librarygrrrl.net

Ah, what a lovely Christmas season this has been so far… Starting Thursday after work, I’ve been in RELAX mode, and trust me when I say: I needed this.

On Friday Amy, the beasts, and I headed to Maine for the celebration with her family there. Everyone showed up on Friday - sister and her family (including 2 dogs and the 2-week-old new niece), brother and his dog, cousin and wife (from California, so no dogs), and us (with two dogs) added to the two humans and 2 dogs who already lived there. For those keeping count, that makes 7 dogs, 3 kids under 4 years old, and 9 adults. Needless to say, we had a blast - much better than last year when brother didn’t come and one kid was exceedingly sick and moaned for 4 days solid.

The only real disaster this year happened at the very beginning of the annual Christmas Tree Hunt on Christmas Eve. (To set the background here, keep in mind that global warming is doing its best to keep Maine from getting any snow this year, and as a result it is extremely muddy in the woods.) We were about 30 yards into the woods when all of a sudden the dogs (all 7 of them) got into a game of chase. Our big galumphous, Otter, ended up being the chaser, while the others were the chased. So he’s flying by everyone at a dead sprint, which for a 90-pound dog, is pretty fast. Unfortunately for the 3-year-old, he’s also not very good with knowing exactly WHERE in space he is, and the hip-checking flying-child mud-puddle disaster was about as awful (and awfully funny) as you can imagine. After a trip back to the house (yes, I carried her the whole way out of a horrible sense of guilt), a change into clean clothes, and a mad dash back into the woods, all was better in the world. It’s neat to see her figure out a lot of self-control - she was done crying by the time I hauled her to the road, was laughing halfway back to the house, and was 100% sure she wanted to go help get the tree about 3 steps after that. Last year… well, 2 and 3 are very different ages. That’s all.

The rest of our time in Maine was great. We played card games, we ate lots of food, we went to a caroling party, I helped Amy’s brother finish his Christmas shopping, we went to a Christmas Eve honest-to-goodness smorgasbord dinner, and we slept a lot. Christmas morning was fun - Smartwools (cute ones!) in the stockings from Santa, books and DVDs and other nice presents from the family… And this year I finally figured out that how Amy’s family opens presents (all at once, en masse) and the way my family opens presents (one at a time, with oooohing and ahhhing) are just different - neither is better or worse, they’re just different. What a dumb thing to realize, I know, but how much more fun both present-opening experiences were for me after having the realization!

Christmas afternoon we left the dogs in Maine and drove back home to prep for our flight to MN the next day. I finished wrapping out-of-town presents (Amy mailed them the next morning), we did laundry, and we packed. Our flights to Minneapolis were good - I’m a huge fan of Midwest Airlines now, thanks to their incredibly comfortable seats! When we fly back here, we’ll definitely try them first, even if we do have to change planes, simply because they’re not as …. wretched? overpacked? dreadful? … as the other airlines who fly direct.

So we got here and an hour later my brother and his family showed up. We had our traditional meal of chili and fixins’ for dinner, then opened stockings and one present. Big stocking score: hand-dyed cashmere yarn, enough for a scarf, from School Products! Go Santa! And the present is wonderful - a print by Katsuyuki Nishijima of several umbrellas outside a shop. Today we opened the rest of our presents, which was a lot of fun. I think everyone liked the presents Amy and I got for them; my dad’s been reading the bird feeding books Amy got for him non-stop, and my mom already put in the earrings from Lawrence Nelson of Global Odyssey Designs. The big hit present of today from my folks was a red hooded sweatshirt from the Duluth Pack company. I’ve had it on since I opened it. Who knew? My other favorite gift is Domiknitrix: Whip Your Knitting Into Shape. As soon as I finish the very wholesome Janda I’m going to make something a little more on the wild side!

The very exciting event of the afternoon was meeting my godcousin’s new daughter (he’s my godparents’ son, so “godcousin” is the term I use to describe him and his sister). He and his wife adopted a little girl from Colombia and they only came home a few days before Christmas. She is one cute kid, and I can’t wait to get to know her as she grows up!
We’ve also played lots of games - Littlest Pet Shop, spoons, and pool are among the big winners this year. Tomorrow I’ve got a few errands to run, but think the rest of the day should be more of the same as today (without all the opening of gifts and meeting of new kids).

