Tuesday Update: Now w/ Books!

It was 39 degrees when I woke up this morning, so lovely. Not that I want the growing season over just that I enjoy being slightly sane and enjoy being able to stand wearing clothing. I’m hoping to enjoy wearing sweaters again someday, maybe even this winter, when my crazy hormones finally loosen their grip. We’ll see. I am pleasantly chilly this morning.

My hubby is sick but of course started work before 8am. At least he’s home and can work in his bathrobe if necessary, he could work from our bed even. Working remotely is kind of awesome, I mean it would be better if it was more of a choice, but still. He’s working ridiculous hours now, that’s just a job at a school in September, to be expected.

Apparently I’ll be writing the grant proposal for the Cultural Council next month. My boss has confidence in me and promised to check it over before we send it. Look out, I just might become competent at my job! I still have plenty of gaps but I love what I do so I keep trying to learn it all. One thing at a time, I’ll get there.

My reading for the year is ahead of schedule. I think I’ve read 42 books out of 52 I aimed for. With life being busy, stressful and so on I figured 1 book a week would be a decent goal for 2020. Then it turned out the whole world changed and got weird so I might have to raise my goal or something. I am currently reading The Library of the Unwritten; by A.J. Hackwith, Crossings; by Alex Landragin, Among the Fallen; by N.S. Dolkart, Fury of the Demon; by Diana Rowland, and This is My America; by Kim Johnson. Next up: Beowulf; by Maria Dahvana Headley and Disfigured; On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space; by Amanda LeDuc. I’m enjoying all the books I’m reading, I just can’t seem to settle down into one. I’m blaming stress.

I’ve only read one dud-book this year. Surviving the Lake House was just a dull slog. I almost never give a low rating to a book, I hate to do it, but I felt like the writer could have benefitted from serious editorial intervention. It was bad enough I looked up the publisher and, sure enough, self-published. I understand the desire to want to hold a book you’ve written in your hands. How amazing must that be? But writers need editors. They need a dispassionate someone to tell them; “This isn’t ready yet. It needs to have a consistent tense.” or; “You’re writing in the first person you need to tell your audience why you’re telling them this tale.” or: “You need more description. The reader needs to be able to visualize your characters, scenes and so on, they need to connect to the characters.” Plus all the usual grammar fixes etc.

Incoming B-Day Season!

Feeling ill today, so is my husband, neither of us is allowed at our workplace at the moment. It is highly unlikely we have picked up “the covid” as our precautions against it have bordered on the paranoid but better safe than sorry. The doc sent hubby in for a test hopefully that comes back negative! Eek.

On a happier note the spate of fall birthdays approaches rapidly and, as I have a spring birthday, I am currently preparing a stand-alone adventure to run (3-5 sessions) across the whole birthday season. My husband is currently running 3 RPG campaigns, and has one of the aforementioned fall birthdays, so I thought I would take on the task of providing this activity for everyone. Pathfinder and Roll20 really make the whole thing so much easier. I’ll be running the adventure “The Slithering” on Roll20 which will have all the maps and almost all the pawns we’ll need. The only pawns I will need to create will be those for the PCs and any animal companions or familiars they might have. I’m reading the adventure now and gathering all the monster stats referenced so when I go to run it everything will be ready. Since we own the actual, physical booklet, access to maps and everything on Roll20 is about $10. The booklet set us back about $20 or so, so $30 for entertainment for 3+ parties/sessions? Not too steep! https://paizo.com/products/btq023hg?Pathfinder-Adventure-The-Slithering

I did have to whip up my own, very brief, player’s guide since Paizo didn’t bother with making one for this short little romp. For their 6-modules-long Adventure Paths they make these awesome player’s guides that are full of suggestions as to how various ancestries and classes might fit into the campaign, suggested backgrounds and skills that might be especially relevant etc. They’re really helpful. The one I made is less than a page long and not at all fancy but I think it has the bare bones information needed so the players can construct useful, non-frustrating characters.

Now I’m tired and going to lie down and keep reading the adventure. Be well!

Allergies or Plague?

