Dona Nobis Pacem

second star to the right, and straight on till morning

I am going to retire.

Funny. When I finished graduate school in 1980, I had already worked as a librarian trainee for a year. Then I got the first position that I interviewed for. (I lied to get it. The director needed someone for a temporary position to do reference and the library's newsletter. "Can you do camera-ready pasteup?" "Oh, sure...")

The position was supposed to expire in 30 days, but here I am, 30 years later, and I'm going to retire. I don't know when the state will decide to correlate 30 earthly years with its own unearthly and nutty calendar - maybe 3, months, or 4 - but then, I will leave, and I will not be replaced.

I will not be replaced. My kind is extinct. ("Oh, I remember when librarians did that picky stuff....." ) We catalogers were trained to be analytical and precise, maybe even picky, maybe even prissy. We used an official thesaurus from the Library of Congress, and strict rules of punctuation that separated the title from the subtitle, the author from the illustrator. We followed many rules. We had to: if we were sloppy, if the card catalog was downright wrong or even imprecise, the books would be forever lost on the shelves, lonely and unread.

Now that the online catalogs can be searched as easily as Google, catalogers are just the annoying creatures who buzz around the library sidelines, hairpins dropping from our buns while we practice that ancient Olympic sport, synchronized shhhh-ing.

I wonder who will do the simple things once we all are gone, the non-glam, prissy things like proof-reading. If you happened to look at the library catalog before I proof-read the entry for a new children's book about Disney's wide world of fairies, you, too might have believed that the doyenne of Disney's fae folk was -

***Thinkerbelle!***

Thinkerbelle! I bet she could tell some stories about ol' Peter Pan and Wendy!

To be continued --

goldengrove unleaving

Spring and fall: to a young child
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(Autumn: Mary Cassatt)

what's the buzz? or, bees in my bonnet

"Buzz" has become one of the most hateful words in the English language.

About 2 weeks ago, I found a dead - insect - in my bathroom, which has no insulation, a pitiful, tiny heat grate, a veneer vanity that peels if you try to clean it, and a door that opens to the garage. The previous owners must have been - - words fail me, especially since they built it for their aged parents. (Perhaps they did not like their parents. It happens.) Only one detail distinguishes this room from an outhouse: it doesn't have a crescent moon carved in the door.

The next day, I heard buzzing. Several - insects - were flying around the skylight. Since I was not wearing my glasses, I assumed the buzzing was from bees. I panicked (even though I do have an Epi-pen on the shelf), and grabbed the first thing I could to spray at them. Unfortunately, it was a tub cleaner with bleach. The buzzing continued. The bleach fell onto some of my clothes. (In fact, about 1/3 of my work clothes now sport polka-dots. I do not like polka-dots.)

The bleach did not work. Next, I swatted at them with a towel. I missed. Good thing, too. When my DH came in to see, he informed me that the buzzers were not bees. They were yellowjackets. Ferocious, lethal yellowjackets.

We got some of the appropriate insecticide and sprayed all of the suspected portals. They kept coming. My DH began to caulk the likely portals. They kept coming. Then he broke out the duct tape. They kept coming.

I wandered outside the yard while he caulked and taped. What I saw out there was horrible, horrible: a swarm of yellowjackets, hundreds of them, flying in and out of the siding outside of where the bathroom had been slapped together built. It was like something out of Hitchcock - The Birds, perhaps - except with buzzing. My DH emptied a can of wasp spray under the siding.

If a wasp could twirl its moustache and sneer, these would have been twirling and sneering a loud HAH! I went to the hardware store and said, "short of a flamethrower, do you have anything for swarms of yellowjackets?" I came home. DH sprayed. HAH!

I did some research and learned that yellowjackets can build nests that can cover a football field. (Slight hyperbole. Slight.) I probably have been showering about 2 inches from an entire wall of their honeycomb-like nest. (The horror!)

The exterminator is coming tomorrow. I hope he has a flamethrower.

