
a moth the size of Fuji goes
and chews up all my Sunday clothes.
I bought a mothball from the store.
It won’t fit inside the door.

And just last night, what did I see?
Turdzilla where my car should be.
It’s not so bad – I’m sure some dupe
will pay for real Godzilla poop.
I’ll make a sign – or better yet,
I’ll sell it on the Internet!
And when I’ve made enough I’ll go –
to any place but Tokyo.

-by Adam Rex in Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich

I read about this book several months ago over on Fuse #8 and ordered it immediately because it’s just the sort of thing I like. When it arrived, I spent a happy half-hour reading it aloud and laughing my head off. Give me funny poetry and clever illustrations any day; throw in classic monsters, and I’m in love. I ordered two more copies for the library, and then I ordered a copy for Lucas for his birthday. It’s been a long, long two-months of not letting him see this book I want very badly to give him, but today’s the day. I’m pretty sure “Godzilla Pooped on My Honda” will be his favorite.

Adam Rex is quickly working his way toward my list of favorites. His Tree-Ring Circus is notable for being brilliant and also for being the only picture book I can tolerate that features a circus (of sorts) and a clown. It is a little-known fact that in spite of my love for Ian Falconer and his creation Olivia, I have steadfastly avoided cracking the cover of Olivia Saves the Circus because I hate the circus and can’t bear the thought of seeing poor Olivia there. So it is no small thing for me to like a circus book.

Posted by adrienne at 07:27 AM | Comments (2)

November 01, 2006

Halloween

I love Halloween.

It's a nice excuse to talk to the neighbors, and I love walking right through everyone's yard. Last night was perfect, warm and plenty of leaves to crunch through. I love the smells of Halloween, too: the leaves, of course, but also the way jack-o-lanterns start to smell slightly cooked after the candle's been in there a while. And then there are Peanut M&M's and Super Bubble Bubblegum.

Lucas isn't used to ringing people's doorbells, and it took him a while to remember the routine. He got comfortable soon enough, though, and then he started talking ("I am prepared to eat you!" "Beware the blind skeleton!" "Look! Aunt Adrienne killed the wolf!"). That kid really makes me laugh.

In unrelated news, I have a new article on the MCLS Web Site....

Posted by adrienne at 08:46 AM | Comments (3)

October 30, 2006

Five Little-Known Things About Me

Kelly over at Big A little a tagged me for this 5 Little-Known Things About Me meme a week ago, and it’s taken me that long to figure out what I want to reveal. How many things, after all, are little-known about an essayist? Mostly stuff I don’t want to tell you. Still, I came up with five things I was willing to share….

1. When I’m not suffering from insomnia, I have a tendency to get sleep paralysis, which is the opposite of fun.
2. Most people close to me know this, but others may be surprised to hear that I am extremely (as in near-death experience) allergic to bananas.
3. My stomach has a line going straight down the middle and my skin is darker on one side than the other. It’s less prominent now than when I was a kid, but it’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided anything that lets anyone see my belly my whole life.
4. After over two years of not wearing my wedding and engagement rings, about once a week or so, I still have a moment or two where I think I’ve forgotten to put them on.
5. I take really, really, really hot showers.

And now I can tag some people…. Patty? Mary Ann? Chuck? Olivia? (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to Olivia’s blog, though….)

Posted by adrienne at 08:44 AM | Comments (9)

October 26, 2006

This Is What I Found While I Was Waiting for Lucas's Bus to Arrive...

I don't get Lucas off the bus very often, and whenever I do, I always worry that I've gotten the day or time completely wrong or that the bus is never going to come or that he won't get off the bus. It's very stressful.

Not as stressful as what's happening in this picture, of course, but stressful nonetheless.

Posted by adrienne at 03:57 PM | Comments (14)

October 22, 2006

The Gift of Art

Thanks to Chuck and Kelly for the photo (taken on their honeymoon, in the sculpture garden of the Walker Museum in Minneapolis, which looks like a wonderful place).

Posted by adrienne at 01:19 PM | Comments (3)

October 15, 2006

Library Patrons, Part One: The Patron Who Says the Same Thing Over and Over in the Futile Hope that Repetition Will Make the Question Reasonable

Patron: “I’m looking for a book.”
Librarian: “What’s the title?”
Patron: “I don’t know, but I saw it at Barnes and Noble, and it’s blue.”
Librarian: “Do you remember the author?”
Patron: “No, but I saw it at Barnes and Noble, and it’s blue.”
Librarian: “Do you remember what it’s about?”
Patron: “Um, not really.”
Librarian: ...
Patron: “The cover was definitely blue.”
Librarian: “I’m going to need a little more than that.”
Patron: “They had it over at Barnes and Noble.”

Posted by adrienne at 10:09 AM | Comments (5)

October 14, 2006

Why Am I So Tired?

There was the long weekend of activity and swooning in North Carolina. (Check out the photographic evidence on my flickr.)

There was the interview with Liz B. at Pop Goes the Library.

And there was the amazingly insightful roundup of my Halloween favorites on the MCLS web site.

Whew! Thank goodness it’s the weekend.

Posted by adrienne at 12:40 PM | Comments (5)

October 12, 2006

A Letter from Lucas

As many of you know, Lucas and I maintain a fairly regular correspondence. Here is the important message contained in Lucas’s latest missive (copied EXACTLY):

“Dear aunt adriein. Of you can amagin moms coame fell out of her Bag.”

Just when I think I can’t love that child any more than I do, he writes me something wonderfully surreal that makes me love him even more. This is almost as good as his owl report, which included many mentions of the ways an owl uses its hooked beak to tear things apart. They get on Lucas's case about his handwriting and spelling at school, but I swear he's got to be one of the only kids in his class who is actually trying to write something interesting.

Posted by adrienne at 12:54 AM | Comments (4)

October 11, 2006

Duke vs. UNC

While I was in North Carolina, I learned about the rivalry between UNC and Duke which, I gather, largely revolves around basketball – a sport, like so many, that I don’t understand or care about. I like shooting baskets with Ron and Lucas, of course, but I can’t make heads or tails of what people are doing when they’re playing the actual game. It seems to move very quickly. I prefer a game like baseball that I can stop paying attention to while I eat my fried dough and still have a pretty good idea of what’s going on when I start paying attention again. Even so, people in NC seem to take this whole basketball thing very seriously, so I thought it merited further consideration.

After much thought, I’ve decided to take UNC’s side. Now I know that my own dear friend Jen works for Duke, but UNC has two very compelling things going for it:

1. From all I can tell, Chapel Hill is cooler than Durham.
2. UNC has a planetarium where they hire extremely cute astrophysics majors who believe that Pluto should still be a planet to narrate their star shows.

That pretty much decides it. In the end, for me, it all comes down to Pluto.

Posted by adrienne at 12:51 AM | Comments (5)

October 09, 2006

Printing My Boarding Passes...

Sigh.

Back to regular blogging tomorrow, assuming I don't miss any flights or anything. I really had fun here....

Posted by adrienne at 03:46 PM | Comments (5)

October 06, 2006

From the Chapel Hill Public Library

Currently, I am one of those annoying out-of-town patrons who comes in and asks for a temporary Internet pass so she can check her email. The librarian I talked to was way nicer than I am to Internet patrons and, coincidentally, is from Rochester and spent time working in Fairport and Brighton.

Weird!

This library is really cool. They have some great sculptures out front, and their public computers rock. Aside from checking my email and blogging and everything, Jen and I are chatting while sitting one row away from each other. Brilliant!

Tammy will be interested to hear that this library is situated in the middle of a place called Pritchard Park.

Highlights of the last 24 hours:

1. I saw the Duke Chapel and Gardens, both of which are amazing.
2. I ate a blackberry sage flavored popsicle at a place called Locopops. They also had a grapefruit cucumber mint flavored popsicle, but I wasn’t that brave.
3. I bought a shark finger puppet.
4. I ate moussaka that had spaghetti sauce on it, which, if you know anything about moussaka, is totally wrong.
5. I tried on a $160 pair of jeans, which were cute and comfortable but which (obviously) I did not buy.
6. I bought a GREAT purple skirt.
7. I bought birthday/Christmas presents for Max, Lucas, and Sierra.
8. Jen and I ate lunch at a place called The Spotted Dog, where the transgendered waitress clearly knew more about the proper use of makeup than I do, which is kind of depressing. She was really nice, though, so I couldn’t hate her.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something(s). We were out last night, and we’ve been exploring Chapel Hill today. Tonight’s the party, so Jen and I are off to get the last of our supplies (I won’t even tell you how much Jen spent at the state-owned ABC liquor store earlier) and then we’ll be doing all the last-minute prep....

Posted by adrienne at 03:49 PM | Comments (9)

October 05, 2006

What Adrienne Wrote in Her Journal Yesterday (Slightly Edited)

7:09am – Rochester Airport
Yeah, so I got through security, but it was completely humiliating. Aside from the fact that I was terrified that they were going to try to take away my inhaler, there is really nothing like standing there in bare feet first thing in the morning while people bark orders at you like you’re stupid. I don’t fly every damn day. Maybe they should post a freaking sign to let us know what we’re supposed to do.

At least I’ve found a nice, clean table with a view of the tarmac/runway, and the sun’s coming up and I have a latte. Life could be worse.

I notice my new sweater is kind of shedding.

8:40am – On Plane
I just decided to look at my flight info, and I can’t help but notice that I have a two and a half hour layover at JFK. Maybe I should have noticed that earlier. They have free WIFI in the Jet Blue terminal. I could have brought my laptop.

Damn.

10:00am – JFK
Okay, this sweater? Serious fuzzies. All over my carryon. I hope Jen has a lint-roller or some masking tape or something. I swear. This stuff only happens to me.

10:15am – Still JFK
I’ve actually found a nice, clean place where it doesn’t smell. Yay!

10:20am – Still JFK
I wonder if there is decent coffee in this building at all. Please, please, please not Starbucks.

10:40am – Still JFK
Found Dunkin’ Doughnuts. Another latte. Not bad.

This is a nice spot, but there’s a bird flying around the terminal. Aside from the fact that he seems really stressed out, he keeps perching above me no matter where I go. It’s making it hard to relax.

11:20am – Still JFK
Why didn’t I bring my laptop?

1:30pm – On Plane
Project Runway Marathon – YES! It’s like they have one every time I fly. It’s very convenient.

Pilot says it's 80 degrees in NC. Will be able to ditch shedding sweater.

11:45pm – Jen’s
Too much to write about, plus am tired and full. Time for bed.

Posted by adrienne at 01:22 PM | Comments (20)

October 04, 2006

Bloggin' from North Carolina

Yes, it's true. I'm blogging on Jen's laptop in her tres cool apartment here in Durham, North Carolina. I left early, as in waking-up-at-5:00-in-the-morning early. I had a dream that I was going to post an entry before I left, but I don't usually get up at anything like 5:00am and seriously underestimated how much it sucks. I barely managed to get myself cute enough to walk out the door.

I felt a lot better when I got here and it was 80 degrees and sunny.

Jen and I spent a lovely afternoon and evening shopping, eating, and catching up. We're busily planning a house party for Friday night, which involves much sampling of cheese, wine, and cocktail mixes. It's a tough job (and Internet access is something of an issue), so I may be a little spotty on the updates until I'm back home next Tuesday. Either that, or my entries might get A LOT more interesting. Hard to say, but you know Jen and I always have fun....

Posted by adrienne at 09:16 PM | Comments (4)

October 03, 2006

Feed

I received my registration renewal yesterday from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, and it contained two glossy fliers – one for a car company and the other for an insurance company.

Wow.

How does that even happen? Our government isn’t supposed to be sending us advertisements in the mail. That’s about one step away from the DMV selling its mailing lists. (They don’t sell their mailing lists, right? RIGHT? Maybe I don’t want to know.) I understand that government agencies are increasingly expected to find creative ways to raise funds – I do, after all, work for a public library – but to raise money by selling advertisement space in routine mailings? Aside from the fact that I feel violated having advertising hit me from yet another unexpected angle, it’s a little creepy that it looks like the DMV and, by extension, the government are endorsing this particular car company and insurance company. It’s brilliant advertising for the companies involved, but it’s just wrong. Very wrong.

Posted by adrienne at 07:53 AM | Comments (10)

September 30, 2006

So, Yeah...

I got a STAR tax rebate check in the mail yesterday that's made out to Brian. That's going to be a fun little thing to figure out on Monday. I do, in fact, pay a whole bunch of taxes, and, being a widow on one income, I could really use the School TAx Relief. Nothing like making it easy. Way to go, New York State!

It's all kind of ironic and infuriating.

Posted by adrienne at 11:51 PM | Comments (3)

September 26, 2006

Me and the Big C

Check out this article that has a picture of me and my peep Corduroy.

I'm making a funny face in the picture, but I don't have a double chin or anything, so I feel okay about it. I was also pleased to see that the photographer made note of the title of the book I was reading.

Posted by adrienne at 12:20 AM | Comments (26)

September 25, 2006

So This is How We Get Him to Practice His Handwriting...

When I got to Tammy's yesterday to take Lucas to Aqua Fun at the Y, I found him in the driveway writing, "I walk a lonely road the only one that I have ever known don't know where it goes but I'm the only one I walk alone." (Lucas didn't include punctuation, so I won't, either.) In case you don't turn on the radio, that's the first several lines of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day. In the car on the way to the Y, he told me that he likes to listen to Green Day when he’s sad or mad and that even if he can’t listen to them, he thinks of the songs when he’s feeling like that. Then he feels better. It’s interesting to me that someone that age experiences and uses music in much the same way I do. It also goes to show that kids do, indeed, pay attention to lyrics.

Of course, Lucas doesn’t have a clue about how to walk alone, but it’s sort of nice to know that he’s giving it some thought.

And it makes me wonder if any other second graders are out there writing Green Day lyrics on the driveway….

Posted by adrienne at 08:09 AM | Comments (6)

September 24, 2006

Some Pictures from Tammy's Camera

I love this picture of Kelly and Chuck laughing. They were married by Mr. Ernenwein (the other man in the photo), who I had for Technology class in seventh grade and who is now the Kendall Town Justice.

Kelly and her dad did a fun little dance. You can also see some of the barn in this photo, but I wish I had a photo that showed more of it. I'm sure Jeffrey took some....

Heather and Jeffrey, in a rare moment when Jeffrey wasn’t working.

Tam, Ron, and I. What you can't see here are the new shoes we bought that morning or the identical purses we wound up carrying.

Posted by adrienne at 07:52 PM | Comments (32)

September 23, 2006

Happy Wedding, Kelly and Chuck!

This is from earlier this summer, but I hope to have pics from The Big Day posted tomorrow. Everyone looked beautiful, and I know I had a very good time. :)

Yay!

Posted by adrienne at 11:45 PM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2006

“Ennui is Not a French Dessert”

Yesterday several of my interests came together in one package at RIT.

Scott McCloud, author of the wonderful (essential?) Understanding Comics, was giving a talk at RIT. (I’d like to take a moment to note that RIT didn’t charge for the talk or even to park. You rock on, RIT!) McCloud talked about what technology and, particularly, the web have meant to comics. He talked about things like what makes a comic a comic and how artists could preserve the essence of comics in an electronic medium while also taking full advantage of things like hypertext and movement and the screen – fascinating stuff that applies to any number of art forms. McCloud’s a great speaker, too. He’s interesting and well-informed, but he also isn’t afraid to poke a little fun at himself and his format. He had great visuals, including comics from many eras and the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons.

As if this wasn’t enough?

This talk is part of McCloud’s The Making Comics 50 State Tour. He and his family – wife Ivy and daughters Winter (6th grade) and Skye (8th grade) – are making Scott’s publicity tour for his newest book, Making Comics, into a year-long tour of the U.S. and several other countries. While they’re on the road, they’re homeschooling the kids. All four are blogging, and the kids are doing podcasts and “Winterviews” (interviews conducted by Winter and filmed/edited by Skye). The whole family was at RIT dressed in black (and it’s worth noting that Skye was wearing awesome shoes and Winter was wearing a black polka-dotted dress that’s much nicer than anything I own) and contributing to the lecture.

Comics, homeschooling, technology, blogs, cool shoes, nice dresses, black…. Perfect!

I highly recommend getting out to see the McClouds when they hit your area, and if you haven’t read Understanding Comics, you should.

Posted by adrienne at 07:40 AM | Comments (15)

September 18, 2006

In Which I Do Things I’ve Never Done Before

One of the more interesting aspects of my personality, even to me, is that when I decide that I want to do something, the fact that I don’t know how to do it gives me very little pause. I’m likely to read up on whatever it is or to try to find someone who knows what they’re doing to ask questions, but I’m just as likely to muck about and make mistakes and generally waste time trying to figure whatever it is out.

Add to this a rather impulsive nature and you get things like my blog and an $80,000 homeschooling grant and crème brulee. You get other less impressive things, but why would I tell you about them?

Anyway, this struck me because yesterday I was doing one of those things that I know very little about, am not terribly good at, and persist in doing anyway: sewing. In this case, I was taking care of some mending and hemming a couple pairs of pants. Someone who actually knows how to sew would surely be appalled by my methods, but they seem to work. And I’ve found that when I’m wearing a pair of pants I’ve hemmed, no one gets down on the ground and inspects the hem to make sure that it’s absolutely straight and even. (If one of you takes this as a cue to go ahead and try it, be ready to get kicked.) I try to do things well, but sometimes good enough is good enough, and it makes me feel all empowered to hem my own pants – which is, I know, weird, but there you go.

Another thing I keep doing lately that I know nothing about are interviews. Journalism majors have to take whole courses in interviewing, but when I decided to do my first interview last month, I just did it, and I’ve been doing pretty much one a week ever since. I’m artless, but I’m also getting the information I need. I’m not looking for a Pulitzer or to be the next Barbara Walters. I just want to talk to interesting people, learn stuff, and write about it. I keep appreciating my own audacity, though. It certainly helps keep life interesting, maybe more so for the people who are watching me flounder about (particularly my interviewees, who have all been extraordinarily good sports).

And all of this is not to say that I don't use ignorance as an excuse to avoid things I don't want to do, because I totally do that, too.

Posted by adrienne at 08:46 AM | Comments (10)

September 17, 2006

“Spendin’ All Your Money on Me”

Tammy and I went shopping yesterday so she could buy a microwave for her classroom and I could do some more work on updating my fall/winter wardrobe. We were in one store and saw a skirt we both liked on a mannequin but couldn’t find the skirts out on the floor. Ever resourceful, I checked the one on the mannequin, determined it was my size, and took it. That’s when I saw the price tag: $44! There was no way I was going to spend $44 on this particular skirt, no matter how much I liked it, but, by this point, I’d tried it on and really fallen in love with it. Lots of things in the store were on sale, though, so I thought I might as well ask to see if, by some miracle, this was 50% off or something. So I went up to the counter, asked, and learned that the skirt was on clearance for $7!!! You know I bought it.

All shopping expeditions should be filled with such wonderful surprises….

Posted by adrienne at 03:13 PM | Comments (3)

September 13, 2006

Dark Gate Comic Slurper

The D&C has finally done it.

They won’t fix the nonsense with the Sunday comics, they don’t carry a couple comics I wish they would anyway, and I still keep finding my newspaper in the gutter. What choice do I have? I’m canceling my subscription.

My biggest worry in this, as you may have guessed, is how I am going to manage to keep up with the comics, but – never fear! – the Internet has provided me with a solution: Dark Gate Comic Slurper. Now I’m having all my favorite comics delivered straight to my Bloglines every day. How perfect is that? I have all the best of the D&C gang (Pickles, Dilbert, Doonesbury, For Better or For Worse, Jump Start, etc…), but I also got a bunch that the D&C doesn’t carry on a daily basis (Non Sequitur, Foxtrot, Mutts, and The Boondocks).

Who needs the paper anyway?

Well, of course, I was also worried about missing our local theater and film reviews, but guess what? The D&C has an RSS feed for their Living section articles!

How brilliant is that? I’m going to get all the information that’s important to me without having to search around my yard (or gutter or mulch pile or wherever) to find where the carrier’s thrown the paper today, and I’m not going to have all that paper coming in – so much of which I never read anyway. Right now, I kinda love the Internet.

Posted by adrienne at 07:48 AM | Comments (4)

September 11, 2006

Monday Hodgepodge

Thanks to a tip from Fuse #8, I now have an advance catalog card for my book:

In other news, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in which children are turning pink. In Pinkalicious by Victoria and Elizabeth Kahn, a girl turns pink from eating too many cupcakes, and in Double Pink by Kate Feiffer and illustrated by Bruce Ingman, a girl turns pink by choice.

Speaking of Double Pink, you can read more about it and a couple other fashionable books in my newest article on the MCLS web site, “Playing Dress Up.”

Last, but not least, you can read more about the homeschooling grant watat.com-er Cathy Kyle and I have been involved in yet another article on the MCLS web site.

And that’s probably enough for one day….

Posted by adrienne at 11:36 AM | Comments (1)

September 08, 2006

In Regard to the New 100-Calorie Packs of Doritos

1. I like the little bitty chips.
2. 100 calories' worth of Doritos is completely inadquate.
3. In order to get a more satisfying amount of Doritos, I recommend eating all five bags that come in the box.
4. Maybe buy two boxes.

Posted by adrienne at 12:40 PM | Comments (4)

September 04, 2006

Home Improvement

Some of you may remember that I’ve been working on redecorating my bedroom for quite some time now – or maybe you’ve forgotten since I started it about a year and a half ago and haven’t worked on it in, oh, about a year. I “temporarily” relocated my bedroom stuff when I started the project and have since kept the door closed, except for those rare days when I’ve been working in there or decide to peek in to see if anything happened while I was doing other things. For several months, I had stuff stacked in front of the door so I couldn’t open it if I wanted to. It made the whole project a whole lot easier to ignore.

Today, though, I got a whim and decided to go in there and make some progress. And what progress I made! I cleaned everything up, did some sanding in the closet, and put wood putty in the nail holes on the molding. This involved a trip to Home Depot, which I got through without having a nervous breakdown. In fact, I even found a swell new lamp for my desk. For a few hours, I was like one of those people who takes care of home improvement projects and isn’t freaked out by stores with warehouse ceilings. I’m not sure if it will happen again anytime soon, but I’m feeling pretty self-actualized right now. And that’s a good thing.

Posted by adrienne at 07:35 PM | Comments (5)

September 02, 2006

"Down by the River"

Contrary to what Some People have recently implied, Make Way for Ducklings is not something I make up at parties when I’ve had one too many margaritas. Make Way for Ducklings was the most distinguished picture book of 1941 (note the golden Caldecott Medal sticker on the cover) and remains a classic work enjoyed by millions of children and adults each year. Author and illustrator Robert McCloskey also won a Caldecott Medal for Time of Wonder in 1958 and an Honor for Blueberries for Sal in 1949.

And, for Certain People’s edification, there is a statue of the ducklings from Make Way for Ducklings in Boston’s Public Garden. I have visited them twice, and they're perfectly lovely.

Of course, someone who was not under the influence of margaritas may have thought to call in the children’s lit professor who was sitting in the next room to verify that Make Way for Ducklings is a famous work of literature, but one can also see how difficult it would be to recover from the shock of a whole table full of highly-educated and intelligent adults who don’t know the book.

If you haven’t read it, you must run out and read it now. Go on: comment, then shoo.

Personally? I'm shooing off to read Size 12 is Not Fat.

Posted by adrienne at 11:52 AM | Comments (7)

August 31, 2006

See Comments on Previous Entry...

Posted by adrienne at 01:26 PM | Comments (9)

A Poem by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Posted by adrienne at 12:37 AM | Comments (10)

August 29, 2006

Ten Rules to Help You Survive Widowhood

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 01:01 AM | Comments (24)

August 28, 2006

Benny "Helps" with the Laundry

"Does this tank top make me look fat?"

Posted by adrienne at 08:31 AM | Comments (8)

August 24, 2006

Breaking News!

Pluto is still a planet, whatever they say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082400109.html?nav=rss_nation

Stupid scientists. I swear. I'm going to go cry in my obsolete 523.482's now.

Posted by adrienne at 11:45 AM | Comments (8)

August 22, 2006

From the Dictionary to Style Guides

Like any card-carrying nerd, I have my favorite style guides.

For some reason, even though I only feel the need to keep one dictionary on my desk at home, I keep four – yes, four! – style guides, all of which I find essential at some point or another when I’m writing.

My favorite is my paperback copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. You have to love a guide that tells you, “Rather, very, little, pretty – these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.”

So true!

This is the book I abuse to the point that I have to replace it every few years. ("WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SUGGESTING THAT I'VE BEEN USING 'WHOM' IMPROPERLY!?!?! I'LL SHOW YOU!") I write in it and manage to break the spine and get the whole thing all sticky with post-its. It is the book upon which I most often spill liquids.

In addition to my heavily-used paperback Elements of Style, I own a beautiful hardcover version illustrated by Maira Kalman. In it, Kalman has created witty, expressive paintings to illustrate pieces of advice and some of the sample sentences. You have to be the sort of nerd that appreciates grammar *and* illustration to love Kalman's creations, and this is not the type of book one writes in or abuses. I keep it around so I can pick it up and peruse it when I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be writing, because it reminds me of how much I love language and a well-used semicolon.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition is the official style guide of ALA Editions, so I’ve been becoming very intimately acquainted with it. I’ve been marking it up with post-its, but the book retails for $55, which means that I haven’t quite found the nerve to write in it or severely test its sturdy hardcover binding.

Well, there was that one time I threw it across the room, but that was an act of rage over the nuances of footnotes, as opposed to the calculated abuse I heap on my paperback Strunk and White.

I like The Chicago Manual of Style because it’s detailed and addresses most questions I put to it, and, unlike Misters Strunk and White, it doesn't get snarky.

Last, but not least, I bring you the newest addition to my style family: The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. How did I not find this book years ago? I only recently saw mention of it on a list of recommended reading for teenagers, and I thought, “Pshaw. Who recommends a style guide to teenagers?” Then, of course, I put it on hold. If someone had handed me this book when I was fourteen, I would have read it five times and could have stopped reading that hideously boring grammar textbook they periodically tortured us with in English class. Here is a passage:

Who else would I expect to run into on a dark staircase at this hour?

Does this sound vaguely right? It doesn’t sound jarringly wrong – at least, perhaps? But this familiar menace, whoever he/she is, is not the subject, but is, as those whom we were warning, above, the object: I would expect to run into him/her. And I would expect him/her. But to run is what’s being expected, and whom/him/her is thus likely to be run into.

The book’s conversational, somewhat convoluted and questioning tone combined with weird line drawings and sample sentences featuring werewolves, gargoyles, and the like is gold. This style guide is readable even if you don’t care a whit about whether or not your subjects match your verbs. I can only hope that someone’s out there using it in high school classrooms.

And now, if you guys are really lucky, perhaps my next entry will be about my favorite pens.

Posted by adrienne at 07:19 AM | Comments (9)

August 21, 2006

Doesn’t Everyone Enjoy Spending Quality Time with the Dictionary?

Here’s a cool word I saw in a New Yorker article about Maurice Sendak:

obstreperous (according to The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition) –
1. Noisily and stubbornly defiant.
2. Aggressively boisterous.

As in:
“Who knew that Children’s Librarians could be so obstreperous? They’re always in a kerfuffle about something.”

Of course, “kerfuffle” isn’t even in The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition, which makes me wonder if this dictionary might not be worth the deep and abiding love I feel for it. I mean, it’s a dictionary. I need to be able to count on it to tell me the definitions of words when I want to look them up. That’s why I keep it around. Otherwise, I find myself turning to shifty sources like dictionary.com and m-w.com (both of which have lost my love due to their excessive use of pop-up ads) or the most reliable source I know, the OED (which I wish I had a copy of in my house, although I’d have to buy an entirely new bookshelf to store it). This has been particularly on my mind as I’ve been on a quest for the perfect dictionary to get for my office at work. I’ve been using The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition for years at home and am terribly attached to it. I would love a second copy to use at work, but, of course, this particular dictionary is out-of-print and outdated. On the plus side, though, it’s just the right size to grab and has an aesthetically pleasing cover and fun – but demure – illustrations. The new edition keeps the illustrations, but it’s just a touch too big for my hand to grab easily and comes with a CD-ROM. I know I can ignore the CD-ROM, but, for some reason, I find its existence offensive.

And there I go with another kerfuffle. Must be time to meditate.

Posted by adrienne at 01:20 AM | Comments (18)

August 20, 2006

Current Events According to Adrienne

Everyone knows there are nine planets.

So I really don’t know what’s up with the International Astronomical Union and their whole maybe-there-should-be-twelve thing. I mean, who are they to say that there are twelve planets, especially when one of the three they’re thinking of adding is currently called “object 2003 UB313”? I *may* change my opinion on this matter if the IAU decides to officially call object 2003 UB313 “Xena,” as Michael E. Brown, the astronomer who discovered it, does. Of course, Dr. Brown doesn’t think there should be twelve planets. He thinks that they should kick Pluto out and call it eight. With all due respect to Dr. Brown, who otherwise sounds like a delightful man, that Pluto thing is crazy-talk. Aside from the fact that I, and most other adults, have memorized the names of nine planets, what, exactly, are these astronomers trying to say about the sun? It’s like our sun is some ho that picks up any celestial body that comes spiraling by (or, if you're Dr. Brown, like some ho that just discards a planet when she's done with it).

I don’t know about you, but my sun is no ho.

And then there is the fact that if they decide that there are, indeed, twelve planets, all those new books I bought for the library about the solar system over the last year are going to become obsolete, which would be really freaking irritating.

Do you hear me, IAU? IRRITATING. Don’t make me sic my cat on you, because I so will. You can’t push me around.

In summary, I just want to reaffirm that there are nine planets. NINE. Just ask any fourth grader.

I swear.

Posted by adrienne at 12:05 PM | Comments (7)

August 17, 2006

Life Without an Alarm

This past June, I made a radical decision. I decided that I was no longer going to use my alarm clock.

