It’s Over!

I have read many, many books on ways to “simplify Christmas”. Most of these books have been read during the eleventh hour of holiday preparation when I am getting ready to make a midnight run to Best Buy or still baking cookies on Christmas Eve in my stretchy yoga pants.

I honestly thought that this year would be different. I envisioned a (non-working) Christmas with me in a stylish holiday caftan entertaining family and friends in an unrushed atmosphere of holiday serenity. Soon after I finished working at NOPL, I had made a “task list” that included all of my holiday duties – the tree to decorate, gifts to purchase and wrap, cards to address, food to buy and prepare, cookies to bake, parties to attend, and “extra” activities that I had always wanted to experience (like snowshoeing at Beaver Lake and a candlelit dinner in Armory Square and a walk to see the big City tree).

Time without work seemed to stretch before me like the Pacific Ocean at Coranado del mar. The calendar was no longer a captor holding me hostage until December 25th. I was FREE and Christmas would be well organized, well planned and enjoyed with little or no stress. After all, wasn’t work the problem? Hadn’t work taken me away from my holiday duties all of those Christmases past??
I am not a person to make excuses. I usually own up to my own inadequacies and I can only say that it is hard to teach an old elf new tricks.

Yes, time was like the ocean but I was still sitting on the beach drinking month old pumpkin Bailey’s as the clock was ticking. Days and, actually weeks went by and I had not purchased a gift or put up a light. Normal, everyday life intruded: trash day, mending, and meeting friends for lunch. I watched 3 of my favorite old movies one snowy afternoon. On a “power shopping day” I spent 2 hours in Barnes and Noble playing with The Nook, drinking peppermint mocha and browsing through self help books without purchasing a gift. I spent an afternoon in Macy’s and bought myself a new long winter coat and my son one pair of socks. Mornings I would go for a walk, make a pot of tea and digest recipes from the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I had perfected homemade buttermilk salad dressing yet had not baked one cookie.

Of course, ready or not, Christmas must happen and women are the masters of pulling it all together. I have thought that if Christmas were up to men, it would be beer and cheese balls and cards that said “Only 23 days till Superbowl Sunday”. But I have always worked well under pressure, and in a comforting, traditional way, it seemed like my new (non-working) Christmas was Christmas as usual: me rushing around, me with a cold, me with an eye infection, a last minute trip to the doctor and, of course, me better for Christmas just in time to enjoy the day with family and good friends to help celebrate in the most wonderful way.

So this year I will forgo the stylish caftan for my new Fargo hat and scarf (thanks Davey) that will keep me extra warm on my early morning walks.
Anyway, it’s over!!

Day 2: filling in the cracks

Day 2
Progress.

I awoke to gunshots today. This is not the same as waking up to an alarm clock.
My house is adjacent to Cicero Swamp and my neighbor was back there shooting squirrels who dare to cross the Target/ Dunkin border and I feel like I am in the Wild ,Wild West.
I thought about being one of those squirrels. Ousted from their cozy home when Target moved in, and pushed back even further with construction of a Verizon store. If it were not for bad luck those squirrels would have no luck at all and they can’t even text!
Yes, I am feeling pretty lucky today.

Progress comes in many forms and having low expectations is key. I am up and dressed. I am washing the Bailey’s stain out of my bathroom and taking control of my life’s goals.
I have been thinking about the 5 things that I loved to do as a child (as KittyKatMartini suggested in her book): dancing, sewing doll clothes, doing a Lily Tomlin impression (remember Ernestine and her phone operator routine?), hanging out with my grandmother and writing plays for the dolls to perform (although they were not very good at remembering their lines).

I am not sure if any of that translates to a life purpose but I’m working on it.

I can see that things like “trash day” will take on a bigger significance now. What was once an interruption to my “getting ready for work” day has now become a legitimate activity.
It is the same with the mail delivery. People hang out in their driveway, waiting for their copy of “Celebrity Hairstyle” (thank you Lynne), then call across to their neighbor who is also waiting. Most likely a conversation will start up about the candidates (or the squirrels- they are interchangeable at this point except for the texting) and before you know it, it is time for Oprah.
Oh! I’m running late (for what I don’t know but I have not said that in a while).
My bathrobe should be almost dry and all is right with the world. I guess that IS progress.

