Surviving the Holidays

The "Holiday Season" is nearly over and I will be sooooo glad. Christmas is the biggest problem; Kwanza and Chanukh don't intrude on people's lives the way Christmas does. There is the sappy, too jolly music, the traffic, the angst, the irritability of many people. It's hard to do my normal food shopping because stores are so crowded. And there's candy EVERYWHERE!

In a few days, the hysteria will fade away.

There are some fun and enjoyable things about this time of year:

I send Christmas/Holiday cards to many people. There are so many people I've met or worked with over the years whom I no longer see on any kind of regular basis. Yes, I could call and talk with them and sometimes I do. But sending a card and hand-writing a short (or sometimes long) note about what's happening in my life is something that I enjoy. And given that most of the mail I (and many others) receive is either bills or requests for donations, getting a real letter is a treat.

I see most of my family. My siblings, nieces and nephews all live just far enough away from me that we don't visit regularly. On the Sunday before Christmas, everyone who can meets at my sister's for a visit and gift exchange. When my parents were alive, we met at their fairly large house. When my parents moved to a senior complex, we tried meeting at other places, but all were too small. Then one sister moved into a condo that has a community room. We eat, and chat and have a Yankee gift exchange.

We already all have all the "stuff" we need - and more; not everyone has the financial capability to buy things for such a large family. We tried drawing names and buying a gift for just one person. We tried giving gifts only to the "little ones". (Where is the line drawn?). The Yankee swap gives us a chance to find a new home for something we no longer need/want. While I sometimes end up with something else I don't need/want, I have also been gifted with an item that brings fun and joy, if only temporarily.

While it's not actually noticeable, the days are now getting longer. There will be a few months of cold and snow, but then the weather will be warmer and I'll be much happier.

And I won't have to worry about "The Holidays" for nearly a year.

Soaring Through the Letter S - and Life

It's been a busy few months - part of the reason for the lack of posts.

There have been 3 short trips to NYC and a week in Provincetown. Of course there is work, exercise class, a sad visit with family (my 37-year-old nephew died of a heart attack), fun visits with friends and all of the other things life has to offer.

I've been reading a lot. Louise Penny is my current new favorite author. Her series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is riveting. While one can pick up any of the books and become immersed in a complete story, each volume also flows into the next and often the story line spans 2 or more books. She includes a lot of subtle humor. One of the characters has a pet duck and the duck's facial expressions are slipped in to the narrative. Do ducks have facial expressions?

As an undergraduate, I was a history major. I didn't know why I wanted to be a history major, or what I would do once I graduated, but I that's what I wanted. I think it was because I used to watch a television show called The Twentieth Century, a documentary hosted by Walter Cronkite. I was fascinated by that show. Later, once I started classes in history, I realized I was most interested in current, social history - not ancient history, though there are aspects of that I find interesting.

I'm also interested in the American presidency - hence being able to plow through all four of Robert Caro's volumes on Lyndon Johnson. Recently, I read Accidental Presidents: eight men who changed America by Jared Cohen. While the information in the book was very well researched, it would take someone like me - a committed Presidential geek - to read the entire book. I found Cohen's writing style a little confusing. I sometimes had to re-read paragraphs to figure out who did what to whom. Cohen uses too many pronouns when describing multiple people.

Another thing that drove me crazy was the front and back covers. There are partial portraits of the 8 Vice-Presidents who became President on the death (natural or otherwise) of the President. I could easily pick out Lyndon Johnson and Teddy Roosevelt since both have distinctive eyes. Some of the others I could glean from their pictures within the book. But there are a couple about whom I'm not sure. They're not placed in chronological order or alphabetical order. Why not list the names on the jacket flap?

Included within the narrative is a lot of information about the U.S. Constitution and what it says about Presidential succession. Since the way the President and Vice-President were elected 240 years ago was different than today, I found this part both confusing and fascinating. Not a lot of thought went into the subject originally (too much else going on, maybe), but the process has evolved over the years.

One issue had to do with Franklin Roosevelt when he ran for his 4th term. FDR was very ill. What if he died before being inaugurated? Henry Wallace was the Vice-President during the 3rd term; Harry Truman was Roosevelt's running mate for the 4th term. Technically, if FDR died before inauguration, Wallace would become President because Truman was not yet VP.

I'm glad I'm not the person responsible for making decisions like that. I'm perfectly happy sitting at my desk at the MLS office merging duplicates whose titles begin with the letter S.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

No, I have not reached the letter S in my alphabetical list of possible duplicate records.

I did something stupid yesterday. Something that caused damage that is going to cost me money. More importantly, it's costing someone else time and energy. No one was hurt, the damage is superficial, but it's still damage.

I'm annoyed, irritated, and just generally pissed off with myself.