Like many readers and writers, I don’t sleep well most of the time. I wake up a lot at night, and I go through phases of having nightmares. It turns out that reading and writing are something constructive to do while I’m not sleeping. Often the best sleep I get is sometime between 4:00 and 8:00 in the morning, and the alarm clock was forever interrupting this good sleep or, worse, waking me up in the middle of a dream. I’m useless for the rest of the day when I get woken up while dreaming. Dreams are important business, and I don’t think it’s good for the psyche to have them cut short.

Now that I’ve lived without the alarm clock for a few months, I don’t know why I didn’t give it up sooner. Some days I wake up a little later than I might have liked, but it’s not like I accidentally sleep until 11:00. And nothing extraordinarily bad has happened due to me sleeping a little later than I intended. Most of the time, if I have something going on in the morning, my body just sort of wakes itself up a little earlier, which makes me think that perhaps I wasn’t giving my brain and body enough credit to do what I needed them to do for a long time.

When my husband first had cancer, people would tell us how glad we’d be when Bri was done with treatment and we could get back to a normal life, not realizing, as we did, that life could never be normal for us again. I used to be sad about that, but I think that every year I embrace my lack of normality just a little bit more. I’m still not quite sure what I want to do with this life, but I’m sure that whatever it turns out to be, it will continue to involve letting me sleep until I darn well feel like getting up.

Posted by adrienne at 09:08 AM | Comments (11)

August 16, 2006

On Target

A few months ago, I became aware of a development plan that, among other things, would bring a Target store to Chili. Now, in spite of appearances, I’m not one of those girls who likes to shop, but I’ve loved Target since the first time Tammy, who is a serious shopper, dragged me there. Target’s selection of cute office supplies is unparalleled, even in stores entirely devoted to office supplies. They also have a really fun selection of greeting cards and stationery. While I spend a lot of time talking about shoes and fretting about clothing trends, I am whole worlds of more likely to buy a cute pack of post-its or a pink spiral notebook with holographic flowers than an article of clothing.

So it was with a great deal of reluctance that I decided to declare Target dead to me. While I love Target on a visceral level, I also understand that getting one in Chili would not be good for the economy or character of the town. And I understand that, even though it’s no Walmart, there are larger costs associated with Target’s temptingly low prices. So I put a “No Mall on Paul” sign (which has since been stolen) in my front yard and added Target to the list of places I’m boycotting.

It’s been a long three months of not shopping at Target and snorting at my friends with disdain every time they did.

But then, a couple weeks ago, Target’s Sunday ads – which I continued to read even though Target didn’t technically exist in my world – started featuring back-to-school supplies. And this past Sunday, it became clear to me that they had an excellent sale on Flair pens in really fun colors like purple and pink.

Okay, okay, I can’t help it! I caved!

Tammy and I went to Target last night, and I bought, well, a lot of stuff, but it’s all so cool! I got the usual things – spiral notebooks, the world’s cutest composition book, cards, post-its, the aforementioned Flairs, groovy-colored pencils, and notebook paper. I also got a new (much needed) shower curtain, a new comforter that will match my new bedroom whenever the heck I get around to finishing it, and a lint roller to help me with my cat hair problem. It was all very exciting. It put me in mind of why it’s so much fun giving stuff up for Lent.

So now Target isn’t dead to me, but it’s still on notice. And I’m going to try not to shop there too much. I feel caught between feeling badly about caving and just so happily satisfied with my purchases, which reminds me that it's probably time to go put post-its on something....

Posted by adrienne at 10:13 AM | Comments (12)

August 13, 2006

My Week Off Work: A Summary

Movies Watched: 9
Books Read: 4, plus newspapers and magazines
Books Written: 0, stunning progress on the one, though
Coldwater Sandwiches from the L&B Eaten: 3
Days in Which Ice Cream Was Consumed: Every
Mosquito Bites: About 15
Days Canoeing: 1
Times Canoe Tipped: 0 (YES!)
New Places Explored: 3
Herons Seen: 5, possibly 6 – number 6 may have really been another kind of bird (stupid faulty eyes)
Dragonflies Seen: countless
Wolves Howling: A LOT, but I wasn’t about to go count
Bike Rides: 1
Times Tammy Left Me in Her Dust while Biking: 1
Visits to YMCA: 1
Visits to Library: 1
Desire to Go Back to Work: Moderate, more than usual after some time off

Posted by adrienne at 07:54 PM | Comments (13)

August 11, 2006

Breaking and Entering with Tracy and Adrienne

When you read that last entry, you probably weren’t thinking, “Well, I don't think Tracy and Adrienne will be able to get back into their cabin when they go back to the campground.”

It was sort of a surprise to us, too.

As some of you already know, Tracy and I were off on a writing retreat. We’re both working on books (me: homeschooling; Tracy: middle-grade novel), so we wanted to take some concentrated time to WORK. Tracy went with the goal of typing up several of her handwritten chapters, and I went with the goal of doing some serious reading. Tracy found us this wonderful little cabin at Duck Lake – a bitty thing about the size of my bedroom at home. Oh, how we exclaimed over how cute it is, especially the way the door has one of those quaint locking mechanisms where you pull a rope from outside that lifts a piece of wood and lets you in.

The locking mechanism turned out to be a lot less quaint, though, when we got back to the cabin last night, pulled the rope, and NOTHING HAPPENED.

Now might be a good time to close your eyes and spend a moment picturing all the permutations of Tracy and I trying to make this rope do something. Tracy pulled, I pulled, we both pulled, I pulled while Tracy jostled the door, Tracy pulled while I kicked the door. Things got increasingly desperate.

That’s when we decided to bust in.

Funny how easy it was. Tracy tore out a screen – thank God one of the windows was open a crack! – and then I used a chair to boost me up so I could climb through the window, which I did with the agility and grace I bring to all my endeavors.

Stop laughing. IT WASN’T FUNNY!

When I got inside, I found that the screw that held the rope to the latch had come clean out and was wedged in the hole leading to the outside. Things certainly would have been clearer to us more quickly had the rope done the decent thing and come out of the door entirely the first time we pulled it.

Or, you know, the managers of the place could have maintained their cabin properly and, perhaps, used something more adequate than an inch-long screw to hold the rope to the latch. We might have mentioned this to them, too, but they were a bit inaccessible, being, as they were, on vacation in New York City. Tracy says that she’s going to call and leave a “helpful” message on their answering machine.

And it all came to a good end. Tracy and I were able to retrieve our laptops from the inside of the cabin (our real concern), and we both got a lot of work done on the trip. Hopefully I'll get some more work done this weekend....

Posted by adrienne at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2006

Hello from Vacation!

I got a minute of dial-up, so I thought I'd stop in and say hello. So far, there are no ducks at Duck Lake, but there are s'mores and mixed drinks. Tracy's been doing a lot of typing, and I've been doing a lot of research. Yay, us!

Posted by adrienne at 06:36 PM | Comments (5)

August 09, 2006

Unavoidable

I'm going to be offline for a couple days. In the meantime, let's not forget who's Number One:

Although I think Max and I are cute enough to come in second and third:

Max is, at any rate.

Posted by adrienne at 01:17 AM | Comments (2)

August 05, 2006

Too Tired

I am too tired to write anything even remotely interesting, which is a sign that I've had a perfectly lovely day. I'll tell you more soon. In the meantime, watch this.

Posted by adrienne at 10:37 PM | Comments (8)

August 04, 2006

Time for Some Photos

Here I am, working very hard just last week. You can tell which one is me because I’m wearing orange and am reading Snip, Snap! What’s That?, as per usual.

And here’s Jason working very hard that same day. As you can see, we make sacrifices for our jobs. You can also see that Jason has to play the guitar to compensate for not having a cute orange shirt, and I think it works for him. The kids seem to be having fun. Not Snip, Snap fun, of course, but fun nonetheless.

“But, why, Adrienne?” you ask, “Why are you thinking about work so much today?”

That’s because I don’t have to go back there again until August 14, and, while I love my job to bits, I’m giving that a big WOOO HOOO!

Posted by adrienne at 05:15 PM | Comments (5)

August 03, 2006

My Utter Lack of Sophistication

It doesn’t take reading this blog for long to realize that I’m not exactly what you would call sophisticated. I know my shoes, of course, and read Go Fug Yourself, so I’m not totally hopeless – but my unabashed love of horror movies and “Robot Chicken” sort of give me away.

If you see me on a regular basis, that really provides a whole new level of evidence.

For instance, right now, I insist on wearing skirts and shorts every day, but my legs are a diverse collection of bruises – I could tell you where some of them come from – and a few cuts, one of which is covered by a Peanuts band-aid. I have another Peanuts band-aid on a cut on my finger, and I currently have a sunburn that’s peeling/giving me odd tan lines.

I look at other adults, the ones who can’t spend a fair amount of time comparing injuries with a four-year-old, and I don’t understand how they manage it. I don’t mean to get all bruised and cut and sunburned; it just happens as I go about my daily business. I suppose this is one of the reasons I’ve chosen to spend much of my working life with children, but, still, I’m sort of envious of the adults who are unwrinkled and make remaining uninjured look perfectly natural. I’ve been talking about aging with friends who’ve had birthdays recently, and it always makes me aware that in so many ways, I haven’t really evolved much past my 13-year-old self. I still feel awkward a lot of the time, and, in a very practical sense, I talk to a lot of the same people I did then. I’m 32 (and a half!), so I suppose this is just who I’m going to be. Most of the time I’m okay with it, although every once in a while I wish my legs were just slightly less blemished.

Posted by adrienne at 07:28 AM | Comments (13)

July 30, 2006

The Sad State of International Postage

Unlike many people, I am a big fan of the U.S. Postal Service. I love sending mail, and I love buying stamps. At any given time, I have a selection of stamps of various amounts and styles hanging around, and I put something (or some things) in the mailbox pretty much every day.

As I’ve blogged before, I think that the USPS is one of the best deals around. They’re fast and efficient, especially when you consider the price. And who doesn't love getting mail?

My current gripe is with the stamps themselves, particularly international stamps. The USPS puts its heart and soul into its domestic stamps, so my friends on American soil are getting letters and postcards with stamps of things like Picture Book Animals and Crops of the Americas and Superheroes.

But look at what Heidi gets when I send mail to her in Germany. Booooorrrrrring. I mean, they're probably better than Crops of the Americas, but still.

It hardly seems fair. I send more mail to Heidi than anyone else I know, even Lucas.

Of course, I could do as Jeffrey and Craig have done when sending mail to me on more than one occasion and use multiple stamps in smaller amounts to add up to the correct postage amount. I love it when people send me mail with multiple stamps, particularly ones in weird amounts that I haven’t seen. But to do it myself? Well, there’s all that math. And what if I goof it up? It seems risky.

It’s for Heidi, though, so I might try it.

Still, though, if any of you postal designers come across this, why not start putting some cute little pictures of cartoons or, say, sunflowers on the international stamps? And, while you’re at it, could you also please consider bringing back my all-time favorite stamp, Puppy Love? My life really hasn’t been the same without it. Thanks.

Posted by adrienne at 10:10 PM | Comments (8)

July 27, 2006

Sick Today

So this is mostly a place holder.

A new article went up on the MCLS web site earlier this week. Might as well read that to keep the depression from setting in.

Posted by adrienne at 09:04 PM | Comments (5)

July 26, 2006

More Real News

It's true! Lucas has made the newspaper yet again. See the article (note photo/caption).

That kid makes the paper more than I do. What's up with that?

It is perhaps worth noting that Lucas is working with girls, as is typical for him. He's made more of a show over the last year or so of making friends with boys and designating places "no girls allowed," but it's still not uncommon to see him being happily dragged and bossed around by girls. He also has a relatively lengthy list of girls who are allowed in "no girls allowed" places, including his mother and I. Basically, if you point out a girl who might want to go in a "no girls allowed" place, he caves and puts her on the list, as well he should.

Posted by adrienne at 09:14 AM | Comments (4)

July 23, 2006

Covering Our Bases

So Friday was the annual Friends of the Webster Public Library Red Wings night. I, of course, took Lucas. In spite of the way we take him to at least a couple baseball games every year, he’s never shown much interest in anything besides the junk food, so when a man stopped us on the way to our seats to ask if Lucas wanted to change one of the bases during the fifth inning, Lucas didn’t know how to respond. I’m not sure he really knew what a base was, and I’m sure he was clueless about innings. I reassured him that it would be fun, though, and he believed me. So we signed up.

We spent the next several innings reviewing which base was which and also discussing strikes and outs, which I think he may actually understand. He understands strikes, at any rate, if the way he kept shouting about them was any indication.

Like Lucas, I can be pretty blasé about many things, but I have to say that getting to be the adult accompanying one of the kids who’s changing a base is a very cool experience. We both got to go down by the field and wait with the grounds crew, who were all totally nice and great with the kids. Lucas wound up changing first base, which involved carrying the new base out, picking up the dirty one, laying down the new one, and then carrying the dirty one back into the stands. It was all very messy, and people clapped for him while he was on the way back up – not that he noticed until I pointed it out.

The whole experience was pure gold for perking up Lucas’s interest in baseball. He didn’t really care who was scoring (although at one point, he did confide that he would hit the opposing team in the heads if he had the chance), but he was extremely interested in what was going on with his base: “Aunt Adrienne, is someone on my base?” “Did you see there are three people at first base?” “Look at number 11! He’s on my base!” At several points, he just chanted, “First base! First base! First base!”

Sometimes I wonder how we got through our days before that boy came along.

Posted by adrienne at 10:14 PM | Comments (7)

July 21, 2006

Real News

Inventors like Dean Kamen are always in the news with their brand-new super-cool inventions, but, really, who among us will be springing for a Segway anytime soon? Personally, I’d like to hear more about the nameless dynamo who thought, “You know, shirts don’t need tags. We can print all that information RIGHT ON THE SHIRT.” Talk about innovations that have changed my life: I’ve been snapping up tagless t-shirts and bras for the past few years, and now I have quite a collection. What a relief to be without those itchy and, it turns out, completely unnecessary tags.

Then again, some companies go above and beyond with their tags. For example, at the end of the washing instructions, David & Goliath t-shirt tags say, “Always smile.” Between that, their cute images and snappy sayings, and the fact that some of their t-shirts are – gasp! – actually produced in the United States, it’s hard not to love those people.

Of course, I’ve recently had to declare that I am not allowed to buy any more t-shirts until next summer. *That’s* going to be a difficult resolution to keep….

Posted by adrienne at 01:07 PM | Comments (6)

July 20, 2006

A Slightly Fictionalized Story I’d Like to Tell You Because Someone Asked Me Not To

When I was about 12, a friend and I went to see Platoon with another friend who just happened to be a boy. Now boys are okay and all, but there are certain things you can’t talk to them about – for instance, the fact that my friend had just gotten her first period.

Girls, you know the rest of this story.

The three of us sat and were emotionally traumatized by the film for a couple hours, and then my friend and I went to the bathroom to freshen up. That’s when my friend realized that something was flawed with either her choice of beige shorts or feminine protection, and we were suddenly thrust into a very delicate situation. How were we supposed to get to the car without anyone seeing what had happened, most particularly the boy we were with? Well, after an extended discussion in the bathroom, we decided that our only option was to stay behind the boy at all times, but we had to try to do this casually, which is especially hard when you’re trying not to burst into gales of laughter the whole time. Lucky for us, this was not the sort of boy who was always terribly observant or held doors open for girls, and so we were able to get to the car without arousing suspicion. Then we went straight home so my friend could reassemble her dignity and soak her shorts.

And, you know, everyone lived happily ever after. In the end.

Posted by adrienne at 10:03 PM | Comments (12)

July 17, 2006

Time to Check in with My New Year's Resolutions

Since it's more than halfway through the year, I thought it was time to check back in with my New Year's resolutions to see how I'm doing. They are:

1. Eat plenty of fried egg sandwiches.
I'm doing really bad with this one. I've been on something of an omlette and hard-boiled egg kick. I'll try harder.

2. Watch plenty of movies.
I've been doing okay, but I'm not really Netflixing as much as I feel I should be. Also needs work.

3. Support the local economy by purchasing food and/or beverage items at the Leaf and Bean on a regular basis.
Yes, excellent. I'm getting ready to go do this in just a minute or two.

4. Get my money’s worth out of my YMCA membership.
Not so much the last two weeks, but, generally, I do really well with this. This is probably my most difficult resolution, but I want to get the free tshirt at the end of the summer -- so I must carry on!

5. Keep my house untidy.
Excellent.

6. Read every day.
Excellent.

7. Write every day.
Excellent.

8. Work very hard at the last minute to complete my writing assignments within 24 hours of deadline.
I've even finished some early, although there was that review I sent in over a week late....

9. Let go of hate. It is the path to the dark side.
Um, well, yeah. Let's look at number 10.

10. Update watat.com on a daily basis.
Super-fantastic!

Overall, I'd say I had a pretty ambitious set of goals there, but I'm managing along. Just don't ask me how Ella's doing with her resolution to lose some weight.

Posted by adrienne at 08:14 AM | Comments (7)

July 10, 2006

Overheard at the Kendall Carnival Saturday Night

Lynn: Want to take Paige on the Tilt-a-Whirl? I don’t feel like going on it.
Adrienne: Sure!
Paige (on ride): Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
Adrienne: That was pretty fast and scary, huh?
Paige: Yeah, both.

Adrienne: Hey, wow, look at that smoke.
Tammy: Eh, someone’s probably just burning something.
Adrienne: It’s pretty dark.
Tammy: Does black smoke mean a new pope?
Adrienne: Um, what?
Tammy: There’s this whole thing when the Cardinals meet and black smoke means either that there is a new pope or there isn’t, and then white smoke means another. I think white smoke means a new pope.
Adrienne (pointing at girl running full-bore toward fire hall): What’s up with her?
(pause)
(siren at firehouse commences blaring)
Adrienne (suddenly noticing flames shooting up on other side of the carnival): Hey, that’s really a fire.
Tammy (also noticing): I’m going to call Lynn. She’ll know what’s going on.
Adrienne: Okay. Want to play I Got It?
Tammy: Of course.

Lynn (message on Tammy’s cell phone): We’re down by the fun house, but you may not want to come down here because there’s a fire.

Adrienne: We’ve got to work some strategy here.
Tammy: There’s strategy in this game?
Adrienne: How else are people Getting It after five balls?

Lucas: That ride almost killed me!

Sierra (about Kindergarten): Yeah, green means you’ve been good. Yellow means you’ve been kind of bad. Red means you’ve been really bad. If your name’s on the chalkboard, you’ve been really, really bad, and you can’t have playtime. Playtime is great. There are all these toys, like, everywhere.

Tammy: Didn’t they used to do the fireworks farther away?
Ron: I thought they did them back there.
Don: No, I think in that field over there.
Tammy: Yeah, closer to the school.
Adrienne: I don’t remember worrying that flaming pieces of paper were going to hit me other years.
Don: That’s just the new firework technology.

Tammy: Do you smell dog poo?
Adrienne, Ron, Don (at once): Yes. Ew. Gross. Is it me? Is it the chairs? Where is it? Is it the baby? etc….

Adrienne: Between the dog poo and the burning embers, I'm having trouble relaxing.

Posted by adrienne at 08:04 AM | Comments (15)

July 06, 2006

Who Are Those Attractive People?

(L-R: Kelly, Chuck, me (wearing Kelly's jeans, which were way comfortable), Tammy)

Posted by adrienne at 08:07 AM | Comments (11)

July 04, 2006

So How's It Going with the Book?

This is a question I’m asked with some regularity, and, since I’ve spent a good part of the last couple days working on the book, I thought it might be nice to give an answer.

Here it is:

Since I knew I’d be putting some quality time in on the book, I decided to take over the dining room table for a few days (usually I work upstairs in the purple room). In the above photo, you can see some of my most important tools: the laptop, paper, a pen, post-it notes in a variety of shapes and colors, coffee, and the phone. You may think you see a cat, but, of course, that’s a figment of your imagination. My cats never jump up on the table, so much as lie down and take a nap there.

Here is a detail shot of my all-important research binder:

Yes, it’s true, with all the modern technology available to me, I am keeping all my research notes on paper in a binder (in alphabetical order by author, no less), which, as you may note, I am liberally tagging with post-its.

As for the manuscript itself, I have for weeks had a very good outline for chapter one and so have been obsessively reorganizing and rewriting it. Yesterday, I also decided that I wanted to look at some more studies, so I’ve been busily doing that. In other adventures, I have conducted one interview (via instant messenger) and have another one informally set up for later this month. I’ve also done some work on “Appendix B: Recommended Reading for Librarians” and miscellaneous work on other chapters. All in all, I’m really enjoying the work, and I’m happy with my progress. So, you know, yay me!

Now run along, be a good American, and celebrate your independence by watching illegal fireworks displays.

Posted by adrienne at 09:25 AM | Comments (5)

July 03, 2006

Strawberry Shortcake

Got a quart of strawberries and container of yogurt that are perilously close to going out of date? Must be time to make strawberry shortcake!

Step #1 – Make biscuits (my recipe uses yogurt and is the best thing ever). Add a couple tbsps. sugar to the dry ingredients.
Step #2 – Wash, hull, and slice up those strawberries. Add a little sugar and set them aside to let the sugary goodness set in.
Step #3 – Whip up some cream. Add a little vanilla and – yes, go for it! – sugar while you’re at it. Do NOT even THINK about using Cool Whip.
Step #4 – When the biscuits cool COMPLETELY, cut them in half, spoon generous layers of strawberries and then whipped cream on the bottom half, and then top it off with the top half. (The goal here is to make something that requires a fork to eat.)
Step #5 – Make sure they’re all eaten before sundown (not usually much of a problem).

Posted by adrienne at 06:04 PM | Comments (3)

June 30, 2006

Someday

Someday, when I’m done writing my book, I am going to learn enough about computers so that I will be able to hack into the comment spammers’ web sites and replace whatever vile thing they’re attempting to sell with pictures of pretty flowers and little kittens. Those people are seriously, seriously getting on my nerves.

Posted by adrienne at 04:48 PM | Comments (2)

June 29, 2006

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

There are many sane responses to having too much to do.

Let’s say, for instance, that you have a review due for a book you’ve barely started and your house is a mess and there’s no food around and you haven’t really exercised in a few days and you should really think about finishing that bedroom remodeling project you started last year and, oh yeah, you’re supposed to be writing a book.

That’s probably a good time to go to the movies.

No, really, it must be, because I’ve seen three in the past week. Let's review:

Movie #1: X-Men 3
You can’t really count going to see this movie as procrastination as I had promised a friend I would see it with him and this was the first opportunity we had to see it, what with all the delays from him jaunting off to occupied lands and getting heat exhaustion and whatnot. The reviews weren’t very positive on this film, but I really enjoyed watching it. Now that I think of it, though, I couldn’t really tell you why. Much of the dialog was mockable, and I was amused at the way no one seemed to notice that one of the major characters died in the first ten minutes of the film. As was the case in the first two films, I remain extremely impressed at the way they figured out how to make Rebecca Romijn a major character who runs around naked and is never really called on to speak. Is that a match made in heaven or what?

Movie #2: Nacho Libre
This is no Napoleon Dynamite, but it has its charms. The Hesses are undeniably good at writing repeatable rather than mockable dialog, and Jack Black was perfect, perfect, perfect in this role. I smiled a lot and laughed out loud many times. I’d recommend this one.

Movie #3: Superman Returns
Kill your darlings, people, this movie was too long. And, hello, I’m supposed to buy Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane? I don’t think so. Aside from the fact that she looks like she's 18, she carries herself like she's 18. Kevin Spacey was fun, and I loved Parker Posey. I always love Parker Posey. I think it’s the way she’s built a career on just sort of shouting her dialog all the time. The guy who played Jimmy Olsen was the most fun, though – spunky and expressive, as well he should be. Superman himself? Eh. He’s no Wolverine, that’s for sure.

Lucky for all of us, there's always tomorrow.

Posted by adrienne at 11:57 PM | Comments (13)

June 27, 2006

Adrienne Takes on Corporate America or I’m Not Leaving Without My Comics

So the thing is that the D&C has been screwing with the Sunday comics, and I don’t like it.

Back in the good old days (i.e. last month), the D&C’s Sunday comics section was one full-sized sheet folded in half with a half-sized sheet stuck inside. I was pretty happy with this. I’ve never understood why the D&C gave Ziggy and Rubes so much space on the back page and why they don't run Mutts, but, you know, whatever. But then, a few weeks ago, they took out that middle half-page section and were thus forced to make the comics all teeny tiny small to fit on the one big sheet of paper. I was going to write to the paper to complain about this, but I knew that the elderly folks would take care of that for me. Sure enough, to my delight, the comics appeared at normal size last week, except that there was still no middle page and – worse – I couldn’t find Speed Bump or Non Sequitur. So you can bet I emailed customer service IMMEDIATELY. I mean, I want them to get Speed Bump and Non Sequitur in the daily paper, and this was very clearly the complete opposite of that. So they emailed back to tell me that they’re still running those comics and that they, for some inexplicable reason, have put them on the front page of the classifieds instead of in the comics section. So I emailed back again and attempted to convey my continued displeasure without using the words “stupid,” “pointless,” or “dumb.”

This was no easy feat, and I’m not sure that I’ve been truly effective because a.) customer service hasn’t replied to my last email, and b.) this situation was not resolved in this past Sunday’s newspaper. So I wrote another email, and I am going to keep writing emails until they fix this. Sometimes you just have to draw a line and stand firm, and this is, without a doubt, one of those times.

Posted by adrienne at 07:23 AM | Comments (14)

June 26, 2006

Busy and Important

This is what my office looks like this morning:

Here's a detail shot:

It's like a search-and-find puzzle! Can you find...
-a cup of coffee from the L&B?
-a clock that is very clearly on the wrong time because it doesn't work?
-a pair of scissors?
-a basket of post-its?
-the Happy Bunny?
-a set of summer reading cards?
-a parrot?
-a refrigerator?
-a frog princess finger puppet?

Good luck!

Posted by adrienne at 11:47 AM | Comments (9)

June 25, 2006

Blogging and Calorie Consumption

Well, anyone can see that I didn’t blog yesterday.

I blame Chuck and his wonderful margaritas, but I don’t want you to misunderstand me: I fully support Chuck making margaritas whenever he wants. I will happily drink them. (Happy birthday to Chuck, by the way.)

I also want the world to know that if Kelly makes a butter cake, I am all about eating it, even if the combination of margaritas and butter cake along with that bag of potato chips and French onion dip that I pretty much ate single-handedly means that I consumed four days’ worth of calories in one night.

Because I had fun.

And that’s why they made the Y, right? I think they have a line about that in their mission, “To provide a place where people can swim off margaritas and butter cake.”

Or maybe, you know, lounge in the whirlpool. We’ll see what Tammy and I feel like doing when we get there.

Posted by adrienne at 02:31 PM | Comments (11)

June 21, 2006

The First Day of Summer

For me, summer doesn’t really start until the Webster Central School District stops making elementary-aged kids go to school every day.

Today was that day.

Anyone who wants to yammer on about how this generation will be the death of books should visit WPL on an average summer day. The Children’s Room is filled with kids who are there because they want to be there to, for the most part, find something to read. And I love to be out there helping them find things, talking to them about what they’re reading, and showing them things in the Children’s Room that they may not know about. Even kids who check out DVDs and PS2 games usually have books in their pile. Truly, I think part of the reason that I find homeschooling to be such an attractive concept is that kids could spend more time in the public library if they didn’t have to go to school. I put such a huge amount of time and effort into trying to make sure that the library has a wonderful selection of interesting, attention-grabbing, high-interest, and engaging materials that kids will be thrilled to find, and it does my heart so much good to see bunches of kids browsing the stacks, carrying around piles of books, and hanging around reading.

Every time I was in the Children’s Room today, I couldn’t help but smile. My whole summer’s like that. *This* is what I do.

Posted by adrienne at 09:52 PM | Comments (5)

June 18, 2006

Some of the Many Things I Did This Weekend Instead of Read Chapter Books as I’d Planned

1. Worked 9-1 on Saturday at WPL.
2. Got a little sunburned at my niece’s first birthday party.
3. Watched a few episodes of season one of Curb Your Enthusiasm (so funny!).
4. Caught up on newspapers.
5. Worked on my book (no, really).
6. Went swimming at the Y.
7. Lounged in whirlpool at Y.
8. Got further sunburned at Red Wings game (left a touch early and honestly don't know who won).
9. Ate a Red Osier sandwich (with horseradish mayo, of course) instead of the 1,000 calorie fried dough at Frontier Field.
10. Wrote a few letters.
11. Read approximately 30 picture books.
12. Listened to No More Monkeys by Asheba (fun!).
13. Listened to new Jim Gill CD (not as much fun as this other stuff).
14. Ate one of those new Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream cones (yum-o!).

I must admit, it would have been the perfect weekend to give it all up and read, and I did spend a good amount of time reading – just not chapter books. The homeschooling stuff really has my attention at the moment, which is, of course, a good thing….

Posted by adrienne at 08:07 PM | Comments (6)

June 15, 2006

Have You Ever Noticed...

...that it's a really fine line between being happily occupied and being too busy?

Posted by adrienne at 09:37 PM | Comments (11)

June 14, 2006

I’m Gumby, Dammit!

When I’m taking a shower in the mornings, I usually put in a DVD from the library for Lucas to watch. Rather than go for stuff that’s popular today, I tend to get things I liked when I was a kid. So we’ve gone through several DVDs of Looney Tunes, Fraggle Rock, and Rocky and Bullwinkle (not that we can watch season 3, since a certain individual who buys the children’s DVDs for WPL says seasons 1 and 2 aren’t circulating heavily enough to justify purchasing season 3 – whatever! – I guess that’s the kind of library we are now, the kind that puts patron demand before our personal whims).

