Tempest in a Teacup

. . . or Storm in a glass. Remember this cat? In an earlier post we saw him drinking from a birdbath. Now here he is trying to drink out of my glass. The irony is that I used this glass because my preferred glass, a squat, wide-mouthed glass is also his favorite. So I chose this glass with its narrow stem to discourage him from drinking from my glass. I missed the picture of him with his face stuck all the way in the glass and got this one where his is trying to fish some water out.

Sourdough Cure All

Friday, 20 October 2006
The day started out perfectly. I was in Billings for the teacher conference in Billings. I drove into Billings Wednesday night after supper so I wouldn't have to get up before dawn on Thursday to drive in. So I was rested and was able to enjoy the sessions I attended. I got a lot of great ideas for books to purchase for our students. Friday, I didn't have a session I wanted to attend until 10:00, so dad made some sourdough pancakes. Pete must have known, or smelled them cooking so he got up early and we enjoyed a terrific breakfast, sourdough pancakes, orange juice and good company. I left for Skyview High School at 9:00, because I hate being late or feeling rushed. I got to Skyview around 9:20 and spent 20-25 minutes looking for parking. I almost decided to "ditch" classes and go back when I spotted a reasonable space on the street and I got to the classroom 10 minutes early, not rushed at all. It was worth it too, because I won a free book and got a great new publisher. By then the sky was looking very threatening and rain was in the forecast. The wind had picked up and the bite of cold air had memories of snow in it. When I ran into some colleagues from Colstrip, they said they were heading out because the weather was looking bad. Well, I decided that since I didn't have another session until 1:00, I might as well head out too. I went back to the house and told dad and Pete that I'd decided to head out after lunch instead of waiting until 4:00 or so. We saw the weather report on the noon news and it said snow was coming, then we went to ARBYS for some lunch, came back to the house, not forgeting to load up on lettuce and green tomatoes. So far, so good????

I had one more errand to run before heading out of town. Get the oil in my car changed. I headed out on 24th to the MasterLube on King Ave. On the way down 24th I spotted a store I'd never noticed before, Coldwater Creek. I've purchased some things from their catalog and they had 70% off signs on the windows, so I stopped. I swear it was only for 20 min. Then I drove to Master Lube and got in line. After waiting for 10 min. One of the service men came out and asked me to move to the other line. I obliged. I waited for another 10 minutes and another serviceman came out and asked me to backup and let the car in the other line move ahead of me since she had been waiting longer than I was. The reasoning was the the car in the bay at that line was getting a service that took 30 min. instead of the 10 it takes to get an oil change. I backed up and left altogether. I go to Master Lube for the convience; this was not so convient. I spotted WalMart across the street and decided to go over there for the oil change. At least I could pick up a few things on my list while I waited. It took 30 min to find the things on my list and 2 hours to get the oil changed. I was not a happy person at all.

So what lesson did I learn?
1. Don't ditch your classes?
2. Be patient and stay in line if you've already invested 20 minutes in waiting?
3. Don't be distracted by 70% off?
4. None of it matters because at the end of the day is the memory of having sourdough pancakes with my dad and little bro?

Beta Blues

Hi everyone. I switched to the BETA version of blogger and so far I wish I hadn't. I haven't been able to make too many customized changes and when I tried to leave a comment on someone else's blog, I got an error message that said the beta version logon couldn't leave comments on non-beta accounts. So, don't go getting any wild ideas about switching to the BETA version of Blogger. Just be happy with what you got.


PS. I'll keep trying to leave comments, The error message said it was "in the works."

Productive Week

I had a very productive week at work. We got all the shelves, old and new into postion, shelved all the ficiton , magazines , reference and half the Dewey section. All that's left is to finish the Dewey section and take a few weeks off to rest before the next project "Genrefication!" Did I mention that we've been doing an inventory as we moved the books? Anyway, I better start thinking about what to do when all the reorganizing is done; I need some way of getting the students into the library to use all that's availible. Since I've declared that the comptuters can't be used for music and games, I haven't had too many students coming to the library. I'm afraid that if I can't make the staff and students see how a library can be used, all our work will have been to turn a perfectly good library into a "set" complete with books for props.

New Shelves - Day 2

Miracles really do happen. The new shelves are assembled and ready for books. They were shipped without assembly instructions, but since they are exactly like the shelves we already have it wasn't too hard to figure out how to assemble them. It would have been nice to know the order in which they went together easiest and which hardware went where. I started calling the company to ask them for instructions, but no one answered the phone until 9:30 by which time we had already put together the first section. Our head maintenence man stayed with it until it was all finished and he even hung the pictures that had come down in the reorganization. We just have one more major move before we're finished and we'll have a brand new library, for all intents and purposes. I hope to be finished before the end of the week, a few weeks before my goal of Nov. 2, the night of our parent/teacher conference.

New Shelves - Day 1

Shelfless . . . in Lame Deer

So a week ago the salesman from Montana School Equipment called and told me that my new library shelves were going to be shipped from Missoula on Thursday. He reckoned that they would arrive in Lame Deer late on Friday afternoon, how long does it take after all? So we start moving things around to be ready for their arrival. We've already been putting things in order, cataloging the backlog of new books and weeding like a Martha Stewart gardener in preparation for our new shelves. The assistant librarians have been reading the shelves and we've been able to use the books even though they aren't in apple pie order. Well the shelves didn't arrive on Friday or Monday. Tuesday I get a message from the Voc/Ag teacher that the trucker had called to tell her that he was in Miles City and would be arriving the next day. He thought that with a load as heavy as a 1/2 ton of library shelves must be heavy equipment for the shop. The salesman called on Tuesday to see if the shelves arrived OK and not damaged at all. He called and said, "Hi this is D.... from Montana School Equipment." I said, " Hi, this is shelfless in Lame Deer." He chuckled and said he would try to track them down. Finally, just before leaving work today,Thursday, a week later, the custodian told me that my shelves were on the loading dock, so we are shelfless no more. The answer to the question, "How long does it take to get from Missoula to Lame Deer?" is 1 week.

Now the question is how long will it take to assemble the shelves and get the books moved to their new homes? Then how long to get the pictures hung and the "assesories" in place? Let's hope it doesn't take too long, we have Open House on the 24th.

Autumn Commute

Two times of the year I don't mind commuting the 26 miles to my school in Lame Deer, the early spring when the new leaves are a soft green and make green haloes on the trees and autum when they turn new colors before dropping off the trees altogether. I suppose it's because there are so few "non-evergreen" trees that it's quite a novelty for me to see the leafy
trees foretelling the change of seasons. BTW, FYI, I hate commuting in the winter. 2 iffy.

I've just gotten back from a visit to Billings to see my dad and youngest brother. Dad got home from the hospital on Wednesday after a visit that ended up with the placement of two stents. I guess it's not as major a deal as I thought. All I could remember was the by-pass surgeries and the long recovery. He was ready to go home the day after the procedure, but they made him wait another day . . . just because. It was good to visit with him and ascertain for myself that he really seems no worse for the ordeal.

I'm looking forward to getting to work tomorrow to see if my new library shelves were delivered as promised. It will be a miracle if they ended up at the high school as Friday was an early out due to a town parade. If they are anywhere in the district it will be good news. If they are actually at the high school, it will be a miracle.

I'm also looking forward to having some of my brother's tomatoes and my dad's bread for dinner. So I'll write more later. Hopefully, I'll be busy this week rearranging the books on the new shelves.