I’ve been fighting a headache for a few days and woke up this morning with a runny nose, sneezing jags, a scratchy throat and my current usual amount of coughing. Ugh. I reported my symptoms like a good citizen and my Director said not to come in tomorrow. Ah well, better safe than sorry. It might be allergies or it might be a cold or flu or covid-19, who knows? Such a lovely time to be alive, isn’t it?

At least I got to run my game last night. That went well! At one point the halfling sorceress grabbed a chalice that was clearly meant to be left alone, waking the clay golem and causing a panicked and disorganized retreat through the dungeon. Not everyone had a light source and we were using the lighting on Roll20 so the poor half-orc barbarian, who had the lowest initiative, got left alone in a room with a homicidal golem in pitch darkness. Since all players have their own screens they can each have a unique, separate view of things so after the first PC ran out of the room the second one would have no idea which way they went, which hallway they took or if they had ducked into a room to hide or something. At one point the cleric took a wrong turn and strayed into a room they hadn’t been to yet and woke up another golem-like creature, this time made of stone. The whole thing was hilarious and the halfling kept wailing; “I’m Sorry!!!!!!” as she ran through the dungeon. A good night’s gaming!

for when you’re overwhelmed

I’m overwhelmed and tired. How about you? I see a lot of my friends and acquaintances posting about their struggles. Struggles to get things done, to feel any sense of accomplishment, feelings of restlessness, trouble sleeping, etc. The extroverts are going nuts in isolation and even the introverts are starting to get sick of it. I recommend library curbside pick up to folks who tell me they’re bored and I hear odd things like: “I’ve already read some books, I’m tired of books.” … I’m sorry, I know all of those words but they don’t make any sense in that order. I do understand, even I can’t read all the time. People who are more active and sporty than me want to get out to DO THINGS. They want to play tennis, or rollerblade or something.

Let’s just agree that we all thought, or at least hoped, this shit would be over by now. It isn’t and it isn’t going to be any time soon. As schools and colleges are opening cases are spreading. Weddings and funerals are helping too, hordes of maskless partiers, beach-goers, and folks visiting bars and restaurants are helping too. Not to mention indoor, maskless political rallies. Oh, and we can’t forget all the folks who refuse to wear masks in public. I don’t know exactly what our next moves as a country should be but a nationwide mandate for masks and social distancing is probably step 1. Enforced with serious fines and possibly jail time for repeat offenders. It would have to be in conjunction with masks being freely distributed to all of course.

Over here on the homestead, we are prepared to stay hunkered down as best we can until it is actually safe again. My husband and I are both working, me in a closed library providing curbside pick-up and take-home crafts etc, my husband mostly remotely. He does go to his office a few times a week, after hours when no one is likely to be around, so he can do all the things he can’t do from home. It’s gone pretty well so far. He has been coughing kind of a lot the past few day, me too, I think it’s just allergies probably but it’s hard not to worry. In any case, we are not going out to eat, we are not attending weddings, funerals, or gatherings of any kind. Our social life continues to be exclusively online gaming and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. It’s not what we want but this is where we are. Anyway, I was talking about being overwhelmed…

Virtually everyone I know is having some problems with the enormity of everything, with overwhelm, with depression and/or anxiety. One of my friends posted something about how making massive to-do lists and not getting much or anything done is such a disheartening experience. We make the lists because we have a lot to do and we don’t want to forget to do any of it. Crossing things off gives us a little boost, it makes us feel like we’re making progress. I have a thing I do when I am having a bad time, when I am overwhelmed and super tired, out-of-spoons. I make a Done List. I write down things after I do them and cross them out. If I build up a little momentum I might write a single task down just before I begin it and cross it off when I’m done. It probably sounds silly, but it’s a way I get myself started.

Even like today, I have a headache, woke up with the damn thing, so today is a good day to do this. I do have things I really need to get done today and all I want to do is lie here with an ice pack or a heating pad on my head, maybe both, so to get myself going I will write down some little things I have already done, even if they are things I wouldn’t normally put on any to-do list.

