Category: Life

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Pirates of the Bibliotecha

Erica and Rabbit-the-dog

Winter cometh. Rabbit-the-dog gets up early, and lately when I let her out she tiptoes around the frozen yard with an accusing look on her snout. We had her spayed last week, and she had to wear one of those doggie satellite dishes around her neck. I soothed her the best I could, but when I left for work the first day she pressed her head up against the door and whimpered. With the plastic cone on, it looked like we had suction-cupped a dog to our wall.

It has been a week of recovery for everyone. I’m coming out of an awful cold, which has re-introduced me to the joys of Allegra abuse. I’ve been self-medicating with hot toddies and delivery pizza. After five days, my head has finally deflated to normal size and my overabundance of phlegm no longer frightens the co-workers. Coming in to work sick is great if you enjoy people asking you “do you have allergies, or is that…(suspicious pause)…a cold?”

Our University inaugurated a new president last week, and since I now find myself with faculty status, I was able to march in the academic procession. Hundreds of over-educated people in silly clothes wound their way across campus in the cold. In our fancy schmancy regalia, it was a great big academic drag show. A whole crowd from the library showed up, and there was talk of staging a raid on the nearby Law School. We figured we could use our mortarboards and rapier-like wit as weapons and take over their budget.

Arr.

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Joy! Connectivity!

The dead have risen, and my formerly disconnected home computer lives again due to the life-giving properties of the *Third* network card installed in a year. I strung up the dead ones and hung them on the bathroom wall. Hopefully they will scare off the bad networking demons.

I adopted a dog this weekend from a wretched pound outside of Toledo. She’s white, Golden Retrieverish, gentle, and quite full of fur. I keep following her around the house making little contented sighing noises.

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The second in a paranoid series

cool looking header image

Ah ha! I get it! They aren’t looking at me!

Let me back up. I work in front of a huge window. All day students walk by on their way to classes. About half of them stare into my office as they walk by. It is kind of creepy. I’ll get this odd feeling that I’m being watched, look up, and realize that I AM being watched. It wasn’t until today that I noticed a woman sort of tap-tap-tapping on her hair the way people do when they…look in a mirror. Yes, a mirror. Not in a window, but rather, at a reflective surface created by contrasting light levels.

I’m so relieved.

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Visiting Michigan

This weekend I was in Michigan taking care of family. On my way out of town I visited my friend Chuck, who has recently purchased a Very Fast Motorcycle. Detroit cops seem to have better things to do than pull over speeding motor city kids, so we were able to get some riding in.

Right now, I find the following things equally therapeutic:

Petting Clay and Mike’s rabbit*

Doing 100 mph on a dark road with the visor up

Getting in a really good Tango with a strong lead who brushes his teeth**

* The dog rabbit. He hops up to you and demands to be petted. The more you squish his face and pull his ears the happier he gets. I’m serious. This is a really good bunny.

** This hasn’t happened in ages. Volunteers accepted.

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The call of our Zombie Masters

Now that the students are back in town I have company on my morning commute. Dozens of us trudge up the hill at 8am, shuffling up the steep slope to campus in unison, a long line of sleepy students and faculty heeding the call of our zombie masters.

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Ithaca

In my current sleep-deprived state (finding a spider on the ceiling right before bedtime can make for a restless night), I could only muster up the energy for a list.

Things I have seen in Ithaca recently:

  • Squirrels raiding my bird feeder using what looks like a tiny rope and pulley system. Clever little bastards.
  • Big frikkin’ waterfall a block from my house.
  • An old man out running with a Walkman. He waved each time we passed each other on the loop around the lake.
  • A friendly dog leaping on a Frisbee outside the Veterinarian Fraternity.
  • Hundreds of underdressed undergraduates returning to campus, getting very excited about things like decks of playing cards and free checking accounts.
  • The empty aisles of the local Target store after three days of back-to-school frenzy. It looked like Vikings had raided the hardware section. All that was left were a few drop cloths and a toilet plunger.
  • 1 big grouchy falcon
  • 2 dead squirrels (Connection?)
  • Hills. Calf-developing, 45-degree-angle, don’t-drop-that-bowling-ball-or-you’ll-kill-someone, Swiss Alp-style hills.
  • Orioles, goldfinches, cardinals and other birds with irrefutable fashion sense.
  • Students throwing stones across the library roof in order to make a nifty PLOINK! noise and incidentally contributing to the erosion of the roof drainage system. Never underestimate the power of a nifty PLOINK! noise. The big “Stone Throwing is Prohibited” sign on the roof seems only to have institutionalized this pastime. I often watch people walk by, see the sign, get this “oh yeah, I forgot about the stone thing” look on their face, and then toss a stone. Way to go with the totally intimidating sign. I think we as librarians have to accept the fact that we are not, in any way, sources of fear or respect among potential stone throwers, and our stern signs are really just sad attempts to influence a demographic that we can never truly reach or even understand.
  • Beavers. Two. Swimming in the pond outside the Lab of Ornithology. Their tails are HUGE.
  • A storm brewing that looks like it will hit just in time for my walk home, giving me the much needed shower that I missed this morning due to the no-sleep-spiders-will-eat-me incident mentioned earlier.
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Notes from the field: Beekeeping

I removed some frames of honey from the Cornell Organic Farm beehive last week, and in the process I managed to get stung three times on the hand, so there was no typing for awhile. Still, I didn’t get the worst of it. My partner got stung in the head twice, causing one side of his face to swell up to Muppet-like proportions. I do this because it is such a peaceful, meditative hobby.