Cracking Up: Day One

Oh YEAH! No more work for awhile. I am on self imposed sabbatical – finding myself or finding new things to do.
I have been reading books under the cloak of darkness that are approved by AARP. Even though I am chronologically old enough for “all of this” I have not yet come to terms with it fully.
All of the books say that when you are” home” (meaning not working) you must set a structured schedule for yourself or you will find yourself drinking pumpkin “Bailey’s" in the morning (thank you NJB) and watching Tim McGraw snippets on the internet.

I have always admired my neighbor who left her job with the phone company years ago. She is up and dressed with full make up raking leaves at 8:15 A.M. She looks perky and the smell of a delicious crock pot meal is wafting from her kitchen (organized retired people have already shopped and KNOW what they are having for dinner as the day begins). Probably many of their meals are planned and actually originate in their own kitchen. As a working single person I have never worried much about dinner. I (had) a booth with my name on it at Nestico’s and when I enter “Panera” people call out my name like Norm on “Cheers”.

A great book on this very subject is, “Thank you for Firing Me!” by Kitty Martini. I am not sure if Kitty arrived at her last name before or after she was fired) but Kitty talks a lot about maintaining routines and structure as you are looking for meaningful work or trying to find your bliss.
Kitty does not believe that going to the dentist or to Target constitutes a “day trip” on your schedule. You must find meaningful activities- things that will enhance your life goals. She talks about “avoiding rebound work” – just like rebound boyfriends (remember JOE?), as these things are good for a few laughs but will not stand the test of time.
Kitty does not encourage the unemployed to wallow in self pity or indulge in hard liquor to soften the blow. She is a demanding task master who suggests donating your designer suits to charity and rewashing plastic sandwich bags while making mental lists of the 5 things you most liked to do as a child (as a means of uncovering your true life’s calling). She also suggests making your bed as soon as you crawl out of it so as not to drift back in there during daylight hours.

Luckily I will have to return Kitty’s book to the library soon. Since I no longer get special dispensation for fines, I will join the huddled masses of library patrons who actually have to bring their books back on time. No more 8 -12 week loan periods for me! My staff/trustee status went out the window with my last bite of cannoli cake.
All of this is making me incredibly tired (too bad it’s still daylight) and I am doubly confused about my true life’s calling. I only wish I had a leftover piece of the cannoli cake (it goes so well with the Bailey’s) that I could eat for my dinner tonight as it is getting too late for the Crockpot.

Oh YEAH! Day One and counting…

The sidewalk ends

Library Thing -

I know I will use this site long after the 23things. What a great place to end up with limitless cracks for all of my favorite books and a place to write about them. I left a review for "Story of a Girl", a powerful YA book that I finished this summer and still think about sometimes. I had thought about buying a copy of this book and leaving it up by the high school or on a park bench, hoping someone would pick it up.

Sound crazy? I have done things like this before and like to imagine that the book ends up with a person who needs just that particular book at exactly this time.

Who knows? Stranger things have happened...

I will miss the 23things and cannot thank Elaine and Nancy enough for all of the hard work they put into this. I have learned a lot and am so proud of myself. I am still on facebook, posting and editing pictures with ease, IM-ing our former page at college, using my multiple google accounts, keeping track of Tim on my RSS feeds, making Snapfish books, waiting for the next AnnK podcast and generally feeling a part of the world.

Namaste!

The google doc is in

I come from a large Italian family.

Most of my older aunts and uncles do not own computers.
If they do, they are most proficient at sending out annoying "forwards": jokes, recipes for sauce, offensive political stuff, or "mistake" email that is suppose to go to someone else who has an email address close to my own.

Most of the nieces and nephews judiciously guard their own email addresses and cell phone numbers from the aunts and uncles. This is for self preservation only and to avoid the dreaded daily "forwards" that appear in our inbox.
Working in the library, close to relatives, I am not always so lucky. I was recently recruited because "hey, you work in a library that's close to the causeway and you know the computer" to write a tribute page for my Uncle's North High Reunion handbook. The "rough copy" was handwritten on legal paper with enough text (and long Italian surnames) to fill a whole book, not just a page. When I tried to explain to my uncle about font size, white space and correct editing, he was unimpressed.

There were also pictures to scan and include, from old yellowed newspaper clippings and clip art of the Marine insignia.
After struggling with these pictures and the text for an entire evening I enlisted the help of my daughter who reasoned, "I can easily reduce and photoshop the clipping as long as you don't give your uncle my email".
My uncle "loved" what we had done with the pictures and the ultimate final product went through numerous edits and "additions" of text. Every time I would show him the "final copy", he would think of another person to add or something else to mention until every inch of the 1/2 sheet was covered.

