The Stars at Night are Big and Bright

Next time you find yourself at Casa de Pickles, don't forget to see the Texas bathroom.



Just a bit of the detail found in the Texas Bathroom:

New Tagline

Okay, In less than 48 hours I will be leaving the Deep South. Technically, I will no longer be the Yankee Librarian Who Lives in the South. I will be the Former-Yankee Librarian Living in the South Who Now Lives in the Pacific Northwest.

So.... I need a new tagline.

Currently it is: I'm a Yankee. I'm a librarian. I live in the Deep South.

Suggestions for something new?

I'm a Yankee. I'm a Librarian. I used to live in the Deep South. Now I don't.

I'm a Yankee who spent four-and-a-half years in the Deep South, but then I moved.

I'm a Yankee Librarian who escaped the Deep South.

Others?

In Transition

I am officially In Transition.

I moved myself (and my cats) into Casa de Pickles a few days ago. So far my cats are adjusting just fine, but they hide under the bed whenever Mr. Pickles comes looking for them. Of course, the second he leaves the room they come out from under the bed and start rolling around on the ground. They seem to be enjoying the spare bedroom and the bathroom just fine. I finally got them to come downstairs this afternoon.

The packing people and moving people came to Case de Yankee this afternoon. Three nice women packed up my stuff in three hours while we half watched a Kathy Griffin marathon on Bravo.

I've had people pack my stuff once before when I moved for a job. I didn't know what to do. Do I talk to them? Do I make them drinks? I mean, here are these people doing the crap I don't want to do--how do I react. When these women arrived I was still half asleep (and I had been napping on the sofa when they arrived). At one point I even napped a bit while the were there. We chit chatted a bit--and then they began to pack my snowglobe collection.

"Do you have snowglobes from every state?" No, I don't. But I have a lot of them. "Why snowglobes?" I used to work for a hobby publisher and edited priced guides; I had to collect something. Seriously, everybody did. The one they were really obsessed with? Helsinki. it's bigger than most of them. It has a wood base. It has some sort of castle or something in in it. One of the women picked it up and commented on how pretty it was. She wanted to know where it was from. I told her. She didn't know where Helsinki was, so I told her my boss had picked it up for me while he was in Finland.

The other thing she wanted to know: Do I think Ouija boards really work? She asked because I have a keychain that is a mini Ouija board. Again, I edited books about toys and one of the companies we worked with made mini versions of popular toys and games. I told her I didn't. She was said, "They scare me. I'm afraid something will come out of it."

I really enjoyed them.


The living room and kitchen all packed up.



My bedroom all packed up.



Then four nice men came by and loaded my stuff up and took it away.



Woo! I'm in almost motion.

To Protect my Privacy...

I got an email from the lovely student loan people today. They sent me some important account information, but in order to open it I needed to enter my password. I tried every password I could think of--none worked.

So... I went to their website, reset my password, and opened the encrypted email. Know what it was? A letter telling me that in order to protect my privacy they were changing my password.

Think about it. I was sent an encrypted letter telling me that my password was changed in order to protect my privacy. But to open the letter I needed to enter may password, the password that had been changed.

The Night I beat up Sweet Pickles

Well, I didn't really beat him up. But I'd had a few drinks and Sweet Pickles had had a few drinks, and I was imitating my cats. By "imitating," I mean I was poking him in the arm while saying "hi hi hi hi hi." If you've ever met my cats, you'll understand. And I must've been poking him in the arm a lot harder than I thought because I knocked him over.

ME was nice enough to host my going away party last night (even though I'm not leaving until next Sunday). Yesterday was a disgustingly humid and nasty day. I decided not to do a damn thing. I spent the morning on the Square where I got some coffee and breakfast and then thought about buying a pair of shoes (I didn't). I came home and did a whole lot of nothing. And then it rained. And then it cooled down. Thank god.

LS and I got to ME's a little early so we could stand around and get in the way. And eat. And drink pomegranate daiquiris. And beer. And red wine. It seemed like at almost every moment of the night I had two drink in my hands at one time.

People brought wonderful food. We fired up ME's grill and made real brats and Boca brats. ME toasted me--and it was sweet. At the end of the night it was kind of like being in a receiving line. People lined up to hug me and tell me good bye and good luck. Some people I will see again this week, but for some last night was probably the last time I'll see them. I'm kind of glad I was drinking; it was easy to not think about not seeing some of these people again--or at least not see them for a long time.

I know some people who were there last night read this, so thank you to everyone who made last night fun. I appreciated everyone coming out to say good bye.

And Lou Haney made me a Lou Haney original: A Kool-Aid-dyed hat.

And the Idol Winner is?

David! Cook! Thank god it wasn't David Archuleta. There isn't room in the Idol realm for him, the puppies, kitties, ponies, and rainbows that follow him wherever he goes. David Cook was packaged as the "rocker" of the group but he had a personality and his own complete thoughts--unlike Archuleta. Of course, my favorite was the perma-stoned Jason Castro. Yes, him. Why? Because of the perma-grin and his version of Hallelujah.

The low point of tonight's final. Boy, where do I start? The Bryan Adams medley? Or the appearance of Mr Adams himself? The USC marching band? Or, possibly, yes, I think the low point was the George Michael medley and GM himself. I had some serious problems with the American Idols telling me they want to be my "preacher teacher." That, and George Michael looked like Linda Richmond.

