You're Doing It Wrong

Where is Everybody?
Before I start this post I just want to say that I drove southbound on Front Avenue this morning. YAY! It’s been under construction for ever and super inconvenient and it was a treat to make that right turnaround thing off the Morrison bridge and sail down the shiny new smooth blacktop. Another great reason to come downtown today.

Meanwhile: it’s hard to reconcile all the chaos and crowds of earlier in the month with the relative calm and unpeopledness that’s going on this week. I’ve driven to work at speed two mornings in a row. The streets have light traffic. We had a small group at yoga last night although that was the case the week before Xmas as well. Bet it’s packed next week.

Where are all those people now? Are most of them staying home? Has everyone gone off somewhere? Are there big crowds somewhere else? I’ll bet the malls are a nightmare. I hate shopping. Even when I have money I hate it. I get zero thrill from the hunt. If I need a pair of black pants, I will buy the first pair I find that fits me. This is why I do 99% of my shopping at Ann Taylor. The pants fit. I can be in and out of there in 20 minutes. I don’t love sales. I’d rather pay more money and not fight the crowds. Plus I’m about as generically sized as a person can be so sales are a waste of time because there’s never anything cute in my size.

Last year I took the week between Xmas and New Years off because it seemed like a good time to be off and Bob was off and then I burned through a bunch of vacation days and when summer came I was scrounging for days off.

This year I thought, screw it, save the vacation for later and work now when it’s slow and we can all sit around the lunch room and eat cookes.

HA HA HA HA HA

I can’t tell you how many things came up yesterday that needed attention right away. I thought I’d clear my desk off. Well, all these people are clearing off their desks too.

Happy Friggin Christmas
I’m at the office today and expected to have time for a nice update HOWEVER, we apparently lost power last night so no alarm-o. You know how it’s so dark in the morning and I heard Bob open the bedroom door and then glanced at the clock and saw it blinking and said, “Oh. We lost power.”

It was a little after 7am. I usually like to be out of bed by 5:45 at the very latest. I managed to be fast: brush hair, moisturize, go and since there was zero traffic, I was sitting at my desk at 8.

I have lots of work to do and errands to run.

Christmas was wonderful. Lots of fun. Excellent food. Delicious adult beverages. Yummy desserts. Fabulous gifts and prizes.

After gnashing my teeth over the Holiday Newsletter some more, I’ve got a start. I have a long weekend next weekend but if I don’t get it done then, I’m not doing it.

Stay tuned.

Happy Holidaze
Me and Shadow bright and early this morning. Like my morning face?

Family here. Busy but fun. Very little computer time.

Great meals and delicious wine. Saw The Good Shepard. We all enjoyed it.

Tomorrow should be more cooking and hanging out. I have some good stories for then.

How Computers Are Ruining The Reference Librarian
I hesitate to take on this topic given the large number of librarians and librarian fans in my life but, true story, my last several encounters with a reference librarian at a public library have been less than fabulous.

Several years ago I wanted an article from a magazine and went looking for the Readers’ Guide to Periodic Literature, a big green book with gold letters that I’d used often when I did research in middle and high school. I like looking things up in reference books.

I wandered around the reference section and finally asked, “Where is the Readers’ Guide?”

The librarian said, “What are you looking for?”

“The Readers’ Guide.”

She wanted me to look the thing up on the computer. I wanted to look it up in paper. I like browsing. I like flipping pages. I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Why steer me away from the books? I like possibly discovering something that I’d never heard of and didn’t even know I was looking for.

While I would agree that hyperlinks can take you on the same unexpected journey of discovery, basic database research does not. If you’re thinking about making a paper hat for an elf and your search query uses the words, paper, hat and elf, you’re not going to get anything without those words (and miss out on the felt hat articles) and probably a whole lot of items about a hat store on Elf Street in Paper, Pennsylvania which doesn’t help you with your question.

Yesterday, I had an equally frustrating experience trying to research a federal law thing which so as not to bore you, we’ll say it’s too old to be on the Internet.

I am guessing that a huge majority of the people who walk up to a reference desk at the public library have no idea what they are doing, however, I had barely explained what I was looking for before I was whisked off to a book which told all the basic information which I already had.

Wouldn’t it be worth 30 seconds to take the pulse of the patron? I was holding file folder full of paper covered with notes. I asked a pretty specific question about an 35 year old law so not like it was my first time in the library after my teacher told me to do a report on koala bears.

We went back to the desk and parked at the computer. This story is already getting too long so the readers’ guide version is that after trying really hard to answer my question using the computer (which I had already very thoroughly and completely done, believe me, I didn’t want to go traipse across downtown in the cold and spend the day in the public library with a pocketful of quarters), and finding the same stuff that I already had, they asked me what I wanted and I told them the same thing I told them when we started this whole rolling circus. Eventually there were 4 reference librarians running around and FINALLY dragging out the old books and we figured out what I need and I had to order it from come storage cave in the mines of Moria and I won’t be able to dig into the research until next week.

No one ever tried to explain to me what they were doing, they just let me stand there and assured me they were doing their best.

Come on, show me the reference tools, I could do it myself. Am I mixing up the school librarian with the public librarian? Wouldn’t good research skills benefit everyone? I think I’ve drifted from my original topic sentence and my computer time has expired so I’ll just end abruptly here.

At Least It’s Not Raining
I don’t know what the problem is but I’m completely incapable of getting my act together. Well, I’m getting out the door and to the office and getting work done. But everything else is adrift.

