Category Archives: Spare time – Culture

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Spare time - Culture

Pitter pat

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It’s raining on our tarp garden.  It’s very soothing, the sound of the rain bouncing off of that brown tarp, but it’s also reminded me that the tarp garden exists – something which I had forgotten.

Three years ago we ripped the vinyl siding off of our house, repaired and replaced the clapboards underneath, and painted the clapboards a cheery yellow.  The house looks great – huge improvement – but we never figured out what to do with the old vinyl siding, so we stacked it in a pile just behind the house and covered it with a brown tarp.  We weighed the tarp down with large brown plastic plant pots filled with dirt and kind of forgot about it.  Last time my brother visited he commented on the lovely field grass and clover we grow in those pots, and sometimes I hear the rain on the tarp, but otherwise it’s become part of the scenery.

And it will probably stay part of the scenery.  Jim tried once to recycle some of the siding at the local transfer station, but the transfer station booth attendant yelled at him that it wasn’t recyclable.  “So what can I do with it?” Jim asked him.  “Have the guy who did your siding get rid of it,” said the attendant.  “I’m the guy,” said Jim, which earned him some respect but no disposal options other than the suggestion to cut the siding into small pieces and put it in trash bags.  Which Jim tried, but soon discovered that cutting siding into pieces chews up your hands and takes forever.

Maybe someday we’ll get a dumpster and put the siding in there, along with some other home project detritus (the crappy cardboard bathroom and bedroom doors that are moldering in the shed come to mind), but dumpsters are so darn expensive these days – at least $500, more if you go overweight.  And first we need to do a few things like replace the leaky hot water heater and fix the crumbling bathroom floor.  After a year or so without major home projects, things are starting to catch up with us again.

Meanwhile, though, I’ll daydream a little today about how our yard would look with the line of hostas extended through the area where the tarp garden currently sits.  Someday, right?

Spare time - Culture

Photographic evidence

In lieu of today’s planned trip to the Bead Hive in Ayer to buy more beading supplies (turns out Ayer had its Memorial Day parade today, and not Monday – which I only learned as I almost got road-blocked in on Main Street in Ayer), I’ve decided to post a couple of photos of my new obsession, the leather wrapped bracelets. Click on images to enlarge:

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Spare time - Culture

My new obsession

Man, it’s good to get out and do something DIFFERENT!

I just finished an adult education class, taught by Lily Chen, where I learned to make a leather wrap bracelet.  Ingredients are freshwater pearls (choose your color), brown or black leather, and a cute metal flower button.  Lily is a great teacher, and I learned fast and am now determined to make a million of these very cool bracelets – some for me, some for, oh, sisters and friends and such.

And the best part is that the materials for this totally rad bracelet cost all of fifteen dollars.  I’m sure if I were to buy this from some jewelry catalog (like maybe Sundance, which I love, by the way) it would cost a LOT more.

Actually, the best part is that I used my brain to do something non-work-related and creative and fun.  And I succeeded at it (unlike the pearl knotting class I took a few weeks ago, where I had a defective piece of silk and my knots wouldn’t slide and I got more and more frustrated and hot and sweaty and embarrassed at my incompetence).  It’s good to have a new obsession.  Abby happy.

Librarianship, Spare time - Culture

Calendars and such

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No post of any substance today, or probably all week:  summer reading is fast approaching, and I’m spending all of my free time finishing off the summer calendar (which takes a huge amount of work, believe it or not), ordering the summer reading prizes, writing the summer raffle donation request letters, and reading book reviews.  We’ve just been phenomenally busy at the library in the last few months, and I’m literally unable to complete any task that requires concentration while I’m there.  So I have been trying to console myself about the loss of my free time to work by drinking lots of Arnold Palmer iced tea, listening to fun CDs (right now it’s Adam Lambert’s CD – and I guarantee Jim will be mortified that I’m admitting that we both own Adam’s CD AND listen to it), and taking cat-ear-scratching breaks.  And no, this at-home work is not on the clock, for anyone who wonders.  🙂

Here’s a thought: we should play music at the library.  Background music, you know?  A little “Whataya Want From Me” would make the day go faster.  And I bet the little kids would love to bop around to it…