~~feed cats~~
~~make tea~~
~~wash dishes~~
~~make breakfast~~
trash & recycling

That last one there I haven’t done yet but for me putting there at the end of a list of “accomplishments” gives me maybe 1/4 Cup of encouragement to get up and get it done. I look at all the struck through items and it makes that last one look smaller, easier, more doable. Anyway, feel free to use this little trick if you think it might help you. Another little psychological trick I use on myself is paying my bills from most expensive to least expensive. I write the big check for our mortgage first, followed usually by our stupid-high electric bill, on down through whatever bills we have for the month till I write the last one, the smallest bill. It feels slightly better that way. A bit like coasting down a hill instead of laboring up it. It helps that we can pay all our bills. That hasn’t always been the case. When we were really struggling I was agonizing over which bills to pay and which would have to wait, juggling to keep those we owed happy enough so they wouldn’t shut off the lights or whatever. I’m grateful not to be there at this time but I know we could be there again with a little bad luck. Those are my 2 tricks for now. My head is getting worse so I am going to try to get the trash run done. I’ll tell you more tricks when my head feels better and I can think straight.

Living Gen-X

Being part of Gen-X is kind of a weird experience, even after all these decades, we are still mostly ignored. I remember when whomever decided to call the generation after the Boomers Gen-X they literally “forgot” a whole chunk of us. The Boomer generation ended in 1964 but when they dubbed my generation Gen-X they had a starting year of I think 1970… skipping those born 1965-1969 like we didn’t even fucking exist. They literally forgot several years of their own children. I remember looking at the article and feeling pretty much like Molly Ringwald’s character in Sixteen Candles. Our own parents forgot our collective birthdays. There was a moment of shock but even back then we were already largely used to it. We rolled our eyes and shook our heads and went to our next class.

Yes, we are a small generation, sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials who dwarf our numbers. So we get overlooked like a halfling between a couple of Hill Giants. Gen-X kids were frequently left to our own devices. A lot of our parents worked so lots of us were latchkey kids. Those of us in the “gap years” were mostly the eldest kids in our families and we were often conscripted to watch our younger siblings after school or when our parents went out. Our parents got divorced kind of a lot too. Each of my parents is twice divorced which is fine, whatever, but it made for an eventful, dramatic childhood. Between marriages our mothers, who we mostly lived with, dated and leaped into new hobbies to match whoever they were dating. (or marrying) We got whiplash watching our moms develop sudden interest in old cars, outdoor concerts, wine, motorcycles, dance clubs, sports, etc etc, only to drop them and pick up something else for the next guy.

Even while they were busy doing that they found time to criticize our friends, our clothes, and any other on the surface thing they might notice. It was truly weird being alternately ignored and picked on. Gen-X also got in trouble for playing RPGs. “Oh my god! Dungeons & Dragons is dangerous! It has demons and stuff and we don’t understand it so we must END IT!” Yep, one day we’re playing D&D peacefully ignored and the next there are news articles and segments about “the dangers” of D&D. Are your children worshipping Satan under your very nose? They made like after school specials and movies about it. It was both hilarious for all they got so very wrong and freaking annoying for how many kids parents forbid them from playing. All of a sudden our parents cared what we did with our time. They also freaked out about drugs, alcohol and sex. Really, the generation that went to Woodstock, the Free Love generation, yep, them.

Boomers were a massive generation and when they realized their kids were in striking distance of hitting age 18 they campaigned mightily to raise the drinking age to 21. Hypocrites. Every time they noticed us, it seemed it was only so they could take something away. They went right back to ignoring us afterward, don’t worry. I feel like we mostly raised ourselves, Gen-X, maybe raised each other. Not that some Boomer parents weren’t better than most. Some of them had their shit together but I didn’t know more than a few.

Years later, we’re all grown up, we had kids of our own and we are still largely ignored by the world. The Boomers are all still clinging to power so most of us still feel we don’t have a voice, lots of us are still struggling to find our way to financial stability, struggling with debt etc. Then we see things like this: https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2020/03/forgotten-generation-x-slackers-no-more-showing-boomers-and-millennials-how-to-deal-when-reality-bites.html The news literally writes us out of existence. This was mostly just normal. I was always hearing how Boomers had Millennial children, which is freaking weird because I have 2 Millennial kids, but yeah, some of the Boomers, with all their remarriages and of course some of the youngest Boomers too, did have Millennial kids. Most Millennials are the children of Gen-Xers but the world as a whole writes us out of the picture because we’re just a small, often forgotten bunch of slackers.