Anyway, this morning, I put in Gumby. One of Lucas’s finer qualities is that he’ll walk away from the TV if he’s not enjoying it, and I fully expected him to be upstairs within five minutes shouting cat and backyard wildlife updates through the bathroom door (“Aunt Adrienne, Benny just jumped up on the top shelf of the cat tower that my dad got you for your birthday!”, etc…). But, no, he was absolutely transfixed. When I asked him about it, Mr. Blasé was like, “It’s sort of boring,” but, really, he wouldn’t even stand up until I turned it off because he didn’t want to miss any. It does my heart good to know that children being raised in this media-saturated culture can appreciate a simple, straight-forward, but ever-so-fun animation like Gumby.

Of course, Lucas isn't necessarily like the other children.

Next up? Land of the Lost, of course.

Posted by adrienne at 08:36 AM | Comments (5)

June 10, 2006

A Calorie is a Unit of Energy

Okay, so a half-hour of aerobics burns 182 calories and a half-hour of brisk walking burns 178 calories.

How is that even possible? Do the people who figure this stuff out even do aerobics? Because I feel like I should be burning way more calories for that much effort. I mean *yoga* burns 162 calories in a half-hour.

There is something vastly wrong with this. I mean, a slice of the kind of bread I like to eat has 80 calories. In other words, a half hour of aerobics burns off a little more than two slices of bread -- maybe two slices of bread with some lettuce and sprouts or something. And don't get me started on how long I'd have to do aerobics to burn off a latte.

Yeesh.

Posted by adrienne at 09:50 PM | Comments (6)

June 09, 2006

Pump Up the Volume

So I just saw a teenager in the L&B (where I was not ordering a high-calorie caffeinated beverage that promotes cavities) who was wearing a denim miniskirt with cropped black leggings and flats, and while I have to admit that 80’s fashion was really pretty bad and mention that I don’t think *I’m* going to be sporting the miniskirt-and-leggings look anytime soon, this girl was totally cute.

And speaking of cute:

Sierra is seriously The Queen. Look at how she strikes a pose! How am I to compete?

Paige seems ready to give it a go, though. She danced in the aisles through part of Sierra's recital, and every time a song ended, she clapped her hands and squealed, "Again! Again!" I’m sure Lynn would have something to say about this, but I wish they did recitals more than once a year….

Posted by adrienne at 02:08 PM | Comments (1)

June 08, 2006

Masochism

I brought home two entries from our new Meet Movie Monsters series at the library: Meet Godzilla and Meet King Kong. It's turned out to be its own punishment, since Lucas has spent the entire morning perusing them and talking about them nonstop. He's also been going on about how I must bring home the books on the Blob and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

We have, I think, *created* a monster.

Posted by adrienne at 07:05 AM | Comments (3)

June 07, 2006

Where Are All My Peeps?

Oh, *there* they are!

Posted by adrienne at 09:24 AM | Comments (8)

June 06, 2006

“The Kindness of Strangers”

So I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning yesterday and learned that I have two cavities.

The first thing you should know is that I only had my first cavity about five years ago, and it’s this little bitty thing my dentist likes to make fun of. But now I have TWO MORE, and I think they’re small – but one is under a sealant I had done twenty years ago (literally), so it’s hard to tell. In sharp contrast to my strong-girl image, the truth is that I’m a big wimp about pain and am going completely to pieces at the thought of getting a shot and having all that drilling/potential pain going on.

Then there’s the way I feel like a failure. I’m sure there’s something I could have done to prevent this – as is the dental hygienist, who was quizzing me about how much coffee I drink and what kind of toothpaste I use.

The whole thing was very discouraging.

So after my disastrous dentist visit I went out to run errands. The interesting thing about being out and about so often by myself is that it gives me interesting opportunities to talk to strangers. Sometimes I prefer to be anonymous and quiet, but – as you guys may have noticed – I sort of like to express myself.

Anyway, I first went to the Post Office, where I had an extended discussion with a postal worker about the very cool superhero stamps that are coming out later this year. (It was the Brockport Post Office, which is way more fun than my Post Office and never has a line. I highly recommend stopping by if you’re ever in town.) Then I went to the L&B where I got a latte and commiserated with Kris and the rest of the staff about how terrible cavities are. Then I went to the grocery store where I had a nice chat with an old woman about how to pick out cantaloupes. It turns out I knew more about this topic than she, but I only know what I know from a previous discussion with an old lady when I was grocery shopping in the morning. It’s amazing what you can learn talking to old ladies in the produce section.

In addition to produce, I also, at the advice of the dental hygienist, bought an electric toothbrush. When I was going through the line, the cashier asked me if I’ve used electric toothbrushes before. I was like, “No, it’s my first.” And he was all, “Yeah, my dentist told me to get one, but I don’t know.” So then I had to tell him how my hygienist had only an hour before told me to get one and that I had these two improbable cavities. Then he told me how he had pretty much the same thing happen to him and how depressing it was. And I told him that I was so depressed that I had to get a strawberry shortcake latte *and* a mud pie scone. He said he’d been so depressed that he’d had to go home and get himself an adult beverage. And it was just such a huge comfort to be laughing and sharing dental angst with a total stranger, which just goes to show that while the world is filled with people who need to be told that maybe it’s a good idea to read magazines and avoid leaving small children alone in the car, it is also filled with all sorts of interesting, cool people that I don’t even know.

I’d argue, though, that all the coolest people read watat.com.

Posted by adrienne at 09:12 PM | Comments (9)

June 04, 2006

Around the World

So I go out of town for a couple days, and all this stuff starts happening.

First, Tammy’s sister-in-law went into the hospital because of the continuing complications she’s been having with her pregnancy, and then she had the baby – seven weeks early, but healthy – on June 2nd, which, as many of you know, is Bri’s birthday. The baby’s name is Alex, and he’s just about four pounds. He’s in NICU, but he’s breathing on his own and Tam’s sister-in-law is doing well, and so yay to that. But what a lot of drama!

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite J.D., Jen, got stuck in some airport (I don’t even remember where) and decided to take the last-ditch flight to Rochester (instead of Buffalo), hoping that I’d be able to pick her up so she could stay over at my place – but, of course, I was out of town. Tammy picked her up, though, and she slept here anyway, but then I heard a report that my sweet little kitten Benny hissed at her. Yes, hissed! How mortifying. Really. I have been telling him that this is no way to treat company, but he seems solidly unrepentant.

And then after I told Jason a million times to be careful, he ended up having to go to the hospital in Jerusalem to get treated for heat exhaustion. And to think I thought the biggest dangers he was facing were the possibilities of getting shot or hit in the head with a rock – but it turns out that the biggest threat was forgetting to get a drink. At least he’s coming home tomorrow.

Then I caused myself stress by eating a hot dog (Zweigles red hot with cheese and ketchup – YUM!) and a slice of cookies-and-cream ice cream cake for lunch. At least I first spent a couple hours doing aerobics and then playing Around the World with Ron, so I shouldn’t immediately gain 300 pounds. But what a truly shocking display of calorie consumption (which I know because I’ve been counting calories for the last week or so). The rest of my day is going to have to be pretty much restricted to celery and water – and maybe some green beans or watermelon.

Whew!

I think the rest of my day should also be restricted to reading on my front porch. Good advice for the rest of you as well, I think.

Posted by adrienne at 03:43 PM | Comments (5)

June 02, 2006

Bible Thumpin' Good Times

So Melissa and I went to this conference today. It was, well, interesting.

In other news, our newest watat.com fan, Jimmie Swift, was born this past Wednesday, May 31. From what I hear, Jimmie and Chaley are doing fine. We'll have to beg JJ for more updates.

That's all for now. I'm on a foreign computer, and I hear the new Meg Cabot book calling....

Posted by adrienne at 06:08 PM | Comments (6)

June 01, 2006

Give Me Some Food or Kill the Kitten

"Your choice, really. I'd go with killing the kitten, but whatever."

Posted by adrienne at 01:09 AM | Comments (11)

May 31, 2006

What Does Cute Overload Have on watat.com???

Um, hello, nothing. How cute is my little Benny there? And, yes, that *is* his back foot under his chin. I don't know why he finds that comfortable, but he does.

Posted by adrienne at 09:18 AM | Comments (13)

May 29, 2006

What’s New in Widowhood

So Bri’s on my mind today.

It’s his birthday this Friday, and Memorial Day was one of those holidays where we’d always have a party and break out with the flag and get out the croquet set. Dad and I are maintaining the tradition, although we’re having a much abridged party this year (because I am, after all, supposed to be writing a book, not partying).

Bri used to love having everyone together, playing croquet and Frisbee and eating and seeing the kids and catching up with friends. Sometimes it seems like I just talked to him the other day, and sometimes it’s like I can only catch the shape of him in the periphery of my mind. But he’s still there every day. He’s been dead almost two years, but it’s rare that a day goes by that I don’t speak his name. I still call him my husband, and sometimes I still speak of him in the present tense. I wonder if it will always be this way. My life has moved on in so many ways. Not long ago, I was talking to a widow I work with at the library who lost her husband a few months before I did, and she’s busily planning her first vacation without him – her last hurdle, she says. And I realized that I’ve hit all my hurdles, too. I’m not really mourning anymore. The difficulties in my life are now more the result of my general incompetence at basic things like time management than depression. If you haven’t ever been truly depressed, you can’t imagine how good it feels to be beyond it. Life feels like a gift again, like something I want to treasure and cling to, even though sometimes it really sucks.

Today won’t suck, though. I’ll spend the day with some of the people who have been with me through this whole thing, and we’ll play croquet and Frisbee, and we’ll eat and laugh at the kids. And I’ll talk with other people on the phone and through email and this blog. And tomorrow I’ll go back to work and see my coworkers who, much as I’ve enjoyed being home, I miss.

Life, I think, is actually kind of good.

Posted by adrienne at 10:53 AM | Comments (6)

May 28, 2006

LIES Lucas Tells

1. We make him shovel the snow off the roof in the winter (to his OT at school).
2. He’s tired because he has to get up and take care of Max in the middle of the night (to his teacher at school).
3. His mother beats him all the time, especially when she’s mad at him (to his mother, in front of the nurse at the doctor’s office).
4. Charlie the Woodchuck attempted to attack him in the backyard (to anyone who will listen).
5. I caught a snake this big – no, THIS big (to me).

Posted by adrienne at 05:05 PM | Comments (7)

May 27, 2006

I'm Not Writing an Entry Today

Posted by adrienne at 08:06 PM | Comments (1)

May 26, 2006

Rain, Rain, Go Away

You're making me tired. You may feel free to fall between the hours of 9-5 next Tuesday-Friday.

Thank you.

Posted by adrienne at 06:22 PM | Comments (8)

May 25, 2006

Tired

Very, very tired. Chaperoned field trip to the zoo for Lucas’s class, which involved being in charge of four boys all day long. It was totally fun, though, especially when the boys found out that I was going to be their chaperone. They all jumped in the air and shouted, “YES!”

:)

Posted by adrienne at 07:15 PM | Comments (10)

May 24, 2006

REAL Thank You Letters from Lucas's Class

So I went to tell stories to Lucas's class last Friday. Even though I tell stories to kids on a regular basis, I was nervous because, you know, it's Lucas's class and I wanted to make a splash. I told "The Fat Cat," "Monkey Face," "The Old Woman and Her Pig," "The Woman Who Flummoxed the Fairies," and recited a couple poems -- and the kids really seemed to enjoy them. Yesterday I got proof in a big packet of thank you notes. I wish I could scan them in because the kids drew pictures of the stories and gave me many colorful stars. Here is a selection of what they wrote (am omitting names to protect the innocent):

"Dear Adrienne, thak you for the sory. a I like the Fat Cat story thak you so much. I like your sory. good jod. Love...."

"Dear Adrienne, Thank you for coming to our clase. I learned that some storys are verey skary. From...."

"meowmeow. Dear Adrienne, You were a good storyteller. I like How You readed. oh And thank you. I liked the string. I aso liked the fairy story. I also liked the pig. I even liked the Fat Cat. And the monkey. Sinecerly.... P.S. Blood from monster." (Okay, that one's Lucas -- sort of obvious if you know him.)

"5-23-06 Dear Adrienne, I like the monkey story. I like the meow fat i am meow meow fat becas i am a hagry hagry cat i am meow meow becas i am a hagry hagry cat. I like the Pig story. Burp. Love...."

"Dear Adrienne, Thank you for doing that song. I like the songs. I like the story with the string. I like the i'm meow meow fat song and the monkey song. from...."

Dear Adrienna, Thank you for telling us a story called I'm mow mow fat. I sang it in my sleep. Mom and dad and you sistter hred it they lafted. From...."

"Meow Meow fat Dear Adrienne, Thank you For Telling us storys. I liked all of them. I want you to come again. From...."

"good Dear Adrienne, you are a good storyteller. I learned that when you used the string around your neck I shoud not put things around my neck. Go on. I know string tricks. they are formers pants that is all. Sinecerly.... I meow meow cat."

Kids are awesome.

Posted by adrienne at 07:19 AM | Comments (11)

May 20, 2006

Research

Earlier this week, I spent a day working on research at UB, remembering everything I loved and hated about being a student there when I was in library school.

What I love? Kick-ass resources.

And bound periodicals.

Yes, it’s true. I enjoy a good roll of microfilm as much as the next girl, but I love bound periodicals more. It felt so good to be walking up and down the rows of periodicals bound with the drabbest colors known to man – olive green, mustard yellow, dull orange, brown. And then there’s the added element of danger and excitement: climbing to get those really heavy volumes off the top shelf, wondering who else is lurking around Lockwood’s famously deserted and dimly lit third floor.

It’s not that I’d ever want to work full-time in an academic library again, but they’re wonderful places to visit.

Posted by adrienne at 04:41 PM | Comments (4)

May 19, 2006

The Truth About Max

There have been several recent allegations that we at watat.com have not been paying enough attention to Max, the newest addition to the watat.com family, and maybe we aren’t. But there are several good reasons for this. Let me enumerate:

1. According to Tammy, Max’s primary occupation is puking on people, particularly her. I haven’t witnessed much puking, but apparently that’s just luck/my general obliviousness to vomit.
2. Take a look at this:

He always seems to be looking at us like, “Who are you? How did I get here? There must be some colossal mistake.”
3. You can’t really talk to Max much because he doesn’t talk. He cries some, but nothing like some other babies I’ve known (see item #4). Sometimes we invent dialog for him, but it’s usually not complimentary (see item #2).
4. Not to mention Lucas is always busy shouting, “ME!ME!ME!ME!ME!” Lucas has our number and often combines this with something interesting/amusing that captures our attention.

On the plus side, unlike some babies I could mention (see item #4), Max actually enjoys hearing little songs and rhymes like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Some babies would just look at me like, “What’s your problem?” when I sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” but, in sharp contrast, Max almost always looks interested and smiles. Consequently, I have written a song for him to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” It goes:

Who’s a good boy?
Who’s a good boy?
Max is!
Max is!
He is such a good boy.
He is such a good boy.
Yes he is.
Yes he is.

I just want to reiterate that he’s never puked on *me*.

Of course, I’m supposed to watch him and Lucas on Tuesday night, which is, I suppose, when disaster could strike. Maybe I’ll have to write a new song. I have one in my head, but I can’t sing it out loud because it involves the repeated use of the phrase “Maxi Baby,” which Ron hates.

Posted by adrienne at 10:42 AM | Comments (7)

May 18, 2006

One of My New Favorite Writers

“While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading, the truth is that there is still in our culture something that suspects those who read too much, whatever reading too much means, of being lazy, aimless dreamers, people who need to grow up and come outside to where real life is, who think themselves superior in their separateness.”
-Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life

I’m well into reading The Doomsday Book, the second book I’ve read by Connie Willis, and I’m almost ready to put writing my own book solidly on the backburner for the next two weeks and devote the rest of my vacation to reading everything Willis ever wrote.

I won’t.

But still.

It’s no wonder Willis has won so many Hugos and Nebulas. She’s brilliant, crazy smart. She knows literature, science, history, writing, human nature – and she throws them all around in her books like it’s no big deal. She’s kind of like Ursula LeGuin, but (forgive me, Ursula) with a sense of humor.

The brilliance of Willis’s writing is that she tells nothing and shows everything. Characters start out in the midst of events that are clearly important to them but which the reader barely understands. The reader starts getting all caught up in these people even though one continually has the distinct feeling that she isn’t quite grasping everything. Willis knows how to keep things just tantalizingly out of reach – not so close that we lose our desire to read, not so far that we get frustrated and quit.

I don’t care: I live to read books like this.

Posted by adrienne at 10:55 AM | Comments (4)

May 16, 2006

The Research Process

Research is like this big, tangled mess of strings. You’re trying to find and untangle the longest piece of string, but you keep inadvertently spending time on worthless short pieces, which can be interesting but aren’t really what you’re after. Then, finally, you figure out which string is your string. You pull and tug – sometimes it looks like it’s finally unraveling, sometimes you actually make it worse, and it’s taking forever but you can’t stop messing with it.

Yes, this is very much what it’s like, and it says something about me that I’m enjoying it immensely. I think the MP3 player helps.

Posted by adrienne at 09:41 AM | Comments (10)

May 15, 2006

A Guest Entry from Olivia

Top 5 things that suck about Adrienne being on vacation:

5. The level of library hilarity has definitely dropped.
4. No one has tried to kick me today.
3. No nefarious behavior to comment upon.
2. No one will read me any picture books.

and the number 1 reason Adrienne being on vacation sucks...

1. We all miss her!!

Posted by adrienne at 02:46 PM | Comments (8)

May 14, 2006

What Adrienne Thinks About Tissues

As some of you may already know, Rochester, NY has now officially been declared the 13th most hellish place to live if you have spring allergies.

No kidding.

Moderate-to-severe allergies come with a host of fun side-effects – for instance, blowing one’s nose a ridiculous number of times a day. So a month-and-a-half ago, there I was, yet again, with the sides of my nose raw and hurting and decidedly unattractive. This, I thought, cannot continue. It’s one thing if I’m uncomfortable, but it’s quite another if my poor nose is all red. That’s when it occurred to me that perhaps the Wegmans brand tissues I’ve been using for, say, the last ten years might not be the best available option, and I decided to do some investigative testing and reporting.

First of all, I clung to the Wegmans brand for so many years simply because I go through a lot of tissues and I’ve never had much money, and I hadn’t really examined the array of tissues available in quite some time. Of course, I’d encountered some of the tissues they make for the genetic freaks who don’t have allergies or glasses (i.e. the tissues with dyes, lotions, and antibacterial nonsense), but I can’t have any part of those. It’s all fun and games until one’s tissue gives her hives or smears lotion all over her glasses, and this severely limited my testing options. It limited me, in fact, to Wegmans brand, Kleenex Brand Ultra Soft, and Puffs Ultra.

Wegmans brand tissues? Major suckitude. No wonder my poor nose was suffering, but I didn’t grasp the full extent of Wegmans brand’s sandpapery quality until I started using some decent tissues. Puffs Ultra are a really nice option. They’re thick and soft and come in attractive boxes. But the cream of the crop? Yes, it’s the old standard: Kleenex. Kleenex Brand Ultra Soft come in ugly boxes – there’s no denying it – but they are the softest and puffiest tissues you can buy. They’re somewhat more expensive than Wegmans brand, but, in the grand scheme of things, not much, particularly when you factor in the part where using them will help you avoid looking like someone who suffers from moderate-to-severe allergies.

Priceless.

Posted by adrienne at 10:03 AM | Comments (12)

May 13, 2006

I Really Need to Write Some Cooler Entries

But I had to attend a college graduation and a couple graduation parties today. Tomorrow, though....

Posted by adrienne at 11:40 PM | Comments (2)

May 10, 2006

My Newest Blog

Yes, I know, I know. I don't have enough time to maintain another blog, but I'm doing it anyway. I decided that I wanted a place to post some of the information I'm coming across as I'm researching and writing The Book. You can find my newest blog here:

http://homeschoolingandlibraries.blogspot.com/

I've also added a link in the ever-expanding sidebar to your right.

Now the front porch is telling me that it's time to go back outside and read.

Posted by adrienne at 04:13 PM | Comments (6)

May 07, 2006

Why Does My House Not Clean Itself?

I mean, I pay the mortgage every month, and it seems to me that something this expensive shouldn't require so much maintenance. And don’t think Lucas wasn’t totally complaining about how much cat hair was on the floor last week and how it was getting all over his socks – this from a boy who routinely wipes the ketchup off his face using the sleeve of his t-shirt, mind you, but it’s still making me feel like I have to clean before he shows up tomorrow morning to further criticize my housekeeping skills.

Posted by adrienne at 05:39 PM | Comments (6)

April 29, 2006

The Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival

About a year and a half ago, Stephanie Squicciarini, Teen Services Librarian at the Fairport Public Library, told me that she wanted to organize this festival where she was going to bring in all these teen authors and have a huge event to connect teens who liked to read and write with real, live authors.

I asked her if she was actively using drugs.

Honestly, who would take something like that on?

Well, Stephanie did. And she talked a bunch of people into helping her, including regular watat.com reader Olivia Durant and occasional reader Beth Puckett. And they pulled it all together. It was today, and it was AMAZING. I have to mention that several members of the watat.com family were there volunteering, including Cathy Kyle (Youth Services Librarian Extraordinaire – along with her sister, and future Librarian Extraordinaire, Jenny Hammond), Sabrina Beach (“Author Stalker”), and Mary Ann and Josh Kwiatkowski (Paparazzi). Other members (i.e. Tracy Cretelle and I) were there for the exclusive purpose of enjoying ourselves as much as possible. The day as a whole was inspiring, in no small part because of all the hard work I’ve seen friends putting into it, but also because it was such a great atmosphere. Keynote speaker Terry Trueman was hysterical. Tracy and I attended breakout sessions with Laurie Halse Anderson, Amy Kim Ganter, and Brent Hartinger, all of whom were interesting and engaging and clearly happy to be there. Anderson almost had me crying about three times (but she also made me laugh), Ganter made me want to try reading manga again, and Hartinger made me feel better about the fact I haven’t yet written a bestselling book. All three reminded me of the many reasons I write and reaffirmed that while this is an aberrant way to spend one’s time, it is ultimately very worthwhile.

Plus I won a door prize, two free books: The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez and Raisin Rodriguez & the Big-Time Smooch by Judy Goldschmidt!!!

And I bought an official TBF t-shirt.

Then after all that hanging out with friends, being inspired, and acquiring stuff, I came home and took a nice, long bike ride that included a stop for a catnap in the sun at Davis Park. Could there *be* a more perfect day?

Posted by adrienne at 07:10 PM | Comments (4)

April 27, 2006

Growing African Violets the Adrienne Way

Step 1: Purchase two sad-looking African violet plants on clearance at the end of the summer.
Step 2: Purchase a couple fancy self-watering African violet bowls. They look like this.
Step 3: Purchase African violet food – the liquid kind. (It’s more expensive, but one bottle lasts a couple/few years and mixing those powders is such a pain.)
Step 4: Plant African violets in the fancy bowls you purchased in Step 2. Plant in a half-and-half mix of peat moss and regular dirt. You can even use the kind of dirt you sweep off your garage floor.
Step 5: Put water and one drop of African violet food into the bottom part of the fancy self-watering African violet bowls.
Step 6: Put the fancy self-watering bowls (complete with water and African violets) near a window that gets some sun but not full-day sun.
Step 7: Forget you have African violets.
Step 8: After a few weeks, take note of how nicely the African violets are blooming. Tell yourself you’ll water them later.
Step 9: After a few more weeks, finally remember to refill water and add one drop of African violet food to each reservoir. Be sure to note how the bowls have been empty for so long that they’re not even damp anymore and the flowers are still blooming.
Step 10: Repeat steps 7-9 for several years.

I’m telling you, my African violets look great. I don’t know why people say they’re fussy.

Posted by adrienne at 09:49 PM | Comments (10)

April 24, 2006

Adventures in Medicine

The thing is that I’m allergic to pretty much everything.

The other thing is that one of the few downsides of a winter as warm as this past winter is that all of the green and growing things don’t die like they’re supposed to, and, as a bonus, there’s lots of mold. I’m allergic to mold AND pollens AND many animals AND dust AND penicillin AND latex AND soy AND bananas. So something’s pretty much always bugging my allergies, but I can usually count on winter and summer to be easier times, while spring and fall require me to take my medicine a little more often.

This past winter, though, I was taking my allergy medicine pretty much every day, so when the pollens started hitting a couple weeks ago, things started getting bad. But I hit some sort of critical mass this weekend. Now in addition to the usual runny nose, itchy eyes, itchy throat, and periodic asthma attacks, I have hives.

SIGH.

So I went to the doctor’s this morning to try to get something stronger so I wouldn’t end up in the emergency room, which I try to avoid because, in my experience, going to the emergency room for a serious allergic reaction only adds to one’s problems when one is allergic to latex. The doctor put me on Allegra (yes, that’s right, the allergy medicine with the world’s lamest commercials) and Flonase, and I’m feeling sort of better. I don’t totally want to die at the moment.

But this brings me to the real reason for this entry, which is to transcribe this portion of the instructions for using Flonase (which, for those of you who are lucky enough not to know, is a nasal spray):

“If you also have itchy, watery eyes, you should tell your doctor. You may be given an additional medicine to treat your eyes. Be careful not to confuse them, particularly if the second is an eye drop.”

Eh? Doesn’t that one fall into the category of “survival of the fittest”?

Of course, I’ve also learned that the potential side effects of Flonase include headache, nosebleed, and sore throat, and, after learning these things, I took it. Gladly. Anything to stop the fifteen-minute sneezing fits.

Posted by adrienne at 07:08 PM | Comments (20)

April 21, 2006

Can't Those Peeps Stay Out of Trouble?

And don't they know Ella's on a diet?

Posted by adrienne at 09:45 PM | Comments (6)

April 16, 2006

For My Peeps, or What We Do On Easter

As you can see, it isn't just small children who are after the Peeps.

An alligator? Where did he come from???

RAH!

Chew with your mouth closed!

No, Lucas, NO!

Posted by adrienne at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2006

It’s Like I Didn’t Even Sleep

In my dream, I was doing the typical looking-for-Brian thing. I knew he was sick, but I couldn’t find him. And then, to add horror to horror, I somehow ended up with bangs cut in my hair. Yes, that’s right, my two recurring nightmares decided to come together for the first time in one dream. And Tammy, Chuck, and Jeffrey were all there. I was totally crying my head off trying to tell them what was happening – and, honestly, I think I was nearly as upset about the bangs as I was about poor Bri – I remember choking out, “This always happens to me in my dreams. Why is it really happening now?” I often have the sense that I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming, but this dream seemed completely real.

This has been a bit of an emotional week. I’m glad I have today off.

Posted by adrienne at 09:25 AM | Comments (13)

April 13, 2006

Parenting with GI Joe

So I was on the phone with Tammy last night, and she and Lucas were discussing their plans for today. Lucas said that he knew what he wanted to take to Shelly’s but that he couldn’t pack it up yet. And Tammy said, “Well it’s good that you know, because knowing is half the battle.”

Speaking of knowing things, Lucas kept telling me all week that he had today off, but *Tammy* hadn’t told me he had today off, so I assumed he was mistaken. When he was still selling the same story yesterday, I asked, “Why do you have Thursday off?” And he said, “We have a Superintendent’s Conference Day.”

And I still didn’t believe him.

Turns out he was right.

But I'm still the grown-up.

Posted by adrienne at 08:06 AM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2006

Cleaning My House, La, La, La

Me? Playing around with the Dummiez Book Cover Maker when I should be reading/signing my book contract? Of course not.

Posted by adrienne at 09:01 PM | Comments (13)

April 08, 2006

The Queen Needs a Break

So my house/life are in a state of disarray, and I’m feeling a strong need to try to get everything a little bit more under control. This means I am not going to be writing new blog entries for a couple days. I’ll either be posting links or quotes… OR, if some of you are feeling so inclined, you could write a guest entry on a topic of your choosing and email it to me. I’ll be only too happy to post it. (Make sure you put "GUEST BLOG ENTRY" or "PLEASE LET ME DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU" in the subject line so I don't miss it.)

Posted by adrienne at 08:13 AM | Comments (2)

April 05, 2006

Post-PLA Overview or Why Is It Taking Me Over a Week to Catch Up from My Trip to Boston?

In response to popular demand (okay, so Craig asked once, but whatever), I thought I’d write a post-PLA overview.

Between committee work, speaking engagements, and general interest, I have been to many conferences over the past few years, but PLA was, by far, the most interesting and useful. One of my new goals in life is to score a speaking engagement at the next PLA Conference so I can visit the Mall of America… I mean, so I can have another exciting opportunity for professional growth. (Lisa to me yesterday, “Next year’s YSS Conference is going to be in White Plains. There are two really good malls there.” Me to Lisa, “Clearly we have to go.”)

Of course, the problem with any conference is that I come home filled with all these ideas and things I want to do, but I also come home to huge piles of work and mail and unread messages in my inbox – which I’m still trying to plow through, even though, I should note, Jason very kindly sorted my mail, took away things he could take care of, and put the rest of the assorted stuff on my desk/floor into neat piles with post-its telling me what was in each pile. And the rest of the Children’s Department staff worked their butts off to make sure I came back to order and serenity. Marcia even had all my story time stuff set up so all I had to do that Monday morning was get my tea and stagger into the Story Room in time for the kids to arrive. My coworkers seriously rock.

My biggest ideas?

At the trade show, I found an exciting series of really cheesy biographies of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton that I’m totally buying. Kids come in asking for stuff about these people all the time, and we have nothing even remotely appropriate. And you seriously have to read the one about Paris Hilton. I was laughing so hard when I was reading it at the Mitchell Lane booth that I attracted a bit of a crowd. I also grabbed some info on OverDrive, which looks like a pretty good product/company. Their booth was so mobbed that I never could get a demo, but Patty’s getting it (has it?) over in Ogden, so maybe I can take a field trip to see it in action. I also found a place offering rebound Marvel Age comics with a lifetime guarantee. You’d really have to work with a comics collection to understand why this is exciting, but, believe me, it is.

As for the sessions, I went to a couple that dealt with web sites, which took some ideas I’ve had floating around in the back of my mind about how I’d like to change the children’s portion of the library’s web site and put them front and center. My lack of technological know-how is still going to be a bit of a stumbling block, but I think I see a path. It’s pretty exciting.

