Seattle’s Best

No no, not the coffee. I spent last weekend in Seattle for the ALA Midwinter meeting. After praying a little half-heartedly for a blizzard to strand me on the East Coast, I sucked it up and realized that a.) I actually really tend to enjoy the conferences once I get there and b.) I wanted to see my friends from … well, everywhere! Unfortunately, I only ran into one of my LSU Ex-Pats buddies since I didn’t get in till almost midnight Friday (we normally have dinner/drinks on Friday evening). However, I did see Beth and lots of folks from Swarthmore (although somehow I missed out on talking with Meg more… boo hiss!) And then I got to catch up with all my friends from WSS – Kelly and Piper and Jane and Heather and Jennifer and Diana and Jennifer and Rebecca and Cynthia and on and on and on. I can’t believe how much fun I have with these women – people I never would have met if it hadn’t been for the American Library Association and its annoying requirements that anyone who is on a committee must attend both the annual and midwinter meetings. So over the course of many years, if you stick around in the same section, you get to know people. And I like these people – a lot! I also like how each year someone new shows up and gets sucked into the fold. I’m hoping that happened this year with a couple of people.

Besides being in Seattle and walking around a lot, I ate some good food, went to a bona fide lesbian bar (with the WSS folks, even though they’re definitely not all playing on that team), and spent a lot of time in Pike’s Place Market trying to avoid the impending headaches that invariably come when I’m in places like that (I wasn’t successful – thank god for figuring out what OTC drugs keep my headaches from turning down the twisted path into migraine-land.)

Lest you think that all I did was socialize, I’ll have you know that I had a ton of meetings to attend, and spent several hours on the exhibit floor. Of course, I managed to mostly pick up advance reader’s copies of 18 (yes, eighteen) books this conference. I think that’s a record for me, and I’m not sure I’m completely proud of it. (My dratted cell phone won’t let me send the photo I took in my hotel room.  Suffice to say that the photo of all 18 books is funny). But hey – free books! I’ve already finished three of them (Summer at Tiffany, Bad Monkeys, and The Knitting Circle) and started the fourth this mornings (A Perfect Mess). I love getting to read books before they’re released to the general public. Often times I pick up books I wouldn’t give a second thought to in the bookstore and end up enjoying them immensely and passing them on to people I think would like them. Water for Elephants was one I picked up last year and passed around to about 10 folks at work.

So this year I’m trying to figure out how I can finagle going to BookExpo America. It’s right at the end of May in NYC and doesn’t cost all that much for a librarian’s one-day pass. I’m thinking that even if they don’t give out the number of advance reader’s copies that they do at ALA, it would be an educational experience.  Have any of you ever attended?  What were your experiences?

My assessment of Seattle: thumbs-up!  I’d go there again in a heartbeat and would love to see a lot more of the city than the area I could during this conference.

Merry!

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.

A Year in Cities

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?

Some of my favorite photos

Like most folks, I love my digital camera. I’m only on my second one so far, but it makes me just as happy as my first one did. From a Fujifilm Finepix 2700 to a Canon Powershot SD630… life is good. Here are some of my recent favorite photos:

There are more after the cut, or you can check out my photos at Flickr (2005-present) or Fotolog (2003-2005).
Read more »

S is for… SOX!

Back to the alphabet theme (I’d stopped doing it a long time ago – whoops!)

So this afternoon someone at work posted about two tickets she had for sale for tonight’s Red Sox/Twins game. I jumped at them, since she was selling them for half-price. Amy and I took the train to Fenway, had some horrid nachos at a “mexican” restaurant, and headed in to the park to find our seats.

First inning, third batter is David Ortiz. Earlier this week, he’d tied a Red Sox record of 50 home runs in a single season. Would this be the night he broke the record set in 1938?

The windup – Santana delivers – and Big Papi launches one to right-center field, deep into the stands! 51!!!! The crowd goes wild!

Fifth inning – Ortiz is up again – and nails another one out of the park. The crowd starts chanting “M-V-P! M-V-P!”

So much fun to see history in the making. I’ll not forget the goosebumps of those moments for a long time. I think I’m a newly converted Red Sox fan. After being in Fenway tonight, I get it.

So S?  It stands for Sox!

More photos in the series from tonight are here.