Even now that we’re middle aged we still haven’t “arrived,” haven’t found as much financial stability and success as we’d been expecting. The Boomers seem to be mostly still working, holding onto some of the better jobs, higher positions, positions of power. Loads of them should be retired, should have retired a decade ago, but they won’t or can’t because of all the fun decisions they made in the 70s and 80s or whatever. I don’t think we’re going to see a world steered by my generation, by Gen-X. The Millennials are an even bigger generation than the Boomers and somehow the Boomers screwed things up even worse for them than they did us. The Millennials have just had the worst, worst time of it. Gen-X sympathizes, we know a lot of the kid of crap they are going through. I think the Millennials will be the next generation in charge of the world and that Gen-X, in true Gen-X fashion, should stand to the side, do a bunch of the behind-the-scenes work and support, and let the millennials get on with hopefully fixing things. We see you, Millennials, we’re here to help you put things back together again. If you run out of amazing ideas for reversing climate change and ending all the terrible isms, look to your little siblings, Gen-Z is another one full of clever and creative thinkers. Both of you, let us “Olds” know what you need from us.

Work in a Library @ the End of the World.

Life feels weirdly paused right now. Not that things aren’t happening, lots of things are happening, I just feel like I’m holding my breath, waiting to be able to relax and breathe. My son has started his senior year of HS, and my husband is putting in 90-100 hours per week at his job, mostly from home, and I still go to work 2-3 times per week but the library is still closed. Patrons are getting really cranky about not being allowed in to browse, and I get it, I love browsing too. But we are doing many hours of curbside pick up and we’re even delivering items to patrons as well as putting out story walks and giving out take-home crafts. It’s the best we can do for now until the Board of Health and the Trustees decide to open the doors. Oh, we are also setting appointments for patrons to use the computers.

Right now we are working on setting up a time for some limited outdoor browsing of new items in our collection. We’re hoping to do it once a week so patrons can have at least some opportunity to browse. I’m also trying to get a grant to put together a take-home painting kit for some time next year. I want to provide canvases, paints, brushes, and a relevant book for beginners. It is way beyond the kind of kits I’ve been sending out so far. We put together kits mostly from art supplies we had lying around and added LED tea lights, glass jars, or skewers. We did have the stained glass kits which were expensive but those were bought with a grant that was supposed to cover a stained glass workshop event so I guess the painting kits would be comparable.

We’re ordering books again! It’s awesome. I hated only being allowed to order virtual books. I mean, they’re better than not having books at all but it is nice to be able to have new books for the shelves again. I was trying to diversify the collection before the pandemic and now it’s much easier. I feel like more books by writers of Color are being published and are getting promoted more, they are easy to find right now so it’s a big help. There are some excellent YA novels coming out, too many, I can’t keep up!

I’m in a weird headspace. I’m going to stop writing now. I hope you are all well safe.

A Few Sherlockian Recommendations

I read a lot. Shocking, I know, that a librarian should be a big reader, fulfills a stereotype at least. I read all sorts of books, fiction and nonfiction, but I have my favorites. I read a lot of fantasy, especially what is generally called ‘dark fantasy,’ of course as a YA librarian I tend to read a lot of young adult fiction too, a lot of dystopian fiction, lately I find myself reading a fair few mysteries, and I have always been fond of Sherlock Holmes stories. There are so many authors now trying their hand at writing the great detective that I cannot keep up. I really love what James Lovegrove has done with his Sherlock stories, especially the ones involving Cthulhu. I love the mythos originating with H.P. Lovecraft and fostered by his literary descendants. Seeing the mythos combined with the world of Sherlock Holmes is a treat.