Spare time - Culture

Patriot’s Day

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Ok, so I’m almost a month late posting these photos – but I only just downloaded my Patriot’s Day photos from my camera to my computer.  I’d actually forgotten all about them, and thought I was only transferring the photos I took of Grace Lin’s visit to the library and some of my feltboard stories…and then all these great parade photos popped up.  Patriot’s Day this year was sunny and gorgeous, and the photos I took came out really well, for a change, so I’ve picked a few of my favorites to share here over the next few days.  Mostly of horses, of course, but also look for the Old Manse hiding in the background and a few Middlesex County Volunteers (click on photos to enlarge):

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Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

That whole Facebook thing

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It’s time I went public with this:  I totally do NOT “get” Facebook.  In fact, despite having giving Facebook plenty of chances, I find it to be the most boring, tedious, horrendous time waster that I’ve ever encountered.

(Right about here I duck under a table to avoid the flying objects -virtual flying objects, of course – hurled by all of you who love Facebook.)

I joined Facebook a few months back because of the library.  The library has a Facebook page to announce teen events, so I figured it would behoove me to at least put in an appearance as a “fan” of the library.  And I’ve become a fan of my favorite tea company, my favorite online clothing store, and Mother Goose on the Loose.  I’ve even gained a few friends – a very few friends.  And most recently, I’ve joined the alumni group for my college class, since there is a class reunion coming up this spring.  But I’m still bored.

Here’s what I dislike about Facebook (prepare to be pissed off, you Facebook lovers): 

It minimizes human contact, so that people are communicating via little badly written blurbs and comments.  I like talking to people, face-to-face and on the phone.  I don’t like trying to sound clever and cute in a one sentence update on my life.

It brings people back into your life who have long since moved on, and who have moved on for good reason.  Many friendships have a shelf life, and once the friendship has expired, it’s in everyone’s best interest to let things go. I probably don’t have much in common now with the friends I had in my late twenties.  But I have new friends now with whom I share quite a bit.

It encourages a highschool popularity mentality, even when you’re resisting that trap.  I’m way past highschool, and would like to think that I’m mature, but when I see that both of my siblings have over a hundred friends each, and I only have five friends, I start to feel my ego shrink and my posture change and I feel again like the braces-ridden runty highschool freshman that I once was.  No thanks.  I don’t need that.

It’s an absolute time suck.  If I were to become a Facebook junkie, I would lose valuable time that I could spend reading, creating, socializing, blogging (yes, I know, I need to be more consistent with that), or taking an afternoon nap on a weekend.  Or cooking or cleaning or volunteering or planting a garden or getting in shape.

But I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a techno-dud.  I have a favorite Facebook alternative:  Goodreads.  Goodreads allows me to see what some of my favorite authors are reading (Gabrielle Zevin, Neil Gaiman), and what those authors think of the books they’ve just read.  Gabrielle Zevin gave 5 stars to that book, and says it’s the best thing she’s read in years?  I think I’ll go find a copy and read it, too.  Goodreads also keeps me in touch with my friends who are voracious readers, and I can read their ratings and reviews on books they’ve read.  Peggy slammed that book, giving it only 2 stars?  I trust Peggy’s judgement, so I think I’ll skip reading that book.  And, Goodreads keeps me accountable for what I read.  I find that I forgo television or watching a DVD more often now so that I can settle down and read a book and then post my review on Goodreads.  I don’t want to look like a literary slacker, after all.  And guess what?  I have more friends on Goodreads that I do on Facebook.

So now I’ve got two questions: How long can something as inane as Facebook survive?  And how many of you are mad at me right now?

Spare time - Culture

Classes

I’ve signed up to take two adult classes this fall: “Drawing from Observation” and “Meditation for Everyone.”  With no tutoring this fall, I actually have time and energy to pursue some things that interest me, and I have high hopes for these classes.  I’m not great at drawing, but I do enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to learning a bit more about shading and shadow (my main drawing strength, if I can be said to have one, lies in contour line drawing – I stink at shading).  And meditation has got to be good for me, considering that I get migraines and generally tend to be overstressed. 