Aside from being highly entertaining, the Guys Read panel might have made me see the summer reading incentive program in a different light. I’m not going to say too much about that, though, because I’m still thinking about it.

The most fascinating session I went to was also the most sparsely attended. It was a report on a Canadian study of kids’ reading preferences (more about this on the WPL Children’s Department blog), and it solidified some things I’ve been thinking about how we might rearrange the Children’s Room and think about displaying things differently.

All in all, as much as I joke about how much time I spent shopping and eating and having fun, which I certainly did, I always value the opportunity to go to conferences and learn new things. I really need new thoughts and ideas to keep me actively interested and engaged in my job, and it’s hard to have those new thoughts and ideas when I’m mired in my day-to-day routine. Conferences give me the chance to see new things, network, and hear new ideas, and I always come back and frighten my coworkers with all of the things I want to change and do.

But I’m happy, and that’s what counts.

;)

Posted by adrienne at 10:55 AM | Comments (8)

April 04, 2006

Exercise

Exercise is like crack. You do it, your body gets used to it, and then you have to do *more* to get the same effect. This seems very wrong to me.

That's all I have to say about that.

Posted by adrienne at 09:44 PM | Comments (11)

April 02, 2006

Headache

Ugh. Can't cope. Watching movies now.

Posted by adrienne at 07:27 PM | Comments (7)

April 01, 2006

Shopping with Lucas

Tammy and I decided to go to the mall and do some much-needed clothes shopping today.

Lucas decided to go with us.

While Tammy was trying on clothes, Lucas and I played “Follow the Leader” around the store. I was the leader. I haven’t played that game in a while, and it’s way more fun than I remembered, especially when you insert strange dances and then keep leading your follower around the same clothing rack about 30 times in a row.

After “Follow the Leader,” we played “Let’s Make Faces in the 3-Way Mirror.” I have to admit Lucas took this game when he flicked a stick he had in his pocket at his reflection in the mirror and then pretended to fall down dead. I couldn't top that one, even with my extra-special zombie face.

I don’t think Tammy and Lucas did anything nearly so interesting when I was trying on clothes. When I came out of the fitting room in this purple skirt (that is totally cute and I ended up buying), I asked Tammy what she thought. Tammy said, “It’s all floaty.” And I was like, “I know! I love it!” And Lucas was like, “You can’t wear that with that black shirt.”

I know!

Then he went on to tell me I should wear a purple shirt instead.

I know!

As if Mr. I’d-Wear-the-Same-Pair-of-Khakis-Every-Day-If-My-Mother-Didn’t-Intervene has any room to judge other people’s clothing choices. Humpf.

He was pretty much right about the black shirt, though. Spooky.

Posted by adrienne at 09:48 PM | Comments (4)

March 30, 2006

Nancy Drew: Girl Detective

A couple weeks ago, Jason and I were discussing the propriety of including Simon & Schuster’s new Nancy Drew graphic novel series in our comics collection given the way Nancy’s running around in all their ads wearing a t-shirt without a bra. While we’ve always had a no-sex policy in the Children’s Room (as I often say, that’s why we have a Teen Lounge), we haven’t taken an official stance on the subject of bras, but I got to worrying that bralessness might not be the only nontraditional behavior Nancy was engaging in and decided I better read one of her books to find out.

I ended up with #1, The Demon of River Heights. Nancy is recognizable with her strawberry blonde hair and long skirts, but her clingy purple t-shirt with “ND” emblazoned across her braless and well-endowed chest makes it clear that we are no longer in the era of smart tan suits and party frocks. Nancy’s also switched from a convertible to a hybrid car, which, in a most un-Nancylike way, she’s always forgetting to gas up. Comfortingly, Ned continues to be made of gossamer: he appears in exactly one panel and his name is mentioned three times thoughout the whole book. George and Bess take a big step up from window dressing, though. George has morphed into a hard-edged techie, while Bess… well... I guess one could say that Bess went and got all bootylicious. Nancy’s smarter than Bess and prettier than George, but she is not prettier than Bess or smarter than George. HELLO! George and Bess only exist to show how uber-perfect Nancy is. Everyone knows this – except, it would seem, Stefan Petrucha (writer) and Sho Murase (artist).

“Stefan.” Is this a... MAN? A MAN WRITING NANCY DREW??? And do not even start with the whole Carolyn-Keene-isn’t-real-and-some-of-those-ghost-writers-were-men nonsense. I don’t want to know.

At least the artist is a woman.

Of course, I was a huge Nancy Drew fan when I was a kid, happily reading my way through the original series when I ran out of Stephen Kings, Tolkeins (that’s no joke – I even read The Silmarillion), and Brontes. Like so many girls, I wanted to be Nancy: smart, accomplished, well-dressed. Totally together. As a nightcap to the graphic novel, I felt it was my duty to reread the original Nancy Drew #1, The Secret of the Old Clock.

And the thing is?

I like the new braless Nancy Drew way better than that old self-righteous, insufferable goody-goody. I mean, exactly why is the old Nancy so above gossiping with sales clerks about Ada and Isabel Topham? The new Nancy (who clearly never saw Grizzly Man) is fighting off bears while the old Nancy’s primary concern is how to discretely exit a conversation because she’s uncomfortable with the way an abused sales clerk is only rightly pointing out that those Topham girls are a couple of big meanies. The new Nancy would just be like, “I KNOW!” And then she’d get so obsessed with looking for clues that she’d forget to put gas in her cute little hybrid car.

I’m usually more of a traditionalist about this sort of thing, but, as far as I’m concerned, Nancy-Drew-as-graphic-novel is kicking butt and taking names, and she’s welcome to hang out in the Children’s Room as long as she likes.

I hope the kids like her as much as I do.

Posted by adrienne at 06:40 PM | Comments (14)

March 28, 2006

Zen and the Art of Listening to Audiobooks

As many of you know, from 2002-2004, I served on the Association of Library Services to Children’s Notable Recordings Committee. As many of you also know, before I started serving on the committee, I was a dedicated audiobook listener and reviewer. After two years of listening to hundreds of hours of audiobooks – we were attempting to pick the best of all the audiobooks and music CDs produced for children each year – I found myself at the end of my service with absolutely no desire to listen to audiobooks. In the almost-year-and-a-half since then, I’ve hardly listened to anything besides music. I tried to go back to reviewing audiobooks and managed to get through a few titles, I listened to the Audie submissions I had to evaluate (five titles, three of which were picture books), and I listened to one live David Sedaris production.

That’s it.

But suddenly I find myself with a genuine desire to listen to audiobooks again. I’ve been listening to one in the car over the past couple days, in fact, and am enjoying it immensely. I even have a few more checked out. It’s like whatever switch flipped off when I was encumbered with so much required listening flipped back on out of nowhere. It’s odd how an aspect of yourself you thought was gone forever can just resurface one day. It’s a little disconcerting, to tell you the truth. It was disconcerting when I realized I no longer wanted to listen to audiobooks, since I had a *great* reviewing job and I didn’t think it was particularly wise to give it up, and now I find it disconcerting that this inclination came back seemingly without my input.

The human brain is a profoundly strange thing. At least mine is.

But I guess you all knew that.

Posted by adrienne at 09:50 PM | Comments (1)

March 25, 2006

"I'm Not Dead Yet..."

I’m tired, my brain is full, and my entire body hurts, so I suppose it’s time to go home. I’ve had so much fun here, though. I learned a lot, saw interesting things, ate wonderful food, bought great stuff, and had such fun seeing friends. And I’ve really enjoyed being here with Diane, Olivia, and Lisa. We’ve spent so much time talking and laughing, which we just don’t get much time for in the midst of our busy days at WPL.

And I have so many ideas about things I’d like to do at the library when I get home! As a friend said a few weeks ago, I go to conferences because I always love my job again when I leave.

Posted by adrienne at 09:07 PM | Comments (1)

March 24, 2006

Losing Touch

You can tell I’m losing touch with any outside reality because I had to spend quality time this morning trying to remember what day it is. I’ve started to think of the days as “Spamalot Day” or “Star Wars Exhibit Day” or “Durgan Park Day.”

It turns out today is Friday, but I guess you all knew that. 48 more hours and then we’ll be heading home….

Posted by adrienne at 08:30 AM | Comments (7)

March 23, 2006

Existential Crisis

There’s nothing like attending a library conference to make me come face-to-face with the fact that I grew up to be a librarian. And librarians are a little odd, which means, in turn, I’m a little odd.

Shut up, Tammy.

Anyway, I notice this whole oh-my-God-I-grew-up-to-be-a-librarian thing from time to time – for instance, when I’m at a party and some stranger asks me what I do for a living, but that hardly ever happens. At the moment I find myself surrounded by librarians in a city where waitresses have started ask in the tone of voice people normally reserve to talk about things like leprosy, “Are you one of those [pauses while looking around] librarians? They’re *everywhere*.”

Other people are, of course, delighted to see us. It depends on how they feel about books and libraries and librarians.

I’ve been meeting and talking to some really interesting people while I’ve been here, and I’m really enjoying quality time with Diane, Olivia, and Lisa.

And I double enjoyed talking to Tony DiTerlizzi today. I refrained from telling him I have a crush on him since his wife was sitting next to him and all, but I did tell him how much I love his work.

And I double, triple, quadruple enjoyed watching Spamalot tonight, and, well, Jeffrey totally rocks. But I knew that.

And I wouldn’t be here or have done any of these wonderful things if I wasn’t a librarian.

This really is a pretty good gig.

Posted by adrienne at 11:15 PM | Comments (9)

March 22, 2006

So Tired....

Did a whole lot of work today, mostly involving the trade show. In addition to checking out Overdrive, Unshelved, and several publishers, I purchased some very important items at the Clarks and Sephora booths.

Time for bed now....

Posted by adrienne at 06:20 PM | Comments (9)

March 21, 2006

Steps

In the slightly more than 24 hours I’ve been in Boston, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that if I don’t stop skipping the escalators/elevators and taking the stairs, I’m going to gain 20 pounds by Sunday. Our lives here pretty much revolve around the burning question of where we’re going to eat next. Tonight we ate at a restaurant Giacomo’s in the North End. I had this butternut squash ravioli that I’d like to eat again and again every day for the rest of my life. It was seriously good. Then we stopped and had cappuccino and pastries at a place called Michael’s that was doing this amazing business for a Tuesday night (and it's no wonder -- those pastries were GOOD).

We ate lunch in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library. Well, to tell the truth, at first we were sitting on the floor in the hall outside the café (all the café tables were full), but then a guard came along and kicked us out because I guess he was worried that we might get food on the marble because, goodness knows, marble’s so easy to stain. The whole thing worked out really well, though, because it was perfectly lovely outside, and Olivia got all snotty with the guard when he kicked us out. I KNOW! Olivia, snotty. Who knew? It was great.

I should mention a few things about the hotel we’re staying at, Jurys, since it totally rocks. It’s hard to say what’s coolest: the high-speed Internet access, the sparkly walls in the elevators, the lighted stairs, the sculpture of a woman who appears to be covered in Brussels sprouts, the towel (and clothing!) warmer in the bathroom, the chocolates on our pillows, or the excellent water pressure in the shower.

I really love it here.

Diane says the crowds will get to me and I'll be ready to go home by the end of the week, and I suppose she’s right. Not yet, though.

Posted by adrienne at 11:42 PM | Comments (6)

March 20, 2006

Trit, Trot

Diane, Olivia, and I are heading off to the PLA Conference in Boston this morning. I'll be updating watat as well as posting on the PLA Blog, so I'll be online every day posting, approving comments, and checking my email. It will be a lot like I'm still at home except for the way I'll be working extra-hard (by which I mean, "eating out, staying up late, going to the aquarium, and seeing the Lamas and Spamalot").

Tee, hee.

Posted by adrienne at 08:51 AM | Comments (3)

March 17, 2006

Quotable Friday

“I won’t go into the whole thing, because I’m just trying to make a point that when you work on a project together with friends, and you’re rushing around with climbing gear and scissors, and your friend Dana is explaining how to go up mountainsides, and your friend Lick is showing everyone how to disable a helicopter, and you’re doing your part by writing personalized haiku for each of them, you get this intense feeling of love for your friends, and you come to admire them even more than you did before.”
-M.T. Anderson, Whales on Stilts

I am so loving this book and clearly need to spend the next few months reading everything M.T. Anderson ever wrote -- when I'm not writing my own book, of course.

Posted by adrienne at 05:54 PM | Comments (3)

March 16, 2006

Lucas Takes Matters Into His Own Hands

So apparently Lucas decided to just go ahead and call his friend while Tammy's dad was babysitting him and Max. He got the kid on the phone, got him to agree to come over, and *then* ran in and said, "Poppy, Connor can come over, right?" And Tam's dad, being Tam's dad, was like, "Okay."

As Tam says, "It's all over for us."

Posted by adrienne at 10:32 PM | Comments (10)

March 14, 2006

But is It Really Procrastination If…?

The thing is that I say I’ve procrastinated and I say I’m not ready for these presentations, but what I really mean is something more along the lines of I can’t stop obsessing over my presentation because I can't believe someone cares what I think and/or thought it would be a good idea to ask me to speak to their group. On the one hand, clearly I have things I want to say (Exhibit A: watat.com), but, on the other, I’m waaaaay more comfortable with the written word and don’t consider myself a particularly good speaker. I say the stupidest things. Honestly. Ask my coworkers.

The presentation I’m currently stressing about is one I’m supposed to give to the NIOGA System Youth Services Librarians tomorrow morning on how Webster runs its summer reading program. This is, essentially, a no-brainer. I’m just telling them what we do. This is a thing I know backward and forward. Of course, I also have really mixed feelings about summer reading programs and was just today at lunch going on and on (right in front of my boss, no less) about how every year I keep feeling more and more certain that I don’t want to do a summer reading incentive program anymore. Those of you who work in libraries understand what a radical notion this is. For those of you who don’t, it’s sort of equivalent to saying I think we should get rid of, say, the lights in the library. Or maybe the chairs. These things aren't strictly essential, but everyone expects them anyway. Of course, I see very clear reasons why we have lights and chairs. I'm not so sure about incentive programs.

I'm also not sure I can trust myself not to stand there tomorrow and turn my “how we do it” presentation into a “why I don’t want to do it anymore” presentation, which isn’t exactly what they had in mind. They want to steal good ideas from me, not hear that I question the premise of the whole summer reading endeavor. So I keep thinking I have to have a LOT of other stuff I plan to say and notes to keep me on track.

Think happy thoughts for me.

Posted by adrienne at 09:37 PM | Comments (6)

March 13, 2006

Art

So tonight was the big art show at Lucas’s school.

There were lots of lovely things: dioramas, stained glass windows, pictures of kitties and penguins and dogs.

Lucas’s feature piece was a picture of a dinosaur eating another dinosaur. The dinosaur being eaten had spikes, so the eater’s mouth was bleeding quite profusely. And a tree was on fire. Lucas didn’t explain that, although one couldn’t help but notice that he had a volcano erupting nearby. Maybe that had something to do with the fire?

Ever the art enthusiast, Lucas was also showing a bear stick puppet, which you would think would be pretty straight-forward, but, no, because Lucas will happily tell you how the bear is actually eating Max (“when he’s three or two,” though, “not now”). Tammy and I also noticed that the bear was wearing a snakeskin belt.

I think perhaps I don’t need to worry about the other children influencing Lucas….

Posted by adrienne at 07:43 PM | Comments (10)

March 12, 2006

Boys, If You Don’t Want to Know, Skip This Entry

In addition to the crampy, hormone-charged fun of my monthly cycles, over the last couple years, I’ve started to develop a little anemia. It gets so bad that, for example, I was nodding off in my seat before the movie when Tam and I went to see Failure to Launch earlier this week and, just yesterday, I fell asleep in the car in the middle of a sunny day while Tam and I were driving home from Brockport. (Well, thankfully, Tam was driving.) Then I came home and had to sleep for an hour. This isn’t like me, not even a little. I don’t sleep during daylight hours, and I certainly don’t sleep when out with my friends in public places. But this is what I’m reduced to. Of course, everything you read is all blah, blah, blah, exercise, drink water, avoid chocolate, avoid caffeine, avoid alcohol, it will help.

Whatever.

I’ve been doing the whole exercise-and-avoid-chocolate-and-caffeine routine for the past few months, and let me tell you what exercise helps. It helps cramps. It does not make you less tired. Guess what does? Sleep for one. But even better? That’s right: caffeine! I dragged myself out of bed and went to step aerobics yesterday morning, I drank water, it was sunny, but I was half narcoleptic until I finally got myself what I really wanted – a non-skinny fully-caffeinated chocolate covered strawberry latte. In a half hour, I felt GREAT. I don’t need caffeine most of the time, but once a month, I think it’s a perfectly worthwhile investment.

Of course, Tammy says maybe next month I should consider spending my PMS week drinking rich chocolaty Ovaltine (fortified with iron!) and eating spinach and steak so maybe I don’t get so anemic, and she might have a point.

Posted by adrienne at 10:27 AM | Comments (20)

March 11, 2006

Musical Chairs

It seems that Lucas is suddenly hell-bent on having one of his friends from school visit him at home. Apparently a bunch of the boys exchanged phone numbers at school last week, and Lucas is, as we all know, terribly fond of using the telephone. I think this whole thing is party a result of Tammy’s recent realization that Lucas hasn’t ever been invited to a classmate’s birthday party, but, really, who needs birthday parties? The kids get all hopped up on sugar and someone always ends up crying over some stupid game like musical chairs. Even at the age of five, I was civilized enough to know that a hostess’s job is to make sure her guests have a variety of comfortable seating options in a pleasant environment and not to make people compete over an ever-shrinking number of chairs while playing insipid music. Anyway, thus far, we’ve managed to keep Lucas mostly within the confines of our circle of friends, where life is, well, a little different – where, for instance, everyday discussions include the merits of The Daily Show versus The Colbert Report and whether or not it’s okay to visit the Leaf and Bean more than twice in a 24-hour period. The thing is that Lucas himself is often active participant in these conversations, like the other day when I was upset and Tammy asked him what I needed and he suggested a latte. I can’t help but suspect that he’s not like the other kids, and I’m not sure I want that to change. I wonder what he’d make of other people; I wonder what he'll think of us someday.

Posted by adrienne at 12:50 PM | Comments (7)

March 05, 2006

Attention Kendall Class of '91

I heard from Heather Regan that they're looking at August 12 for our 15-year reunion, so put it on your calendars. And I don't want to hear any crap about not wanting to go, because I think it's a good excuse for all of us to get together.

And did you see that the school added an alumni page to their web site? Lynn told me about it, and it's most impressive -- not because it has very much information but more because Kendall has a web site.

Posted by adrienne at 09:30 AM | Comments (19)

March 04, 2006

Ice Skating

So I went ice skating tonight. I'm not a good skater, and I always end up with bruised ankles, but I love going. Most of the time, particularly when it's crowded as it was tonight, I go along feeling all stiff and hesitant -- but then there are those moments here and there, minutes if I'm lucky, where the way is suddenly clear and I'm gliding along like it's no effort at all. Of course, that's when some rotten kid falls down in front of me or I fall on my butt or I run into the side of the rink. But, still, it's why I ice skate.

Posted by adrienne at 11:52 PM | Comments (6)

March 03, 2006

Let's All Vote!

How long should Adrienne's book on homeschooling for librarians be? 10,000 words? 20,000? Somewhere in between?

Discuss and earn a coveted space in the acknowledgements.

Posted by adrienne at 10:32 AM | Comments (14)

March 01, 2006

So You Guys Are Really Going to Get Sick of Me and This Homeschooling Thing

But I’m writing a book. You’re going to have to get used to it.

So I’ve been reading a report the National Center for Education Statistics just released about homeschooling. It’s interesting for any number of reasons, one of which is the amusement value in reading something that is so very clearly written by a technical person who understands statistics but doesn’t quite know how to make them interesting for people who don’t. (Where is a technical editor when you need one?) I continue to be grateful that I forced myself through a statistics class I registered for on a whim as an undergraduate. (My professor lived in the building next door to me. We’d often be leaving for class at the same time, and he’d just sort of shake his head at me. It was the only class I’ve ever taken where I was That Girl Who Asks Lots of Questions.)

Anyway, the report starts by second-guessing itself a hundred times and talking about all the ways in which it’s difficult to confidently obtain any statistically significant data about homeschoolers because, among other things, they’re a teeny tiny part of the population. That said, though, they seem to be growing in number: from 1.7% of the student population in 1999 to 2.2% of the student population in the data from 2003, which is what they’re focusing on in this report. (And, yes, it took them over two years to write the report, but it’s over 50 pages long. Give the bureaucrats a break.) That 2.2% is approximately 1.1 million students in the U.S. But then why do we librarians feel like homeschoolers are such a presence in our libraries? Well, that would be because 77.9% of homeschoolers surveyed listed the public library as a source of learning materials – more than any other potential source. Of course, this was one of those questions where respondents could check as many responses as applied to their situation, and the fact that 22.1% of the people surveyed *didn’t* pick the public library is a little scary. HOW CAN YOU HOMESCHOOL WITHOUT USING A PUBLIC LIBRARY? Of course, I can’t quite envision my life without public libraries, but I know a lot of really smart people (even people who read this blog!) who never use libraries and don’t even have library cards. But, still, homeschoolers? The report also shows that they tend to have lots of kids and moderate incomes, which one would think would have them all running to the public library. But then we get back into the whole issue of how it’s really difficult to obtain accurate statistics about homeschoolers or to get clear ideas about who they are. Aside from being a small population, their philosophies and methods vary widely – pretty much from family to family. Even so, I’m finding the report most interesting and am finding some really useful data for my book. So yay to that.

Posted by adrienne at 10:15 AM | Comments (18)

February 27, 2006

Headache

It might be from working a long day. I'm going to combat the pain by reading and watching DVDs.

Posted by adrienne at 07:53 PM | Comments (19)

February 26, 2006

“Does This Movie Have a Yeti?”

You haven’t really lived until you’ve watched Lucas dance (i.e. jump, periodically shaking his arms and head in a manner I can only describe as "spastic") around his bedroom singing “Cyclops Rock.”

You also haven’t really explored the full range of life's possibilities until you decide to finally show Lucas The Empire Strikes Back, and after you’ve gone through all the effort of reading the beginning scroll aloud, he asks, “Does this movie have a Yeti? I like Yetis.”

We also had a difficult time convincing him that C3P0 wasn’t named “Chewbacca.”

Posted by adrienne at 07:15 PM | Comments (6)

February 25, 2006

Writing a Book is HARD

Jason said that it must be like writing a really big research paper, and he's not wrong. It's a research paper on a topic I find most interesting, but still. Lots of work. I feel sort of caught between how-am-I-ever-going-to-do-this and wow-this-is-fascinating-and-kind-of-fun. Actually, when I'm on a roll reading and writing, I'm having a great time. It's when I step back and think of the big picture that the whole thing gets a little scary.

My new mantra is "bird by bird."

And now I'm going to the Leaf and Bean to read, take notes, and have my all-important daily latte.

Posted by adrienne at 01:42 PM | Comments (18)

February 23, 2006

The Best Reference Questions I've Had This Week

School’s out this week, so there have been tons of kids in the library -- which I always enjoy, mostly because the kids think I’m really smart when I find what they’re looking for. These are some of my favorite interactions of the week:

1. The Girl Who Wants Cake
I don’t know what the story is with this child, but she came up to the desk and asked me for books about cake. Foolishly, I said, “You mean cookbooks?” And she said, “No, picture books.” I found her a few that she’d already read (which let me know that this cake thing isn’t a recent or passing fancy), and then, thankfully, I found a few that she hadn’t. Now it’s normal to see kids reading their way through books about trucks or princesses or alligators, but cake is totally new to me.

2. The Girl Who Wanted Books About Archaeology
The thing is that we don’t have a lot of books about archaeology in the Children’s Room, but I knew I’d gotten one fairly recently. I found it and gave it to her and asked if it looked okay. She spent some time looking through it, almost a minute while I stood there, and then said, “Yeah, this’ll do” and gave me this sort of dismissive wave. She wanted to talk to me again three minutes later when the computer she was working on froze, though.

3. The Boy Who Wanted Transformers Books
A lot of libraries don’t buy books about things like the Transformers, but every time I give a kid a book on something like that and his or her eyes light up, I know that it’s right to stock them.

4. The Boy Who Wants Us to Have a Day-Long Movie Program at the Library Where Kids Wear Their Pajamas and Watch Movies All Day and Then Vote on Their Favorites
This kid filled out one of our idea forms on this topic on Monday and then followed up on Wednesday. He came up to the desk, asked for me, asked if I’d read his idea, asked what I thought of it, clarified that it was important that people wear pajamas to this program, and then demanded to know when I was going to have this program. I managed not to make any promises, but this kid was really great. I just love seeing kids with that much spunk.

5. The Girl Reading Her Way Through All the Newbery Books “For Fun”
She asked me for some Newbery suggestions, and I was like, “Well, my favorite’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.” Then she did a little squeal thing and was like, “That’s MY favorite, too!” And then we talked about how cool it would be to live in a museum and how much we love Because of Winn-Dixie and Bud, Not Buddy.

6. The Girl and Her Mother Who Were Hanging Around in the Children’s Room Just Hoping I’d Show Up
No, really, they told me they were hanging around hoping I would show up in the Children’s Room because they wanted to ask ME their question because they were that confident I’d be able to answer it. It was a hard question, and, thankfully, I was able to answer it.

Posted by adrienne at 10:25 PM | Comments (12)

February 22, 2006

Ella Reaches Her Limit

So Ella and I made our annual trip to the vet this morning. Ella hates going to the vet. Mostly, she hates riding in the car, and she really hates being in a place with other animals.

Of course, there was only one other animal at the vet’s today: a cute little bitty grey and white kitten that they had available for adoption. She was playing around with her toys in her cage, but when I walked up, she looked up at me and said, “Hey Nice Lady! I like you! You should take me home!” I asked Ella about it, but she had her butt to the front of her carrier and wasn’t speaking to me.

Thankfully, we got the good vet today. I made a note of his name so we can make sure we see him again next time. Unlike Dr. Mean, the nice vet didn’t speak sharply to me about how fat my cat is. The nice vet approached the subject gently, asking if I’d noticed that Ella was a bit weightier than necessary. Then he answered my questions and talked to me about how I could best go about helping Ella lose a few pounds. He was also really good with Ella, petting her and talking to her. I actually got through the entire experience – even the car ride there and back – without crying once. Amazing!

Ella’s going to think it’s a lot less amazing when we start her new weight loss plan next week, but it will be good for her.

And don’t think that very nice and smart vet didn’t mention how having a new kitten in the house would force Ella to get a little more exercise (if only to avoid said new kitten), because he totally did. He knows a girl with a weakness when he sees one.

Posted by adrienne at 11:07 AM | Comments (14)

February 19, 2006

Happy Birthday, Tammy!

Tammy logged on and commented earlier, but I know it was all to see if I was going to post about today being her birthday. And of course I am! You should all email her happy birthday wishes at tammypritchard73@yahoo.com because she’s the best – even considering the way she so recently and shockingly took a shot at my jellybean “issue” in the comments and did not go to yoga with me this morning.

Posted by adrienne at 01:17 PM | Comments (6)

February 18, 2006

“But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?”

I was starting to get depressed because Clementine season is over. I mean, they’re still selling them, but they've gotten horrid and I refuse to buy any more. So I was feeling like I had no seasonal items to look forward to until the peas and strawberries arrive in June.

But no.

There I was walking through Wegman’s when I came across the Easter display. There were the rows and rows of Peeps, which are cute but completely inedible as far as I’m concerned. Marshmallows were only meant to be eaten in: a.) Frosted Lucky Charms, which are magically delicious, b.) S’mores, and c.) Rice Krispy Treats. And even though these things are all yummy, they’re still on my “Generally Avoid” list. But the Peeps reminded me of something important. Something special. Something that makes life worth living. And that would be Starburst Jellybeans. And there they were – a big bin of them ON SALE. I bought two bags. I have very mixed feelings about the way they don’t sell Starburst Jellybeans all year. If they were around all the time, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to spend the late winter months eating them by the bagful. I don’t eat Peanut M&M’s like that. Usually. I think it might all be a part of The Pentaveret’s plan to control the population....

Posted by adrienne at 08:33 AM | Comments (11)

February 17, 2006

A Day Off?

I decided earlier this week that I was going to spend my day off (today) working on The Book Proposal, so I got up this morning and one of the very first things I did was write my preliminary Table of Contents. I got it all lined up with its two parts and eleven chapters – plus a preface and two appendices – and I was filled with this overwhelming sense of happiness: here I am writing a book, and writing a book is such fun! This is the BEST Table of Contents EVER!

Writing the Table of Contents seemed like a major victory, I think, because it made this great big blank slate into more of a fill-in-the-blanks assignment. And, I mean, how cool is it that my book is going to have two parts and appendices?

That good feeling lasted about maybe an hour.

The next thing I decided to do was to start rereading (and, in some cases, reading for the first time) the library literature available on homeschooling. That’s when I started thinking again, and I started thinking things like: “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I have to add a chapter. But there really isn’t enough about that to make it into a whole chapter. Where can I wedge it in? In the preface? Can I call a chapter ‘The Junk Drawer’ and put everything that doesn’t go anywhere else there?” Etcetera. So I’ve now modified the BEST Table of Contents EVER approximately 45 million times, which is, of course, what writing’s all about. You write this stuff that seems brilliant, but a couple hours usually reveals how much more work you have to do. Even so, I’m enjoying it, if only because it’s almost 4:00 and I’ve spent most of the day in sweatpants.

Posted by adrienne at 03:48 PM | Comments (13)

February 16, 2006

Standards

A few months ago, upper management at WPL decided that we should create some standards for our reference service. As is fairly typical at the library, everyone was like, “Okay.” Except me. I was all, “No, no, I have opinions!” And while my opinions may be amusing to read on watat.com as a distraction from the average workday, I think actually working with me and my opinions is probably a lot less fun.

