Stuff I have been up to in the last 4 months and 5 days

1. Working part-time in an elementary school media center, which we used to call a library but now it's the media center because information is not just limited to books and media means information and library generally implies books as it derives from the latin liber or libri, which means book. My job primarily involves checking books in and checking books out, which primarily involves using a hand scanner and scanning various bar codes for student accounts and the different books. Elementary school-aged kids think that using the scanner looks like a pretty kick-ass job. Someone with a master's degree thinks it might be a little sad that this is how she has chosen to utilize her fancy-pants education. But she also thinks the kids are awesome and having daily visits with most of them is worth the degree of tedium that comes along with the job.

2. Walking my big lunk of a dog Mandy (mentioned previously), at least up until March 26th, even though it required intense vigilance about the presence of other dogs anywhere within a one-mile radius because if Mandy was walking on her leash and saw or smelled or sensed or thought she might perhaps sense another dog within a one-mile radius, she immediately wanted to eat it. Then came the day she actually did attempt to eat the neighbors' dog who is a small, black dachshund and who, let's be honest, could look a little food-ish to another, bigger animal. But eating the neighbors' dog, or really anyone else's dog, is against the pet-owning rules, at least in my municipality, so we kind of had to make a difficult decision about what to do with Mandy even though I loved that dog more than words can say. She was an excellent huggy dog.

3. Shoveling a fuck-lot-of snow. I know, complaining about the weather is so cliché, but you should see my driveway and we don't own a snowblower, partly because we're too lazy to buy one and partly because we like to feel superior using our own energy to displace snow rather than contributing to our national petroleum dependence issues. And also, partly because my husband's friend Jake has an intense fear of digital amputation by machinery. He lives in Long Island. Don't ask.

4. Taking a lovely vacation to Florida for a week in April. Someday I want to blog from Florida and include a photo of me with my feet up, drinking something tropical and typing on the laptop with the caption "Blogging away again in Margaritaville." One highlight of Florida was renting a stand-up paddle board and trying it out for the first time. I confirmed that I have a horrid sense of balance. I think it's because my feet are too small for the rest of my huge body and it makes me very tippy. My daughter, on the other hand, rocked the stand-up paddle board.

5. Engaging in various forms of inappropriate behavior.

6. Feeling melancholy. I excel at moodiness. However, I also try to live by the adage that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Hence, my absence from the blog world.

7. Learning that I will not be returning to my part-time job at the elementary school media center in the fall, due to "budget cuts." Ah, the old proverbial budget cuts. They'll getcha every time. So I'm going to return to my previous efforts at cobbling together some kind of life with my various interests. Like writing. Stay tuned, dear readers.

xo