The neat thing was that my daughter and I were able to use google docs to create the original, edit the text, add more names, correct the spellings (this was tough) and otherwise work together but separately on the same document.

In appreciation for my daughter's hard work I have kept her email address a secret from the relatives and from the Barzini family.

Wikiness

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with wikis. This is me, "Happy Girl" at the Tim McGraw concert last weekend. My daughter was convinced that if she took me to a live Tim concert, paid for the expensive tickets, and bought me a pizze fritte, that I would stop talking about Tim and listening to "Southern Voice".

Unfortunately, that has not happened.

I have enjoyed using wikis for years. My son (who has been surrounded by librarians his whole life - his Mom, 2 neighbors, a former brother in law, and his cousin) is a huge supporter of Wikipedia. If I had a nickel for every time he has said, "Look it up on Wikipedia", I would be buying my own fried dough.

I think that wikis are great tools to be used in a variety of ways. I have used them many times to look up obscure minor league baseball players and trivia facts. This is not the highest level of research but as the Wikipedia people will tell you, "mass collaboration over time will produce high quality material". The links following the Wikipedia articles are also useful for further research as are the external links.

I have spent considerable time this week looking at both Wikipedia and Library Success - a best practices wiki.

Library success is an interesting wiki. The information is a bit scattered but can be quite entertaining if you are a library geek. I will try to add a link for the NYLA November conference at my earliest convenience.

Crack in the parking lot

Whenever I hear the word "pod" used in any of its many derivations, I do not get a warm fuzzy feeling. I remember seeing one of my first Sci-fi movies that included "the pod people". That caused me to have nightmares for a week. I also remember walking into a store in Rochester that was called "Pea in a Pod". I was in there a long time before I noticed that all of the clothes were either very stretchy or very LARGE. After some embarrassment from a sales clerk who asked "when are you due?" (I wasn't!!), I ran out and looked for the nearest "Jenny Craig".

I managed to escape the word "pod" for a long, long time.

And then I was transferred to North Syracuse where the word "POD" would stare out at me from the parking lot every day.

Of course the pod was very useful in housing books for the annual sale but I can't say that I was sorry to see it go.

Podcasts are a different thing altogether and I don't feel threatened by them at all. They are useful and I listened to a few last winter as part of an online class.

Today I listened to AnnK's original podcast and I wanted to tell AnnK that:

#1- I love the easy listening music intro

#2- Don't ya know, you don't sound like you are from Minnesota

#3- I think that the NS non-fiction section contains a Velveeta cheese cookbook from 1964 in case you are interested

#4- I am happy that women have the right to vote and I vote NO on pods in the parking lot!

#5- Your worry segment made me realize that by writing this, I will somehow cancel out my need to worry about pods any longer. So thanks Ann! You have made the 23things fly by.

Permanent Markings

I have been noticing a lot more tattoos lately. Maybe because it is summer and there is just more skin exposure? Maybe because I was transferred to North Syracuse which seems to be the capital of the tattooed world?

Maybe because I am over sixty and feel like my time to be tattooed has passed me by?

On one hand I am fascinated by them - the intricacies of the design, the time (and probably pain) involved, the physical permanency of it.

On the other hand, not so much.

What about when you are 50 with saggy cleavage, out eating a roast beef dinner with the word "vegan" peeking out the top of your shirt?

Will you feel weird, or hypocritical, or just old?

This is one of my favorite "tattoo" pictures.

Tim, of course, with the word "Faith" on his arm. I know this is his wife's name but I like to think it is also a statement of something else - a country boy who grew up without a father, only to find him when he was already a teenager.

I am hoping to get close enough to the stage tomorrow night, seeing Tim in concert, to ask about the tattoo.

Video attached here too - it was fun picking one out and learning to embed it.

Did you think it would be of anyone else??

Crack in the world

Flickr
My sister loved taking pictures.
She died in 1993 before Photoshop, Picasa or flickr were out there. She never had a laptop or a real cell phone. She never saw facebook, although many of her pictures are on there – on other people’s pages.
Her daughter has told me that she feels lucky to have all of the family pictures that my sister left behind and painstakingly captioned. Almost every picture has a date and names on the back. It is as if she knew that she would not be here to say, “Oh that was when Aunt Millie and I drove to Kingston”.

