Cascading downwards

Well, this is the only way anyone is going to "hear" from me for a while, because my voice is almost completely gone. I sound worse than a 12-year-old boy. It's causing much amusement at work.

Edited to add: And evidently I laugh like Muttley.

I was so far behind on doing laundry, that I finally gave up and dropped it off at the laundromat for them to do. I'm regarding it as a special treat for myself. Plus, I can't fold fitted sheets to save my life, and there are three sets of sheets in there. So, yay.

Not having to do that enabled me to finally have time for the hand washing, which consists of items not really necessary for daily life, but nice to have (read: lingerie). Double yay (from me and Rich).

This has been brought to you by the Committee for Household Minutiae. We will now return to your regular programming.

Twice this week, I have had teenagers bring me stuff they thought was inappropriate for kids to check that I knew about them. And I had to explain both times that they were perfectly fine for the ages they were intended for, and that many people did not find them offensive. Meanwhile, I'm mentally thinking that isn't this the age where they should be rooting for more nudity?

One was a 13-year-old girl who thought It's Perfectly Normal shouldn't be in the children's room (it's a sex ed book for children, hand-drawn, cartoonish pictures). Then, a 14-year-old boy going through a stack of manga the YA librarian had brought in, and exclaiming that many shouldn't be available to teenagers be cause people were nekkid! Again, not photographs, hand-drawn, in B&W.

I despair for healthy attitudes toward sex in the future.

I can't believe I just had to explain to an upstanding senior citizen (someone who is here almost every day) why she couldn't tear things out of the library's newspaper. Her rationalization? "But, you're about to close." First of all, not for almost 2 hours. Second of all, someone might want to read that tomorrow.

I just wanted to share a passage from one of my favorite books that seems so appropriate for today. It's not pagan - it's from a religion in a fantasy novel - but certainly its roots are:

In darkness, in cold, in the midst of winter
where nothing walks the world but death and fear
let the brave rejoice: I call the light.

Out of darkness, light.
Out of silence, song.
Out of the sun's death, the birth of each year.

Out of cold, fire.
Out of death, life.
Out of fear, courage to see the day.

In darker night, brighter stars.
In greater fear, greater courage.
In the midst of winter, the world's birth.

In the book, the final line was "Praise to the High Lord," but I feel that I can substitute whatever feels appropriate. I don't know why many of my personal rituals come from books; I guess I just feel a real connection to the language, and it feels more powerful that anything I could write myself.

If this really appeals to anyone, it's from Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy - I think it's from the middle book.

Saying "I didn't want that job anyway" after you didn't get it is usually a case of sour grapes. But in the case of my recent experience, new information has come to light: that department is going to be moving its offices to Long Island City. A commute that involves going over the Whitestone Bridge and taking the Long Island Expressway during rush hour.

Boy! am I glad I didn't get it after all.

Granted, they aren't actually moving for quite a while, but still.

Today, I am off to my mother-in-law's, to help her decorate her tree. Normally, she holds off until after Thanksgiving, but she's thrown out her back, and we'll have to do it all for her, so this is more convenient.

Bright side: we will definitely get fed well. And probably go home with leftovers. Mmmmm.

I am sad to report that my beloved Karma is dying. It is rejecting more and more Mp3s as being bad tracks, even though they play fine on my computer. The batteries don't seem to hold a charge as long. And, well, it's pretty beat up at this point, having been dropped several times (not to mention the sanctioned solution for the stuck hard drive issue, which is "give it a good whack").

What I really wanted as a replacement was the Trekstor Vibez, but their announced 15 Gb version seems to be vaporware. Trekstor bought the software used on the Karma, so it's almost just a new version of the Karma.

So I settled on a Creative Zen Vision M. They seem to run at least $120 plus shipping on eBay, but I can get a refurbished one stright from Creative for $150 and free shipping, so that seemed worth the extra $20 or so.

Here's hoping I like it as much as my Karma.

But if the 15Gb Vibez comes out, I am so buying one anyway.

I need my friends to periodically remind me: no matter how cute the new shoes, and how much you want to wear them, if they are open-toe, you cannot wear them when the forecast is rain.

That was not comfy.

I was doing really well at posting regularly for a while, and then there was a crackdown on surfing at work, and I felt it would not be a good idea to go to LJ. And at home, it's such trouble to dig out the keyboard to the tablet, and the handwriting recognition editing gets old quickly, so....

Anyway. The latest news is that there was an opening at work in the department I've wanted to work in for several years (Branch Libraries' Information Systems - internal QA, kinda), so I jumped right on it. I'm still waiting to hear, since the application period only officially ended on the 30th. I got my first interview about a week after applying, and my second a week or so after that, so it's very promising. And I heard that only three people got a second interview. Cross your fingers for me.

In other news, my poor car got its hood crumpled, again. This one was not my fault. In fact, I wasn't even there - it was parked, and the person left the scene without leaving info. Lucky for me, there were several witnesses, and one took down the plate number. Can I say how much I love this neighborhood? The most annoying part was it evidently happened not five minutes after I parked it. Guess I should have been late to work that day, huh? All fixed now, and I didn't even have to pay the deductible. I love my insurance company. Just hoping to get reimbursed for the rental now.

I think that hits the high points of September. I'll post again if I can think of anything else noteworthy.