Ah, well.

One of my biggest problems with the Reference Standards in their most recent incarnation is that they say Reference Staff will be aware of current events. My feelings about this could best be described as “nervous” for two reasons. Reason #1: I don’t think it’s fair for the library to ask me to know/do something that I don’t have time to learn/do as part of my normal workday. I mean, I read A LOT of children’s and teen books on my own time, but that’s a choice and something I enjoy. I do not enjoy keeping up on current events and don’t really have time to do it while I’m at work, which leads me directly to Reason #2: If it’s not in the Living section of the D&C, I probably don’t know about it. The only reason I know Dick Cheney shot someone is because Tammy called and told me so I wouldn’t pull a FEMA and start asking everyone what the hell happened a few days later.

So, anyway, sometimes I remember how difficult I make everyone’s life with my opinions and decided a couple weeks ago that I’d start trying to pop onto news web sites in between reference questions every so often to see if I could manage to feel better about this whole standards thing and maybe shut up. And I’ve been doing it. Just last night, I spent some time on Yahoo News, but all it did was serve as a reminder about why I gave up on the news. The big headline was, “Chertoff Admits Katrina Response Fumbled.” Um, really? This is news? Is Congress just figuring this out? Honestly, it’s disturbing. I don’t pay attention to the news, and I know the Katrina response was fumbled. And then, I know you’ll be shocked, but it turns out the Vice President shot someone. It seems there’s no end to the different angles of reporting on this. I read a scintillating article, for instance, on what kind of gun Cheney was using. Amazing, hard-hitting stuff there.

So then I scrolled down to Entertainment and read all about how Mary Kate and Ashley are doing ads for Badgley Mischka and how just last month fashion critic Mr. Blackwell put the anorexic twin on his annual “worst dressed” list. Now we all know there's no love lost between me and the Olsens, but what kind of an ass picks on the appearance of a girl with an eating disorder? It's pretty bad when you can't even count on being able to maintain your sense of calm while reading the entertainment news.

So *then* I decided to scroll all the way down to my favorite section of Yahoo News: Reuters’ Oddly Enough. Last night, the article that hooked me concerned a German teenager who had to be rescued by police after getting himself stuck in a foldaway bed. Now *that’s* interesting. I mean, it’s way weirder than anything *I’ve* done lately, that’s for sure. Sadly, even though I bet I’m the only person at WPL who is aware of the situation with the German teenager, I doubt this would count as being “aware of current events.”

I guess I'll have to keep working at it.

Posted by adrienne at 07:36 AM | Comments (28)

February 15, 2006

Budgeting

Thanks to my new financial guy, I decided to finally sit down and make a budget. And okay, I know I should have done this ages ago, but ever since Bri died, I’ve been very successful with the let’s-just-hope-it-all-works-out budgeting method (i.e. don’t spend too much and hope there’s enough money left to pay the mortgage every month).

I’ve been avoiding the whole issue because a.) numbers are stupid, and b.) I felt like if I made a budget I’d find out I didn’t really have enough money to stay in my house – and even though my house is big and sort of a lot to take care of, I like it and love my neighborhood and don’t want to have to move just because my husband died. Forgive the self-indulgence, but my life has been unfair enough. I deserve my little corner of suburbia for as long as I want it.

The good news is that I do actually make enough money to keep the house.

The bad news is that my discretionary funds pretty much consist of what I make writing and the money in the coveted third paycheck I get twice a year. (Those of you who get paid on a biweekly basis know what I’m talking about, and it’s not that I’m keeping careful track, but, yes, next month is three paycheck month.) This, of course, made me take a serious look at what I made writing last year. It was pathetic, my worst year money-wise in the past five. At the same time, I struck out, got more attention than I’ve had in a while, and found some fun new opportunities – so it felt like the most successful year I’ve had in a long time. My life is all about the irony. If you took the amount of money I’ve made writing in my life and divided it by the amount of time I’ve spent writing, you’d probably learn that I’m raking it in at less than a quarter penny per hour. So I guess I’m not doing it for the money. As I’ve mentioned more than once, it’s a freakish compulsion, and I can’t seem to function properly without it. Still, I wouldn’t mind if my dysfunction were more lucrative. I suppose I would have done better to develop a compulsion to wait tables in an upscale restaurant or work substitute reference hours at another library on the weekends….

Posted by adrienne at 11:02 AM | Comments (4)

February 14, 2006

“Dead, Dead, Dead, Someday You’ll Be Dead”

My back hurts.

I think it’s from the step aerobics class I was so proud of myself for going to Sunday morning. This is where I feel my age: I can exercise and do okay, but I get sore in a way I didn’t when I was younger – and I’ve been led to believe this will only get worse the older I get.

And let me tell you that after doing three programs yesterday (two story times for ages 12-23 months and a book group for kids in grades K-2) and a story time for a bunch of kids who are normally good but were hyped up on sugar today, the last thing I needed was to spend three hours at the Reference Desk with a sore back. I was okay for the first two hours, but for the last hour I was fighting a strong urge to lie down on the floor next to my heater and take a nap. It didn’t help that I ended up with The Pre-Teen From Hell who seemed nice enough but was also looking for forty million things we didn’t have. I also had Needy Patron With A Hearing Impairment On The Telephone, which always sort of makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Since I couldn’t take it out on the patrons, I did the next best thing and crabbed at Jason for singing stupid songs, but I didn’t even have enough energy to do a good job at that.

I did a very good job leaving when Mary Ann and Jane took over at 5:00, though.

Tonight I’m going to try to motivate myself to go to step aerobics again, but maybe I’ll follow it up with some quality time in the whirlpool….

Posted by adrienne at 06:13 PM | Comments (21)

February 13, 2006

The Audie Awards

So I was invited to serve as a final-round judge for this year’s Audie Awards. The Audies are audiobooks’ answer to the Oscars, so I was pretty excited about the whole thing until it came time to make actual decisions last night, which meant a lot of fretting. It’s kind of a shame that I don’t have it in me to throw this kind of energy into something more practical such as home renovation or carpentry. Anyway, I’m judging the “Children’s Titles for Ages Up to 8” category and have some definite ideas about what I think should win… but I can’t share them. I’ll let you know what I think after the awards are announced, though.

I can tell you that I think Assassination Vacation should win the “Multi-Voiced Narration” category, though, because I’m not judging that one.

Posted by adrienne at 08:12 AM | Comments (5)

February 12, 2006

Watch this Film NOW

Benny and the Water

A bit of cinematic brilliance!

Posted by adrienne at 03:23 PM | Comments (14)

February 10, 2006

Adrienne’s Guide to Writing a Book Proposal

Step One: Read proposal guidelines.
Step Two: Read the Living sections from the past two weeks’ worth of newspapers.
Step Three: Look over guidelines again. Contemplate: “Projected length of the work in word count or double-spaced manuscript pages (at 275 words per double-spaced page).” Ponder the way you often don’t know how to answer complex questions involving numbers such as, “What time did you get up this morning?” “What’s the date?” or “How much money do you make?”
Step Four: Wonder how you’ve gotten this far in life without a major catastrophe.
Step Five: Remember that you did, in fact, have a major catastrophe.
Step Six: But it wasn’t the result of your dyscalculiac tendencies.
Step Seven: Was it?
Step Eight: Of course not.
Step Nine: Go to the Y to ride the exercise bike while listening to your MP3 player and reading David Sedaris. Occasionally set aside reading to watch Dancing with the Stars. Contemplate how odd it is to watch Jerry Rice doing Latin dances while you’re listening to The White Stripes.
Step Ten: Go home and look over guidelines again.
Step Eleven: Start work on table of contents. Come up with a few truly witty chapter titles.
Step Twelve: Realize you haven’t come up with a book title. Fret about how the editor and marketing department will probably just want to change whatever title you choose as you always hear writers complain about this.
Step Thirteen: But you don’t want anyone to change the title you haven’t yet written.
Step Fourteen: Unless it makes you more money.
Step Fifteen: Begin to think about how cool it would be if they gave you a red or purple cover. Begin fretting over what you’ll do if they try to do something hideous in orange or green.
Step Sixteen: Blog.
Step Seventeen: Decide to do more work tomorrow. Go to bed.

Posted by adrienne at 01:02 AM | Comments (10)

February 07, 2006

How I Ended Up with a Special Needs Cat

Brian was always Ella’s favorite. Sure, Ella would sleep on me at night, but only because I was cushier. The rest of the time, she was either next to Brian or on his lap.

That’s why I decided we needed a kitten -- one who would, ideally, love me best.

So we ended up at Lollypop West and there was this 9-week-old black and white kitten. He was in his cage giving himself a bath, and I saw right away how the white on his nose had this weird little twist. So I told the volunteer that I wanted to hold him.

“I don’t know,” said the volunteer. “We’ve had trouble with him. All this littermates went fast, but this one’s really aggressive. He bites. I don’t think anyone’s going to adopt him.”

“Well, let me just hold him for a minute,” I said.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said.

Brian gave me a look, but, of course, he didn’t argue, and the girl opened the cage and I got Benny out. He had this little bitty head, big ears, a monkey tail, and pink pads on his feet. He was purring so loudly that I could hear him even before I picked him up. When I got him in the crook of my elbow, he sat there for a bit cleaning behind his ears. Then he looked up at me and, still purring, bit my nose.

“This is our cat,” I said.

We got Benny home and he ran and ran and ran and ran until he collapsed asleep sprawled out on a step. He immediately tried to do every stupid thing he could think of, such as attempting to jump in the fireplace, jump in the toilet, and play with plastic bags. When we ate, I’d put him in the crook of my elbow on his back so we wouldn’t have to worry about him killing himself when we weren’t paying attention. The rest of the time, he was like the Tasmanian Devil: when you touched him, he became this tornado of claws and teeth. Bri mostly avoided him and stuck with the good cat.

The good cat, of course, was disgusted. I had my mom bring Benny into the house so Ella wouldn’t blame us, but I think she knew it was all my fault.

Then began the long process of teaching Benny not to bite. Benny did love me best from day one, and I was the only person he didn’t bite all the time. When he was small, he liked to crawl on my shoulders and hide in my hair. But most of the time he bit me the same way he bit everyone else, and I’d have to hold him up by the scruff of his neck, look in his eyes, and say, “No.” Sometimes then he’d bite my nose, and I’d have to say “no” again. It took about three months before we finally had a breakthrough. I picked him up one day and he was just about ready to bite my hand when he paused (“No, no, biting Adrienne is wrong.”), pulled back, gave me a look, and started purring.

It took another couple months to convince him that biting other people was bad, too, but, of course, I didn’t care so much about the way he bit other people.

This was when all of Benny’s other oddities began to emerge: the plaintive high-pitched meow, the love of water, the fear of the great outdoors. He’s still afraid of doorbells, boots, and other people. His newest arch nemesis is the blender. He doesn’t bite much anymore, but I still tell people to leave him alone. He’s only recently developed the habit of sitting in my lap sometimes when I’m reading, although when he does this, he always gives me a “this is odd” sort of look before he settles down to purr.

And Ella, for the record, is still disgusted.

Posted by adrienne at 10:29 PM | Comments (16)

February 06, 2006

My Writing “Process”

When writers are interviewed, they often end up talking about their writing process. They usually sound so industrious and hard-working, willing to suffer for their art. They get up at 4:00 in the morning every day and write for two solid hours in their unheated offices before they go out for a jog and then proceed on to whatever upstanding thing they do full-time to really make money.

Not me.

The thing about my writing process is I have no process. It’s true that I write every day, but there’s no pattern. I write whenever I’m in the mood to write, generally in the evenings – but not always. I usually work at the computer. Sometimes I prefer the PC upstairs, sometimes the laptop downstairs. Sometimes I still write longhand in notebooks. Sometimes I write on scraps of paper I find around. Some days I write for fifteen minutes; some days I write for hours. Sometimes I write good stuff; sometimes I write total crap.

And of course I have no freaking idea where any of it comes from.

For instance, Queen Amidala’s Diary? One day I was sitting here writing a review or something, and it was like the Queen started talking to me in Bridget Jones’ voice. What could I do? I wrote down what she had to say. Which leads me to the only thing I know about writing: if you write enough, something decent’s bound to pop out eventually. Decent enough for watat.com, at any rate.

Posted by adrienne at 10:34 PM | Comments (12)

February 05, 2006

Get on the Bus

Brian would have seriously been in his glory with our wedding anniversary (yesterday) and the Steelers in the Super Bowl all in one weekend. I’ve had a long-standing policy of boycotting the Super Bowl and have been trying to pretend that I don’t care if the Steelers win tonight or not. But of course I’ll be watching the game tonight in black and gold. Go Steelers!

Posted by adrienne at 02:39 PM | Comments (37)

February 03, 2006

“Crying”

So my dad has mono. That’s right: the kissing disease.

I don't ask questions.

And I guess it’s only appropriate, since, like many teenagers, Dad lives in the basement, keeps odd hours, and listens to Roy Orbison.

Okay, so most teenagers don’t listen to Roy Orbison, but, suddenly, Dad does. I blame the illness. Roy’s sort of fun, though. It’s a refreshing change from our usual soundtrack, and I’ve been considering stealing the CD so I can put Roy on my Bean.

Anyway, it seems that Dad’s had mono for weeks, but the doctor’s office just kept telling him he had a virus, which, of course, he did. Mono isn’t JUST a virus, though – more like a virus on steroids. In the several days between when he got back from his trip to Vegas and I went off on my trip to Vegas, he spent most of his time downstairs on his couch sleeping and watching TV and commenting on how badly he felt. I thought he was just being a baby, but then we found out about the whole mono thing, which I think made him feel better about how crappy he’d been feeling. At least there was a reason and all that.

So now he’s still recovering, which involves more couch time and lots of fried chicken. I’m not complaining, as he’s been making plenty of extra chicken for me and even made peas and rice the other day – yum! You can also tell he’s sick, either that or he really likes his new job, because he offered me the red popsicles the other day. Most normal humans who haven't lived in the midst of our 20-year-standoff over who gets the red popsicles (best) and gets stuck with the purple popsicles (worst, although they used to be Bri’s favorite, which solved our problem entirely) wouldn't understand. But, believe me, life’s been weird lately.

Posted by adrienne at 08:06 AM | Comments (12)

January 28, 2006

"Luck Be a Lady Tonight"

This will post as Saturday because my blog's on East Coast time, but it's only 11:11 PM here – early! I’m glad to be back to my Internet connection as I have been missing you all and have been having many blog-worthy adventures, including:
-Being an audience participant at the Penn & Teller show (and Teller TALKED TO ME!)
-Running into a friend who I didn’t know was in Vegas out on the Strip at 10:00 at night, finding out another friend was here, and then the four of us staying out until 4:00 AM.
-Watching the fountains at the Bellagio every chance I got.
-Riding the Big Shot at the Stratosphere. (I seriously thought I was going to have a heart attack.)
-Going on a gondola ride at the Venetian.
-Buying new shoes.
But now it’s time for bed. In addition to the posts you can surely expect from me, I'm hoping to talk Jen into writing a guest entry. More soon!

Posted by adrienne at 02:14 AM | Comments (13)

January 25, 2006

“I’ll Be Your Best Kept Secret or Your Biggest Mistake”

I’m having way more fun here than I care to admit.

Today we spent some time on the strip and went to one of my “must-do” spots: M&M World, a store that consists of four floors PACKED with M&M merchandise. The whole thing was fascinating but also a bit frightening. I, of course, had high hopes that they would have some dark chocolate peanut M&Ms, but they only had the dark chocolate kind without the peanuts, which is no wonder as no one actually wants to eat the kind without peanuts unless they have a peanut allergy (in which case, I feel worlds of sorry for them).

Tonight we spent some time on Fremont Street. There was a man on the back of a big rig playing “You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings” and “Chariots of Fire” on a grand piano. It was truly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

The most disturbing thing I’ve seen so far are the outfits they make the women who work in the casinos wear. Skimpy is one thing, but these are downright demeaning. I kept having the urge to offer women my sweater.

I may have a couple days without posts because my aunt and uncle and dad ROCK and surprised Jen and I with two nights at The Flamingo on the strip. I imagine I won’t have Internet access, but I’ll be thinking of you all and making sure I have plenty of blog-worthy adventures. And I hope you’ll keep commenting. It does wonders for my self-esteem.

Posted by adrienne at 01:22 AM | Comments (18)

January 24, 2006

Viva Las Vegas

Las Vegas is very weird.

I guess everyone besides me has already been here and already knows this, but the city’s such a strange mix of opulence and total trash. For example, there’s the Bellagio – which is really beautiful and tasteful, and then right down the street is a place with a big, flashy sign advertising bikini mud wrestling. I’d heard of mud wrestling, but I guess I didn’t quite realize it was something that actually happened somewhere that people could (and, apparently, would) pay to see.

It’s strange, too, to be in a desert but to see so much green.

The city is surrounded by mountains, which I knew but was still astonishingly beautiful to look at out the window of the bedroom Jen and I are sharing when I got up this morning.

I suppose it will only get more odd as the days go by and, of course, hijinks ensue.

Posted by adrienne at 12:42 PM | Comments (14)

January 22, 2006

Josh Supervises DDR Newbies

I'm afraid Lucas and I were a bit hopeless.

Posted by adrienne at 07:32 PM | Comments (6)

“Does Anyone Else Want to Question My Feminitity?”

“You’ve taken lots from me,” she said. “You almost took it all. But you won’t defeat me because I am a brave girl, my home is always near, and you are insignificant.”
-Trish in Amelia Rules! #16, “Against Unbelievable Odds”

So I subscribe to a comic almost no one’s ever heard of called Amelia Rules!. I fell in love with it when I first read The Whole World’s Crazy, which collects issues 1-5. When we meet Amelia, she’s in fifth grade, her parents have recently divorced, and Amelia and her mother have moved to a small town in Pennsylvania. Amelia ends up bonding with a crowd of kids led by Reggie, a class-A nerd who has formed a superhero club to fight a rival club called “The Ninjas.”

As you can imagine, hijinks ensue.

It’s not all fun, though. Mingled in with wordplay, “sneeze barfs,” and pratfalls are serious issues as Amelia adjusts to new friends, growing apart from the people she left in NYC, learning more about her family, and, ultimately, dealing with mortality. The stories are written and drawn with care and are a joy to read, even if you aren’t a kid. Maybe even more if you aren’t a kid.

The other thing to love about Amelia Rules! is that its author, Jimmy Gownley, is so pleased that people are subscribing to his comic that he signs every issue and sends it in a plastic sleeve with a piece of cardboard. It’s so sweet. And it’s hard not to notice the way they hand-address the envelopes. It always makes me want to buy subscriptions for everyone I know.

Speaking of everyone I know, I would like all Nerd Party attendees to know that I have determined that I must have more parties as it is the only thing that seems to motivate me to clean my house. It was so close to clean this morning that it was actually a pleasure to take care of the few dishes, run the vacuum, and gather up the beer caps (ahem, Don Bob) and Swedish fish (ahem, small but irresistibly cute children) that were in all manner of odd places. Of course, the cats are still completely freaked out, but I think it’s good for them.

Posted by adrienne at 03:51 PM | Comments (12)

January 21, 2006

Some Quotes I Added to My Quote Book This Week

“Why does everybody think I argue? I never argue.” Skye hesitated. “Or at least, I’m not going to argue as much anymore.”
-The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.
-“Brokeback Mountain” in Close Range by Annie Proulx, who is shockingly inconsistent with her “E”

It borders on indefinable, what the simple process of making stuff up can do for the soul.
-Chris Lynch as quoted in “Heart and Ready Access to the Laugh Button” by Penny Blubaugh in YALS, Spring 2005

So maybe picture books aren’t just a stage you go through before you’re old enough to read “proper books,” but a storytelling medium all of their own, to be enjoyed by people of all ages, unashamedly.
-Mini Gray, 2005 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards acceptance speech, Picture Book category, The Horn Book, Jan/Feb 2006

Posted by adrienne at 08:25 AM | Comments (1)

January 19, 2006

But, Adrienne, Why Were You Freaking Out?

That would be because of the roomful of people you can't see in the photo who are waiting for a hockey player who was, at the time, 20 minutes late and counting. Marcia and I look relaxed, considering.

Isn't our Gazebo pretty, though? And can you see our sun that always shines in the upper-left-hand corner? I love the Children's Room.

Posted by adrienne at 01:46 AM | Comments (13)

January 18, 2006

Word Coinage

So I can't help but note that I'm now using "Netflix" as both a noun and a verb.

It has two definitions as a noun:
1. the Netflix service ("I love Netflix!")
2. the actual DVDs I get from Netflix ("I can't write that article; I have to watch my Netflix.")

As a verb it means:
1. adding something to my Netflix queue ("I am SOOOO going to Netflix that zombie movie.")

Posted by adrienne at 09:19 AM | Comments (20)

January 17, 2006

Roadkill

I am, yet again, going through some of Brian’s stuff.

He saved A LOT of stuff.

For instance, he seems to have saved every note I wrote him senior year, and I wrote him A LOT of notes. I’ve been reading through them tonight, finding things both funny and disturbing. It’s funny – and not at all surprising – that I’m constantly complaining about math class and chemistry class and having to work so much. It is and isn’t surprising that in several notes I start telling stories about myself in the third person, as I had no idea that particular habit went back that far.

Here’s a quote from one note: “Hi! Jeff is sitting in front of me, so Mr. Kent can’t see me. He’s blathering on about nothing anyway. He talks about The Christian Science Monitor as though it was God.”

It was quite a revelation when I picked up an issue of The Christian Science Monitor after I was done with college and was like, “This is FASCINATING,” as The Christian Science Monitor was one of the many plagues of my existence senior year, when I would read the articles over and over without ever quite wrapping my mind around them. Our Global Studies class was always all about Tammy and Mr. Kent discussing important global issues while I, for one, hid behind Jeffrey so I could write notes to my boyfriend. What I remember best from my classes with Mr. Kent is the way he would sometimes regale us with stories about picking up roadkill to feed to whatever carrion-eater he happened to be nursing back to health in his backyard. I don't think this sort of thing happens in suburban schools. It's sad, really.

On the other hand, I was most disturbed to find that sixteen years ago, I was the type of sixteen- year-old girl who would dot the “i” in her boyfriend’s name with a heart. I’m not sure I remember that person or the person who wrote all kinds of mushy, mushy stuff. Honestly, it’s horrid. I was hovering for a while on the verge of throwing all the notes out, but they reveal so many other things I forgot about myself and my life. And they were important enough to Bri that he saved them all that time. So I'll keep them -- hidden away under lock and key, but they'll be kept all the same.

Posted by adrienne at 10:21 PM | Comments (16)

January 16, 2006

"You're Older Than You've Ever Been, and Now You're Even Older"

One of the many reasons I’ll probably end up never getting married again is my periodic stunning disregard for my personal appearance when I’m out in public.

The thing is that places like the Leaf and Bean and the Chili-Paul Wegmans seem like extensions of my living room. I need to be *decent* when I go there, but, beyond that, eh. I know people around Chili, but they all like me even when I look disheveled. (Tammy’s brother-in-law, who I frequently run into out and about in Chili, is a notable exception, but no one cares what he thinks.)

So when I rolled out of bed at 7:30 Saturday morning, pulled on some sweats that may have been in a pile on the floor, didn’t bother to brush my hair, and dragged myself to the step aerobics class that runs from 8:00-9:00 at the Y, I wasn’t thinking about how I looked. Well, I was thinking about how I looked, but it was more like a mantra: “Keep moving. You don’t want to get fat. Keep moving. You don’t want to get fat.”

When class was done, I was more awake and blithely moved along to the Leaf and Bean for a latte, picked up Lucas, and went back to the Y for Lu’s swimming lesson. I’d completely forgotten about the way I hadn’t yet showered or brushed my hair. I was up and busy and happy, and no one seemed to be running away.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

When you’re a librarian, there’s a distinct advantage to not living in the community where you work. You realize this when, after you’ve dropped your godson back at home, you decide to go to the post office and you’re standing there in line and suddenly hear someone say, “Miss A? Is that you?”

And you think, “Well, [explicative].” Because “Miss A” is your library name, and your friends don’t call you that. (Well, okay, yes, your friends call you that. EVERYONE calls you that. You had no idea how well that name would stick.)

Then you smile and turn around and say, “Hi!”

And it turns out to be one of the moms from one of your old libraries whose children – THANK GOD – aren’t with her, but she has pictures, which you’re glad to see. But, then again, you remember small children and can’t help but notice that the pictures you’re looking at are of a young man and a young woman. And then the mother starts talking about how the young man you feel quite certain should only be ten is still debating about which college he’ll attend next year.

Not that this sort of thing happened to me, because I am waaaaaaay too young to have some kid who used to ask me to help him find Wayside School books thinking about going to college, but it *could* have happened, which is why I am now not allowed to leave the house without at least brushing my hair. A little.

Posted by adrienne at 07:01 PM | Comments (13)

January 11, 2006

Define “Awkward”

“He is always feeling terrible, when the innocent, benign questions of unsuspecting strangers yield the bizarre answer he must provide. Like someone asking about the weather and being told of nuclear winter.”
-A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

So I ran into a guy I went to high school with (Chuck Yarid) at Wegmans last night.

After the obligatory second-glances, recognition, and hi’s, he asked The Question.

“How’s Bri?”

I blinked quite a few times, I think, while various possible answers popped into my head. I almost said “fine,” but then realized that would be misleading. Then I thought, “He’s dead,” but that seemed harsh. So I settled on something like, “Oh. Yeah. Well. Sorry. He, um, passed away last August. No, um, not last August. The August before that.”

The funny thing is the way I always feel badly, like I need to comfort whoever's standing in front of me because my husband died.

So then this guy was blinking, but he recovered quickly and said, “So what have you been up to?”

THEN I came home to find an envelope in my mailbox addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Brian Furness.” I don’t get many of those anymore. I opened it, and the first sentence of the flier read, “Has your life or someone you love been touched by cancer?”

Has it ever. Honestly, I had to laugh.

Posted by adrienne at 08:05 AM | Comments (12)

January 10, 2006

My F’N Car OR Where Do I Start?

It will not shock most of you when I say I have trouble managing my time.

Part of it is because I think I can do about a million things all at once, which, clearly, I can’t.

I was up most of the night Sunday night because every time I tried to go to sleep, I kept thinking of everything I have to do/want to do before the end of the week, and I couldn’t even pretend I’d be able to do it all.

Let me tell you, not having a staff at home is a REAL problem.

For instance, the fan in my f’n car isn’t working, which means I have no heat. I drive a half hour to work and a half hour back every day, and it’s winter. But I haven’t had the time to try to figure out how to fix it. My father-in-law says it’s probably a fuse, and, really, how hard can that be to change? I guess eventually I’ll get cold enough that it will seem like more of a priority.

Actually, I KNOW it’s a priority, because I’m going to be sorry when we have a freezing cold day and that fan does nothing to defrost my windshield.

Then I had a book review due today (which I read and started working on way ahead of time AND which I submitted a day early), and I really need to finish that feature article I’m working on by the end of the week.

And I work every day.

Oh, yeah, and I’m squeezing in a Magic Tree House Party at the Seymour (Brockport) PL Wednesday night, which means digging all the stuff out of the closet, figuring out if I have enough of everything, getting it all ready, packing it into the car, taking it there, unloading it, setting it up, doing the program, cleaning up, and packing it back into the car so then I can drive back home, unload it, and put it all back in the closet.

And I don’t even want to get into the crazy things that I need to take care of in my house.

I know I’ll get it all done bit by bit, but sometimes life is so overwhelming. I kind of thought daily life wouldn’t freak me out so much by the time I turned 32. Things like fixing the car and going to the grocery store and talking to strangers on the phone don’t freak out normal people my age.

And, of course, anyone can see I found time to write about all of this on my blog and also to add a cool new "Recent Comments" feature in the sidebar. I guess the real issue is my sense of priorities....

Posted by adrienne at 01:10 PM | Comments (5)

January 07, 2006

“Grasping to Control, So I Better Hold On”

So we had our Mooncats meeting today. The Mooncats are my writing group, including several regular watat.com readers. We’ve been meeting for years now, and we realized today that somewhere along the line we morphed into “real” writers with things like agents and editors and big projects and deadlines.

Weird.

Like most writing groups, our meetings focus on reading and critiquing each other’s work. We also discuss projects and the business end of publishing, something we all struggle with. Of course, Mooncats also functions as a support group. It’s not quite to the point where we start with, “Hi, I’m Adrienne, and I’m a writer.” But, really, that’s only because everyone knows each other’s name. Here is a typical Mooncats conversation (highly paraphrased, condensed from various conversations, and with names changed to numbers – “What happens in Mooncats stays in Mooncats”):

One: Don’t give your agent any more chapters until she schedules a meeting and you get answers. Be like that guy in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!”

Two: You’re right. I have questions.

One: Your agent works with writers. She should know we’re neurotic.

Three: Speak for yourself.

One: Oh, COME ON!

Three: Okay. [laughter] So I sent some stuff to my web people and didn’t hear from them for a few days so then I had to call and leave a message to ask if what I wrote was too long and if I needed to change it because I thought that’s why they weren’t getting back to me. But it was just that they were busy.

One: Oh, yeah, if my editor doesn’t respond to me within two hours, I figure she finally wised up and decided to fire me. But sometimes she's just on vacation.

Four: And they hire me based on these letters I write and later I realize that they don’t even know anything about me. How crazy is that?

One, Two, Three: I KNOW!

Mooncats pretty much serves the same function as watat.com, giving me continual and much-needed reminders that I’m not the only one.

Posted by adrienne at 04:30 PM | Comments (4)

January 05, 2006

Who Cares What You Think? OR The Top Ten Most Mortifying Things on My MP3 Player, In No Particular Order

Nestled among the music one might expect from some of my favorites – The White Stripes, REM, Fiona Apple, They Might Be Giants, Cake – are surprises that reveal such things as my fondness for cheesy dance music and my theoretical softer side.