Both her daughter and my daughter inherited her love of photography and the recording of family history. After our family reunion in 2009 they set up a new facebook page, dedicated to my father’s family so that the aunts, uncles, and cousins (there are 40 of us) and all of their children could keep in touch. There are over 200 pictures posted on that page now, in various albums (with captions, of course).
I feel lucky that Carrie and Danielle are so talented and think that it is important to keep a family history.

Sometimes it is hard for me to look at those pictures. I miss the people in those pictures who are no longer in this world but I am grateful to have the pictures so that I can remember. (the one at the top is one taken of my sister and Danielle over 30 years ago - Danielle captioned it and has it on her own page).

My sister took pictures of everyday events. She did not wait for special occasions. She would have been a snapfish and flickr queen. I am not sorry that she was ahead of her time, only that she did not have more time.

All of this has taught me to be grateful for the everyday things and not to let life pass me by... that we are constantly making memories, whether recorded or not; things that we will remember and the things that we will leave behind.

Mary Frances Nolan

1947-1993

Cracking up...again #14

While wading through Technorati, which is addictive itself, I came across Jason's blog (a male librarian with a wacky sense of humor). Jason published his "Friday fun link: 15 most addictive Web sites Ever"

http://www.urlesque.com/2010/07/30/addictive-websites/

Do NOT go to this website! I repeat: Do NOT go to this website, even though it is Friday and you are desperate for fun.

You will be hooked and will spend precious NOPL time in the name of the 23 things and your co-workers will be upset with you.

I also found a cool game: "Eat, Pray, Love Bingo"! This is a must for any Julia Robert's fan (and who isn't? Wasn't Pretty Woman an out of work librarian? Well, she could have been if she wore chunky shoes instead of those stiletto boots.

Anyway, have some fun on your own time and checkout the great blogs and Technorati.

And NOPL Bunko fans: how about a fast game of "Eat, Pray, Love Bingo"?

Has Millie fallen through the cracks?

Devoted fans: You may have wondered where I've been.


The 23 things have not been high on my list of library priorities this month. Patrons of all shapes, ages, and sizes (including this questioning triceratops) have been waiting for me when we open the doors at North Syracuse. They do not care that we are all "behind" in the 23 things or, as Jill wrote in her blog, asking ourselves "where are we?". These are questions that have haunted mankind (and triceratops) for centuries and honestly, there are no good answers except maybe from the text a librarian people.
Although the many facets of public librarianship have been my priorities this month I have managed to:
#10 + #11 Create a LinkedIn account and made connections with Jill, Nancy, other NOPL people and a woman who worked with me in my pre-Woodstock days. I can see that this site will be very useful when looking for a job or in receiving recommendations from others.

#12 - del.icio.us: I did not love this idea at first. As Carol W. can attest, I have email going back to the time of the orange triceratops. My bookmarks are a disaster. I never remember what I have bookmarked and I did not want to open a yahoo account and have yet another set of passwords to remember. That being said, I am probably the ideal candidate to use this site. It is also nifty that you can access your account from anywhere and tie into a huge database of web links with a few clicks.

#13- Sharing options: I have shared many interesting tidbits of Tim McGraw information with my daughter. She has never once thanked me. She is, however, taking me to see Tim in person on September 3rd!!

#17- Yes, I know I have skipped a few "things" in between but my experience with Overdrive requires immediate attention. I have overdrive software on "several" computers and sometimes receive email that instructs me that a book is "available". I don't remember ordering any of these books or even downloading the software multiple times but the NOPL network does not lie! I now have detailed, printed instructions and Carol's personal, double-secret cell phone number in case a patron needs help with Overdrive.

That's about it!
I am going out tonight to buy a new cowgirl hat and will not be working on the 23 things.

Cracking down the dress code

Uh Oh!
NOPL Librarians had better watch out.
Dress code police are roaming the streets as hot weather and the added pressure of summer reading are pushing librarians to the fashion edge.

Filling in the cracks - progress

I've blogged and jogged

I've twittered with tweet

I've facebook friends

I'll never meet

I've RSS'd and streamed Tim's show

I've skyped to people

I barely know

I'm connected

(not rejected)

So....

9 things down

14 to go.

OMG A Crack in my achy breaky heart!

OMG!

I have never written that before but it seems appropriate.

I was just at Wegman's picking up Off and more onions for my trip to the woods. Checking out, I spotted THIS magazine cover!

Diane Boyd, "Princess of the periodicals", why didn't you tell me?