For some reason the city of Portland can’t seem to stop ripping up streets and taking forever and a day to repair them. Today’s special new treat was that one block, the block by our building that I need to get to the parking garage was blocked off. Large parts of Front Avenue are also blocked off. So I had to take Morrison Bridge to Stark. Stark to Front. Front to First. First to Madison to get back to Front. Front to Jefferson. Jefferson to 2nd. It was like a carnival ride, only not fun.

If I had time I could make a humorous map, but I have papers to file and research to do so this is it for today.

Update: Turns out there was a busted water main not some sort of personal “They’re Out To Get Me.” Our parking garage had mild flooding on the bottom floor. Also, I think I described the streets wrong but too lazy to correct.

Banner Prize
Yay, one more excuse to procrastinate on my holiday stuff: Jessica sent me the first pass on the banner design for winning NaBloPoMo. I love it.

I asked for goth pumpkin (my exact words) combining my pumpkin love with the cool end credits from Lemony Snicket. Those are my actual pumpkins that I grew.

She did a fantastic job with that. More Jessica designs here and again, Jessica, thanks so much for the fabulous prize.

I can feel the temptation to mess with the template but I’m going to resist the urge for now. Must get to that holiday stuff.

Vandal
A month or so ago Bob asked me to come down to the basement and look at one of the windows. It’s a double pane and the outside pane was broken. (I first typed double pain. You can see my frame of mind.) Bob said there were rocks in the window well.

We couldn’t figure out if it was a botched break-in or maybe just kids throwing rocks. Both scenarios are a bit of a strain. The window well is in almost plain view of the street so it wouldn’t be a great place to break in. And it seems unlikely that some kids randomly ran up to that window to throw a rock.

We didn’t worry about it too much and made plans to get it fixed.

Meanwhile, last weekend I walked around the house for the first time since the weather turned bad just for a quick peek. I found a pile of yard debris that I raked against the house and then forgot about. It’s amazing you can spend time in a place every day and there are corners that you never look at. I checked that broken window well and I finally saw those rocks.

Those look just like the rocks that I dug out of the flower patch and then tossed into the window well to keep them out of the plants. *oof*

I confessed that I was the most likely vandal and Bob said he was relieved that it wasn’t crime.

In other news, I completely and totally do not want to do the holiday newsletter. I have my notes. I’ve selected a bunch of pictures. I’ve made my picks. But I’m still mad and every time I sit down I get cranky and obsess on other things and it’s not getting done.

I’ve made huge progress on the shopping part and maybe tomorrow we can get the tree and I can start wrapping and decorating and perhaps then I’ll feel more festive.

Storm Damage 06
Last night we had a big storm with lots of wind. In addition to the atomspheric chaos, I was mad about something so I spent most of the night tossing and turning and being pissed off. By morning, in addtion to still being mad, I was tired and cranky and had no desire to drag my butt out of bed except I wanted to get a few shopping type things done as early as possible.

Bob said parts of our fence blew over and our compost bin disintigrated and blew though the fence into our neighbors yard. COOL!

I ran for my camera, but couldn’t find it.

I hate not being able to find things so I keep my behavior as predictable as possible. It wasn’t in my purse, my work bag or the car. I figured I left it at the bar last night. Great. I stomped around the house because I just got the stupid thing. I haven’t even paid for it yet. How could it be lost?

But then I found it in the bathroom. (Whatever) Here are photos of the fence damage.

I used my amazing Illustrator skills to show you how the compost bin looks when it’s put together. The bin used to have lots of stuff in it, but I emptied it into the soil when I put the garden to bed in October so all that was in there were a few carrot, celery and fennel scraps plus some icky pumpkin. That’s all strewn about now.

Bob said he’s go on the store run with me and we were sitting at the stop sign at the end of our street, fully and completely on our side of the road, me standing up on my horn and Bob and I doing a Simpson’s type yell, “whoaoaoaoaoaoaoao” when a lady making a left turn onto our street drove into us head on. She was taking her kids to school. The second thing she said when she got out of the car after I’m sorry was I’ll be honest with you I missed my last insurance payment. Not even 9am and I already hate this day.

The impact wasn’t even enough to set off the airbags and I felt a little bad for the lady because obviously this was a fukup she can’t afford, but sweet fancy moses, it was like she was aiming for us. Look at the photo, the damage is on the PASSENGER’S side of the car. She said there was a glare from the sun, which is may be true but doesn’t explain how you could completely miss your own side of the street and drive into a car with its horn blaring. The car is drivable but yet another hassle.

We took my car home and Bob drove and we got our errands done without further incident. I’m going to try to do a little yoga and then have some cocoa and see if I can salvage the rest of the day.

Chimichanga From Jax

I won’t name names to protect the well-fed and innocent, but that wasn’t my lunch. But it looks yummy.

So I was driving home last night and I heard an ad on the radio for a new business that provides lights and other support for people who “want to grow fruits and vegetables in the privacy of their own home.”

Now who do you think the *real* target audience is?

Technology is Out To Get Me
I just wrote out this long rant about how trying to buy something from Etsy made me want to brain myself but it seems to be resolved and who wants to read a screen and a half bitchfest of Pam Against the Machine? At least I have gifts for those hard to shop for folks. I hope. Maybe I shouldn’t get too excited until I’m holding the items in my grubby paws.