1. “Hey Ya!” by OutKast
So, whatever, the boyz can’t spell. I love this song.
2. “Pon de Replay” by Rihanna
I should be sick of this song, but I’m not.
3. “My Humps” by The Black Eyed Peas
The first time I heard this song, I was shocked that they were playing such a thing on the radio. The second time I heard it, I started singing along. Ella and I like to dance around and sing this one, but Benny doesn’t get it.
4. “It Had to Be You” by Harry Connick Jr.
Lucas is a big Harry Connick Jr. fan. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. SO WHAT IF LUCAS THINKS IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO DIP GRAPES IN KETCHUP??? That doesn’t mean his taste in music is flawed.
5. Several Fleetwood Mac CDs
I can't explain my deep love of Fleetwood Mac.
6. A 2-disc “best of” Frank Sinatra
Everyone loves Frank, right???
7. “Rich Girl” by Gwen Stefani
Benny likes this one, except he sings, “If I was a rich cat, I’d have all the water in the world.”
8. “You’re the Boss” by the Brian Setzer Orchestra with guest vocals by Gwen Stefani
Bri and I learned to swing dance to this song, so it’s a sentimental favorite.
9. “I’ll Never Tell” from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling soundtrack
If you aren’t a Buffy fan, you wouldn’t get it.
10. “Earth Movers” from Most Amazing Truck, Train & Plane Songs
This almost completely synthesized children’s song is an extended double entendre to the tune of “Camp Grenada.” I love that this snuck through on the Music for Little People label.

Posted by adrienne at 09:18 AM | Comments (10)

January 04, 2006

I Suddenly Find Myself Feeling Better About the Postal Rate Hike Taking Effect on January 9

I am so scarily tempted to preorder tons of these. How cool are they? This makes me feel about a million times better about the rate hike. I'm not generally gung-ho about governmental services, but I really love the PO.

Posted by adrienne at 01:07 AM | Comments (6)

January 03, 2006

Scoogie

Over the past several months, Lucas has been making his first real forays into reading and writing. I find this miraculous and delightful, so a few months ago, I decided to start sending him letters and postcards to introduce him to one of the amazing things he can do with these skills he’s working so hard to develop. I started by sending him a series of classic monster postcards I found at the Post Office, so, needless to say, Lucas quickly became all about the mail and even writes me back every once in a while. I’ve since moved on to Saxton Freymann cards and have been including comics I’ve clipped out of the newspaper.

So yesterday Ron told me that Lucas has taken to demanding to see the comics and cutting them out of the paper himself. After Ron said this, Lucas, who was standing nearby, said, “Yeah, I cut them out and keep them in a pile” while miming the cutting action with his fingers and then putting his hands together to show how he piles them up.

Ron said, “Yeah, thanks.”

I kind of paused and then said, “Well, there are worse things I could teach him than wanting to look at the newspaper every day” (such as “The Song That Doesn’t End,” which I didn’t mention but plan to teach Lucas very soon).

So then Ron mimed the cutting action.

I looked at him blankly.

Ron said, “You’re making him Italian.”

I looked at him more blankly, as no one in my Italian family has or had the habit of clipping the comics out of the daily paper.

So then Ron started throwing his hands around and said, “He’s talking with his hands!”

It’s funny how you cease to notice your own quirks and how other people perceive you, but, of course, I do talk with my hands all the time. For someone whose words are published on a regular basis, I’m often at a loss when actually speaking to someone. If you just listened to me without being able to see me, I doubt I’d make much sense most of the time. Aside from speaking in gestures, I also substitute faces and sounds for words. (Bri used to love to make me repeat myself when I did this. As I’ve said before, I was no end of amusement to him.) I also use words I made up, such as “scoogie.” Scoogie is how I feel when I shop at Walmart, but it has many other applications and I use it a lot.

I think I’ll know that I’ve won in my attempts to influence Lucas if I hear him use the word “scoogie” one of these days, but, in the meantime, I treasure these little signs of progress.

Posted by adrienne at 05:14 PM | Comments (5)

December 31, 2005

“Why Should I Follow that Beat Being that I’m Better Than Fine?”

Over the next 12 months, I hereby resolve to:

1. Eat plenty of fried egg sandwiches.
2. Watch plenty of movies.
3. Support the local economy by purchasing food and/or beverage items at the Leaf and Bean on a regular basis.
4. Get my money’s worth out of my YMCA membership.
5. Keep my house untidy.
6. Read every day.
7. Write every day.
8. Work very hard at the last minute to complete my writing assignments within 24 hours of deadline.
9. Let go of hate. It is the path to the dark side.
10. Update watat.com on a daily basis.

Posted by adrienne at 10:15 AM | Comments (8)

December 30, 2005

Be Careful What You Wish For

“Fixing this script would be like polishing a turd.”
-Return to Horror High

The same friend who suggested I watch Young Adam, A Bucket of Blood, Kingdom of the Spiders (starring William Shatner!), and The Ring Two has recently been insisting that I watch Return to Horror High. In spite of his repeated reminders that the film features George Clooney, I was (understandably?) hesitant.

I finally watched it on Movie Marathon Day last week.

It turned out to be… well, um, something. George Clooney was in it. For a while. He looked young.

Sadly, this horror movie was so dull that it wasn’t even that amusing to make fun of it – except the one and only sex scene. That was the most bizarre few minutes of film I’ve ever seen AND I WATCH DAVID LYNCH MOVIES. My “friend” insisted that one had to watch the whole film to fully appreciate the weird sex scene. I’d like to say he was wrong, but it’s true that you might assume the scene made sense if you saw it out of context, although you’d no doubt still glean a full understanding of the cinematographer’s crack problem. Even so, I might skip this film. If you develop pneumonia and end up stuck in bed for two to three weeks, watch it then.

Thankfully, I also watched good movies on Movie Marathon Day. There was the previously mentioned and very funny Ali G Indahouse. I also, at long last, watched Tommy Boy. I know, I know, everyone’s seen that movie. Bri and I had a strange battle of wills over it back in the day, and, for some unremembered reason, I refused to go see it with him. He loved it, and I scoffed and acted superior. If his spirit’s still paying attention, I’m sure he’s glad to know he finally won. Last, I watched Without a Paddle. Why did that movie get such bad reviews? I laughed and laughed. Seth Green and Matthew Lillard are always fun, and the film as a whole was the silly goofiness I expected. It wasn’t exactly billing itself as The Godfather. Nor was Return to Horror High, come to think of it.

Still, I think I’m adding Movie Marathon Day to my Valuable Life Lessons list, a list that has gotten sadly long. Maybe that would make a category for the sidebar….

Posted by adrienne at 01:24 AM | Comments (4)

December 25, 2005

Tammy and I Get Lucky

So Ron went crazy and bought us all MP3 players for Christmas. They’re sooooo cute, like black oversized jellybeans. I’ve been quietly pining for an MP3 player for ages, so I spent half the afternoon happily messing around with it. I still have music to download, but a lot of my old favorites and current obsessions are on it, and I am, in fact, listening to it even now (REM’s “Can’t Get There from Here” from Eponymous, notable for being the first CD I ever bought). I love the shuffle feature. It’s like having your own personal radio station without commercials. Well, mine sort of has commercials, as I included several sound clips from Napoleon Dynamite, so periodically it says things like, “Whatever I feel like I wanna do! GOSH!”

I LOVE THAT!

I was grooving along when I was cooking dinner earlier, too. I don’t have a holder for the player yet, but it’s small enough that I just slipped it in my bra. No problem. Go, modern technology!

When I told Ron this, he was like, “Um, you’re going to get a holder for it, though. Um, right?”

Posted by adrienne at 11:20 PM | Comments (23)

December 24, 2005

It’s Christmas OR Get Off My Back about the Freaking Cholesterol

Adrienne’s World-Famous Rye Boat Dip
(Copied Pretty Much Verbatim from Her Mother-in-Law’s Recipe – Thanks, Linda! The only reason Linda’s recipe isn’t world-famous is because she doesn’t yet have her own web site to use as a promotional tool.)

What happens when you add fat to fat to fat?

YUM!

The night before serving, combine:
16 oz. tub sour cream
1 ½ c. mayo
1 tsp. Beaumonde seasoning
¼ lb. corn beef, sliced thin
1 tbsp. minced onion
1 tsp. dill weed
couple tbsps. fresh parsley (You can use dried parsley if you’re feeling apathetic about life or the people you’re serving. I’ve tried several times to eliminate dried parsley from my home, but Dad really seems to like it and keeps bringing it back.)
Pumpernickel and/or Rye Bread, cut into cubes

You can do that boat thing with a round loaf of bread if you know how to do it. I do, but it’s too much effort to describe how to do so without a diagram.

Posted by adrienne at 05:15 PM | Comments (7)

December 22, 2005

For Those of You in the Rochester Area

98.9 The Buzz is doing a fundraiser for the Wilmot Cancer Center this Friday morning, December 23 at TC Hooligans in Greece Ridge Center.

Why should you go or at least listen to the radio that morning?

#1 – Family friend Don Mancuso will be playing songs from his newest CD around 9:30am.

#2 – Regular watat.com reader and cancer survivor extraordinaire Shannon Case and his wife, Carrie, have shared their story with the Buzz as one of the Wilmot Center’s many success stories.

#3 – It’s a fundraiser for a great cause. Speaking as someone who’s spent a LOT of time there, the Wilmot Cancer Center rocks. Cancer affects everyone at some point either directly or through close family and friends. We’re lucky to have such a top-notch treatment and research facility in our community. We should support it.

Hope you can stop by or tune in!

Posted by adrienne at 01:05 AM | Comments (23)

December 20, 2005

“Man, You Really Freak Me Out”

Yeah, so, it seems that I’m sick. I started to suspect that maybe it wasn’t just allergies when I had trouble sleeping last night because breathing was hurting my poor sore throat. Then when I went to the doctor’s office this morning, there was the way the PA kept exclaiming, “Your throat is SORE!” and “You had this going on for HOW many days before you came in?”

But how was I supposed to know? I lived for years with someone who had cancer. To me, illness involves severe pain, fevers, and, possibly, throwing up blood. Anything else is just baby stuff, right?

Besides that, while I’m always having problems with my allergies, I hardly ever get sick. I’m just not used to it.

The PA didn’t even want to give me a throat culture. She wasn’t certain if I have strep or not, but she thought I needed an antibiotic in either case and didn’t want to further irritate my throat. She recommended I start taking 3-4 Tylenol every four hours to combat the throat pain. I never would have thought of taking Tylenol for a sore throat, but it totally works. After napping on a wooden bench while waiting for my prescription to be filled, I came home, took my antibiotic, took four Tylenol, slept for a couple hours, and woke up feeling well enough to eat my first meal in a day.

You know I had a fried egg sandwich. And then I took another nap.

Lisa had to tell me that I shouldn’t come to work today or tomorrow. I imagine they’re all fumigating my germy office with Lysol bombs and cursing the way they ate lunch with me yesterday. BUT I SWEAR I DIDN’T KNOW.

Yesterday I was way more concerned with the way a certain unnamed publication edited my article about the pea books. Don’t even get me started. It’s no wonder I ended up sick.

Posted by adrienne at 02:42 PM | Comments (2)

December 19, 2005

Well, It’s Official

Jason finally got his score back on the Librarian I Civil Service test today. He got 100%, which makes it 100% official that, starting in January, he’ll be our second full-time Children’s Librarian at WPL.

To tell you the truth, I’m finding the news a little hard to absorb. I started going on about how I needed more help in the Children’s Room over two years ago, and it’s taken all these little steps to get it – convincing our fearless leader that this is a necessary and worthwhile investment, waiting for the budget to be finalized, fretting about whether or not Jason was going to manage to finish library school, waiting for his public librarian certificate, and then waiting and waiting and waiting for Civil Service to score his freaking exam. (With a week and a half to spare! You go on with your bad self, Civil Service!) I didn’t have control over most of this process, and, this may surprise you, but sometimes I don’t feel comfortable when I’m not in control. So I mostly tried not to think about it. And now here it is. In a couple weeks, Jason will be full-time, he’ll be taking over primary responsibility for programming, he’ll be participating more in work on the collection, and we’ll both be working at least one regular shift in the Children’s Room every week. Big changes. Involving sharing. And possibly fighting.

I’m not afraid, though, because I can so totally take Jason in a fair fight.

Incidentally, Jason’s email address is jmp_erochlibrary@yahoo.com, should you care to congratulate him or, possibly, remind him how lucky he is to get to work with me on a full-time basis. (Actually, I think I'm pretty lucky to get to work with him, too, but there's really no need to mention that.)

And now I can concentrate on figuring out how to get more money for our woefully inadequate materials budget....

Posted by adrienne at 07:52 PM | Comments (5)

December 18, 2005

Meg Cabot Rules!

You all have to read the December 15th entry in Meg Cabot's blog. I swear, I think Meg and I were separated at birth.

I have seriously been writing out waaaaaay too many Christmas cards today. So if you get yours and it has misspellings or, you know, the wrong names on it, please remember that I am a pathetic widow.

And one of my Christmas presents for one of my favorite people is not coming out right. That's really frustrating.

Readers may also note that this Friday is watat.com's one year anniversary. I keep thinking of how I should celebrate but am coming up short....

Posted by adrienne at 10:38 PM | Comments (8)

December 16, 2005

“I Certainly Haven’t Been Shopping for Any New Shoes, And…”

“I’m not a big fan of boring holidays.”
“Really? What holidays are boring?”
“Ones with candles and stuff like that. Not birthday holidays, though. I like those.”
-Recent conversation between Lucas and I

Yeah, so I finally started my Christmas shopping today.

I don’t like to shop.

I hesitate to admit this in a public forum for fear that someone will kick me out of the girly-girl club, but it’s not all bad. I mean, I like to have new things, such as clothing, accessories, stationary, office supplies (post-its!), and stamps. I just don’t like having to go out and find these things, or, rather, there are usually just about five million things I’d rather be doing than finding these things, such as watching Veronica Mars or reading a book or playing a game or singing songs to Max. So I had to tell myself many vicious lies about how I could finish all my shopping in one day to convince myself that going out was a good idea.

HA!

You all know that didn’t happen. I made a dent in my admittedly very small shopping list, though, and that’s something. And Tracy went with me, provided moral support, and did some shopping of her own. That helped make the evening vastly more fun. As far as the rest of the presents go, I'll try, but I'm sure that as in past years, it will get to a point where I’ll have to admit defeat. This is just one of those things I’m not good at, and I probably never will be. Thankfully, my friends and family seem to understand this and haven’t lynched me yet. I spend most of my days being very grateful for the things my friends and family take in stride.

Posted by adrienne at 11:41 PM | Comments (7)

December 14, 2005

Isn't That Sweet?

This is the picture Lucas made me at about 3:00 in the morning when we were waiting for Max to be born. Lucas said it was of "a big old dragon thing eating you." You can see in the picture that I'm not too happy about this, probably because of the way my hair's such a mess.

Posted by adrienne at 10:51 AM | Comments (13)

December 13, 2005

Better Late Than Never... (?)

Remember that fourth audiobook review? I finally submitted it last night. It was that or write a decent blog entry. I had to do what I had to do. I told myself I'd get this thing done before Christmas, and look at me! Early!

In other reviewing news, check out my review of The Fortelling by Alice Hoffman (scroll down a little). See that sentence, "She talks of animals and people as sisters"? They edited out the end of that sentence -- you know, THE PART WHERE I MADE A POINT. The first time I read it in the magazine, I was all, "What was I thinking?" Then finally I realized that I could not have possibly written that and checked my original, and, sure enough, there was the missing point and elegant transition. Well, mostly elegant.

Ack.

This is why I try not to look at magazine work after it's been published. Maybe someday I'll rate a final approval on the edit. Right now, I only get that privilege on watat, and that's only because I'm in charge.

Posted by adrienne at 01:39 AM | Comments (8)

December 12, 2005

There Are My Two Favorite Boys

Posted by adrienne at 01:22 PM | Comments (6)

They Made Me Queen for a Day at Work

This is what my office looks like today. Little do they know I'm never taking this stuff down.

Posted by adrienne at 09:51 AM | Comments (6)

December 11, 2005

In Which Adrienne Freaks Out Because She’s Turned 32 and Finds Herself Again Out of Veronica Mars DVDs

WHY ARE THERE NO POSTAL SERVICES ON SUNDAYS? WHY? WHY? WHY?

AND DOESN’T VERONICA MARS SEE THAT A RECURRING THEME OF HER SHOW IS THAT SOMETIMES IT’S BEST NOT TO KNOW THE TRUTH? DOESN’T SHE SEE THAT SOMETIMES LEARNING THE TRUTH IS A BAD, BAD THING? DOESN’T SHE WONDER WHY HER FATHER’S FINALLY GIVEN UP HIS SEARCH? DOESN'T VERONICA REALIZE THIS IS FORESHADOWNG THE EVENUTAL RESULT OF HER SEARCH FOR LILLY’S KILLER?

I do, and it's kind of starting to stress me out.

And Veronica's going to be sorry when she figures out that finding Lilly's killer is not going to make Lilly any less dead. Poor Veronica.

Oooo! Pretty snow outside! I’ll go look at that now.

Posted by adrienne at 09:17 AM | Comments (5)

December 10, 2005

I Am Really Tired

And, besides that, Lucas told me today that it was a good thing I was getting my hair cut because it looked "really bad." It's really not the same if you don't hear Lucas say it because, for whatever reason, he sounds like a valley girl when he says "really," which just makes it sound all the more full of disdain.

After my haircut, I asked him if my hair looked better. He said that it did but that I needed to stop wearing my hat or I'd only mess it up. I asked what I should do if I get cold. He said, "Deal with it."

See if I ever let him eat cheese and pickles for lunch again.

Posted by adrienne at 09:28 PM | Comments (1)

December 09, 2005

Obviously Max Has the Same Problem with Authority the Rest of Us Have

Yeah, so, Tam called me at 1:00am because she’d gone into labor. I reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to be going into labor, but her attitude was pretty much, “This f-ing hurts. I’m packing a bag and getting out of here.” So I drove over to the Pritchard estate, and Tam and Ron flitted off to the hospital. Meanwhile, Lucas decided that he and I needed to go to the hospital. I thought this was a great plan, as I, like Lucas, wanted to be as close to Tam as possible until I knew she was okay. So Lucas got ready and then we came back to my house so I could get ready, and then we had a harrowing journey to the hospital while it was snowing on hideously icy roads.

Then there we were. It was about 2:30. From 2:30 until Lucas finally fell asleep (sitting up in a chair) at about 4:30, we sat in the maternity waiting room reading books and drawing pictures and waiting for periodic updates from Ron. I was getting seriously annoyed because Tammy’s contractions were getting closer and closer together, and they weren’t giving her pain medication quickly enough as far as I was concerned. It’s hard to be the one in the waiting room with the kid when you want to be in the one in the room telling the hospital staff what the heck they should be doing, and I’m WAY better at that than Ron is on account of I’ve had a lot of hospital experience and can also be somewhat assertive.

It all worked out, though. Lucas was really, really good, all things considered. Even I found it difficult to be woken up at 1:00 in the morning with this unexpected news, and we were both feeling excited and exhausted and worried. Lucas drew quite a litany of monster pictures, including one he gave to me of, in his words, “a big old dragon thing eating you.” Tammy finally got her pain meds, and Max was safely delivered via c-section at 8:18am. He’s 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 19 ¾ inches long – much smaller than Lucas when he was born. In many ways, he looks a lot like Lucas when he was an infant, but Max’s head isn’t quite so big. Tammy was doing well when I left the hospital (obviously profoundly tired and somewhat uncomfortable, but no more than you’d expect), and I was glad to have some opportunities to fetch her things and get assertive with the hospital staff. I got to hold Max for a while, and he sneezed and hiccupped while I was holding him (cute, cute!), and he didn’t cry at all. He also has been doing this thing where he opens one eye and leaves the other closed. That’s pretty freaking cute, too.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I’d told Lucas about the baby grabbing reflex and told him we should try it when we met Max. So while I was having my quality Max time, Lucas came over to get a better look at the baby. We dug Max’s hand out of all his blankets and clothes, he opened his little fist, Lucas laid his finger in Max’s palm, and Max grabbed tight. You should have seen Lucas’s eyes light up. It made the part where I only got about two hours of sleep very worthwhile. Lucas and I also discussed how very freaking cute Max’s little tiny fingernails are.

I don’t have digital photos here at home yet, but you can bet they’re coming. And now I need to take a nap and then a shower because I am tired and I smell (and look) less than pretty.

Posted by adrienne at 01:50 PM | Comments (6)

December 07, 2005

Look at Me!

That’s right! I’m skipping Pilates! No Enya or painful work on abdominal strength for me today!

Instead, I’m hanging around in my sweatpants listening to carols (The Chipmunks) and writing out Christmas cards. I’ve asked Benny to go to the Leaf and Bean and get me a latte at least three times, but he has his myriad of excuses: no money, no opposable thumbs, inability to drive, crippling fear of the outdoors, blah, blah, blah.

It seems to me that December should be less about pushing your way through crowded stores attempting to sort through overstocked shelves and more about hanging out in your PJs attempting to persuade your neurotic cat to get you a hot beverage.

Of course, I have recently braved the stores on what seems like a futile attempt to acquire a large, live wreath for the chimney. You’d think this would be an easy thing to find, but no. I can find small, live wreaths that might be suitable for my door but are completely inappropriate for the chimney. I can find large wreaths that are fake and, what’s more, unattractive. I do not know why I have been cursed to a life of torment.

Posted by adrienne at 10:15 AM | Comments (14)

December 04, 2005

Dreams

This is another recurring dream: I’m looking for Bri. I usually have an idea where he is and sometimes I have the sense he’s avoiding me. For the longest time, I never found him. I only started finding him in my dreams this past summer, and when I manage to find him, it always turns out that he can’t speak.

He did speak in a dream, but only once toward the end of the summer – and it was a different pattern entirely. I was working at McDonald’s in a mall and suddenly realized that I needed to leave to go meet Bri, which I did. I found him in the middle of the mall, which looked strangely like WPL’s central lounge, and I had this sense that I hadn’t seen him in a while, but not why. We talked and talked and talked in that dream, and then he walked me back to McDonald’s so I could finish working. I remember waking up that day feeling as good as I’d felt in a long time. The whole dream felt comfortable and happy, a welcome relief.

Not so much with the searching dream. I had it again last night, again I found him, and again he couldn’t speak. (Notably Dad and I were living back at the house in Hamlin, and there was a strange subplot involving a neighbor child who everyone said committed suicide but who I believed was murdered. So while I was looking for Bri, I was hampered by the need to elude the murderer, who I felt was lurking about. I don’t know what that was all about, and I probably don’t want to know.) I woke up this morning with such a strong sense that I needed to go find Bri, and, although I remembered that he was dead pretty quickly, it took me a good half hour to shake the feeling that he might be nearby, just out of reach.

Last week, I spent some time with a woman from high school who lost her husband in July. It was good to talk to her. There are so many things I think only another widow can truly appreciate (among them the absurdity of saying you “lost” your husband or referring to your husband as “late”), and I found it comforting to be around someone who understood those things. Of course, it was also jarring to be in the presence of someone whose loss is still so fresh. On the one hand, I really saw and appreciated how far I’ve come and how much my life has moved on. On the other, I felt like I had to shelter this poor woman from how much the widow thing is still going to suck for her a year from now. Some days the simple fact that Bri’s dead has the power to flatten me; my mind is somehow still trying to figure it out, even when I’m sleeping.

Maybe tonight will be blessedly dream-free.

Posted by adrienne at 05:28 PM | Comments (2)

December 02, 2005

See What Happens When I Stray From the Living Section?

Look at this article that appeared in yesterday’s newspaper about library thieves. I’ve been aware of this situation but also trying not to pay too much attention to it because I find it upsetting. I’m generally someone who believes in lifting item limits (i.e. letting people check out as many of whatever they want whenever they want), but then there are people who take advantage of our generous and trusting policies, check out our extremely expensive PlayStation 2 games, and then sell them. Jerks.

And after reading Everything Bad is Good for You, I now know that keeping children from PS2 games is akin to preventing them from doing calculus.

Maybe not.

On the positive side, check out the quote in the above article from blogger and watat.com reader Patty Uttaro. Go, Patty! I always sound like a dork when I get quoted (which may stem from the already established fact that I am a dork), which is why I’ve started to avoid talking to reporters, but Patty sounds all directorly and smart.

In other news, Piccadilly's Toy Shoppe is closing. Grrr to that, too.

Posted by adrienne at 09:01 AM | Comments (7)

December 01, 2005

Did You Notice…

…that Jeffrey seems to be gone again? It’s odd how he floats in and out. This is what comes of him being busy and important; it's nothing but trouble. I miss him when he’s not commenting.

Speaking of missing people, Jason’s away until next week, and I think it’s unfair that I have to work when the other Children’s Librarian doesn’t. I mean, let’s just say I go to work and come across a really fun picture book and want to read it to someone…. What am I supposed to do? Thankfully, Olivia and Mary Ann and RuthAnn are tolerant and will listen to me and truly enjoy picture books. Still, though. It doesn’t seem right. I mean, maybe I'll find things I want to delegate to Jason. What am I supposed to do then? Do my work myself? What kind of a system is that?

This is one of the true signs of my dorkiness. I always miss people when they’re away, especially at work. I don’t like the way their lights are off and their doors are closed and their mail piles up and I can’t go talk to them whenever I want.

Thank goodness the Pritchards hardly ever travel. You should have seen me when Tammy went to London for that semester in college. I’m not sure I’ve forgiven her for it yet.

Posted by adrienne at 08:07 PM | Comments (1)

November 30, 2005

“I’m Undecided about You Again”

I’m getting a lot of Adrienne-You-Look-Tireds the past few days. I believe this is because the anxiety dreams I seem to be having all freaking night long aren’t helping me feel rested and relaxed.

My anxiety dreams normally come in one of four patterns:

1. I’ve been sent back to high school to take Physics and Precalc, even though I very clearly have a master’s degree and am living a full and complete life without Physics and Precalc.
2. I’m stuck working at McDonald’s again, even though I very clearly have a master’s degree and shouldn’t have to.
3. This one’s typical. I’m back at college and have completely forgotten about a class.
4. My hairdresser gives me bangs when I’m not paying attention. If you’ve ever grown out your bangs, you understand why this is painful. Nonetheless, I thought I was a freak for having this dream until I found out my very well-adjusted friend Roxanne has it, too.

But last night (or, more precisely, early this morning), I had a new anxiety dream, and Chuck and Jeffrey were there! Somehow, I’d ended up in a play and not only didn’t I know my lines, but I’d also never even read the script and didn’t know what the play was about. I was trying to play it off like I knew what I was doing, but, well, I didn’t.

It’s kind of a metaphor for my life, but I prefer not to think about that too hard. Instead, I think I’m going to have hot chocolate and a cookie.

Posted by adrienne at 12:03 PM | Comments (24)

November 25, 2005

Nostalgia

Did you see how they brought back the Weeble Wobbles and made them stupid? What happened to the wonderful, easily swallowed egg-shaped toys that wobble but don't fall down? I mean, what is the point of Weeble Wobbles that aren't egg-shaped? Those new Weeble Wobbles look like Little People, except for Little People are cool (although they were cooler when I was a kid, too).

Posted by adrienne at 05:10 PM | Comments (14)

November 24, 2005

NOOOOOOOO!: Life from Ella’s Perspective

They’ve been talking for days about cooking the turkey on Thanksgiving, and I was so happy, so excited that they were finally listening to me, but no. They aren’t cooking the kitten, they’re cooking some bird they bought in the store. And I don’t think they’re even planning on giving me any.

I’m not purring today. I’m not even purring a little today. Thanksgiving indeed.

Posted by adrienne at 09:18 AM | Comments (3)

November 23, 2005

Do You Guys Love Today?

I really love today. Today is good: no work, sunshine, pretty snow. Yay!

Posted by adrienne at 09:06 AM | Comments (9)

November 20, 2005

Safety Patrol

When I was small, there didn’t seem to be much question or debate about the way kids ran around relatively unsupervised. For instance, when we got to school in the morning, unless the bus was really, really early, they just let us off and everyone went about their business. Of course, buses in Kendall were going sizable distances, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to arrive at varying times and even to be late. At least it wasn’t uncommon for my bus to be late, as my bus driver repeatedly did things like get the bus stuck in my neighbor’s driveway when she was trying to turn around. She also got the bus stuck in ditches more than once. As an adult, this makes me wonder why they kept letting her drive the bus, but no matter. No one died. That I know of.

This is not how things operate at Lucas’s school in the morning. First off, the busses seem to arrive at the same time. They make the kids wait on the bus until all the busses are in. Then they let the kids all off at once so they go running into the school like an unruly mob. Of course, it’s not as unruly as it could be since they have adults and Safety Patrol kids everywhere telling everyone to SLOW DOWN.

If you get to school early by some other means (such as the car or walking, which is what Lucas and I do), you have to wait ON THE BENCH until all the busses unload. Tammy doesn’t seem to like the bench much, but I love it. Sometimes I bring my string, do string figures, and make friends. Lucas enjoys this ("Look at my entertaining adult!"), as do the other kids. I also like watching the kids, especially the Safety Patrol kids who take their jobs way more seriously than I did when I was in Safety Patrol. For me, the allure of being in Safety Patrol consisted of being able to help Kindergarteners put on their coats and boots at the end of the day and working in the bookstore during recess – both of which I did and both of which were highlights of my elementary school experience. I also recall for a time being one of those Safety Patrol kids who was supposed to tell other kids to stop running in the morning, but, then as now, I didn’t care if the kids ran and didn’t do a damn thing about it. I had that duty (along with bookstore during recess) with Tricia Smith, and all I can remember us doing is talking (and, during bookstore at recess, playing with the merchandise) and calling someone “Tammy Underdoggie” in the kindest and most loving of ways when she was walking up the stairs. The main advantage I can see in today’s Safety Patrol, at least at Lucas’s school, is that they let you off the bus as soon as it arrives. If I was a kid today, I’d be totally into that. Of course, I think this leads to some serious competition for these positions and a consequent overachievement in Safety Patrol duties. These kids are SERIOUS about telling the kids not to run. They are also serious about keeping kids ON THE BENCH until the busses unload. They aren’t satisfied if you sit on the floor next to the bench: no, no, you must be ON THE BENCH. The Safety Patrol kids are continually thwarted in their earnest efforts by Timmy, a spirited young thing who rides his bike or walks to school every day and doesn’t feel the need to conform. I think this is because he doesn’t ride the bus and doesn’t care if he ever gets on Safety Patrol. I’m sure he is equally and refreshingly unconcerned with his chances of getting into Harvard, but I digress. I’m sure I might find Timmy irritating in larger doses, but most mornings (from my vantage point NEXT to the bench, as none of the Safety Patrol kids have yet found the guts to ask me to sit ON THE BENCH, although I believe they’ve considered it), I find him very funny, which one of the many good reasons I’m not an elementary school teacher. I think naughty kids are funny.

