The Offical White House Photostream on Flickr

The Official White House Photostream on Flickr is essentially Cute Overload for US Politics. There is a type of unabashed sincerity in the Obama administration that I’ve never seen before.

I really love this photo of the President interacting with a young visitor.

And then, of course, there is Bo, shown here visiting the Oval office for the first time. Awww. Hi Bo! Hi!

Recent goings-on, presented in rhyming couplets

1. An identity crisis might ensue,
Skipping the SLA meeting for a workshop on XHTML2.
*Sorry SLA. You’re great and all, but semantic, accessible, device-independent webpages whoop your ass.

2. A morning dogwalk at six.
Instead of eating the cat, he just licks.
* Dogfriend Odin has been staying with us. He thinks the cat is veeeery innnnteresting.

3. While lining the attic with insulation,
Five thousand spiders in formation.
* Bravely, I battled on.

4. Attempting to recall possessive case,
I call the hotel in Spain. Hablas Ingles?
* I apparently suffer from Fear Of Spanish. Que Oy.

Graduation Bucket List

I found this list from a year and a half ago. I was half-drunk and coding a webforum for my PHP class. I made a list, oh so long ago. Here it is…

List of things I want to do after graduation:
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  • Learn Yiddish
  • Finish reading Sophie’s World (Done!)
  • Make the webforum decent and secure (
  • Overhaul Librarian Avengers (Half-assed overhaul complete)
  • Start looking into Art schools and Computer Science departments. (maybe in a few years…)
  • Re-dye blue streak in front of hair for Librarian Job Interview Shock Value (Done!)
  • Start doing 5k runs again (or 3k…3k is good…)
  • Write old friends
  • Move to warm place
  • Develop a drinking habit
  • Read!! Read!! Real books! Things I care about!
  • Start buying music again
  • Start ballroom/swing dancing again (Done!)
  • Visit Erin in San Francisco and Jenny in St. Paul (Too broke. Thanks homeownership.)
  • Stay with Jessamyn West for awhile and help with chores
  • Plan the next Librarian Avengers ALA party. Book Klezmer band.
  • Re-pot my plants
  • Build a hive for the honeybee and live alone in the bee-loud glade (Done! Thanks Yeats!)
  • Romance my boyfriend (ongoing)
  • Buy impractical shoes (Done! ow!)
  • Think impractical thoughts
  • Raise a dog (soon)
  • Rescue an old cat (soon)

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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.

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.