etc.

You know, I live under this illusion that my librarian friends and acquaintances don’t read this blog, and that my personal & crafty friends and acquaintances don’t read my library blog. This illusion came crashing down last week when a librarian acquaintance (one I only know online) remarked that I haven’t sewn anything in ages. “Yea, true” I said, and then, “Wait. How do you know?”

Indeed, nothing has been sewn in ages, nor has there been knitting. The two on-going scarves I recently mentioned are just that, on-going. A row here, another there, and yesterday I found myself thinking, what sort of misguided illusion made me think that knitting a ribbed scarf with lace weight yarn was a good idea? So there we are then, another illusion, similarly misguided. It will be a great scarf when it’s done, circa 2008.

But, now here’s something relatively interesting: we had a lovely weekend. We tend to stay close to home on the weekends, the mister enjoys decompressing with rented films, and I tend to spend most of the weekend with my laptop upon my lap, reading, writing, grading, &c. We did some of both this weeked, but we also ventured further afield, for a trip to Niagara Falls for Cirque Niagara (which was wonderous), and then yesterday for a birthday meal with my family (which was delightful) in honour of the mister. Yes, it was feast day of the mister yesterday, and he got to spend the entire weekend calling all the shots. For him, shot-calling usually results in plenty of downtime on the couch, no chores, and a big Sunday breakfast (which he cooked. For me!). Happy birthday, mister man. You’re my favourite.

• Memoirs of a Geisha **1/2
• V for Vendetta ***
• Brick ***1/2
• L.A. Confidential ****
• Cuban Blood ** (“Dreaming of Julia” according to the IMDB)
• Silent Hill *
• Zathura ***
• Omagh ****
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ***
• In Her Shoes ***
• Caché ***1/2
• Domino ***1/2
• The Sentinal ***
• Lucky Number Slevin ***1/2
• When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts ****

I hope you didn’t fall off your chair. It’s been two and a half weeks, perhaps it’s time for an update?

• first off, how are you?
• fall term has begun. This year that means a mess of activity at work, with a bustling library, a slightly updated website that needs constant care & feeding, and plenty of classes to teach. And at home it means a mess of activity with my LIS course, which is full of keen and interesting students who have me more excited about the next 13 weeks than I was before.
• all these messes of activity are already making me tired, barely a week into term. I’m back to worshiping at the Altar of the Gods of Balance in the hope that I’ll be able to pull off the next four months, maybe not with ease, but at least with composure.
• there’s a bit of conference traveling on the horizon, Monterey and San Francisco to be exact, in 6-ish weeks to be even more exact. The mister was on the horn yesterday, booking our hotel in SF (which is the vacation part of the trip), so it’s all feeling a bit more real. We haven’t had a decent trip in ages, and while I used to think that as long as the mister came along, even conference travel would would feel like a vacation (because there are, you know, flights and a hotel involved), that’s really not the case if I’m doing any speaking at the event. Instead of the “yay, we’re going on a trip!” build-up, there is usually a fair amount of stress, very little research into the destination and what we could possibly do there while not conferencing, and a wee bit of aggitation with having to deal with those travel-trivialities on top of having to deal with conference-prep stress. So, all of this is to say that the SF part of the trip follows the conference and the mister is handling preparations quite nicely, and keeping me posted incidentally, and I’m rather looking forward to it already. Conference stress notwithstanding.
• fall weather has arrived. Most decidedly. While my sweatshirt kept me warm to-day, my cropped pants were, perhaps, ill-advised (my ankles were cool). I’ve cast on two scarves since we last talked (Midwest Moonlight and Morehouse Merino’s Rib Lace scarf) and I’m looking foward to having them both done and around my neck (no, not at the same time). I’ve been impatient with them both though and, frankly, the time for both of these scarves is NOW, not two weeks from now, which is likely when they will be ready for wear. Woe.
• I started this post yesterday and in the interim, I’ve gone through all 233 new posts in my “pleasure reading” Bloglines category. It’s seems that you are all fine, enjoying your families, lives, children, changing seasons, and creativity. You make me smile, you really do.