When I get really depresssed, a donation to Heifer International often cheers me. Usually, I buy a beehive. Somehow, yesterday, I didn't feel like buying a beehive, so I went for the trees. Yes, I do feel a little better.

little things I've been meaning to write, and Friday fill-ins

Do you love fountain pens? Do your hands sometimes look as though you have soaked them in ink? Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser will make your hands look like human hands again. (I can't answer for your cuticles. Tell everyone you have invented a new style of manicure.)

Have you seen Awful Library Books? You'll laugh, you'll groan... We librarians have to weed the book collection. Weeding is a necessary evil because buildings do not stretch. Awful Library Books displays some of the truly horrible stuff still on library shelves. There must be a middle ground between "keep everything" and "go after your collection with a weed-whacker."

I am addicted to Farmville. Darn that Facebook! I tried Yoville, but didn't enjoy myself there, partly because the only way I found to earn money was to suffer in a bakery, making cookies I couldn't eat. Farmville has become my online dollhouse, with cute animals, trees, crops, and darling things you can buy to dress up the place. (I'm saving up for a pink flamingo.) At one point, I had 7 baby elephants, all gifts, thank you, but I had to sell them because they made the rest of my animals wander. I found a horse in the rice paddy, chickens hiding behind banana trees, a duck and a baby elephant staring each other down, and a swan roosting in a tree. Unacceptable.

And now - Friday fill-ins.



1. Sweet dreams are made of this.

2. I want an iPod Nano especially for me, but I'm torn between purple and grey, and I can't justify the purchase until my little Sansa fails. Which it never will. Apparently, Sensa doesn't subscribe to planned obsolescence.

3. Silliness is obsessing over the colour of a Nano one isn't going to buy.

4. I want to dress like a Moleskine this Halloween.

5. Outstanding or not is too damn subjective.

6. Dancing and cheering and crying with joy is what I want right now because Barak Obama has won the Nobel Prize! I haven't been this excited about a Nobel winner since it was awarded to Jimmy Carter!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hearing what Bill Maher has to say about the award, tomorrow my plans include listening to the sound of heads exploding because of the award, and Sunday, I want to knit on very large needles with my peeps!

where I've been

Please pardon my absence from Tea Leaves. I'm still here. I have been distracted, nearly beyond tolerance, by (amongst other things) :

• A swarm of wasps in my bathroom. At first, just one, then two, then - many - My husband came in to look. "They're not bees." They were yellowjackets. I'd been swatting them and spraying bleach on them. (I know, I know - not many people in this world use bleach as an insecticide. I'm - imaginative.) We had no idea where they were coming from, so he duct-taped every conceivable opening. Next day, more "bees." And then, I saw one crawling out from behind the shower enclosure. How relieved we were - so that's where they're coming from! The next step was to find out why they were coming under the shower enclosure, so I went outside to look - and saw a pandemonium of swarming yellowjackets climbing under the siding. They have built a nest there. A huge one, judging from the furious buzzing. My husband is, as I write, closing up every conceivable opening into the shower stall. If this doesn't work, I'll have to abandon the bathroom and let the yellowjackets have it.
  
  
• My boss, who is pushing me, none too gently, into retiring as soon as the state decides its version of 30 years. You know something? I'm ready.
  
  
• The first cataract surgery. I replaced the lenses in distance and reading glasses because I was seeing two separate worlds. The second will be in 1 1/2 weeks. Again, I'll replace lenses. 6 weeks later, my eyes will (for the first time in my life) be both usable and stable. Then I'll face another eye surgery - but I can't think about that right now.
  
  
• Proof that I needed cataract surgery. I was looking for eye drops in the drugstore and wondering why they didn't have the brand I needed. It took me a full 5 minutes to realize that I was looking at a shelf of nose spray.
• 
  A gift card from Borders. What does your average reader use her gift card to buy? Well of course. Looking for Anne of Green Gables and a Devil Duck.

to be continued...

Goodbye, Mary Travers

You made a difference in this world.

overthinking

I've begun to read Spinning in the Old Way by Patricia Gibson-Roberts. Not only am I getting a sense of how truly ancient spindles are, but how many so-called "primitive" cultures developed the tools and the craft. It might not be the best time for me to be reading about spinning, though. I've now been "espinnerated" twice (i.e., introduced to the hand spindle), and each time I've been stymied by overthinking.