Okay, it's time to stop being pissed off and take care of fixing this. It was an accident.

Once again I resolve to PAY ATTENTION!

Roaring, Romping and Rippling

Yes, I've finally reached the letter R in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates. I got through Q pretty quickly despite a lot of music related titles beginning with the words Quintet and Quartet.

As usual, summer is passing by too quickly. It is roaring, romping and rippling through my life. Also, as usual, summer has been very busy. There was a 3 day trip to Lenox to see Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew performed by Shakespeare and Company. They always do such a wonderful job.

An added bit of pleasure during the Lenox trip was lunch with an old friend. H and I worked together at UMass/Amherst when the library was in Goodell. We weren't great pals, didn't hang around together, but were friendly at work. Several years later, when I was Head of Technical Services for the Western Mass. Regional Library System, I attended an OLAC (Online AudioVisual Catalogers) conference. H introduced herself and reminded me of our shared employment many years earlier. We spent some time together at the conference and went our separate ways.

Then a few years ago while M and I were in Provincetown, waiting in line to see a Tennessee Williams play, I spotted H! There was a flurry of "Hellos" and "How are yous" before entering the theater. She also told me that a mutual librarian friend of ours, R, was also at the TW festival. During the next few days, we kept running into each other and catching up in bits and pieces. It was fun to actually sit down with her and spend some un-rushed time together. We'll both be at the TW festival at the end of September with our spouses and may have another lunch date.

M and I have lived in our home in Hatfield for 21+ years and have talked repeatedly about hosting a street-wide (or is that street-long?) party. Two of our neighbors have done so in the past and it's fun to meet the people you live close to but only see as you're driving by. We live at the far end of the street, so we see everyone else's houses, but only one other couple, the one who live beyond us, ever sees ours. There's not a lot of turnover on this street, but there is some.

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Two of the newest people will be coming along with others we've met before. Weather forecast is for hot and humid with a slight chance of showers. M and I try to have parties (small and large) on a regular basis. It motivates us to keep the house and yard looking good and is the incentive we need to tackle all those little projects on the "to-do" list.

The little pond/waterfall sprung a leak last year. Guess what? It's FINALLY fixed and running.

Missing in Action

What do Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and D.H. Lawrence have in common?

People sometimes misspell their names. And when that happens, it's impossible to find them or their books in an online catalog.

I've recently corrected Austin, Allen and Laurence in the MassCat catalog. I've also changed some squiggly symbols so that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë have the umlaut over the letter e. There are also all of those Japanese manga (is that redundant?) authors. They often have accent marks as part of their names and those accent marks don't always import properly into a new catalog.

As long as I can remember, the copyright symbol was indicated by the lower case c. After all, we used typewriters and didn't have the option of too many symbols. Now with computers, bib records actually contain © and sometimes ℗ if the item is an audiobook. Those symbols sometimes don't import correctly. I spend time every day correcting all of those various and sundry anomalies.

In the meantime, I'm plowing, progressing and puttering through the letter P. I finished reviewing titles beginning with the word Pop. There were a lot of books about Andy Warhol - not one of my favorite artists.

Tomorrow, I'm off to the Clark Art Institute with a friend to see the Renoir exhibit. I have my museum pass from my local public library. I remember the Clark back in the 1970s when it was a small, cute museum - and it was free. Now the admission is $20. I don't go there often enough to make it worth my while to purchase a membership, though I realize a membership is basically a donation and a monetary vote of support as well as the ability to visit for free.

Like most people I know, I have to make decisions on where and how to spend my money. I donate as much as I can to my local public library and they use my donation to help purchase museum passes that anyone can borrow.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Two New Favorite Authors

I've been reading books by Mary Higgins Clark for many years even though I find her writing style stilted and awkward. I keep reading her books (some more than once) because the plots are gripping and once I get started, it's hard to stop. Plus I read so many books, I can rarely remember "who done it." Clark's most recent books, the ones that are part of the Under Suspicion series written with Alafair Burke, are better in terms of writing and the plots are just as good.

When I saw that my local public library had recently purchased The Better Sister, I requested it. Now Alafair Burke is on my list of "must read" authors. The twists and turns in this story rival any by Lisa Scottoline (though Lisa's last book, Someone Knows, had a few twists too many making the ending feel contrived).

Another author (actually two writing as one) I really like is Liv Constantine. Her first book, The Last Mrs. Parrish, was a fascinating thriller. When I saw The Last Time I Saw You was available at the library, I immediately requested it and was not disappointed. While I suspected one particular person might be the stalker responsible for "gaslighting" the main character, I had many doubts about his/her guilt (no spoiler alert here) and was vacillating till the end. My only criticism is that some issues (e.g. the husband's financial situation) were left unresolved while over explaining the stalker's background. Both are minor points.

