Quality of Life

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am especially thankful for my good health.

I come from a long-lived, healthy family and have always assumed good health. As I get older, I see many colleagues who are not so fortunate. While most of the women in my exercise class are active and independent, many have had knee, hip or shoulder replacements. Others have physical limitations that keep me aware of my possible vulnerability.

Recently, I reconnected with a woman with whom I went to Library School. I had always been a little envious of her: She was very attractive, always looked good in her clothes and had a job I would have liked. Now, although still attractive, she has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She had to leave her job, has a difficult time walking and has lots of trouble following a thought to its conclusion. Another friend of mine broke her foot and is wheelchair-bound. Although the wheelchair is temporary, an accident like hers could happen to me.

And there are other people I know, some much younger than I, who have a variety of physical ailments.

All of which motivate me to keep active both physically and mentally and to be thankful every day for what I am able to accomplish every day.

An Itinerant Cataloger

I've just finished the first week of my new schedule as an itinerant cataloger, although the schedule will fluctuate a little from week to week. There are two holidays in November to work around, too. The week was somewhat more chaotic than usual since I had to cope with 34 hours of no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.

Here's what it looked like:

Monday: I arrived at Springfield City Library at 9:00 a.m. The first thing I needed to do was learn the cataloging function of Evergreen and SCL's local practices. The library closed at noon because of the storm. I went home and graded papers and began prep for Thursday's class. The lights went out at 2:30, but I worked until it got too dark to do that. I lit candles, listened to the battery powered radio and watched the wind blow the trees around.

Tuesday: Still no lights. I went to SCL and worked on music CDs (mostly copy cataloging), got more comfortable with Evergreen and SCLs music classification system.

Wednesday: The lights came on about 12:30 a.m. It was good to wash in warm water and make coffee that morning. I went to Town Hall to teach the senior exercise class at the Council on Aging office, then off to MassCat to work on their database. I'm more aware of the differences between Evergreen and Koha, the two most common Open Source systems available to libraries.

Thursday was owner/member appreciation day at the local food co-op. I had been planning for a couple of weeks to go shopping there and take advantage of the 10% discount. First, I had to finish prepping for LIS415, which I did. I had a lot of photocopying to do for class, so I left a little early. It was a good class, perhaps the best of the semester. This has been a quiet group of students, not much discussion/questions during class but that night was different. They had a group assignment to work on and really got into it.

Friday: back to Town Hall, but first a stop by the library to sign the bi-weekly warrants (I'm trustee chair). The other exercise instructor usually takes responsibility for most of Friday's class. I lead the part where the exercises aggravate her bad back. I found out that the Town Hall will be closed the day after Thanksgiving and there will be no exercise class. That's good because it makes my schedule easier. The MassCat office will also be closed that day and if there's no exercise class, I can work at SCL from 9-5.

So now it's Saturday and I don't feel like doing anything at all. I've done some odds and ends around the house and there are plenty of things I could do, but they can wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll have more time. It's the first day of Standard Time (fall back) and will be a whole hour longer.