The Lady Sherlock stories are surprisingly good too. I didn’t think they would be, thought the concept would be gimmicky, but they are very well done. The young Charlotte Holmes needs to forge her own path in life but she’s a privileged young lady in Victorian England and is thwarted at every turn. So she, with the help of a few accomplices, comes up with a way to use her bright and questing mind to make something of a living for herself. Of course it’s more complicated than that, with relatable and interesting characters, and plenty of plot twists to keep the reader guessing. I’ve read the first 3 books so far and I just ordered the 4th from another library. This series is worth reading for any fan of Sherlock Holmes. Interesting take well executed.

Oh, and another favorite, and recent, adaptation! There are 3 books by Kareem Abdul Jabbar starting with Mycroft Holmes; that are delightful. Co-written by Anna Waterhouse this trilogy is irresistable. Full of excellent and appealing characters, well plotted, perhaps not quite globe spanning but with some interesting travels and travails, these books deserve to be widely read. It seems a bit funny, I had always thought of Mr. Jabbar as simply a sports figure. I hadn’t realised he had other hidden talents. Hidden to me, I guess, I don’t pay too much attention sometimes.

Of Questions & Quandaries

It’s a lovely, rainy morning here by Cold Swamp. I’ve got a sour cream chocolate chip coffee cake in the oven baking for breakfast. Our new tenant is pretty much all moved in to the apartment downstairs. She must be glad she decided to move in yesterday when it was sunny and warm rather than today. Moving in the rain is just awful. We’re working on getting all the offspring to walk quietly and not use the kitchen at all hours now that someone will be attempting to sleep underneath our living areas.

Thank Thor it’s raining. It’s been a dry summer. You know it’s bad when mint is struggling. I don’t even want to harvest any right now, it hasn’t been able to flourish and spread this year. I do hope I will soon be able to harvest a bunch to dry for winter. Gods, I wish I’d gotten a garden in this year. And I wish I had any confidence a garden I planted would grow significant food. You would not believe how unsuccessful I have been at growing things, you really would not. This year looks to be mostly the same as any other aside from the berries and mint. I think my bean plants are likely to produce several beans with a little luck. I am just terrible at it. I need some sort of tutoring and a foolproof system/set-up. Maybe then I could start with a few plants like winter squash, green beans, zucchini, & cucumbers, then add a new plant or two to the garden each year. Ooo, kale, I definitely want to grow kale and onions and scallions. It’s probably undoable. I’m really awful at it.

What I’m going to submit for a cultural council grant this year I do not know. I don’t even know if there will be any grants this year. I asked my boss about that in an email but she hasn’t answered yet. I have some ideas, kind of, but they are all dependent on in-person programming being a thing we can do next summer. Obviously there is no guarantee that will be the case. My poor girls can’t even get jobs now, they have no online skills and not much in the way of job history, I despair about what to do for them, how to advise them. We encourage them to skill-up, take online classes and such, but I don’t know how much effort they are putting into it. Everything is just on hold, stuck, stifled.

At my husband’s work, his assistant quit yesterday, and is already gone. Hubby is a department of 1 again. The workload was crushing for 2 people and now it is just BRUTAL and there’s only so much he can do remotely. The assistant was on campus doing all the little fixes that had to be done in person and he just bailed. I can’t blame him for not wanting to be on campus but he really should have spoken up sooner, at least to my husband, so some kind of back up arrangement could have been made. What a cluster.

Senior year is looking doable for our lad. He will have to take another year of Spanish we just found out, he’ll have all the usual classes and also some nature and craft classes and such. I wish he could go in person, I wish it was a safe option. The boy needs to see some people near his own age, needs to make friends and socialize. My poor lad. My girls aren’t doing much better though they are both in online games with various friends and strangers.

My uncle’s funeral will be happening in a few days. It will be held outside so that’s something. My mother wants me to go, of course, but that is so fraught. I’m scheduled to work that day and I don’t want to drive out there, can’t be in a car with my mother and don’t think my husband would want to drive either. Ho do you go to a funeral and not hug people? But maybe I should go? I don’t know. I want to tell my aunt and cousins …. whatever you’re supposed to tell people at a time like this. I don’t know what to do but I need to decide now, yesterday, so I can get my shift covered and figure out how the heck to get out there.