I also feel badly for the kids when I see them all stuck there in such a rigid environment. I guess it’s necessary here in the burbs, and I imagine things are probably different in Kendall than they were when I was growing up. But, still, it seems sad to me, like little corners of joy leaking out of the world.

Posted by adrienne at 09:41 PM | Comments (14)

November 19, 2005

Why is It So Cold at WPL?

Well, I know why. It’s an HVAC problem. But it’s so cold in the staff room today that I can’t bear to eat there and am now eating while blogging at my desk. This is not healthy. Everyone knows that a.) desks are germy, b.) bringing food here only makes them more germy, and c.) one should get a comfortable break from the work environment at lunchtime for one’s ever-important (if at times questionable) mental health. So much for “where life is worth living.”

Most of you aren’t working today, and, while I don’t want to imply that you use work time to read my blog, I can’t help but note that this means that many of you won’t even read this today. You may not learn of my (and my coworkers’) suffering until Monday, which seems completely unreasonable.

I could start making some phone calls.

Happily, there are many wonderful things to do in my office. For those of you who haven’t seen it, my office is a (somewhat messy) place filled with many of my favorite things such as my magic 8 balls, puppets, books, post-its, and pens. I also have my Tangles here. I seriously ♥ my Tangles. So it's not all bad. ;)

Posted by adrienne at 01:27 PM | Comments (18)

November 18, 2005

"Snails and Whales"

You’d think this would have occurred to me before now, but it has suddenly come to my attention that Lucas is going to grow up and be a man someday. I had this epiphany when Tam told me about the way a fifth grader called Lucas a “stupidhead” on the bus, and Lu felt the appropriate response would be to hit the fifth grader, which is what he did. Put another way, the fifth grader was disturbed enough by this event to tattle on a first grader who hit him.

This may point out a defect in my personality, but my initial reaction was to wonder what the heck is wrong with the fifth grader. When I confessed this to Tam, she was all, “I KNOW!”

This might explain something about Lucas’s behavior.

However, I prefer to blame the Y chromosome and testosterone, which I believe also explain his recent flagrantly inappropriate use of the word “bitch.”

Posted by adrienne at 01:13 PM | Comments (3)

November 15, 2005

Adrienne’s World-Famous Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease/butter one muffin tin.

In large bowl, combine:
1 ½ c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. clove
¼ tsp. allspice
¼ tsp. salt

In second bowl beat 2 eggs. Stir in 1 c. canned pumpkin and 1 stick melted butter.

Add dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Stir in 1 c. chocolate chips. Spoon into muffin tins and bake 20-25 minutes.

P.S. If you love yourself or the people you’re feeding, you should use Ghirardelli chocolate chips. If you have feelings of apathy, Nestle or Hershey will work. If you’re feeling particularly sinful, it’s fun to put 2 cups of chocolate chips in the recipe.

P.P.S. You can cut the sugar down to half a cup and still have perfectly good muffins. Of course, you’ll ruin the lower-sugar thing if you cut the sugar and then add extra chocolate chips, but, you know, free country and all.

Posted by adrienne at 11:20 PM | Comments (4)

November 13, 2005

Dinner Recipe

6 Double Stuff Oreo Cookies
1 glass of milk (skim)
Yum. This is the real advantage of being a grown-up. I can eat cookies for dinner if I want.

Posted by adrienne at 10:26 PM | Comments (8)

November 10, 2005

Tired

Tired all week. Tired of being tired. Too tired to write something witty. Will watch Ice Princess instead.

Posted by adrienne at 08:21 PM | Comments (13)

November 07, 2005

The Real Result of Watching Too Much Ali G.

I've been half brain-dead all day. I did so many stupid things at work, I can't even remember them all. And, even if I could, I'm feeling too dim-witted to write them up into something entertaining for you all to read.

So I think I'm just going to give up on today and go to bed. The cats will be pleased.

Posted by adrienne at 06:54 PM | Comments (4)

November 05, 2005

Friday

Sometimes I have it rough, and sometimes God throws me a freaking bone.

Posted by adrienne at 05:20 PM | Comments (12)

November 04, 2005

"The Itsy Bitsy Spider"

Apparently this spider was living in my friend's house the entire time I was there watching his dog:

Hello! Yuck! That spider isn't black and red and yellow like my Charlotte. It wasn't making a wise home in the corner of my window near the light by the front door. This spider was just down in the basement being all huge and scary.

Thank goodness I didn't see it while I was there....

Posted by adrienne at 11:20 PM | Comments (5)

November 03, 2005

The Center of the Universe Has a Birthday

The day Lucas was born, he was sick and had to go into special care at the hospital. When I first met him, he was in an incubator under lights and had an enormous IV needle in his little, itty bitty foot.

It was pathetic.

So maybe it’s appropriate that he woke up with strep throat and had to spend his first day as a 6-year-old convalescing. He looked at me funny when I suggested this at dinner, but he really seemed to be enjoying himself when he was sucking down that bubblegum-flavored amoxycillin.

Of course, the best part of the evening for all concerned was the opening of presents. My personal favorite is this Christmas ornament where Godzilla appears to be puking on Tokyo:

In addition to vomiting, Godzilla also lights up and makes a wonderful retching sound. I mean, what more could a boy ask for on his birthday?

Posted by adrienne at 07:37 PM | Comments (20)

November 02, 2005

My Goal In Life

http://muttscomics.com/art/dailyarchive.asp?month=10&date=14&year=2005

Posted by adrienne at 10:16 AM | Comments (6)

October 31, 2005

The Usual Suspects

Ron (unshaven), The Queen (Little Red Riding Hood), Tracy (cat), and Lucas (skeleton)

Posted by adrienne at 10:28 PM | Comments (20)

October 29, 2005

Whew!

Presentation's done. It went well, all three times.

Now I guess it's time to start worrying about those reviews that are due in a couple weeks....

Posted by adrienne at 06:19 PM | Comments (7)

October 28, 2005

T,T,TGIF

But why, why, why isn't it 6:00 yet?

Why?

Posted by adrienne at 04:14 PM | Comments (4)

October 27, 2005

The Day I Set Aside to Work on My Presentation OR Wasting Time with Everyone's Favorite Queen

6:30 a.m.
Wake up. Let Guinness out. Feed Guinness. Eat Oreos and milk. Let Guinness out again.

7:00 a.m.
Go back to bed.

8:00 a.m.
Guinness wakes me up because he wants to go out. Think he’s also trying to tell me it’s time to go to work. Explain to him that I don’t have to go to work and want to sleep. While Guinness is outside, sit on couch and start reading. Fall asleep.

8:15 a.m.
Guinness wakes me up. Realize I don’t remember letting him back in house. Worry I might be developing split personality from undue stress. Realize cat is mysteriously absent. Curse. Realize Guinness somehow opened door from garage to house and cat got out.

8:20 a.m.
Shout out door to tell Ama (cat) that I hope she’s cold and wet.

8:22 a.m.
Go back to bed.

9:45 a.m.
Wake up. Restart internal debate about whether or not I’m going to go to funeral for coworker who died (cancer) over the weekend.

9:50 a.m.
Decide I need to go. Take shower.

10:05 a.m.
Dry hair, get dressed, let Guinness out, find Ama meowing to come in at back door, let Ama in (but give her dirty look), give Guinness more water.

10:30 a.m.
Drive to Webster.

10:55 a.m.
Get to funeral home. Sit in back near door in case I need to leave in middle of service.

11:30 a.m.
Do not leave in middle of service. Cry, though.

11:50 a.m.
Service over. Mingle with/offer support to surviving coworkers.

Noon
Go to library. Call Olivia to tell her about photo of Phil and Olivia dressed in Clifford costume that they showed during service. Also tell her about picture of Phil with Walter the Farting Dog. Also ask her for the title of a new end-of-the-world series for teens that I need to read for my presentation on Saturday. She answers patiently, especially given I just asked her this question yesterday.

12:10 p.m.
Drive to Earthtones for comforting deaf spiced pumpkin mocha latte and cheesecake brownie.

12:15 p.m.
This is where time gets wonky. Attempt to drive to Penfield Public Library to pick up aforementioned book series. Mysteriously end up in Ellison Park. Notice how pretty all the trees are. Turn around and try again to find library. Consider existential issues and the sad lack of adequate writing implements (i.e. fine-point Sharpies and Flair markers) at friend’s house where I am staying. Miss a couple turns. Finally find library. Pick up books. Decide to go to AAA to buy discount tickets to The Little so I can go see Everything is Illuminated. Look! Target! Buy fine-point Sharpies, Flair markers, and some cards. Resist post-its. Don't resist fun Halloween stickers. Go to AAA and get tickets for The Little. Drive back to Palmyra. Pass burning bushes that are all bright red. Wonder why mine never turns bright red. Wonder if mine is turning bright red right now to mock me while I’m away from home.

2:00 p.m.
Back in Palmyra. Blogging.

Posted by adrienne at 02:35 PM | Comments (5)

October 24, 2005

"Getting to Know You"

I'm not what you would call a “dog person.” I’m a “cat person.” It’s not that I don’t like dogs, per se. It’s just that I mostly don’t get them.

And, really, of all the dogs I know, Guinness (the dog I’m watching) is a favorite. He doesn’t jump up on you, he doesn’t slobber all over the place, and he’s really quite unfailingly polite. He’s also something like 125-130 pounds. He’s sitting next to me right now; I’m in a chair, but his head is still pretty much level with mine, which could be scary but isn’t.

The thing is that I don’t really know what a dog like Guinness does with his spare time. What are his evenings usually like? I have no idea.

I understand cats, of course. Like me, they prefer to spend their evenings lolling about in a warm spot, purring. If there is entertainment involved, so much the better. So Ama, who is also a Queen, and I are getting along famously.

I don’t like to think of what my own cats think of my latest absence from home. They’re still mad at me for going to West Virginia.

Posted by adrienne at 08:42 PM | Comments (8)

October 23, 2005

Medusa

First you must know that my friend is traveling, and so I agreed to stay at his house this week to take care of his dog and cat and keep an eye on things.

Second you must know that I was feeling a bit nervous about being out in the middle of nowhere (i.e. Palmyra) for a week until I got my laptop hooked up and my friend’s cat decided to sit here in my lap and purr. It’s just like at home, except my friend’s cat – Ama – is way smaller than my cats and doesn’t cut off the circulation to my legs.

Third you must know that I’ve forgotten my hair dryer and all my hair doodads. And my friend is a man, so, of course, there is no hair dryer here. This is bad. This is very, very bad. My hair is NOT going to be pretty tomorrow. I can’t work without a hair dyer or doodads. I mean, I have a couple hair ties, but they aren’t my good ones.

Fourth you must know that I am supposed to be working on my presentation. Yes, that’s the one I’m giving SATURDAY MORNING. You’d think that I’d have a hard time finding things to distract myself way out here, but anyone can see how I’ve found the Internet. I have also noted that my friend has cable television and some DVDs I’d like to watch. This sort of defeats the purpose of leaving my DVDs and recreational reading at home, and, well, to tell the truth, I didn’t leave ALL of my recreational reading at home. But I meant to. It’s what I should have been leaving behind when I accidentally left behind the hair dryer.

Posted by adrienne at 08:57 PM | Comments (9)

October 22, 2005

Scrabble

"Za" (as in another word for "pizza") is now a legal Scrabble word. Bri and I used to use "za" all the time, and I had no idea a.) that anyone else in the world used this word, and b.) that enough other people were using this word that it could become part of the official Scrabble lexicon (a word which would, incidentally, make one hell of a bingo). In any case, this is a brilliant development.

I have been wanting to play Scrabble ever since Olivia shared this exciting news with me, but, alas, I haven't been able to. I did play Skip-Bo tonight, and, yeah, I won. So that was good.

Posted by adrienne at 08:57 PM | Comments (12)

October 20, 2005

"Don't Let's Start"

On sunny days, drivers have one of two correct choices:

1. turn up their music and drive fast, or
2. slow down because the carcinogenic radiation hurts their eyes.

This morning, I chose option one (1). This was the best option for my long-term health and well-being as it would allow me to go to exercise class at the Bayview Y before work. Sadly, everyone at the 390 split went for option two (2).

I am very well aware of the way the sun is trying to kill us, and I also know that it’s hard for Western New Yorkers to deal with the sunshine, what with it being so rare. But, hello, people. The sun can’t get you in your car. Put on some sunglasses and drive at a normal rate of speed.

And stop talking on your cell phones. Everyone else can see the sun; you don’t need to call to tell people about it.

This might not have totally derailed my plans for long-term health and well-being, but several people on the other side of the city chose option one (1) when they clearly should have chosen option two (2). So they had a multiple-car fender-bender (i.e. another freaking slowdown for me).

By this time, I knew I was missing class, so I had to make new decisions. They included:

1. going to Earthtones and getting a raspberry chai latte (yes, the kind with caffeine, GET OFF MY CASE!!!),
2. getting an Egg McMuffin, and
3. blogging.

So, in summary, instead of exercising, I ended up consuming a large amount of calories, fat, and caffeine while sitting on my butt.

I feel like I’ve spent most of this week blinking at the world, wondering what the heck is going on.

Now it’s time to blink at work.

Posted by adrienne at 09:12 AM | Comments (13)

October 17, 2005

What DID You Do When You Went to the Bathroom? or Friday Night with Audrey and Joelle

**Note: Most names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent (i.e. the Queen, from inconvenient libel suits).**

Not so long ago, the always illustrious Joelle decided to shake things up and made a policy of trying to do new things. A while before that, the universe decided to screw with Audrey, even though everyone knows she’s not the sort of woman you screw with, and so Audrey found herself compelled to institute a policy of not letting life scare her.

This is why people enjoy reading about Audrey and Joelle’s adventures.

This past Friday, Audrey and Joelle decided to take some good advice they found on watat.com and go see Richard Gagnier’s comedy show at Daily Perks. That’s when Joelle found herself out on a Friday night with not just the one Children’s Librarian she’s used to but THREE Children’s Librarians (two of whom were male and all of whom were dressed in black in an effort to disguise their Children’s Librarianishness) and one Product Training Specialist. So this was quite far from just another night watching porn with the other law students, although the assembled revelers discussed porn several times throughout the evening, which helped Joelle endure when the Children’s Librarians broke into spontaneous renditions of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

Richard’s show was great, incidentally, so I hope that SOME PEOPLE who might think they can hide behind the name “Ani” (but who can’t because WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE) and decided to do SOMETHING ELSE with their Friday than spend a FABULOUS evening with two FABULOUS women watching an EXCELLENT comedy show had fun with less fabulous people in Buffalo or wherever they might have been. Speaking hypothetically, of course.

JAFA, FSOCS, and a new friend, let’s call him “Aloisius,” were more than sufficiently entertaining, and our heroines had a wonderful evening – dinner at Magnolia’s, the show at Daily Perks, the customary post-game show at MacGregor’s, and then more fun at Lux. The girls are busily planning more blog-worthy adventures but find that school, work, and money are the enemies of many good ideas. That is why they are attempting to form a non-profit organization to organize and fund their expeditions. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available....

Posted by adrienne at 01:14 AM | Comments (15)

October 16, 2005

Stuff I Learned in My Recent Trip to West Virginia

I heard the word "cattywompas," which I rather like. It reminds me of "kerfuffle."

We also learned that they have haunted everythings in Pennsylvania: haunted houses, haunted hayrides, haunted barns, haunted pumkin patches, and even this. Of course, if people find Jason's Woods terrifying, they should try working with him.

Posted by adrienne at 03:12 PM | Comments (2)

October 13, 2005

Angst

I woke up at 3:00am feeling all angst-y and finally decided to get out of bed at 4:00. If I’m not sleeping, I might as well do something useful.

I keep questioning what exactly it is I’ve been doing with my life and where, exactly, I want my life to go. And I don’t see clear answers. It’s hard to know what it's all about sometimes.

Ella says it’s about eating; Benny says it’s about turning on the water.

This is all ignoring the fact that I’m pretty sure the spider who was living on my front porch died. I know this is to be expected and that she was sort of creepy and everything, but I still feel sad about it.

As Momster says, this, too, shall pass. Not just now, though. Sigh.

Posted by adrienne at 04:25 AM | Comments (21)

October 11, 2005

And Sometimes (Okay, a Lot of Times) We Ate

Here we are at Shaharazade's Exotic Tea Room in Shepherdstown. (L-R: Mike, Anne, Mary Ann, Me)

Posted by adrienne at 09:10 PM | Comments (6)

October 10, 2005

Mary Ann and I Make the Acquaintance of a Local Celebrity

I know this seems like something I’d make up, but we really met the winner of last year’s Berkeley Springs Apple Butter Festival’s hog-calling contest.

Posted by adrienne at 09:02 PM | Comments (6)

October 09, 2005

Isn't This What Everyone Does in West Virginia?

L-R: Mary Ann, Me, Anne

Posted by adrienne at 09:00 PM | Comments (5)

October 08, 2005

Mary Ann Kept Me Up Very Late

Who knew that Mary Ann K. was such a night owl? She's had me up past midnight for three nights running. It's shocking, really.

It's shocking the way Anne keeps staying up that late, too.

They might be bad influences on me, but I don't think so. I'd like to be just like both of them when I grow up.

Now I should take a shower. We're going to an apple butter festival in Berkeley Springs today, and, even though it's still raining out, I should make an effort to look/smell pretty.

Posted by adrienne at 10:54 AM | Comments (9)

October 07, 2005

Hello from West Virginia!

So apparently it hasn't rained here all summer.

It's raining today. Lots of rain.

Which is, I suppose, good for something. I was sort of down with the drought, but whatever.

We spent Wednesday night at Elizabeth's college in Reading, PA, which was fun and, notably, the first night I ever spent in a dorm. Yesterday we stopped by Hershey, PA on the way here and went to the chocolate factory. The air smells like chocolate there, which was both wonderful and disconcerting. When we finally got to the Mummas, we ate fajitas and chocolate chip pumpkin cookies and we talked and talked and talked. Anne and I also read picture books -- bliss!

Hope all is well with all of you....

Posted by adrienne at 10:33 AM | Comments (7)

October 03, 2005

Manolo Does This in His Blog, and Now I’m Copying Him

Reading (LOVE)

Reading (review book, major suckitude)

Listening (someone seriously owes me an IOU)

Watching (funny ha-ha, not funny-funny)

Watching (and being pretty darned disappointed)

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

October 02, 2005

I Sent in My Review!!!

Huzzah!

Posted by adrienne at 09:22 PM | Comments (7)

September 30, 2005

The Frindle Effect

Many thanks to Sabrina for this very evening making “watat” a verb.

watat (wah'tat) v. watated, watating, watats. 1. To spend time reading, writing entries for, or posting on WATAT.com

Examples of proper usage:

“Sorry, Jude, I can’t take the nanny position; I’m too busy watating.”

“I watated for two hours straight yesterday.”

“Go watat.”

Posted by adrienne at 10:37 PM | Comments (8)

September 29, 2005

And Now I'm Getting a Cold

Which, really, serves me right for working with kids. Germy little things.

And I'm really too busy for this.

Posted by adrienne at 07:25 PM | Comments (4)

September 28, 2005

In Honor of Sal and Chin-Loo's Impending Move...

...I'm feeling the need to listen to "The Llama Song" repeatedly. Now you can, too! I know you missed it....

Of course, now it's time for me to retire now and become a duck. Or go to work. Whatever.

Posted by adrienne at 10:51 AM | Comments (8)

September 27, 2005

Procrastination

So I’ll be doing a Table Talk presentation at the NYLA Conference at the end of October. I’ve known for months that I need to get ready for this, but have I? No.

No one on the conference committee is reading this blog, are they? If so, of course I’m just kidding. Ha, ha. No need to read any more of this entry. No, sir.

So, really, I haven’t done a damn thing. I’ve given this presentation before, so it’s a simple matter of updating the bibliography and reading a few books. This wouldn’t be such a big deal, especially if I’d start doing it. But for some reason I don’t. For some reason, I’d rather talk about it and worry about it and blog about it.

Then there’s the part where I haven’t started reading the book I’m supposed to have reviewed by Saturday.

And I didn’t finish reading the book I reviewed at Tuesday Tantalizing Titles today.

And anyone can see that I haven’t painted the molding in my bedroom yet.

The thing is that I’m almost always doing something, but I can never seem to catch up. So stuff doesn’t get done. It’s interesting the way stuff other people might not consider a priority – such as blogging – takes precedence over these other things. I really don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm pretty happy most of the time. So I guess I won't worry about it too much.

Posted by adrienne at 11:07 PM | Comments (3)

September 26, 2005

"Sail Away"

So I’ve been doing Pilates on a fairly regular basis for a little over a year at the Y. I usually go to an hour-long class on Wednesday mornings. After half an hour, I start to notice how tired I’m getting. After 45 minutes, I start to think I can’t take any more. That’s when I start asking myself why I keep doing this and who wants to be fit anyway and wouldn’t I be happier at home reading a book or blogging or attempting to replace fillings in my own teeth. I always finish the hour, but it’s only because I refuse to give up when there are old ladies in the room who can do half the moves better than me and aren’t breaking a sweat.

The instructor would be a good example of this, except that she can do *all* the moves better than me. When she’s not teaching Pilates, she drives a school bus. I hope those kids know not to mess with her, because she might look small, but she could totally kick their asses.

Another peculiarity of my instructor is her choice of music. She likes to play Enya during class, which is, I guess, supposed to be relaxing. I don’t find it relaxing. Pilates isn’t even supposed to be relaxing. You want to relax? Go to Yoga. (But please, please, please God, don’t let my Yoga instructor start playing Enya.) It’s gotten to the point where I have a kind of Pavlovian response and am about two steps away from balling myself into a fetal position when I hear Enya in a store or wherever.

Although, no offense to any fans, I wasn’t exactly smiling when I heard her before. I was quite happily indifferent to Enya before she became the musical accompaniment to my weekly torture session.

If I wasn’t afraid of my instructor, I might suggest that we listen to something fun like the White Stripes during class.

Maybe I should take up kickboxing.

Posted by adrienne at 06:50 PM | Comments (8)

September 25, 2005

BLTs

Why are they so good and, yet, so evil?

Excuse me while I go eat another.

Posted by adrienne at 07:14 PM | Comments (18)

September 24, 2005

Crap, Me Hearties!

We all missed "Talk Like a Pirate Day" on September 19!!!

At least I have it on the calendar now, so hopefully next year I won't fail my faithful readers....

On another topic, I got Season 1 of The Family Guy on DVD. I watched a few episodes, and I don't get what all the fuss is about. Anyone out there to enlighten me as to why I should be loving this show?

Posted by adrienne at 01:07 PM | Comments (14)

September 21, 2005

The Teen Area of the Pittsford Community Library

The teen area at the new library is a wonderful combination of Good Ideas and Bad Ideas. The design incorporates a lot of interesting ideas and takes some chances, and I wonder how it’s all going to work out for them.

I have to start with the study carrels. Their teen area has the coolest study carrels I’ve ever seen in my life. And, so, okay, they’re the only study carrels I’ve ever seen that could even remotely be described as “cool” and perhaps it says something about me that I can get excited about study carrels – but, trust me, they’re really, really cool. All the furniture in the teen room is nice: funky without making the mistake of being very here-today-gone-tomorrow.

The teen area also has a bunch of gizmos with headphones where you can listen to one of five music stations – the fifth being one where visiting teens can put in their own CDs. And this is where things get interesting. When you put your CD in the player, it plays on *everyone’s* station five, which just seems weird to me. I mean, if you have a CD with you – and you live in Pittsford – wouldn’t you also have your portable CD player with you? Better yet, haven’t you moved on to an iPod? Then again, if they do have CDs, maybe all the kids will want to have *their* CD on station 5. Or maybe they’ll feel weird about the way any old person can come along and listen to their CD. I guess it gives people a way to listen to CD’s they’ve checked out in the library, but it seems a little awkward to me.

There’s also the fact that they have the CD player and radio equipment in a nook in the back of a room with no service desk (i.e. staff). I felt perfectly comfortable hanging out back there fiddling with the equipment. Imagine the mischief I could have created!

It’s a bit disturbing the way there are no sight lines from any staff desk to the teen area. Not that there are in Webster, either, but the teen area in Pittsford is also much more secluded – really its own room.

I see what they were thinking with the location of the teen area: it’s close to the Reference Desk, homework materials, and the computer area. And that was a good idea.

And, even with my criticism of their listening stations, I told Olivia that we should get some just like them. This is because I can be a bit of a hypocrite. Only sometimes.

Posted by adrienne at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Rant OR Why I Still Feel Good About Working at the Webster Public Library

While I don’t want to take away from Pittsford’s achievement with the new library, I did notice a few things that I would find troubling if I worked at the Pittsford Community Library.

First – The AV is on the first floor and the Reference Desk is on the second floor. Does this mean the Reference Staff is going to be running up and down the stairs all the time to fetch DVDs to put on the hold shelf? Or are they going to be able to transfer those calls downstairs? Will there be a person dedicated to this sort of thing or will someone at the circ desk have to do this? How many people is it going to take to run this place efficiently, anyway? How are they going to pay for all this?

Second – As Tammy sagely pointed out, it would be a very Bad Thing if Jason and I had to share office space that had a window patrons could see through, as the children's staff in Pittsford is now doing. First, I believe having individual offices to retreat to has on more than one occasion prevented acts of violence. Second, neither one of us keeps our offices in the kind of shape that makes you want to install a window so patrons can see how neat and organized we are. That’s more Diane’s thing.

Third – They have this structure in their picture book/little kid room that might best be described as a jungle gym. They’re calling it a reading area, but even I had the urge to climb on the thing. Hello, losing battle.

Fourth – Speaking of the picture book area, it’s totally cramped. There isn’t enough floor space for little ones to be crawling/toddling around, and there is barely enough room on the shelves for the existing collection. That’s going to turn into a problem quick.

Fifth – The “drive up” book drop is quite striking but is also very likely to cause fender benders. You have to drive in, drop off your books, and then back out, INTO THE ROAD THAT RUNS ACROSS THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THE PARKING LOT. That's going to be trouble. Either that or people aren't going to "drive up," which sort of defeats the purpose.

Sixth – The Teen Area, but that’s another entry.

Posted by adrienne at 10:54 PM | Comments (12)

September 19, 2005

We Interrupt Adrienne’s Planned Three-Day Rant on the New Pittsford Community Library to Celebrate the Realization of Long-Term Goals

If you haven’t heard me go on (and on and on) about the continuing saga of the 2005-2007 NYS Parent and Child Services Grant to serve homeschoolers, it’s because you’ve tuned out the endless drone of my voice and typing. This has been one of my favorite topics of conversation since, well, a long time. I first had the idea for the grant in August 2004. It took several months to get things rolling and find willing partners, namely: Cathy Kyle of Parma and WATAT.com commenting fame, Jenn Lindsey of Chili and recent second-motherhood, and Cathy Henderson of Brockport and then Greece. We spent December and January planning and writing the grant. We submitted the grant. And then we waited and waited and waited.

Finally, they notified us at 8:47am on the first day of the first grant year – July 1 – that we were awarded the grant. And then we waited and waited and waited.

And now, over a year after I had the original idea, over eight months after we submitted the grant, and nearly three months into the first grant year – we finally got the money!!!

It was so exciting, I hardly knew what to do with myself. First of all, there was the novelty of holding a check for $35,000 in my hand. Then there was the fun of running around to show everyone the check. Then there was the fun of calling and emailing people to tell them the good news. Then, at long last!, I heard from Anne Simon from the State Library, and she answered a couple questions I had so that we can finally, actually, really start work on the grant.

It’s a little surreal to have something that I’ve been trying to make happen and wishing would happen for so long to suddenly happen, but I’m really feeling great tonight.

I hope that doesn’t mean I’m going to bomb at my first session of story time for 4’s and 5’s tomorrow morning….

Posted by adrienne at 07:04 PM | Comments (9)

September 17, 2005

Neuroses

The thing is that lately I’ve been worrying about how much time I spend writing vs. how much I actually publish (much less how much I publish that I get paid for). As regular readers of my blog, you may have noticed that writing isn’t just a fun hobby for me. It’s a little more like a compulsion, the same sort of thing that makes other people decorate their homes in a Star Trek motif or attend Pennsic. I’ve been spending a pretty significant part of every day writing since I was about 11 or 12.

If only I’d been spending all that time working on The Great American Novel or something else I could sell! I’ve always loved writing letters and sending mail, and I continue to keep up a sizable correspondence. And, of course, now we have the next best thing to passing notes in study hall: email. I wrote stories as a kid for the fun of it, without a thought in my head of publishing. I don’t know if any of it was any good, since, being the creature of sentiment that I am, I threw it all out. I’ve kept journals through much of my life, but I’ve thrown most of them out, too, as I usually end up writing the most mortifying things in my journals. I decided to stop throwing them out after my husband died, though, as I suddenly wished I had some of the ones I’d thrown out while we were married, so at least now I have something solid to show for my efforts. Of course, I also keep my journals hidden where no one would ever find them.

I really only started seeking out publication as a way to justify how much time I spend writing. The truth is that I’ll write whether or not anyone’s reading it or paying me for it.