So we’ll see.  With any luck, eight weeks from now I’m be calm, centered, relaxed, and turning out great works of art in charcoal and pencil… Ok, at least maybe I’ll meet some new people.

Book groups, Spare time - Culture

Bookstore, Abby’s version

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Recently, my brother wrote this great post on his blog about a visit he made to a bookstore.  I went to my favorite used book store on Saturday, and had adventures of my own that are worth relating:

As I walked in the door of the Barrow Bookstore, there was an intense young man talking to the staff person on duty – talking and talking and talking.  He was the kind of young man in his early twenties who thinks he’s really intelligent, but isn’t, and he kept going on about a friend of his [insert friend’s name here, for name-dropping purposes] who would really like to attend the author festival that had left its brochures at the bookstore and could he take a few brochures for his friend?  He was also filling out a request form for some Ezra Pound book that he was looking for, and took forever at the task, all the while expounding on Pound.

I might not have noticed him so much, but I had gone into the store with the express purpose of finding a copy of the Images of America book on Carlisle (Jim is leading a tour of Carlisle on Wednesday, and needed to do some research).  Because of the talkative young man, I had to hang out and wait, and of course I went over to the children’s section, something I was trying to avoid, and of course I immediately found two books I could not possibly live without.  Hoping to avoid further financial damage, I willed the young man to shut up and go away; it took a while for him to respond to my telepathic proddings, but eventually he went off to browse and I got to ask my Carlisle book question.

The store didn’t have the Carlisle book I was looking for, so the staff person (we’ll call her Adele) and I headed over to ring up the two books I had found.  I told Adele I was so very glad to find a copy of The Diamond in the Window, since it’s out of print and it’s a book that I like to use with my book groups, and then we chatted pleasantly about libraries until she saw my second book, Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel, and we bonded on our love for Kenneth Oppel’s work.

“You know,” said Adele, “We get a lot of review copies of children’s books here, and a whole bunch just came in – they’re on that cart over there…”  So of course I went over to look, and found two more books I just couldn’t live without, and as Adele was ringing those in the young man came over to make his exit.  He blabbered and blabbered and blabbered, and Adele gave me the look of a long-suffering shop clerk who just wants to get rid of an annoying customer and move on with her day.

“Do you have any business cards? Because I’d love to give a card to my friend X…” started the young man.  While he was still blathering, Adele handed him a stack of the store’s bookmarks, almost shutting him up.  But then he started going on about how he’d definitely be back, what a great store, he’d probably come back for those books in a few days, maybe on Tuesday, but he’d definitely be back, that book on Pound was terrific, what a great store…

Adele interrupted him with a pleasant smile as she nodded her head towards me and said, “She’s been shopping here for years.”  Another pleasant smile.  And the young man finally left, thank goodness, as another man came in to the store.

The second man, a pretentious snot in his early fifties, looked at Adele and said, “Oh, you’re still here?”  Adele looked confused, long-suffering, and surprised at the same time, as the pretentious man continued, “Last time I was here you sounded like you were ready to pack up and move on.”

“Oh, must have been having a bad d…” started Adele, but she couldn’t even finish her thought, because the man broke in.

“Guess whose birthday is today?  And no, it’s not mine!” he said.  “Sophia Peabody.  They’re having quite the big to-do up in Salem today.”

“Mmmmm…” Adele and I both started to comment on that, but the pretentious man talked over us.

“Though why anyone would celebrate her birthday is beyond me,” he said.  “What the heck did she ever do?”

“She married that gorgeous man…” said Adele.

“And she made him happy.”  I added.

“Exactly!!” said Adele, as the obnoxious man snorted in derision.  “Exactly!!!  Those two had a wonderfully happy marriage, even though they were very poor for most of it.”

And Adele and I shared a look that spoke volumes about women in our society, about fame, about what’s important in life, as the twitty old snot made some sort of scornful comment in the background.

And then I left, and drove to Fern’s Country Store in Carlisle, where I found the book that Jim needed; and then I went home to my terrific husband, who had spent his day digging four foot holes and mixing cement for the footers for our new front steps.