Eventually things have to return to something like normal, don’t they? The virus will… be cured? Or we’ll get a vaccine or something, right? I’ll be able to go to the store for milk or to buy some clothes for my family, stop by a bookstore or a coffee shop. The people will come back to the library to browse and use the computers, I’ll be able to plan in-person programs again, right? My kids will be able to attend classes and get jobs someday, right?

3 Ring Circus

Though it often feels to me as if we lead boring lives in which very little happens the reality is a little different. Here is our year so far:

January: Happy New Year! First few days I see at least a dozen memes on FB about how right around every year “20” there is a terrible plague. heh, cute. Coincidentally, we start hearing that there’s something going on with a virus in China. Within a short time we’re still hearing everything is under control with the virus, but we’re seeing images of people in hazmat suits disinfecting the streets and the first city or province gets shut down. I begin stocking the house up a little more than usual; extra pasta, meat for the freezer, beans, rice, etc. (I always keep a good supply of food etc on hand in case of emergencies. I just increase our stores a little, fill in gaps.) Our tenant lets us know she is moving out and can’t pay February’s rent, we remind her she already paid when she moved in so, no worries. She tells us she is pregnant and moving in with her boyfriend.

February: I continue buying extra and stocking up, the news out of China isn’t good, the virus has spread to other countries, it is inevitable it will come here. I begin to get nervous about our son’s upcoming wisdom tooth extraction. It’s supposed to happen in March, he’s in pain, he needs it, but we’re starting to get a little nervous about going out in public, we’re wondering if we actually are going to have to isolate ourselves at home to stay safe. As the numbers everywhere start racking up, we wonder When do we pull the trigger? how do we decide it’s time to stay home? I get sick, it seems to be the flu, Tamiflu puts me right. We wonder how we will deal with the loss of rental income as we have no intention of looking for a new tenant as this virus continues to spread.

March: The boy has his wisdom teeth out, all goes well, yay. My husband gets ill, really ill, the doctor won’t see him. They prescribe over the phone, he takes breathing treatments 3 times a day, he takes pills. I worry. The doctors say they are assuming he is Covid-19 positive. My boss tells me not to come in. Our daughter works at a pharmacy and they aren’t taking precautions, she quits. Schools close. We are all home now. We don’t go out. We clean, we cook, we play video games and catch up on our reading. I worry about my husband, he’s exhausted. I begin working from home as best I can. My husband’s work won’t wait, they text and call, he begins working remotely through coughing fits. It’s unreal. He’s starting to feel better! His work hours keep expanding. We’re lucky, we both still have jobs, many don’t.

April: We mail our tax stuff in. We keep working. There’s hardly any traffic going by. I cook, a LOT, I start baking again. My husband is doing better, still coughing, but better. We start gaming more, lots of RPGs are started or picked back up where we’d left off. Isolation isn’t so bad. We meet online with friends to play Cards Against Humanity. We get groceries delivered! Huzzah! We’re using the empty apartment as a work space/art space/extra video game space. I turn the shed into an art studio/space to get away from the kids with my hubby.

May: Everything is still weird. We’re working from home, gaming online, getting groceries delivered, etc. This is the month we start to hear that people at only a small remove from us have gotten Covid-19, friends of friends… it’s scary. My husband’s aunt gets it, some of our friends get it. We stay home. We try not be paranoid about it, but we are not going to get this damn thing. The list of symptoms keeps growing, the ages and health condition of people getting this and suffering horribly from it keeps expanding.

June: We celebrate our son’s 18th birthday at home with cake and few presents we’ve gotten him online. It’s low key. We play an RPG, eat pizza and drink root beer. We finally begin to feel the sting of not seeing our friends and family in person. We keep working remotely. Our lives have something of a rhythm now, the kids are learning remotely. Our daughter gets her associate’s degree, our son passes all his 11th grade classes. My boss starts talking about the library reopening. Eventually I hear we will be back in the building in July. I am not happy about this, I don’t feel ready, I worry we will reopen to the public too fast.