And I don’t know why. Lots of other people seem to live complete and full lives without keeping blogs or sending people weird postcards or writing essays about the big ugly spiders that have taken up residence on their front porches.

Posted by adrienne at 09:13 PM | Comments (8)

September 16, 2005

On the Flip Side, Here's Benny

Note how the white spot on his nose is all crooked. That's so cute!

Posted by adrienne at 10:16 AM | Comments (4)

September 15, 2005

By Popular Demand

Ella
Notice her quiet elegance. Also notice the yellow walls in the background. Nice.

Posted by adrienne at 10:39 AM | Comments (10)

September 14, 2005

The 40 Year Old Virgin

I got proofed tonight when I bought my ticket to see The 40 Year Old Virgin. Brilliant!

After that, who cares how the movie was?

Funny, though. It was really funny.

Posted by adrienne at 10:34 PM | Comments (4)

September 12, 2005

"She's the One that They Call 'Old Whatsername'"

**Note: Some names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent.**

**Another Note: Feeling the need to read about Audrey and Joelle's adventures again and again? Now they're a category! Check it out on the sidebar.**

Shockingly enough, everyone’s favorite party girls, Audrey and Joelle, have not appeared on the blog since June. They’ve been busy, though, on their quests for beauty, fun, spiritual enlightenment, and a brand-new purple car.

Joelle got the car. Audrey’s still driving the Escort her father gave her.

This past Saturday found the girls in Buffalo eating dinner at the Falafel Bar on Elmwood. As happens so often to this fabulous and popular duo, they Got Recognized. When they were on their way out of the restaurant, who should they run into, but Ani DiFranco. Now you’d think Ani could hold it together, but, no, she was like, “Oh my God! It’s you girls! From the blog! Look at those shoes you’re wearing! Oh my God!”

The girls never know what to do with this sort of unwanted attention, so they nodded and tried to keep walking. Ani was having none of it, though. “Do you guys think you could sign a napkin? Maybe you have one left that you used tonight that you could sign?”

“Ew! No way!” said Joelle.

“You know we don’t do autographs,” said Audrey.

“The thing is we don’t like to encourage our fans. They’re a little scary,” said Joelle.

The girls attempted to get back to Joelle’s new car without attracting more attention, but it’s hard when you’re super-fantastic.

But here’s a shout-out to Ani: don’t worry, if you keep working on that tendonitis thing, maybe someday you can be super-fantastic, too.

Posted by adrienne at 09:20 AM | Comments (12)

September 11, 2005

Help for Homeless Hurricane Victims

The Leaf and Bean has started collecting brand-new packaged underwear to send to a church in Texas that is then distributing the underwear to refugees from New Orleans. It turns out there’s a huge demand for underwear because people with sense don’t donate old underwear to charity because – YUCK – who wants to wear someone else’s old underwear? You know how important I think underwear is for everyone, so I donated a package of sensible cotton Hanes Her Ways in a variety of eye-catching colors. Those of you who live on the west side might consider donating (I understand they aren’t getting much in larger sizes) and also partaking of the Leaf and Bean’s wonderful assortment of coffees, teas, and desserts. You could also buy one of the t-shirts they’re selling to help a little girl who has cancer.

Those guys at the Leaf and Bean rock.

On another note, some days I find consciousness to be extremely unrewarding. I think I’m going to go in the backyard, take a long nap in the sunshine, and see if that helps.

Posted by adrienne at 03:40 PM | Comments (6)

September 09, 2005

Friday Night

So I ran into one of my former employees at the Old Toad tonight. That former employee would be the vegan who gave up caffeine and doesn’t drink and is only 23. When he stopped by my table, I was both eating meat and drinking beer – double whammy. And I’m sure he could tell that today was one of those rare days where I slipped and let myself have a happy cup of caffeine.

Of course, this guy is also unfailingly nice, so he kindly didn’t point out the way I was heartlessly eating a chicken and imbibing all matter of empty calories. No, he was perfectly friendly: said hello, asked how I was doing, gossiped a little about a mutual acquaintance (i.e. Jason). All very pleasant.

And I really loved that chicken sandwich.

Posted by adrienne at 11:57 AM | Comments (7)

September 08, 2005

Aaaahhhh... the First Day of School

I, for one, love the spiky hair. And that huge bruise he got on his leg while learning a valuable lesson about running on the wooden stairs in my house.

You may also be interested to know that the door behind him is Vickie's door -- that's right, the one he licked even though he won't share cookies with Tam for fear of germs.

Posted by adrienne at 01:16 AM | Comments (18)

September 07, 2005

“Build a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul:” Life from Ella’s Perspective

I’ve given up on trying to kill the kitten. It astounds me that something so stupid could be so lucky.

And I hate to admit it, but I think the kitten might be smarter than it looks. It has the girl completely trained. She hardly ever gives me food when I ask for it, but she’s always turning on the water faucets for the kitten. It just stands by a faucet and meows, and she calls it cute names and turns on the water. I’ve been trying to keep a closer eye on the girl at night in case the kitten is employing subliminal mind-control techniques I haven’t tried.

I think the girl might be the daft one around here. Earlier today, I was lying on a pile of her clothes and the kitten was, as per usual, chasing shadows in the bathtub. The girl walked by and called us “good kitties.” What, exactly, were we doing that was good? The kitten was, I suppose, trying to protect us, even though nothing’s really there. And I was just hanging out nearby in case it hit its head on something. I know it won't kill itself that way, but it’s still fun to watch.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm doomed to a life of torment. I wonder about that most of the time. When I’m not sleeping.

Posted by Ella at 11:16 AM | Comments (12)

September 06, 2005

Lucas’s Future in Babysitting

I took Lucas to the zoo last week with a friend and her children. We were in the parking lot: I was holding Lucas’s hand and Lucas was holding the hand of my friend’s son, Alex. I told Lucas and Alex that they needed to hold tight so we’d all stay safe. That’s when Lucas said to Alex, very quietly, not meaning for any interfering adults to overhear, “Don’t let go, Alex, or you could die.” Alex is three now and seemed to take this in with quiet acceptance.

I, of course, had to laugh, but I tried not to let either of them notice.

Posted by adrienne at 08:58 PM | Comments (5)

September 02, 2005

Even Later

Lee is such an arse.

And why, why, why don't I have the next "The Office" DVD? I guess I'm going to have to watch Comedian.

And my head *still* hurts.

Posted by adrienne at 08:10 PM | Comments (10)

Later

Dawn and Tim so totally have a thing for each other. Look at them! They're so cute!

My head still hurts.

Posted by adrienne at 06:49 PM | Comments (2)

Headache Remedy

I do not know what I did to make my head hurt this badly.

I have:
1. taken Tylenol.
2. eaten some waxed beans with butter.
3. drank plenty of rich, chocolaty Ovaltine.
4. spent the past hour watching “The Office.”

So why is the pain not going away??? I’d tell you to call me with better remedies, but that, of course, would make the phone ring, which would only make my head hurt worse. Sigh.

Posted by adrienne at 05:31 PM | Comments (1)

September 01, 2005

The Next Day

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting my humble abode, I should tell you that a couple years ago I decided to paint the entire main floor of my house (dining room, living room, and weird area with the piano and my desk) yellow. This isn’t a shy yellow. When we first did it, people would come into the house and exclaim something along the lines of, “Wow! That’s yellow!” At night, you can see the middle floor glowing as you approach the house on the street. Some people tell me they can’t look directly at it.

Of course, we also replaced most of the drywall on this floor, and, well, if you’ve ever done drywall work, you’ll know why it’s a good idea to paint the walls something that discourages close examination.

Actually, the yellow was so bright that when we were painting, it started reflecting everywhere so we had trouble telling where we’d painted and where we hadn’t.

So when I say that I put the first coat of the paint on the walls in my bedroom today and found the color alarming – you’ll see that I’m really saying something.

The color is called “Toasted Wheat,” and it’s sort of a light brown. It’s coordinating with this pink-and-sort-of-light-brown striped reading chair I bought to put in there. And I have this idea that I’m going to paint the trim, closet, and closet doors glossy white (which I also did downstairs with the yellow). I think, in the end, that it will look cozy, which is what I was going for as it is my bedroom and everything. And I guess I’m just used to all the bright yellow, but the toasted wheat seems a little dark or something. I took my dad up there and showed him, and he didn't seem alarmed. Of course, this is also the man who refers to part of his living room as "the swamp."

Maybe it will all look less alarming in the morning.

Posted by adrienne at 08:36 PM | Comments (3)

August 31, 2005

For Brian

I don’t remember the first time I saw Brian. I don’t remember learning his name or who he was or what grade he was in or where he lived: none of it. We never had any of those big, defining moments most people in relationships talk about. I don’t remember our first kiss, our first dates weren’t really dates because we were always with Tammy, we had no special song, we didn’t really even have much of a wedding. I think Tammy remembers most of it better than I do.

This is what it is, I guess, when you marry someone you went to school with. I knew Bri for years before we were together, as much as you can know someone who hardly speaks. My earliest memories of him seem like they must have happened in someone else’s life: Bri and Kenny Snell whacking each other in the back of the head in Social Studies, Bri and Cary and Matt playing croquet over at Cary’s one day, Bri sitting behind me in English class one year. I remember that the only thing I could think of to do after I got my driver’s license – July 3, 1990 – was to drive to Brian’s house and tell him the news. That was when I realized, I think, that I was in love with this skinny, shy, freckled boy who drove a Pinto. And Brian was the person I told everything to for the next 14 years, almost half my life. And it makes me mad sometimes to think of the things I can’t remember when I remember with utter clarity the moment I woke up and realized he’d died while I was sleeping, the only time I ever squeezed his hand and he didn’t squeeze back.

He told me I’d be okay, and I mostly am, but I think sometimes about what he’d have to say about this new life I wouldn’t have if he was here to talk to. I think he’d laugh and shake his head and tell me that I’m beautiful, because that’s what he always did. I think one of the things he liked best about me was that he found me to be a nearly endless source of amusement. He’d love watat.com and the way I learned to swim and have been conquering my fear of heights. He’d be proud of me for attempting to learn how to use the grill and operate the thermostat and take care of the taxes. He’d be glad to see the way people are all around me, that I’m surrounded by love and kindness and support all the time. The thing is that, after fourteen years of talking to someone every day, I have a pretty good idea of what he’d say, and often, when I’m writing, I feel like I’m still talking to him.

I miss him anyway.

Posted by adrienne at 09:58 AM | Comments (3)

August 29, 2005

Lucas the Anomaly

The thing about Lucas is that he craves and demands nearly constant attention from the adults in his life.

The thing about Tammy and me and most of our childhood friends is that we didn’t. We were quite the opposite: like the kids in Peanuts, quite content to go about our business with as little adult interference as possible. We liked our parents to give us rides places and provide us with essentials such as money and food, although we all got paying jobs as soon as we could in an attempt to achieve financial independence. And we spent a lot of time hanging around together, but we were all, I think, equally well able to occupy ourselves when no one else was around.

So, you know, I’m completely ga-ga about Lucas, but I keep wondering: what’s up with him? Why does he like all of us so much? Why doesn’t he want to hang out by himself like a normal kid? Why does he insist on having someone accompany him, say, to go to a different floor in my house to find the cats? Why won’t he play on his Super Deluxe Playset in the backyard by himself? Does this mean we’re never going to get him out of the house and that he’ll still be living at Tam and Ron’s (or, alternatively, in my basement – assuming Dad doesn’t still live there) when he’s 40?

I just don’t know. It’s one of those parts of his personality that I can’t relate to. He’s controlling, and that I get, but there’s something more to this. Maybe it will all become clear when he writes his memoirs someday….

Posted by adrienne at 03:37 PM | Comments (7)

August 28, 2005

The Whole Death Thing

So I decided to go through all the sympathy cards I got when Bri died. I saved them all: two boxes' worth. I guess I was wondering if I wanted to keep keeping them or if I was ready to let some of them go. I didn’t open them all, but I was noticing again things like how people I didn’t even know sent me cards and people from all the libraries in the area and people who I hadn’t seen or talked to in years. I also came across two cards from people who have subsequently died themselves. That was weird.

I decided to keep them all for now. At least for another year.

Posted by adrienne at 07:42 PM | Comments (4)

August 27, 2005

Who Invited Him?

Ron’s known Tammy and I for nearly 20 years now. You’d think he’d have figured out the number one rule of dealing with us by now, but he hasn’t. For the uninitiated: don’t tell us we can’t do something unless you want us to go ahead and do it, because that’s what we’ll do. So, anyway, Ron seems to view Tammy’s pregnancy as a disability on par with, say, losing an arm or a leg. For instance, we’re planning a canoeing trip tomorrow, and, in a discussion of said trip, Ron said something like, “Well if the canoe tipped and you weren’t pregnant, you could just swim to shore.” Tammy, of course, pointed out that she could *still* swim to shore. I wasn’t there, but, if I had been, I would have been compelled to add that we’ve been swimming about 2-3 times a week all summer. I daresay the both of us could out-swim Mr. I’ll-Just-Watch-Pimp-My-Ride-and-Punk’d-While-You’re-Gone.

The other issue we keep running into is that before Tam got pregnant, she bought tickets to the U2 concert in Buffalo on December 9. Within a week of finding out she was pregnant, Ron was all, “Well, there’s no way you and Adrienne are going to that concert when you’re nine months pregnant.” To which we replied, “Ha! That’s what you think!” Of course, it has now come to pass that the doctors are planning to surgically remove the baby when the time comes. They’ve scheduled it, in fact, for, well, December 10. On the one hand, as I said to Tammy, what are we going to do the night before? Sleep? We’ll be too excited. On the other, it *is* surgery. But then there’s the part where we really can’t have Ron win an argument like this.

Maybe we’ll just *tell* him we’re going to the concert but really spend the night over here watching movies. That would teach him.

I’m still conflicted, though, so I turned to the thing I rely on during times of confusion and doubt: my Magic 8 Ball collection. Here’s what the balls had to say:

Spongebob Squarepants: Want to see it again?
Series of Unfortunate Events: Outlook wretched.
Muppets: MeeMeeMeeMee!!
Magic Love Ball: Yes dear!
Traditional: Very doubtful.
Shrek: All right, already.
Sarcastic: Whatever.
Personal Affirmation: People like you.
Care Bears: You can count on it.
Magic Date Ball: I don’t know!
Simpsons: Boring!

As is becoming more and more usual, the results are mixed. In all fairness, Ron purchased a few of these items and may have introduced some bias, and I can’t be all that surprised that the answers from Spongebob and the Muppets don’t make any sense.

In any case, it should be noted that, if all goes according to plan, Max’s birthday will be the day before mine.

Posted by adrienne at 01:54 PM | Comments (8)

August 24, 2005

Bad Idea

So it turns out that it's not such a good idea to cut up hot peppers for salsa with your bare hands and then try to put in your contact lenses -- no matter how thoroughly you think you've washed said hands.

The salsa tasted very good, though. That's something.

Posted by adrienne at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)

August 18, 2005

Having the Time of Our Lives at Seabreeze

"Go, baby, go!"
(L-R: Stranger who doesn't understand why they put the "amusement" in "amusement park," Lucas, Sierra)

"Look at me! Look at me!"
(L-R: Woman with stunning shoes, miscellaneous horses)

Do you think I'm going to get in trouble for being a space hog with all these photos on my site? I sort of don't care because they're fun.

Posted by adrienne at 09:21 PM | Comments (17)

August 13, 2005

The Universe Keeps Trucking

Maybe I’ve been a little preoccupied lately.

Normally the Perseids are a big part of my summer, a thing I go out of my way to make sure I see. But I’d forgotten them entirely until I saw the first shooting star on my drive home from Lockport tonight, and then I saw another and another, even on this cloudy night. The meteors are magic – there and gone so fast. They never seem like less of a miracle to me. Reading the news, I see that I just happened to be on the road at one of the best times to see them, the “early morning” hours of Saturday (although, at the moment, it’s feeling more like “late night,” but whatever).

Last year, Tam, Brian, and I watched 10 Things I Hate About You, and then Bri decided to stay home and rest while Tam and I drove out to a dark place to see what we could see – which turned out to be not much. But, as I recall, we had fun looking and laughing and being bitten by mosquitoes who were no doubt trying to give us West Nile Virus. Still, I feel I was owed a few shooting stars this year. It’s funny because even though I go out of my way to see meteor showers, my best viewings have almost always been when I wasn’t planning to see them.

And now I should probably go to bed.

Posted by adrienne at 02:34 AM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2005

Why Jen Will Be Making the Big Bucks: How Adrienne Approaches Conferences

Having been to six major national conferences and three regional conferences in the past two years, you’d think I’d know more about going to conferences than Jen. My answer: yes, and no.

1. Before you do anything else, book a room. The hotels will fill up, and you’ll be sorry if you end up sharing a room with six other people in a dorm somewhere.
2. Several months before the conference, check out a bunch of travel guides for whatever city you’ll be visiting. Tell yourself you’re going to read them soon.
3. When you’ve had the travel guides for six weeks and they’re overdue, return them. Tell yourself you’ll check them out again as soon as your schedule clears up.
4. In the months leading up to the conference, be sure to RSVP to every invitation you get and then stuff the invitations in a folder somewhere. Invitation-only events are way better than open events. They feed you and give you free stuff, and you usually have an opportunity to meet interesting people. This also allow you the pleasure of saying, “Sorry, can’t. I have to run over to a party at the Ritz.”
5. A day or two before you leave for the conference, grab whatever travel guide you can find. Tell yourself you’re going to read it on the plane.
6. Start packing at around 10pm the night before you’re supposed to leave. Tell yourself you’ll start packing earlier next time. Be sure to pack stuff that says “professional yet cute.”
7. Sleep while you’re on the plane because you always book flights that are way too early.
8. When you get to your destination, check in for the conference as soon as possible so you can get any maps, guidebooks, etc… that might be available. Take this information back to your hotel room, read as much as you can stand, and write cryptic notes about where you want to go and when on the one-page map they always give you of the conference hotels/convention center area.
9. Plan to walk to as many things as possible while you’re at the conference. You’ll see lots of interesting things, and you’ll need to work off some calories.
10. While you’re walking around, be sure to call your friends on your cell phone to tell them how much fun you’re having – particularly when you’re in San Diego in January and everyone else is back home experiencing a week of record-breaking low temperatures. This will be the highlight of any conference.
11. It is also a bonus to find free Internet access so you can periodically email/blog about your adventures.
12. Spend your first evening at parties because, unless you’re really new at this or socially inept, you received many invitations for opening-night parties.
13. I don’t care how late you were out at parties, get your butt out of bed early enough the next day so you don’t miss too much of the first day of the trade show. They give out all the best stuff on the first day, so concentrate your efforts there. Your “professional yet cute” attire will help.
14. Are you supposed to be doing committee work? If so, you’re going to have to take some time out of your busy social schedule to fit it in.
15. It is an absolute requirement that you get lost at least two or three times during your trip.
16. Remember at the last possible minute to call the shuttle service to schedule your trip back to the airport.
17. Sleep on the plane home because you are exhausted from running around like a crazy person, wearing impractical party shoes, and hauling around all the booty you acquired.

Posted by adrienne at 01:35 PM | Comments (1)

August 11, 2005

No Time to Talk

I've finally got my hands on a copy of Ready or Not, so I need to go read.

Joy!

Posted by adrienne at 11:04 PM | Comments (3)

August 10, 2005

"Vacation's All I Ever Wanted"

So I'm off work this week. I know I say this every time I have time off, but why does no one pay me to be home? I'm very good at it. Just this week, I have:

1. Watched thought-provoking films such as Capturing the Friedmans and Wedding Crashers.
2. Gotten an adequate amount of sleep, even after I stayed up till 5:00am Sunday night.
3. Brought joy into many people's days by calling/emailing.
4. Learned how to use the gas grill so I could have a dinner party, and then had said dinner party.
5. Cleaned my house. A little.
6. Worked on all sorts of writing no one's paying me to do.
7. Read thought-provoking books such as The Three-Martini Playdate.

This morning, Tracy will be helping me primer my bedroom, and then we will be communing with nature along with Tammy and Lynn and the kids.

If I had money, I'd pay me to stay home.

Posted by adrienne at 09:36 AM | Comments (10)

August 09, 2005

“I’m Not the Kind of Girl Who Gives Up Just Like That”

It seems that Sunday was Big Chicken Day at Letchworth Park.

The thing is I’m afraid of heights. A few of you can back me up on this – for instance, Jen, who had to hold my hand so I could step on the glass floor in the CN Tower when we were in Toronto a few years ago. I’ve been working on this fear, so it’s not as bad as it used to be. On my trip to NYC in June, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge like it was no big deal at all, which would have been pretty unthinkable for me a few years ago.

Those of you who have visited Letchworth Park will know where I’m going with this, and that is the Portage Bridge. In my past visits to Letchworth, I’ve had a difficult time even looking at the bridge from the ground, especially if there were people on it because all I could think was something like, “OH MY GOD THOSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO FALL TO A WATERY DEATH!” This is not an ordinary bridge. It is high: really, really high, and there are big gaps between the railroad ties. If you are afraid of heights, this is a nightmare one step away from bungee jumping.

So I went to the park thinking that I was going to conquer my fear and walk across that damn bridge. When I got there, I parked by the bridge thinking that I’d just go up there, cross it, and be done with it. I got out of the car. I walked up. I looked at the bridge. Then I walked back down, got in my car, and drove down and parked with the sane people at the lower falls. Then I had a beautiful, relaxing walk along the Genesee. I tried to forget about the bridge, even when it came into sight – and, yes, there were people up there flirting with a watery death. I couldn’t ignore the bridge when I was finally standing under it. One of my big rules of widowhood is that I am not going to let my fears control me, so I climbed up and walked out. Well, I walked as best I could considering I was clinging to the railing on the side. For some reason that made me feel better. Thankfully people got out of my way so I didn’t have to have any debates about whether it was more mortifying to ask people to move or to actually let go and walk around them. I got out to the middle of the bridge and thought, “Hey! This isn’t so bad! It’s pretty out here!” I took my hands off the railing, I took a step away from the side, and then I did what you aren’t supposed to do. I looked down. Did I mention that this bridge is really, really high? I could see straight down to the water. Someone’s red bicycle was down there: a victim, I could only imagine, of this evil, horrible, terrible bridge. My ears starting ringing and I felt like I was going to throw up, but I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and just stood there for a bit. When I opened my eyes, I was fine. I even went over to look at the view from the other side. I walked down to the far end. Then, feeling giddy on my way back, I walked down the middle where there are only ties and no metal grate. In my head, I was singing a song. It went like this:

I crossed the bridge!
La, la, la!
I didn’t throw up!
La, la, la!

When I got back to the other side, there was a man a few steps onto the bridge, clinging to the railing as I had been not so long before. He said, “I could never do that.” I told him I couldn’t either, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Several more people asked me how it was and expressed their fear of the bridge on my walk back down, including a really cute guy (not Jon Stewart cute, but still), which made me feel better about the whole thing.

Posted by adrienne at 04:09 PM | Comments (14)

August 07, 2005

Why Don't We Have a Cottage?

(L-R: Jeffrey, Chuck, Me, Tam)

Look at how much fun we're having! I think that if Lucas can have a huge playset in the backyard, Tammy and I should be able to have a cottage. Fair is fair, right?

Posted by adrienne at 11:41 AM | Comments (13)

August 04, 2005

“No One Ever Gets What They Want and That Is Beautiful”

Tammy’s baby is a boy. I’m advocating for the name “Max.” I love that name. Max was my invisible friend when I was a kid and is also the name of the main character in Where the Wild Things Are. Then there are the wonderful Max and Ruby books by Rosemary Wells.

Lucas doesn’t like “Max” or any of the other names we suggested. For a long time, he thought any baby sibling he might have should be named “Lucas.” After that, he moved on to “Godzilla.” Then, fairly recently, it was “Mecha-Lucas 2” or “2” for short. Today, he was gunning for “Little Baby Riceball,” which, you have to admit, has sort of a nice ring: “Little Baby Riceball Pritchard.” Tam and Ron were strangely opposed to this idea.

As far as I’m concerned, though, the first name is set. Whatever they decide to call the baby, I’m going to call him “Max.”

Which leaves us with a middle name. Ron suggested that it should be something that starts with a “V” so that Max’s initials would be “M.V.P.” There is something wrong with Ron, and I’m not sure we should listen to him. Tammy suggested “Harold,” which also has rich roots in Children’s Literature. I think I could get used to that.

Of course, Max was moving around too much during the ultrasound for them to get a good reading on the vessels around his heart. I told Tammy that this might be a bad sign for us. We were sort of hoping for a calm, contemplative, and undemanding child. If we really wanted that, though, I suppose we should have gotten someone else’s DNA involved in the proceedings….

Posted by adrienne at 08:03 PM | Comments (15)

August 02, 2005

My First SLJ Review

Ooo! It has just come to my attention that my very first SLJ review appeared in the July issue. You can't read it on their web site, but you can read it at amazon.com, because I know you're all dying to read my solicited opinions as well as my unsolicited ones.

Posted by adrienne at 08:34 AM | Comments (8)

August 01, 2005

Calling in Sick

One should note that I ate something very spicy right before I went to bed last night, and I only got what I deserved.

I woke up this morning after my alarm had been going off for ten minutes, and I knew pretty quickly that there was no way I was going in to work. I got up, got the cordless phone, and got back in bed to call. I was just starting to feel like maybe I should suck it up and go in because, you know, everyone needs me. That’s when I realized I couldn’t remember the library’s telephone number. You know, the library where I’ve been working FOR OVER THREE YEARS. I could remember the “872” part and, very key, Penny’s extension, but the middle part was completely gone. I laid there for a while trying number combinations in my head, thinking maybe that would trigger my memory. It took me about ten minutes to talk myself into getting up, going downstairs, and looking up the number. But I finally did it.

I imagine that people probably don’t need me when I can’t even remember the library’s telephone number. Heaven forbid someone were to ask me something complicated such as where to find one or more of the books on the freaking summer reading list.

Posted by adrienne at 12:00 PM | Comments (6)

July 30, 2005

Three Steps to Not Making a Living Wage as a Writer

1. Spend a lot of time writing.
2. Spend very little time attempting to sell what you've written.
3. Repeat as necessary.

Posted by adrienne at 02:17 PM | Comments (12)

July 29, 2005

Why I Work with Kids

Kids appreciate me.

They like my stories. They don’t mind when I sing. They clap when I do stuff and draw me pictures and get all excited when they see me.

They think I’m cool because I can do cat’s cradle by myself and wear sparkly nail polish on my toes and know where all the Star Wars books are.

And then, of course, there is the little girl who comes into the library who is just as obsessed with Magic 8 Balls as I am. We have discussions about what Magic 8 Balls we have and which ones we want and which ones are the coolest. She was totally excited when I got my three new Magic 8 Balls last week.

Most adults do not appreciate these things. In fact, in many workplaces, no one would tolerate me telling stories, singing, learning new string figures, wearing sandals, locating and purchasing all the Star Wars books I can find, consulting my Magic 8 Ball collection, and expecting nearly constant positive reinforcement.

I’m lucky I found librarianship early in life, because I have no idea what else I could do to earn money that would make me this happy – besides, of course, getting paid to stay home and read and write. That would be good, too.

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

July 26, 2005

Brilliant!

The Leaf and Bean can make decaf lattes! With skim milk!!!

Posted by adrienne at 08:04 PM | Comments (5)

July 23, 2005

Dinner Recipe

1. Salt pot of water and bring to boil. Coarse sea salt is best, but whatever.
2. While water is heating up, snap stem ends off fresh green/waxed beans.
3. Cut up and wash beans.
4. Eat several raw beans during this process to ensure that they haven't been poisoned by your enemies.
5. Boil beans for about 4 minutes.
6. Drain and serve with butter.
7. Repeat every night for a week straight. I haven't gotten tired of them yet. In fact, I just went to the farmer's market and bought more. Yummy!

(And I don't want any culinary geniuses taking joy out of my life by pointing out how it's healthier to steam the beans, because I already know. And I don’t care. And, yes, the butter's organic.)

Posted by adrienne at 10:02 AM | Comments (3)

July 21, 2005

"Yes. No. Maybe. I Don't Know. Can You Repeat the Question?"

Question:
Was it a good idea for me to buy a few new Magic 8 Balls online?

Answers:
Traditional: You May Rely on It
Magic Date Ball: Not a Chance!
Simpsons: Go Away, Eating
Snicket: Reply Dismal Try Again
*NEW* Muppets: Sheesh!
*NEW* Shrek: Fine, I Guess
*NEW* Care Bears: The Answer is Yes

I think there may be some sibling rivalry issues going on here. Why can't they all just get along?

Posted by adrienne at 11:21 PM | Comments (4)

July 20, 2005

Death Day

So we’re now officially six weeks away from Brian’s death day. It’s starting to make me nervous. It doesn’t make me sad, exactly; it’s just kind of freaking me out. It’s a lot like when I turned 30 and felt like that meant I was a real grown-up and should have my life figured out. Now I feel like I’m going to be done with my Widow Year and should have my life figured out. As we all know, I did not have my life figured out when I turned 30, and I certainly don’t have it figured out now. Not that it’s bad. I feel happier and more together than I’ve felt in a long time, but my life is still filled with unanswered questions and problems that I’m not sure how to approach.

I think the thing is that my life will always be like that.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like to spend August 31. First off, I will spend much of the night of August 30 watching Sex and the City on DVD. That’s what Brian and I did for *hours* the night before he died, and that’s how I want to honor him this year. He would approve heartily. The 31st, though, is a different sort of day. I think it was Craig who told me months ago that I should spend the day with people, celebrating my year of survival. At the time, I didn’t agree with him, but now I do. I felt like I might need to spend that day remembering Brian, but it turns out that I don’t need to set aside special time for that. For me, this is feeling like a rite of passage, something that I need to mark with food and friends and, I hope, lots of laughing.

Any ideas from the peanut gallery?

Posted by adrienne at 11:11 PM |