But I have to say David Cook's reaction to being named the winner was sweet.

Leaving Will be Hard

I hate this town. I really do. I feel like it has sucked the life out of me. I feel like I am suffocating in this town. But leaving will still be hard.

Why? The people. Over the last year I realized I have a lot of friends. They're a good group. They're a diverse group. And they are imaginative, creative, funny, fun, and all around nifty. It also amazes me how easy it was to make friends here, how easy it to was to develop a sense of community. Part of it was due to what I don't like about this town--it's small and isolated. There isn't a lot to do so you have to make your own fun. Very few academics are from where they work, so you immediately have something in common with each other: Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Where were you before here? And we're all stuck here, so we all support each other.

Friday night I went to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. Then we all headed to the Grown Up Bar in town. We played Trivial Pursuit. We made fun of an Incredibly Drunk Visiting Professor because he was too drunk to know we were making fun of him (and we eventually got him a cab home before he puked or passed out... or both). We laughed a lot. We had the place to ourselves since students are gone.

And then I said goodbye to some people.

I'm not good with goodbye. People are always the hardest thing to leave behind, and I know this will be difficult. I think this is the best group of people I've had in my life since I was an undergrad. This is the longest I have lived in one place since I graduated from college. And leaving these people is something I have been trying not to think about. They are what has made this place enjoyable. But this last year my dislike for the town outweighed my love for my friends. That's when I knew it was time to leave.

And it is. But saying goodbye to a couple of friends last night was more difficult than I thought. Academics travel, so our paths will cross again. I will see my library friends at conferences (and I will probably continue to share a room with ME). But it's hard to let go of people that have been part of your life for more than four years.

A friend is hosting going away party for me next weekend. I expect it to be fun and sad. But I have to leave. I can't stay here. Starting over is never easy, but it is something I need to do. I just wish I could take them with me.

I'm What?

Yesterday a coworker told me she would miss me because I was always so "nice and pleasant."

My response: "I'm what? You're probably the first person to ever call me nice and pleasant."

She didn't believe me.

Thing is, my friends agreed with me.

Things I Have Found Since I Began to Get Ready to Move

Swatches

Library school transcripts (3.75 GPA; it should've been higher but I got screwed on one grade, and I messed up on a couple others)

Undergraduate degree

Graduate degree

Kansas City Star from the early 1990s. It was the edition announcing the fall of Communism

A map I used as an undergrad to mark each new country that was created out of the collapse of the USSR

Some class notes and papers from my undergraduate degree; one paper from my first attempt at graduate school. Why I kept them for so long, I don't know. I looked at them once and decided I couldn't part with them. I looked at them again, and realized I needed to. So, I looked through my old exams (my handwriting was illegible), paged through my notes, and threw them out. I don't know why it was so sad, but it was.

Books from library school--things I thought I'd gotten rid of. I got rid of them this time

My job-hunting file from library school. I read through the rejection letters--some of them were really nice. Some of them were for jobs I didn't even remember applying for. But it brought back how stressful that was--those few months after graduation when I didn't know where I would live, how I would pay my bills, and what I would do. Thank god for some friends who came to my rescue. They took me into their house, let me live with them rent-free. Another friend of mine hired me for a project on campus... and they kept me on even after the grant money ran out.

Various stuff from when I was in Germany in the mid-1980s: pictures, flyers, newspapers, etc.

My sophomore year school picture. My junior prom picture. My senior picture. Horrible.

The certificate honoring the 30+ years my dad was a fireman. That one hit me hard. Dad was so proud to be a fireman. I spent a large amount of my childhood hanging out at the fire department. My brother and I would climb the trucks, play in the back of the ambulance... it was awesome. He was in a volunteer department, and he did it because that is what you did--you supported your community. Because it was a small town, it was inevitable that when you went on a call--like a car accident--it would be someone you knew. And it happened to him on more than one occasion. But I think the one hardest on him was when he showed up on a call (a single-car accident) and one of the other firemen met him as he got out of his truck. "You don't want to go down there" he told Dad. Then he told him who was in the car. Dick had been a friend of my dad's. He and his wife owned the restaurant across the street from the fire department. We ate there all the time. My brother and I both worked there in high school. Dad got back into his truck, drove into town, and cried. He told me it was the only time he had ever cried on a call. And then he went to see Dick's wife and he told her the bad news. For years when he would talk about it he would get teary-eyed. He told me it was one of the hardest things he had ever done. He came very close to quitting the department after that. I think he'd decided it was too hard, but he changed his mind. Dick's wife, Diane, eventually became my stepmom. At dad's funeral they had his gear in front of the casket--including his helmet with the number 13 on the top (13 was his lucky number). At the cemetery the firemen gave him a 21-gun salute (I think it was 21; it may have been a lower number). Most of the guys standing up there were crying. I'd known most of them my entire life. They'd known my dad for decades. I don't know how I ended up with dad's fireman achievement award, it seems like something Diane would have wanted. But I am glad I did.

Checklist

Move/packers, settled. Check
Move, scheduled. Check
Apartment, found. Check
Cats, microchipped. Check
Utilities, canceled. Partial check
New stereo in car. Check
Insurance, covered. Check
Route, mapped. Check
Hotels, booked. Check


Holy crap. This move is actually going to happen.

Overheard on Campus

Dude 1: [Talking about a girl] No, no... We're just hanging out.
Dude 2: Hanging out naked.