Bibliomama

 Eek, I stayed away too long again. We had the most wonderful long week-end away and it was totally worth the resulting exhaustion. I had trouble sleeping when we got back, worked and hosted book club the next day which I kind of knew would be tough but went into denial about, and then shopped for book club groceries like a drunk person but everyone rolled with it. Some people liked the book, some people didn't like the book, which is better than everyone hating the book but also better than everyone loving the book and just saying 'oh it was wonderful' and then all of us staring at each other for ten minutes and then talking about what the kids are up to . The book:  I loved it. I really liked All the Light We Cannot See , but I was a bit intimidated by the size and scope of this. The format is like Cloud Atlas, The Overstory and Greenwood - like tree rings, concentric layers of story that travel from the past to the future or vice-versa, and back again. I loved it the f...

 I don't usually work Tuesdays, but this is my first one off in a while because I was covering for my lovely colleague to go to Paris for family weddings for a few weeks. I'm headed back to Hamilton this weekend, so I was doing errands and going to the chiropractor and just generally getting my ducks in a row (ducks in a row is kind of like balls in the air, in that two balls is one too many for me and two ducks is probably one more than I ever actually have in a row). These are some thoughts that I thought. 1. A few days ago I was having a day where I was going around the house doing annoying little things I had been noticing needed to be done but kept getting missed. Taking Matt's Christmas socks and underwear from Eve out of the package and washing them and putting them in the drawer, moving stuff that had been sitting on the dining room table for weeks, ironing a couple of things. I was tidying the powder room and the toothpaste tube cap had been caked with toothpaste f...

 I realized after I posted that I had completely forgotten two other very important Other Lucy Homes, one because it's so familiar and one because since Eve's BFF Marianna had the nerve to get into a really great drama school in B.C. has become infrequent. I assume I've mentioned that Lucy's sister from the previous litter lives next door, and is in fact that reason we got Lucy. We used to take them out to play in the front yard a few times a week, but we had a fence in the back yard. Eventually the fence got really broken down, and at some point a board in the side separating Paul and Yvonne's yard from ours fell over completely. The dogs were thrilled - instant doggie door! We were fine with it - Paul and Yvonne are awesome neighbours (awesome like have a glass of wine and end up killing four bottles in the backyard, forget my shoes on their front step at 4 a.m., shovel each other's driveway awesome) and now the dogs could frolic at will. Then the turbo-charge...

 I had a couple of Very Bad Days followed by a Quite Good One, but in order to fully describe the good one I have to write this post about the next thing I'm a little embarrassed about (getting less so) first. So we have a dog. More to the point these days, I have a dog. She's always been principally my dog, even though we got her as a birthday present for Eve and she came home on Eve's 12th birthday and Eve participated fully and enthusiastically in her care as much as she was able. But now Eve is not here. She kind of SHOULD be here, except she's doing a stupid Chemistry and Biology course in term one of summer school so she's in stupid Hamilton for a few more stupid weeks. Angus is likewise Not Here, and my husband, Matt? Well, a whole bunch of the time he's remarkably NOT HERE right now. Well, right NOW he's here, which thank goodness because it's garbage night, but lately he's been in Tokyo and Singapore and Vietnam and California and Friday he...

 So last night I was trying to sleep again and finding it stupidly difficult again, and picked up my phone out of frustration and went on to one of my message groups and several other people were on complaining about not being able to sleep. What the heck is going on? I took a sleeping pill even (over the counter, but still, it usually knocks me out). I did eventually fall asleep for a few hours, which is better than the night before, but I laid down feeling sleepy and comfortable and within ten minutes I was twitchy, prickly and thrashing around trying to find a good position and finding all the positions terrible. Eve Facetimed me last night from her living room, and later coming out of the bathroom wearing a towel, just to revel in the newfound freedom of living in an empty house - a couple of her housemates live nearby and will be in and out throughout the summer, but for now she's enjoying having the fridge all to herself and being able to clean her bathroom and have nobody el...

I'm filling in a few days in the next few weeks for my partner librarian at my Monday school who is overseas for two family weddings. I was totally cool with this even though it meant a long day on Tuesday which is usually my day off. I wore a super comfortable t-shirt dress and my running shoes. I packed two little fans instead of one. I never drink pop at school but I put in a Diet Pepsi for an afternoon boost. I went to bed early to read and get a good night's sleep. I didn't take anything because Monday was my early day and I thought I'd be tired enough. Did I then have the absolute wretchedest, brokenest, vexingest, stupidest, coughingest, hot-flashingest sleep (such as it was) EVER? Why yes, yes I did. For my afternoon boost I should have packed COCAINE. The day was actually totally fine and fun and satisfying. I had a ton of classes so it went by fast, they were all kind of grooving on the novelty of having a different librarian, three girls said they loved my ha...

I did not, as it happens, but I wanted you all to know that I DID start it. It was a bit of a nutty week with a lot of balls in the air (which, to be clear, for me means more than one or two balls in the air). Work on Monday, which was fine. I was sleepy, but the day still went really fast, which is counter-intuitive. Tuesday I already can't remember what happened. Wednesday I drove to the car dealership with my dad following me, drove him home and borrowed his car, and went home, got ready for work, went to work, came home, picked up my dad to go back to pick up the car, went home, went to book club, came home - that is a LOT OF TIMES to go out and come home. Thursday I went to work and then drove a couple of hours to Kingston and stopped for dinner with Matt's brother's family who live a few provinces away but are closer by on sabbatical for a few months - we had a really fun day with them in a small town halfway between us a couple of weeks ago, and I'm trying to see...