life — Page 318

Waiting

October 28, 2012 at 9:42 am by Claudia

I’ve been edgy and nervous for the past couple of days, as we prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. I keep hoping, of course, that she’ll change her course, but I know that we must be prepared. There have been trips to the store to get flashlights and batteries and lanterns and candles. More trips to get gas and dog food. And still more trips to get food for the pantry. Quite frankly, this is an expense we don’t need right now, but again, we have to be prepared.

The pantry has never been this full.

Very hard to get a photo of the pantry while holding the door on the left open with my foot!

Don keeps telling me everything will be fine, that he thinks the forecasts have been over-hyped. So does our neighbor, Bill. But I think that’s a guy thing. We’ve cleaned out the gutters. Anything that has to be secured or put away has been taken care of.

This time, I took the top off the birdbath. During Hurricane Irene, I didn’t and it broke in two. The chairs have been stashed on the side of the shed. Tools have been stored. Today we’ll remove our window air conditioners (it was time for that anyway) and I’ll bring in the plants from the porch.

We may lose power. I have a book review scheduled for Tuesday, so I’m going to write that today and schedule it to post. Ideally, I would prepare a few other posts and schedule them but I tend to write my posts on the day I publish them. I am a blog-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of blogger. So, if you don’t see posts or I don’t respond to your comments, you’ll know that I have no power, thus no cable or wi-fi.

I may be doing a lot of this as I nervously wait out the storm. We have a lot of trees that are old and I worry about them. I worry about the animals who live on our land. I worry about our house and our roof.

So, please, say a prayer for us and for everyone who lives in the path of this storm. Send us positive energy. I believe in that.

Happy Sunday.

I Saw a Tiny House, Scout & Storms

October 26, 2012 at 9:14 am by Claudia

We went to Trader Joe’s yesterday (see flowers on table) and bought a lot of food. Much of it is frozen, which, now that I hear about this huge hurricane bearing down on the East Coast, might not have been the best idea. I have to admit that this one is making me nervous, especially after the damage to our trees during Hurricane Irene last year. We’ve lived here seven years. We rented for four years before that. That makes 11 years. Before I moved to San Diego, I lived in the Northeast for a total of 10 years when I was in grad school in Philadelphia and teaching at Boston University. I can think of one fizzled out hurricane that came during all that time. That’s it. Now two years in a row? What is going on??

I was too lazy to get up and get my camera, so I took this photo of the evening lamplight with my iPhone. Look who managed to appear! Her Royal Highness, Ms. Scout. Don was making dinner and she was not about to miss any bit of food that might come her way. And get that stare. She’s willing me to get up off my duff and give her a treat.

On our drive to TJs, we grabbed these photos of this tiny house. I’m fascinated by the Tiny House movement. I subscribe to Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and I also am on the subscription list for Tiny House Listings. No, I’m not going to live in a tiny house – Don is 6’4½” and I am 5’8″ – but I really admire the desire to leave less of a footprint and live a simpler life.

So there it was, just to the right of us on the highway. There were windows on all four sides. There are solar panels on the roof.

Don cleverly got this shot. I wanted you to see the front door.

Charming, isn’t it? Is it going to be used for a house? Or a studio? Or a guest house? I like to imagine who might be living or working there.

I’ll be back tonight at 8:00 EST for A Favorite Thing.

Happy Friday.

The Bookmobile

October 25, 2012 at 9:56 am by Claudia

One of my favorite childhood memories is that of our Bookmobile.

I was a kid who loved to read. If there was a choice between playing outside and reading a good book, I went with the book. More often than not, you would find me with my head buried in a book, oblivious to everything going on around me. It was my escape, my peek into other worlds, other times, magical ideas, wonder.

Every day the same conversation would occur.

Mom: It’s time for dinner.

Me: Just let met finish this page.

3 minutes later:

Mom: I said, it’s time for dinner!

Me: I just have two more paragraphs, Mom!

And so on.

We didn’t have a lot of money, so I checked out books from the library. Some I got from my elementary school library. But most of them came from our Bookmobile. Every Thursday, the Bookmobile that was a part of the Dearborn library system arrived in the parking lot of my elementary school. I lived two blocks away from my school, so getting there was easy.

Miss McHenry, our local librarian/bookmobile driver would pull into the parking lot. The driver’s seat would turn around to face a counter that ran the width of the truck. When she needed to come out into the bookshelf area, she would simply lift a portion of the counter and walk out into the truck.

I thought that Miss McHenry had the neatest job in the world. I could imagine nothing more wonderful than not only being surrounded by books, but also being able to drive that truck! Oh, that seemed like the perfect job. I wanted to be Miss McHenry, who was unfailingly kind, polite and helpful to all of us who frequented the Bookmobile. I wanted to be a librarian, yes, but I wanted to be a librarian who worked in a Bookmobile. Much more fun.

Miss McHenry remembered what I liked and had suggestions ready for me. She knew I liked books with red covers. She encouraged me to read all of the Little House books. My world expanded. My imagination soared.

I couldn’t wait for Thursday to arrive. I would go home from school, grab my previously checked-out books, and walk the two blocks to the parking lot. Often, my mom would come along with me because she loved to read, too. I would greet Miss McHenry, hand her the books, and eagerly turn back to the shelves. What would I find this week? Could I be daring and check out more than 5 books? Would Mom let me start reading them as soon as I got home? Were there new red-covered books?

Nothing was better to me than carrying a stack of yet-to-be-explored books homeward. So many possibilities! So many worlds to explore!

Our Bookmobile was a godsend to a serious young girl who liked to read and dream and lose herself in the printed page. I cannot begin to tell you how important it was to me. I can still see the inside of that truck, the shelves that were full of all shapes and sizes of books. I can see the shelves near the bottom of the stacks where the children’s books were – the perfect height for a kid like me. I can see the counter where Miss McHenry would take my stack of books and stamp the due date inside the cover. (I so wanted to operate that stamp!)

I lost track of Miss McHenry many years ago. I have no idea what happened to her. But I thank her for her love of books, for her respect for children and for introducing me to so many wonderful stories. For instilling in me a love of the printed word, on the page, between actual book covers, that I carry with me to this day. And I thank my hometown for knowing that kids needed to read and perhaps the best way to get books to them was via a mobile library that arrived almost on one’s doorstep!

Did you have Bookmobiles when you were young?

Happy Thursday.

Waiting

I Saw a Tiny House, Scout & Storms

The Bookmobile

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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