As I get to the end of the series of a specific author and wonder what I'll read next, it's good to know there are always new authors to discover. After all, how many times can I re-read Mary Higgins Clark?

Eat Your Leafy Greens

As a fitness instructor and an aspiring personal trainer and wellness coach, I read many of the new books on health, fitness, diet and nutrition. Here are three recent ones. I did not read these one after another; I read mystery books in between. I'll do a post soon on my new favorite author.

The premise of What to Eat When by Michael F. Roizen and Michael Crupain is one that appeals to me. I've always been a daytime eater and tend not to nibble late at night. When I go out to dinner and/or have a big evening meal, I often have trouble sleeping. Roizen and Crupain's theory is that your body best uses the food you eat when your body is active. Their recommendation is that you eat a big breakfast and lunch and then a minimal dinner. In fact, at least 2/3 (or maybe 3/4) of your daily calories should be consumed before 2 p.m.

The authors present a lot of information about the body's physiology to support their advice. Unfortunately, much of this advice is presented in a manor that I'm sure they found humorous, but I found too cute and rather annoying. Regardless, this book is a worthwhile read. And certainly brings to mind the old adage  "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper."

Next up is Eat to Beat Disease by William Li. Li looks at 5 physiological functions of the body - angiogenesis, regeneration, microbiome, DNA protection, and immunity - and looks at different foods that can support these. His theory is that the body can heal itself if we give it the right foods to do so. He lists several foods for each of the 5 functions and recommends eating 5 of the foods each day to support each function. There are menu plans for guidance.

The Longevity Paradox by Steven R. Gundry is somewhat of a combination of the above two books. Gundry proposes certain foods feed what he calls our "gut buddies" - the good bacteria in our gut - and when those "gut buddies" are well fed, they keep our body young, strong and free of disease. He also claims that good bacteria need some (but not too much) stress in order to remain strong themselves and recommends an occasional fast. He also recommends eating at least 4 hours before going to bed to let our bodies process the food we ate.

This is the most restrictive book in terms of what to eat: minimal animal protein (certain seafood is okay), no cow dairy (sheep and goat are okay), no legumes, no grains, fruits only when local and in season. He's also very much opposed to strenuous exercise such as marathon running. He feels it depletes the body and weakens the immune system.

Of course there is a lot of conflicting information among these three books. William Li says stone fruits are good, especially plums while Steven Gundry says our bodies evolved when fruits were only available at a certain time of the year (summer/fall) and we should respect that.

What they do agree on is that eating green leafy vegetables is good and eating processed sugar is bad.

Otherwise, I guess we're on our own.

I Miss Rhoda Morgenstern

For the last several months, I've been watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show on DVD. It was one of my very favorite shows back in the 70s. I loved Mary Tyler Moore when she was Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke show and I loved her even more as Mary Richards. She was a role model for me: an independent career woman navigating life.

I loved the reparté between Mary and her best friend Rhoda who lived upstairs. Rhoda was witty and sassy and just plain fun.

I just watched season 5 and Rhoda is no longer there. In the show, she returned to NYC. On television, she starred in her own show which I watched, but watching Mary and Rhoda separately was just not the same as watching them together.

There are other characters on the Mary Tyler Moore Show who had larger roles beginning with season 5. Sue Ann Nivens was played by Betty White, who is great. But Sue Ann's caustic wit is best in small doses. And Georgette, Ted Baxter's ditzy girlfriend, a sort of Gracie Allen character, can also become more annoying than funny.

Since I watched the show in the past, I know that Mary is going to move from her funky apartment in the building owned by Phyllis to a more modern complex. I remember that I really didn't enjoy those episodes nearly as well as the first 4 seasons.

I plan to continue through to the end which is 2 more seasons (2 more sets of DVDs, several more evenings in front of the TV set), but it won't be the same without Rhoda.

Five-Pound Hand Weights

Nearly two years ago I injured my left shoulder in a fall. It wasn't my fault. The skylight over the stairs had leaked and when I went down, I slipped in the puddle and wrenched my shoulder.

I immediately switched using 5-pound weights in exercise class to using 3-pound weights.

That shoulder injury had a lot of repercussions. I use a left-handed mouse on my computer at work because I have arthritis in my right shoulder and mouse work irritates it. But my newly injured shoulder couldn't deal with the computer mouse. My only alternative was to irritate my right shoulder and try to use keystrokes as much as possible.

Finally, after a lot of thought, gentle exercise, and some adjustments to my workstation, I switched back to the left-handed mouse.

And I've also finally built up the strength in my shoulders to use five-pound weights again. The Hatfield Senior Center also has six-pound weights which several very strong people (mostly men) use during class. In the past when I was using the five-pounders regularly, I thought of trying to "graduate", but never quite managed it. That's now a goal (maybe) for the future.

