Well that makes sense now. 
Hi to all you UNI folks! I was just a wee bit startled when I saw all the hits from uni.edu and didn’t know it was multiple people logging in. Can you imagine how strange it would be for me to think all those hits were from one person? But many of you? THAT I can handle!
So hello and hope you are all doing well. Life in Philadelphia rocks my socks off - do drop a line if you ever come visit the birthplace of our nation.
Hey - whoever you are at UNI, please say hello in the comments. It’s a little weird to note that you’ve scoured my entire web site without dropping me an email or anything.
Happy Thanksgiving from Minnesota! Amy and I spent about 9 hours getting here yesterday, thanks to a snowstorm in Chicago that delayed a plane coming to Philadelphia that was going to take us to MN. No huge problem, really, just tiring.
Today, I want to publicly thank the God I believe in (who I know is different from the Gods other people believe in*) for:
My family, with their health and humor and happiness.
My friends, who seriously rock the free world with their zest and zeal.
My little beast, who’s so damn cute it makes me hurt sometimes (although it’s probably her shrill bark that hurts rather than her cuteness).
My co-workers, who invariably make me smile when I’m having a tough day.
My work, which is honestly and unabashedly meaningful to me.
Many blessings upon you this Thanksgiving holiday.
* I just finished reading Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods, and am even more sensitive to our various belief systems.
One day when Amy was walking Maggie, they found a larger-than-normal blue tennis ball. Amy kicked it up into the yard, and since then, Maggie’s had a huge obsession with it. I can stand out there and kick it for her for hours, and she’ll chase it, pick it up by the skin of her teeth, and bring it back to me. There are few things that she’s shown this much sustained interest in, so it amuses me to no end. Here are a couple of my favorite photos with her and the blue tennis ball.
And then because I am a yarn freak, here is my latest stash enhancement photo. I got 2 balls of Tessin Meunch in blue, and 3 balls of Lana Grossa yarns - one wool in pink/orange/tan, one fuzzy in orange, and one shiny in orange/tangerine. I need another ball of the wool so I can make a nice scarf. The blue will be for baby things, since my green baby thing was so fun to knit. The orange fuzzy and orange/tangerine shiny will end up as a big scarf for me. Because I love orange.
I found out this afternoon that a friend of mine, Dan Kissane, passed away yesterday. Dan was the ultimate “guy’s guy.” He hunkered down for Y2K, buying a cabin and a bunch of land out in the wilderness. He was an academic librarian with the soul of a high-school football coach. He refereed for baseball and football, and sat on committees in ALA that dealt with preparing high school students for college. He made me laugh, especially at the 2001 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. None of us (the LSU Ex-Pats) had seen Dan for a while, and we all wondered if he’d gone off the deep edge after all his Y2K preparations. And then, at a vendor reception, there was Dan, in his tie-dyed t-shirt, his cargo shorts, and a pretty apolgetic attitude. He told me that he’d really gotten out of touch with things living way out in the boonies, had sold his property, and moved back to town. He was feeling a lot better, surrounding himself with people. And he was back at ALA conferences.
Apparently, Dan died while he was playing basketball, of an undetected heart problem. I’m going to miss him a lot - I only saw him once or twice a year, the last time in June in Orlando. Rest in peace, Dan.
