There’s a lot of noise out here right now, as everyone screams silently from wherever they’re holed up. Sweetheart and I are holed up at home and beyond grateful. Our jobs haven’t been dramatically affected. Having previously weathered extended periods of under- and unemployment, we fully understand and appreciate how lucky we are. The last … Continue reading Pandemic musings from a virtual reference librarian
Tag: Books
Last night, I had a work anxiety dream. I’d gotten a new job to which I was supposed to report virtually on my start date – it was a telecommuting setup. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and I was happily thinking about June 23rd, my first day. Then I looked at a calendar … Continue reading A little post about a happy ending
By now, everyone is probably experiencing what it is they experience after a major tragic event that ripples out from wherever it happened and into their daily routine. The day after ISIL/Daesh shared its latest commentary on modern civilization, one of my friends posted this story. It’s dense, but worthwhile for anyone who wants a … Continue reading Muslims, Jews, History, Cities: A Dispatch from Refugee Heaven
It wasn’t until my niece and nephew were 10 and 8 that my life was in a logistical and financial place to take a week off and fly from Milwaukee to Edmonton to visit them. My brother-in-law, who travels a lot, was going to be gone even more often that month and my mother had mentioned … Continue reading Our childhood, the ‘do-over version:’ Brought to you by my sister and starring my niece & nephew
Last summer, I gave myself a gift. My friend Judy was offering a four-week writing workshop. I went on-line and registered. She’s one of the Writer’s lunch writers, owner of Redbird Writing Studio and the author of “Shut Up & Write.” It was everything I hoped for and then some. You can draw a straight … Continue reading Just me, at a writer’s retreat weekend, or “Three seismic paragraphs and a sandhill crane”
It’s official. As of last night, I am a beekeeper. It feels very strange to write those words. My mental image of a beekeeper used to be some sort of slightly feral sage, an interesting sort of semi-holy person standing quietly in the midst of a raging storm of flying, buzzing, stinging creatures. In other words, … Continue reading For a minute, they were the world’s tiniest motorcycle gang: Now, our new backyard crew is in the hive
I’m a little late on this week’s blog post because I’ve been too busy doing things and not busy enough writing about them. Tonight, 12 people are going to sit down at my dinner table and take a trip from Flyover Country to Egypt. Then we will flee from slavery there. I’ve been listening to … Continue reading Heading out of Egypt from Flyover Country: A pre-seder post
So, last night was Book Group and my turn to host. Ever since my Facebook pal Chase recommended “The Orphan Master’s Son” and I read it, I had wanted to talk about it with other people. I thought I’d have to wait until August, but then Gail went AWOL (she does tax prep and is probably buried … Continue reading Bonus Post: Book Group at the Landfill and gluten-free baking, the maiden voyage
This past weekend Tuki and I walked with R & Bailey again. We talked about her TV spot. She’s a city forester and was interviewed by a local station about damage to the trunks of her city’s streetside trees because of the extreme cold. She was pretty pleased with it but wished the reporter had included … Continue reading Trees on TV and a review of Judith Claire Mitchell’s “A Reunion of Ghosts”
If I ever get pulled over for “fitting the description,” the description will be “garden-variety middle-aged white lady.” It’s been an accurate description for most of my life (with the exception of the age part, which is following the conventional trajectory and means that if I live long enough, I'll be a garden-variety old white … Continue reading Pan-African Nationalism basics, plutocratic cookie pigs and Rabbi Hillel
the sentence factory 