Just because I am not at Brewerton everyday you know you are suppose to keep me updated on the magazines!

Well, as Annie K. would say, "a picture is worth a thousand words".

Who cares that I can't take my computer with me? I will be reading about the boys of country all weekend...

Fire Crackers

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

I am going to the woods today.

This is a big thing for me as I do not like to be this far away from Target or my computer.

The cell phones do not work once we hit the camp road yet people live here year round through the Adirondack - Canadian border winter.

Other things work and technology has snowshoed its way in. I know that a few of the residents use skype to keep in touch during the long winter here (have you seen the movie "Frozen River"? This is that place!

So, Miss Fancy Nancy Librarian, I am looking forward to a skype lesson so that I can keep in touch with the very nice people that I have met here.

Maybe I can concentrate on the "essential facts of life" this weekend and shoot off a few firecrackers.

Happy, Happy Independence Day to all of us!

P.S. I will miss Tim singing "God Bless America" on CMT this weekend.

Bummer!

Falling through the cracks...again

Talk about being the last to know.

I found out on my facebook page that I was having guests for dinner!

I am not making excuses but there are just too many places to check now for possible communication: 2 email accounts, my facebook page, my cell phone, my son's cell phone (on occasion I give out his number by mistake), my work phone, my home answer machine, Sharepoint, my Google reader, Tim's homepage, and the 23 things blog. Have I left anything out?

There is also added pressure to check every electronic device to make sure we do not miss any important information.

I wonder: am I any better informed than my Mom was who had a shared (phone) party line in our old house? Family and friends would stop over to chat in "real time" and she seemed to be always in the loop.

Once I found out online that I was having guests, it was a great night of real conversation with my niece and her three delightful daughters who were visiting from Las Vegas.

So "thank you " technology gods for keeping me informed and bringing Kristin, Sophie, Ella and Gracie over to visit via their GPS.

Crackin Jokes

Loyal followers,
Limited time to be funny this week. I am extremely busy with summer reading and preparing to be Tim's opening act at the Great New York State Fair.
This will be our best NOPL library week ever!
Stay tuned...

140

Knocking down the 23 things. Twitter really has wings. Challenging to stay within the count. Not too wordy just the right amount. Follow me!

Cracking Up2 - Jake & Vienna

Will you accept this thorny Rose?

I must veer off of Tim today to talk about a really important late breaking story that appeared in my RSS People feed: Jake and Vienna have broken up!! This is a shocker to no one in the world except Jake who just might be the dumbest “Bachelor” ever.
For those of you living under rocks or watching “The History Channel”, “The Bachelor” is ABC’s guilty pleasure of a show that attempts to pair a most eligible (pilot/real estate investor/ athlete/lawyer/not librarian) bachelor with a parade of single, equally eligible women in the hope of his finding “true love.”
The past “Bachelor” matches have been wrought with drama and disaster and Jake & Vienna are no exception.

When Jake chose Vienna over seemingly normal Tenly (except for her cartoon voice and that weird dancing episode) all single women of the world were disappointed and shocked.
So what did Vienna bring to the table that Tenley did not? How about that Daisy Duke, chemically enhanced figure or the fact that she can drive a power boat with the big boys? Growing up on alligator alley and never learning to speak in complete sentences was also a draw for the insightful Jake.

Who knows? Love is sometimes blind or objects might appear larger in rear view mirrors. Whatever it was, it was not enough to weather the storms of the “real world” once off of the show.

So poor Jake, where will you go from here?
Back to flying puddle jumpers to Newark New Jersey? Or might you even be recycled to next season’s “Bachelorette”?
Keep your chin up Jake, and just remember that sometimes life turns out to be a country western song…

You always had an eye for things that glittered

But I was far from being made of gold

I don't know how but I scraped up the money

I just never could quite tell you no.

“Just to see you smile, I’d do anything" Tim McGraw

Hey Vicki: Maybe I’m cracking up?

“We've taken our Yoga and Pilates practice out of the Studio and into our gorgeous, spacious yard. If you've never practiced Yoga outside, you are in for a special treat!I've also started teaching Yoga Classes at Lakeshore Yacht and Country Club for the summer on Mondays at 9:30AM for members and guests. If you are not a member and would like to take a class at Lakeshore, contact me. So relaxing, practicing Yoga under a huge tree by beautiful Lake Oneida!”

