Things done this weekend:
Finished:Â The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Started:Â The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Watched:Â The Break-up and the special on Saturday Night Live in the 80’s
Did: A lot of painting. A lot of painting.Â
Sighed over:Â The carpet we bought ten days ago at IKEA, which Ophy has already destroyed.
Saw: Lots of family, including Nancy, van, Saba, Mafa, Uncle Bob, Dan, Carol, and Dad.
Talked to:Â Jean.
Woke up this morning:Â Tired.
I had hoped to catch up with blog entries this week, since Jim and I are on vacation, but our home improvement projects are taking up a bit more time than I had anticipated. (Today we worked on installing new clapboards up to the peak on the front of the house, struggling with the shallow angle of the roof and with the gawking of the NStar crews upgrading the power lines along our street.)
With that in mind, this blog is officially on vacation until Monday, August 27. See you here again then!
Though I was truly honored to be chosen as a reviewer for that publication I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve officially submitted my resignation to them. After writing 15 reviews on 27 books (if you count my audition reviews, it’s really 18 reviews for 30 books) in the last three months, it was time to retire.
If I had no other commitments in my life, I think I’d actually enjoy writing reviews. But it was just plain TOO much to try to squeeze the reading of the books, the background research, and the writing of the reviews into my already jam-packed days. With my library and tutoring schedule, I often leave home at 9 in the morning, not to return until 8 at night, hungry for dinner. Once dinner is in my belly, that leaves an hour or so to read review books (with my exhausted eyes) before bedtime.Â
Granted, my tutoring has ended for the summer, so there’s more free time in my schedule now. But we ARE trying to finish the painting and siding of the house, as well as the installation of the new windows that arrived on Tuesday, and the gardens need some major weeding already.
So what this all comes down to is establishing priorities in one’s life. Life is short, and I want mine to be about more than just how many hours I can work in a week. For me, something had to give in order to remain sane, and I chose book reviewing.Â
It’s been a yucky weekend. I’m working on finishing up the five reviews on eight books that I owe – had set aside this entire weekend to finish them – but I’ve ended up doing most of the remaining reading while sitting in the reception area of Animal Emergency Care.
Rudy has had a few instances in the last month and a half of ill health: he’d stop eating for a day or two, and be terribly lethargic, then, just when we started to be worried, he’d bounce back and be his regular hungry active self again. This past Friday morning Jim woke up to feed the cats and found several puddles of cat-puke on the carpet; he fed the cats breakfast as usual, and Rudy declined to eat. Then he didn’t eat dinner Friday evening, either, and threw up some more. Nor did he eat Saturday breakfast. When I got home from work Saturday afternoon, he was vomiting clear puddles of puke, not a trace of food left in his body.
So Jim and I debated, and finally decided that I’d take Rudy over to Animal Emergency Care. Rudy and I waited, and waited, and waited, for three hours. While Rudy slept listlessly in his carrier, I got to know some of the other people and animals waiting their turn. The funky, personable husband and wife with the 18-year-old cat who was limping. The mother and little boy with the cat who had peed all over the house. The young couple with the Pomeranian puppy who had chewed an electric cord and gotten a shock. The man and his wife who rushed in and urgently asked for help for their dog.
And I read my young adult novel in the waiting room, hating every sentence and every page.Â
By 7:15, Jim came by to visit Rudy and me, and convinced me that Rudy wasn’t really sick enough to bother waiting anymore. So we headed home, and fed the cats dinner. Rudy didn’t eat. Rudy was lethargic. We decided to take him back to Animal Emergency Care at about 9:00 PM.Â
The funky couple was still in the waiting room, while their cat was being examined. They filled us in on what had happened in our absence: the urgent man and wife with the injured dog had left in tears, without their dog. The Pomeranian had been admitted for observation, after it was discovered that his heartbeat was irregular. And then the funky couple got the news about their beautiful, aging cat: he had bone cancer, and would need to be put to sleep. They left in tears, hugging their cat, planning to put him to sleep on Monday.Â
A new patient, a sweet 16-year-old dog, and her owners had arrived meanwhile, and Jim and I had a lovely chat with them. Two young women, one stunning, one funny, sat with the stunning girl’s lapdog. The other groups both ordered pizzas and other junk food, while we waited. And waited.
Finally Rudy got his turn, and was examined and approved for blood tests and x-rays. He was hustled out back, we went out and got V-8’s and donuts and chatted some more with the owners of the sweet elderly dog.Â
Rudy’s blood tests came back: a bad systemic infection, with white blood counts off the chart. He’d need to stay the night, and we were given a monetary quote for services to be rendered that made us both feel faint. Through the wall we could hear the diagnosis for the sweet elderly dog: pancreatitis.
