The Week in Review

Phew! What a week it has been. How have you all been? Shall I tell you piecemeal what I did over my summer vacation. Or over the first week in October? Lessee...

I've been sleeping, dreaming, walking, talking, healing, feeling, groovin', movin'.

Last Sunday (not yesterday), Mario and I were preparing to drive into Portland. I had a class that was starting at 10:00 a.m. But early on a Sunday morning ain't my grandest time to be up and around. So I was slow. And a few things happened to slow us down further. I was supposed to pick someone up in Portland, but I couldn't find his phone number. We left the house once and came back after a couple of blocks and then left again.

And then we got a flat tire as we were leaving town. We changed the tire, in the rain. And then Mario drove around town to see if anything was open. Nothing was. We drove across the river and found an open gas station. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. Or humming. Or moving along. I was late. I hate being late. It's a thing with me. I think people who arrive late to appointments and meetings are rude and inconsiderate. Normally, I would have been stressing out about all of this. Having a flat tire. Changing a tire in the rain. Being late.

Instead I was happy as a clam. I was rethinking my obsession with being on time like the good little girl I am. You know why? All the delays that morning had kept us off the expressway driving 65 mph when the tire blew. That could have been bad. Instead, we were sitting in a gas station waiting for our tire to get fixed.

Isn't that much better?

When the tire was fixed, we drove to Portland. Spent the day doing cool stuff. On Monday Mario and I went to Falls Creek. It had been raining for a few days so it was cold, wet, and slippery. On the way back from the falls, my left ankle buckled beneath me and I went down hard on my right leg and right arm. I immediately started doing healing on it. I picked up a stone and moved it counterclockwise over the hurt parts, chanting, "No more pain than this stone." I couldn't remember the rest of the braucherei chant. These chants always work. I don't know if it just relaxes me to chant or if the motion actually draws the pain and injury out somehow—I don't really know—but it always helps. Maybe it just keeps my mind occupied until the initial excruciating pain ebbs.

Mario helped me up and I limped back to the car. I kept chanting and kept using my fingers and flexing my arm do it wouldn't freeze up. Once home I took some arnica, and then I had an epsom bath. No serious injury.

On Tuesday I had a work meeting in Vancouver about a book challenged at our library. Someone wanted a book we had in the teen section moved to the adult section. We talked about it. Everyone thought it should be an adult book, although I felt I didn't have enough experience to judge. I've been selecting graphic novels and young adult novels for nearly a year, but I still feel like an amateur. Ah well. I was hesitant to make a decision, and my boss decided to email the author and ask his intention. (It turned out he always intended it as an adult book.)

Wednesday we had All Staff Day. I had not been to one of these yearly work gatherings for over a decade. I decided I'd try to go. My library director seemed to appreciate my effort. It was in a hotel, not my favorite place to be, but I got to sit next to Mario, so that was fun. And this year the speakers were actually library people. Their suggestions to make our library—and any library–better were pretty much what I'd been saying for twenty years—a fact I pointed out to my director. Sometimes I just don't play well with people, do I? I don't blame him for not listening to me. I have been very critical of the library over the last few years. After a while if all you ever do is criticize, the people being criticized stop paying attention. (Did that make sense? It's late. I'm babbling.)

I suppose it's easier to hear from outsiders. I believe libraries should be about the relationships we build with the members of our communities. It's not about technology. We need to hire people who are comfortable with "the public!" Too many people still go into library work because they think they can hide out. And libraries need less rules. It's public service, people! At the branches where I was librarian, I greeted everyone who came into the library and asked them what they needed. I loved that. Too many librarians and library workers sit (or stand) behind a desk like a queen or king waiting for an audience. There are many more of us who want less rules and more interaction with the public, I think—I hope.

Of course, I'm now a telecommuting librarian so I get very little interaction with people any more.

On Thursday, Mario and I were once again in Vancouver. This time we were judging stories for the teen Fall Writing Contest at the library. That was a fun way to spend the day. We read some interesting, moving, hackneyed, and imaginative stories. Afterward, Mario and I got pizzas and Coconut Bliss and went home and blissed out.

On Friday, I went to visit the Witch on the Mountain in the hopes of figuring out why I'm having so much trouble with computers. I went by myself. Up the mountain. I passed several people on the trail, all of them with leashed dogs. All the dogs (and peeps) were well-behaved. It seems lately that dogs don't get as upset around me as they used to. Kind of nice. I walked to the top of the mountain. It took me a little while, but I made it. I hung out for a while. Then I went down the mountain. And I fell again. On my left hand. It snapped back. I was afraid I had broken it. I stayed down on the wet ground. I grabbed a stone. I did the healing chant. My leg and arm throbbed. I chanted. After a few minutes I was able to get up and I very slowly went back down the mountain, drove home, and took the arnica and bathed in epsom salts again.

And then, then, then, on Saturday at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary we had Spicy Saturday. A bunch of us roasted whole spices, ground them up, and used them in dal. While we waited for everything to cook, we decorated our menus. You can see the before-decoration menus here. It was a wonderful day.

That night we played cards with friends.

It was a busy frantic week, but I did it. It might not seem like much, but it was for me. I was able to do so many things without getting exhausted, without collapsing. That felt like such an accomplishment.

Hmmm. I know when I started this post a couple of days ago, I had a point. Maybe the point was that I persevered. Ain't it cool when we can do that?

Tomorrow is the Halloween Gathering at my house. I love October. Happy Full Moon.