So to those of you who celebrate it, a belated Merry Christmas to you all. My wish to all of you this season (besides SNOW) is for good health, family and friends by your side, and love in your hearts.

I’ve been tagged by Michael Casey to write about “Five Things You Don’t Know About Librarygrrrl (aka Megan Adams Brooks.)”

I’ll quote Michael (and the Michael who tagged him) here and say, If you’re not interested in me (and no reason why you should be) move on now!

With that in mind, here goes:

1. When I was younger, I played three instruments: guitar (for one short-lived summer’s worth of lessons and blistered fingers), piano (until I changed teachers and started reading his extensive collection of Agatha Christie books and kind of forgot about practicing scales and such… I tell my parents it was one of the best investments in my future they ever made, but I’m not sure they’re buying that), and trombone.  Yes, yours truly was a trombone player. And when I think about it, it makes sense.  Trombonists provide the structure for the music, the latticework upon which the melody rests.  I liken this to the role of reference librarians (connecting people with information), bass players in rock bands (my alter ego, dontcha know?), and defenders in hockey (if you’ve got no defense, you can’t have an offense).

2. My favorite artist is Mark Rothko. In high school I took a course called “The Humanities”, which now makes sense to me, but at the time was just this weird mish-mash of literature, music, art history, and history.  By the time we hit senior year, we were at the 20th century.  For one art paper, I researched Rothko’s technique, from how he prepared his canvasses to how he actually painted his works.  A couple of years ago, my mom got me a beautiful print of one of his pieces and it was the first piece of art I hung up in this new house.

3. When I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a bride.  FWIW, my brother wanted to be a paperboy.  Fortunately, we both ended up with satisfying careers, AND I recently got to fulfill that years-old wish of mine.  Who says kids are silly?  Not me!

4. I am scared of the ocean.  I like water that lives in lakes, is relatively stable in nature, and ices over in the winter so that I can drive a vehicle on it should I choose.  Tides, salt, and currents freak me out.  That notwithstanding, I really enjoy snorkeling in the ocean, but ONLY with a buddy close by.

5. I very rarely take the day off work on my birthday.  Weird, huh?  Most people I know take the day off, but up until a couple of years ago, I usually worked.  But then I met Amy, and she enjoys taking me on adventures on my birthday, so no more working on my birthday for me!  Last year we took a food tour in the East Village of NYC, and this year we went to Salem and toured around all sorts of witchy places.  Fun!

Now I’m going to tag five folks to do this too: Jessica, Daddy Democrat, Dichroic, Simphonatic, and Purlewe.

Merry Christmas, y’all who celebrate!

For what it’s worth, she’d been having a lot of fun at the park, but when I snapped this photo I think the mailman was driving by.  (In Maggie’s world, the mailman MUST.DIE.)

So I just about freaked out here, watching the opening of Monday Night Football. Barack Obama was all, “I just want to tell the nation… that I’m ready… to go all the way… and cheer the Bears on to victory!”

Damn! I was SOOO excited that he might have been announcing a run for the presidency. I admit that I even yelled “F*$% you Barack!” at the television when he put on his Bears cap…

There’s still hope, though. For the Bears AND Barack alike.

Edited to add:

Here’s the video!

One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Those with a + are family visits.  Those with a # are my home(s).

• Philadelphia, PA * #
• Woodlyn, PA * #
• San Antonio, TX
• Jamaica Plain, MA #
• Natick, MA #
• Golden Valley, MN * +
• New Orleans, LA
• Walpole, ME * +
• York, ME * +
• Various towns, Nova Scotia

It’s been a light year, travel-wise. Next year I hope to travel more. Conference visits next year include Seattle, Baltimore, and DC.  I’d like to go someplace this summer with Amy where neither of us have been before. Maybe some sort of grand geocaching adventure…  And a fall trip would be incredibly lovely.  I’m going to try to see if I can get her to agree on heading someplace European (like London, where I think some friends might be moving!)

What did YOUR year in cities look like?