As a former dance student (very, very former) and musician, I know that overthinking is the best way to keep muscle memory from developing. As a leftie-turned-rightie with some dyslexia, I know that overthinking is keeping me from committing to s or z spin, or even spinning in the same direction twice. In practical terms, it means that most of what I spin becomes un-spun with the next twist of the spindle.

Maybe I should detail my spindle...

Paul Rieckhoff: Eight Years Later: Why Is There Still A Hole at Ground Zero?

Paul Rieckhoff: Eight Years Later: Why Is There Still A Hole at Ground Zero?

Posted using ShareThis

September 11, 2001

• I wrote this post in 2006. Nothing has changed. I decided to join Anna and re-post what I wrote then.

So many commentaries today. So many opinions. So many recollections of worldwide sympathy. So much riding on a shared definition of what happened 5 years ago.

Unless you are an artist or a farmer, or, perhaps, a lover of the moon and stars, the changing slant of sunlight is not as meaningful to you as it is to the multitudes of live beings around us and underfoot. The concept of time, measured on a calendar, means only what we assign to it. Maybe a particular day means gifts and flowers to you. Maybe, to another, it means release from imprisonment, or the gift of new and exciting opportunity. If an anniversary means anything, it ought to measure what we have learned, or what progress we have made toward understanding, compassion, and peace.

September 11, 2001 was a horrible day. Nearly 3000 Americans died because a murderous ideologue and his followers executed them by executing a hideously clever and minimalist plan. No WMD, no missiles: just box-cutters and hatred.

We were right to mourn the dead, and to comfort those left behind. We may have been right to take military action against the country that had harbored the killers - although one can make the case, rather easily, that by attacking Afghanistan, which had been hijacked by the Taliban, we turned its citizens into victims once again.

We veered off course when we expanded that war and used our military against Iraq, a country whose leader had not participated in the September 11 attack. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a brute. He was not, however, an expansionist brute, or a brute whose arsenal included WMD. Iraq did not threaten us, but we invaded Iraq --because we could, and because we wanted control over Saddam's oil resources.

Ego and oil. Oil and ego. What do you call a leader who invades another country to capture its natural resources and settle a score? I call him a brute. I call George W. Bush a brute.

Five years have passed since September 11, 2001. On this artificial anniversary, this arbitrary date on a paper grid, is the world safer or more democratic? Are we wiser? Is anyone (aside from Halliburton and the rest of the military-industrial complex) in a better place?

For that matter, is anyone healthier? Surely not the First Responders, or the residents around Ground Zero, whose lungs have been ruined because our government lied about air quality. Surely not the thousands of maimed Americans and Iraqis who have been caught in a deadly crossfire between one ideological force and another, between an occupying force and "suiciders" (good job, Georgie) who gushed into Iraq because of us. Because of us.

In those five years since September 11, 2001, we have killed and maimed more Iraqis than Osama bin Laden killed on our soil.

How Osama must laugh to see a once-mighty nation that now believes its safety depends on keeping toothpaste off planes, or that we are safer if the FBI can monitor how many cookbooks your grandmother has checked out of the library.
(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

Since September 11, 2001, we could have learned two things: they don't hate our freedom, and we might not love our freedom enough to accept that it comes with some risk. But we didn't learn. And when will we ever learn, if not now?

And now, on September 11, 2006, all I can say is that I am a lover of the moon and the stars. I only hope that our mistakes will not change the slant of our collective light - our democracy - forever.

I can haz squirrel

(you can, too)

In fact, I do still knit

See?

I've been knitting hats for a Care to Knit project with my Ravelry peeps. This is hat #3. In the background is a stained glass that my father-in-law designed and made.


I've also been knitting a red scarf for The Red Scarf Project. It's just about time to send it in.

The other news in my textile life: I want a spinning wheel. I want this spinning wheel. The reason I want this spinning wheel is that I was permitted to muddle around with try one at Panera a couple of weeks ago. I'm doing a little better with spindling (which is a good thing, since I've collected at least 10 of them already), and I love spindling, but - a wheel -

The woman who showed me how to spin on her wheel was using fibre that looks exactly like my hair - so I ended up spinning a reasonable facsimile of my own hair. Who else can say that?