By morning, Rudy had had his x-ray, and it shows a mass in his belly. Whether the mass is cancerous, or an abcess, we don’t yet know. Either way, his chances aren’t good. He’s still at the hospital tonight, and they don’t like him much because he’s cranky and attacking them (they wear gloves that look like chain saw gloves when handling him, and he has a collar around his neck to keep him from trying to remove the IV, and, I think, to protect the staff from his ire); we’ll be moving him tomorrow morning to the animal hospital down the street for a second opinion. I don’t hold out much hope that the second opinion will be positive. It’s an unbelievably sad night. Life without Rudy feels like a pretty crappy prospect.
And I’m still reading that young adult novel. And still hating it. I think it’s fair to say that the circumstances of life are affecting my judgement. I’ve decided to retire from the book review business.
As far as home improvement projects go, this weekend has been a bust: it poured with rain on Saturday, and, more importantly, Jim has been knocked down by a really nasty sinus infection. He’s hardly stirred from bed, hardly eaten anything besides jello and ginger ale; painting and residing the house were definitely NOT on the schedule this weekend.
Luckily, I had plenty to keep me busy in between mixing batches of jello. I owed five reviews on eight books on the 8th, though I begged for, and received, an extension on the grounds of working overtime at my day (real?) job in preparation for summer reading. So I settled down yesterday and today and polished off two of the three longest books, both young adult biographies of famous historical women. All quality judgements on these books will be saved for the reviews I write, but I will say that I really enjoyed both of these books. Not because of quality – but because they are both nonfiction books about periods in history, and two famous women, about which I knew relatively little. I’ve come away from these books feeling better educated and better informed.
This is in sharp contrast to my feelings after reading several young adult fiction books for reviews over the last few months. Bad fiction is bad fiction, but bad young adult fiction, with its tendency to didacticism, can be excruciating. After finishing each of those inferior young adult novels, I felt more than a bit angry that I had wasted my limited and therefore precious reading time on books that stink. Grrrrrr, I thought.Â
But today I feel a bit smarter, after having read about and done supplementary research about C——– and M————-. Worthwhile time spent, and this might just keep me doing reviews in the future, if given the opportunity.
Last evening Gayle and I went to a fifth grade performance of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Gayle and I both used to be (note the past tense) SPED tutors at this elementary school, and two of our favorite students were in this play, one of them as the lead, Charlie Brown.Â
I left the school in November of 2005 to take my current job, feeling very very guilty about leaving in the middle of the school year; it took a lot of rational thinking to convince myself that, for once, I needed to put my own career and financial needs ahead of the needs of my students. It was a tough leaving, and to this day I feel rather hollow about having abandoned “my kids.”Â
Gayle worked through the school year of ’05-’06, then left to take her own fourth grade classroom in another town. In the remainder of that school year, Gayle spent a lot of time with the kids who were in last night’s play, and when she was invited to the performance there was no doubt that she wanted to attend. She also convinced me to come, and we worked it with the SPED teacher, Rachel, that we would be a “special surprise” for the kids at the end of the show. (Rachel talked up the “special surprise” for a couple of weeks, but the kids never guessed that it would be us.)
Sitting through the performance last night, I realized a couple of things. First of all, though I had close bonds with the kids who played Charlie Brown and another lead role (we’ll call her “Janet”), I really didn’t know much about the other kids in the play. Had this been the class of kids who are now 6th graders, or the kids who are now 7th graders, I probably would have been a weepy mess as I reunited with old friends and favorite students.  But the era of Abby at that school is pretty much past; the kids I spent so much time with have moved on, grown up.
I also realized that my self-esteem plummeted the moment that I walked into that school. Though I was pretty great at my job there, it made me miserable to be the second-class citizen that is known as a “tutor.” In my current job, I feel valued, respected, incredibly happy, and challenged. I never dread going to the library the way I did school – I look forward to each day of work with enthusiasm. Guess I’ve finally found my calling.
And then, after the show, Gayle and I chatted with the kids (hugs all around) and their parents, most especially Janet’s mom. Janet’s mom is wonderful – sweet and kind and smart – and it felt like a knife through my heart when she told me that things were never as good for Janet at that school as they were when I was working with her. She told me that Janet made so much progress in the year and a half she was with me, but after I left there just wasn’t anyone to fill the role that I had played in her life, and things were never the same. I got a bit weepy, and told her how guilty I felt about leaving, and this gracious mom put a hand on my arm, looked me in the eye, and said, “Don’t feel guilty, please – I am SO happy for you, SO happy that you found a job that you love.”