This is a genuine excerpt from an email I received yesterday. Luckily the NOPL board meeting was scheduled for the same night as my yoga practice (finally, a board meeting that is good for something) so I missed the “special treat yoga” that probably included multiple insect bites and embarrassing views of myself in someone’s rear view mirror.
Maybe I can take a morning class sometime just to see if that “huge tree” has any hidden critters. (I will keep an onion close by) or possibly get hit by a wayward golf ball.

And Kate: Who knew that yoga could be as much fun as signing up for really simple something feeds and “losing” them in cyberspace? Lucky for me that Natalie was working at North Syracuse today. She patiently showed me how to subscribe to a “feed reader” and Voila! the missing RSS’s from Saturday’s lame attempt suddenly appeared in the vicinity of my gmail. While trying to subscribe to a Tim McGraw feed (He and Faith are on the rocks and he actually follows my blog), I accidentally subscribed to the entire People Magazine site. It took me a while to pare it down to a manageable level and the patrons who were waiting in line at the reference desk (the ones who say, “YOU’RE NOT GEOFF!”) had no idea.

Sorry to be skipping ahead in the list but I need to mention that I was one of the original members of Facebook, before librarians even knew what it was. I impersonated a college student and used a doctored photo of myself from Woodstock to gain admittance to the former “Harvard only” social networking site. I received interesting “friend requests” from other middle aged impersonators who tried to branch off into their own site called “face-lift book” It never caught on with the Ivy League snobs but was one of the real reasons they started to let everyone in.
So technology coordinator people (and you know who you are) you will have to get up pretty early to put one (or 23) things over on me.

Cracking down on NOPL employees

Uh Oh!
I was told by the Blogger Police (NB) that the purpose of the blog is to comment on our learning experience as related to the 23 Things.
Personal yoga experiences and pictures of petunias do not really qualify so I guess I am losing credit.
Does that mean it gets subtracted from the 23 things and I could already be minus 1?
I can see where blogging can be a big ego trip. Of course if you only have 2 followers, your ego cannot get out of control.
I will try to stay on track Miss Smarty Nancy.
You know from past experience that coloring within the NOPL lines is not my strong suit.

Yoga: it ain't what it's cracked up to be

When I walked into my Yoga class on Monday night our teacher was as happy as a NOPL employee on a three day weekend. It was a beautiful night and for the first time "ever" we were going to hold classes out of doors. The studio is lovely and cool and located just off of busy South Bay Road.
Did I mention that I am not really a "good" yoga student? I enjoy the exercise part of it but the yoga philosophy does not always jell with my love of the finer things in life (like potato chips and air conditioning). Someone mentioned that certain yoga positions might look strange to passing cars but our instructor would have none of it. After all, we have been taught to leave "negativity and judgement at the door". Okay, I thought, but what about the bugs?? This is Cicero, not the Canyon Ranch Spa. Nine of us followed her out with portable "yoga" music playing on something that looks like a dehumidifier. I might also mention that yoga is not for sissies! It is hard and tiring and sometimes not a pretty sight. Yoga pants are not all that forgiving and I imagine there were some dazed and confused commuters on South Bay Road that night. We were twenty minutes into our class when women to the right of me (closest to the trees) began swatting and swearing (Did they not know the part about leaving negativity at the door?) Our instructor kept asking if people were "okay" and like good little yogi's they all said "yes". Finally she asked if we should go indoors. I was trying to pluck a mosquito out of my head who was trapped in hair spray heaven and yelled out "NOW" as I grabbed my mat and started trotting toward the door. Women of all shapes and sizes came after me, not even waiting for the instructor who was trailing with that cumbersome dehumidifier. Once inside, we started assessing the damage. Six bites, four bites, two bites... nasty little critters had a feast! Our teacher passed around peppermint oil (have these people never heard of Benadryl?) and to my surprise it actually helped for a while. It is three days later and my arm was still red and itchy. I checked in a book of natural healing ( a 25 cent paperback that I purchased at the Friend's book sale) and one remedy for itchy insect bites is a "cut onion". Luckily I had just purchased a Vidalia at Wegman's and am sitting here with a cold slab of onion on my arm as I am blogging. The weird thing is that it actually feels better...no more itching and the swelling has gone down.
So who knows, the yogi's might be onto something. I might be throwing out the Benadryl or just blogging more often.

Namaste and pass the French dressing.

The crack widens

Nancy Boisseau, Reference Librarian to the Stars is making me do this blog. Check back soon to see how many of the 23 things fall through the cracks.