In fact, if I decide to get a wheel, I'll have to do some research, try some other wheels, decide if I want single or double treadle, and all that -- but I love Victoria already.
What sayest thou? Would she make a good present when I retire?

(And would that help me decide to retire sooner?)

(You betcha.)

Anna, Emily, Betsy-Tacy, and zombies

Jane Eyre has been one of my touchstones since I was quite, quite young. Until recently, Charlotte was the only Brontë I ever had read with pleasure. (I loathe Wuthering Heights. Always have. Always will.)

I just finished Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë, the youngest and most gentle Brontë. Her novels should not be read with the expectation of finding the temptestuous attributes of Emily, or the fury and passion of Charlotte. Thank goodness! What Anne Brontë brings to the reader is exquisite observation of the small issues, the details that delineate all societies and relationships.

There is no tramping across moors or flying into rages for Agnes Grey. Instead, the young, sheltered woman decides to go into the world, work as a governess, and save her family from financial collapse. Although she is well-educated, the first position she takes is disastrous because the children are hellspawn - completely uncontrollable, cruel, sneaky hellspawn. Poor Agnes is fired. (The children reminded me of the Gremlins in the toy store. Pretty close!)

Agnes goes home to recover, but she is game, and soon accepts another position. The children here are less demonic, and Agnes remains with the family for several years. The child whose selfishness is impossible to temper grows into the most heartless, flirtatious wench this side of Scarlett O'Hara, but quiet Agnes meets a man whose character and heart inspire her to wish for appreciation and love. Even the most passive, meek woman can change a world.

Since I did mention the other Brontë sisters, I should write a little about Emily's Ghost by Denise Giardina. I wish I were more familiar with the biographies of the other sisters (as well as the dissolute Branwell) because the Emily I met in this novel was so sympathetic, and the Charlotte so silly and man-crazy, that I can not sort out the details. Giardina's descriptions are so vivid that you can see Emily's merlin fly across the skies over the moors and feel the heat from the hearth.

Thanks to Jennifer, Book Club Girl, I have begun to read the Betsy-Tacy books. Midway through the first, I am in love with these little girls. Betsy's genuine desire for a friend cracks through Tacy's shyness, Betsy's loyalty enables Tacy to endure the first day of school, and the girls unfurl their imaginations to soar on a feather to visit the beautiful world they hope to see. I thought of Anne Shirley as I read. These girls could be her younger sisters, joining Anne in her fantasies and exuberance (but keeping themselves a bit more centered...)

Jennifer is hosting Betsy-Tacy Convert Week, which will begin on 9.28. Head on over if you'd like to be converted - or just to reminisce.






I seem to have run out of time for zombies. ("No time for zombies" - was that a tv show?) Tune in again...

gonna take that dream and ride that dove

Gratitude: thank you, Anna, Diary of an Eccentric for Hugh and Bess by Susan Higganbotham. I'm so excited to read this and share it with my friends!



Gratitude: thank you, Cheya (Booklogged) at A Reader's Journal, for The Guernsey Library and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. I love epistolary fiction, and I've wanted to read this book for a long time. I know I'm going to enjoy it because every friend who has read it is still raving about it.



Gratitude: this morning, on my way to work, I was listening to an album by Laura Nyro. Do you remember the song, "Save the Country"? I cried when she sang about the two young brothers. Now there are three. Please, people, let the dream live on.


Come on, people! Come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river.
Gonna wash you up, and wash you down,
gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.

Come on, people! come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river.
Gonna wash you up and wash you down.
Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal.
In my mind I can't study war no more.
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country now!

Come on, people! Come on, children!
There's a king at the glory river.
And the precious king, he loved the people to sing;
Babes in the blinkin' sun sang
"We Shall Overcome."

Come on people! Sons and mothers!
Keep the dream of the two young brothers.
Gonna take that dream and ride that dove.
We could build the dream with love, I know,

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal.
In my mind I can't study war no more.
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country now!

We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build a dream with love, children,
We could build the dream with love, oh people,
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build the dream with love.

and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.