It was a tough night: remembering where I’d been, feeling terrible about having abandoned kids who needed me, and also feeling so very thankful that I have moved on to a job and a role that makes ME happy and fulfilled. Isn’t that always the challenge in life? Keeping yourself happy while doing right by others?
Today’s weather was fabulous: clear, dry, not too hot, blue sky. Jim and I spent the whole day outside, working on the latest projects. I got all of the plants from Hutchins Farm in the garden, and even bought a few more from Idylwilde Farm for some container gardens. Can’t wait until they start blooming.
 Jim had been working on the siding of the house while I planted the plants. Once I was done, I joined him. And we got ambitious: we ripped off the vinyl siding on most of the remainder of the house, finding some fairly good clapboards on the dining room exterior walls, and finding some absolute nightmare clapboards on the north wall by the back door, foyer, and bathroom window. Blech. Too short clapboards had been terribly pasted together, and over the years water from the incorrectly installed gutters had poured down between the vinyl siding and the clapboards, making for a rotten, moldy, disgusting mess.   Blech. I held the ladder as Jim ripped the old siding off, and I’ve never been dirtier. Floods of dirt and dead bugs and spider webs and rotted leaves poured down on my head (thank goodness for the baseball cap) and – until I learned better – into my mouth. Blech.
Jim and I are fans of Christopher Guest’s movies, most especially Waiting for Guffman, Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Best in Show. As we surveyed the damaged house that we had uncovered today, we both thought of one of our favorite lines from Best in Show, as Cookie and Jerry Fleck pull up to a “friend’s” house:
“What a shitbox! I thought you said they got a better place?”
“They did…”Â
A typical weekend in the life of a children’s librarian:
– met my friend Gayle at Daniela’s for a yummy dinner and catching up – decided to forgo El Presidente in favor of a Dos Equis (no need to put a DUI on my record)
– watched “The Pursuit of Happyness†after dinner
– took a field trip to Hutchins Farm to buy some bedding plants (Hutchins has the best bedding plants anywhere – it must be their organic growing methods) and to revisit one of my favorite spots in the whole world, looking out over their fields towards the Concord River
– ripped the vinyl siding off of the living room side of the house; or, at least, helped Jim rip it off and stack it
– measured for a new living room window, and took a trip to Concord Lumber to order the window
– weeded and mulched our perennial beds. Much as I dislike mulch, I hate weeding even more. Lesser of two evils.
– had cocktails on our front steps, enjoying the soon-to-be-demolished view of the derelict building next door
– took a walk down to the village, and made a spontaneous decision to go see “The Nerd†at Theatre III (they did a great job, and it was a fun evening)
– scoured the house and did the laundry; Mother’s Day is next weekend, and we’ve invited Jim’s mom to brunch
– paid those bills that have been sitting around
– wrote this blog entry while getting my second migraine of the day (blame all typos and grammatical inconsistencies on my inability to see)
– reading? Did I do any reading? Isn’t that what a good children’s librarian does in her free time? Hmmm, let’s see: I read the bills, and the playbill for “The Nerd,†and the bank statements; I read the Integrity by Marvin window catalog; and I read my reminder post-its stuck above the kitchen sink as I washed the dishes. As for books, can’t say that I’ve touched a book other than to dust around them. Life is so short, and it’s really hard to sit still on the weekends to read a book when I sit still all day every day at work. Does that make me a bad children’s librarian? I sure hope not.
Here are some of the books in my to-be-read pile on the coffee table:
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
This looks like a great read-in-one-sitting, totally engrossing book.
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean
IÂ picked this one up at my favorite used bookstore, The Barrow Bookstore (see link at right) – they are fabulous because they have so many brand-new, recently published books for sale.
The Dragon of Never-Was by Ann Downer
This is for next week’s fourth grade book group.
Ghosthunters and the Incredibly Revolting Ghost by Cornelia Funke
Patrons have been raving about this series of books by the author of The Thief Lord. Many patrons have commented that they especially love the book on CD versions, because the reader is so good.
Dreadful Sorry by Kathryn Reiss
I loved Blackthorn Winter, which we read for the last teen book group, and can’t wait to devour this thriller by the same author.
What’s in your to-be-read pile? I’d love to hear what is tempting you!
A day off is a fabulous thing. I have done absolutely nothing useful today, nothing enlightening, nothing work related (related to the library or book reviews, that is – must admit to a tutoring phone conference), nothing even half-way intelligent or intellectual. Shopping, enjoying the spring weather, lots of web surfing, even a weensy little bit of television: that’s what today was all about. I hadn’t realized how totally pooped I was from this library move until I had the chance today to relax. Whew. But maybe now I’ll buckle down and read a book or two for those reviews I need to write…