July: I go back to work. It’s surreal working in an empty library. We do curbside pick up and delivery now. I devise and assemble take home crafts. Our budget is slashed way down but we all still have our jobs. I buy a few books for the collection. We struggle to keep up with cleaning all the books and other materials after their 3 day quarantine in the Community Room. Everything is confusing and different. Everyone is overwhelmed. We start feeling pressure from some people to loosen up our restrictions, to visit, to have lunch outside and “socially distanced.” My husband gets pressure from his job: What would make him feel safe so he can return to campus? Nothing, he tells them, honestly nothing. It’s an international boarding school and we’ve been hearing how many more enquiries they are getting from Texas, California, and Florida… You don’t say? How shocking that the uber-wealthy living in states where the virus is completely out of control want to send their kids to the relative safety of our neck of the woods! We promise we are 100% shocked by this. My uncle is diagnosed with cancer…

August: My husband continues to work from home, he digs in his heels, he is high risk. We get a note from his Dr. stating he is high risk for this virus and must be allowed to work remotely. The school continues to pressure him, suggests more isolated offices but when he starts to say that one in particular might actually work they say; ‘oh, you can’t have that one. A person that won’t even be teaching needs to use that room to write their book… ” because the huge free house they have all to themselves … doesn’t have room? As happens from time to time, my husband is contacted by a headhunter. Would he like to work in the field he just got a degree for? My husband starts seriously contemplating leaving this job. My uncle is rushed to the hospital and dies 2 days later on his daughter’s birthday. My husband is interviewed for a very cool job. He gets a second interview. We contemplate what life would be like if he actually liked/loved his job. We get the apartment ready so a friend can move in. We talk about having less money with the new job. We talk about how much notice he ought to give if he is offered this new job. I see a glimpse of a less stressed-out version of my husband.

September: Today, the first of the month, my husband’s assistant quits. He does not want to go onto campus either. He will work the next 2 weeks if he can do so remotely. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be the boots on the ground so that doesn’t help at all. How does one hire someone during a pandemic? How does one train someone remotely? We’re not sure. We are about to find out. We hope very much to receive an offer from the company my husband has been interviewed by because what is going to happen to the school is going to be an absolute shit-show. OMG. FUBAR. Our friend/new tenant is moving in today! The apartment is clean and shiny, the weather is good, I can’t wait. I know we can’t hang out like we want to but she’ll be here and we can sit outside and talk maybe? ^_^ Our son starts his senior year next week. My library may open at the end of the month and I have mixed feelings about that. I’m still worried about the virus numbers spiking a few weeks after school resumes.

And that’s pretty much our year so far. (Banner credit: “circus” by fsse8info is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

a very nothing update…

The summer vacation that wasn’t is all but over now. Our Bug starts his senior year of highschool, virtual only, next week. He’s/We’ve been stuck home virtually 100% since early March so days have no meaning for him, time has very little meaning as well. It will be a weird adjustment for him to make having to wake up and login to his classes every weekday. I think he’s looking forward to having a schedule again though. This has all be so disastrously weird. We’ve all been stuck in a kind of limbo and it doesn’t seem like it will be ending anytime soon.

Once in a while something goes right and the amazing cleaner, Therese, made time for us today so the apartment is pretty much clean and shiny for our new tenant moving in tomorrow. I’m airing it out now too, it’s been closed up for months. I replaced the worst ceiling tile but it was a terrible pain. I will definitely pay someone who knows how to do that next time. Hopefully our new tenant will love living there and the pandemic will end and then we can all hang out together. She’s a similar kind of weirdo to us and we all game together online. Someday we will all BBQ together and stuff.

Work is still very odd. No one is allowed into the library except for specific little time slots to use computers. We still do curbside pick up and take home crafts but there’s no browsing for books and no in person programming. I’m trying to come up with take home crafts and activities for fall with no budget so that’s interesting. I need to figure out things for the teens and tweens to make from the supplies we already have. It’s kind of awkward. Putting together the bags is fun and everyone appreciated them so much. It’s so weird not having people in the library… but it will also be 100% weird when they start coming back in. Strange days we’re living in.