On the more intellectual side of the work front, I've begun merging duplicates of titles that begin with the letter P. It took only a little over a month to get through the letter O.

I've been working on titles that begin with the words "paint", "painter", and "painting". I'm finding fewer and fewer duplicates as I scan the lists of titles. I've merged many of them while working on an earlier letter. I am still finding plenty of skimpy, hand-typed records (though fewer than I used to), plenty of weird characters that should be accent marks, and plenty of bib records for a particular format (say e-book, downloadable video, vinyl LP) when the library's holding says it's something else (a print book, DVD, or CD)

For so many years many of the MassCat libraries had self-contained collections and if the library had a copy of Farenheit 451, no one cared if it was paperback or large print or which company published it or when. In a sharing world when people are dependent on information in the catalog for requesting the appropriate version via InterLibrary Loan, details like format or the size of the font are VERY IMPORTANT.

It's my job to make sure those details are accurate. It's my personal mission to have the MassCat catalog be PERFECT.

The Downside of Spring

Yes, Spring really seems to be here. There's very little snow on the ground - just a few places in shady areas where the snow was piled up. There are already frogs in the pond. I don't have to wear gloves anymore, though I'm still wearing a scarf - it's been windy.

All of this means there is a lot of physical work to do in the near future - starting today if it's not raining too hard. The screened-in porch needs to be vacuumed, the door repaired. I won't put the plants out there just yet, but I want it to be ready. Same for the deck off of the living/dining room. It needs to be swept. Then come the patios which have leaves stuck in nooks and crannies and lots of little branches scattered around.

M is making arrangements to get some help so that we can drain and clean the pond. That also means cleaning up and repotting the overgrown plants that are in it. It's my job to schedule our young gardening helper who is also a student and up to her eyeballs finishing the semester.

I'm so glad when the weather warms up; the weekend was warm and sunny and beautiful. But I'm feeling too old for all of the physical work ahead. Once the "rush" is over, I'll sit back and enjoy a glass of wine and watch my fish swim around in their nice, clean pond with pretty plants.

Onward to O

Yes! On Friday, I finished with the letter N. That's the fastest yet for completing a letter. I was so close to the end I really wanted to get there. I did not start O because I had a lot of requests from libraries that had arrived on Thursday and I needed to attend to that task. I pride myself on MassCat's (my) turnaround time.

Since I only work in the office 3 days/week, it's not a good idea to let the requests sit around. Forty-eight hours is a reasonable limit. Also, the MLS-Northampton delivery days are Monday and Thursday. Some of the requests were sent to me in "person" on Thursday. I always try to get them done and back into the bin for Monday's pickup.

I have something to look forward to when I arrive in the office at 11. That letter O.

This will be a busy week.

Monday: a lecture at the Sci-Tech cafe on Future Foods, including 3-D printed foods (?). This is a series of very technical topics presented for the general public. They're usually way over my head and the people I know who attend them say the same thing. But the talks are still interesting. The research that's going on in universities is truly amazing.

Tuesday: a documentary on Hedy Lamarr, the actress who was also an inventor. Amherst Cinema has
been showing films of women who have made significant contributions in scientific research. Of course, being women, they tend to be ignored or not taken seriously.

Thursday: a meeting of all the Healthy Bones and Balance (HBB) Leaders. We have these meetings 3 times/year. It's a chance to meet some of the other leaders, learn about new exercises, and ask questions. I still think about becoming a personal trainer and/or wellness coach.

Friday: LaRK Jazz Trio is playing at Bread Euphoria. The L of LaRK is a friend of mine whom I met when she started to attend the HBB class at the Hatfield Senior Center. Now M and I socialize with her and her husband and have also become LaRK groupies. It's a pleasant night out and we often invite friends. We sit around, chat, drink wine and munch on pizza or soup and sandwiches. Very nice.

Saturday: M and I are hosting a dinner party. We haven't had one in a long time and are looking forward to this. Of course, there is some stress: what will I serve 8 people? What's easy to make so that I can still spend time with my guests? And I want to impress them with my culinary skills.

As spring continues its envelopment of New England, more signs pop up. Yesterday, a mother black bear and her yearling came onto the deck. No doubt, she was trying to get to the bird feeder, which is too far from the deck for her to reach. It's taken us a lot of years to place that feeder in a way bears and squirrels cannot get to it. That doesn't stop them from trying, though. The bear climbed a tree (which was still too far away) and then settled for picking up the seeds that had fallen to the ground. As fascinating as they are to watch, I don't want to encourage bears to spend time in my yard. After a few minutes, I stuck my head out the sliding glass door and told her to "go away".

She did.

Signs of Spring

The absolute definitive sign is that the date is March 21; Spring arrived yesterday at 5:58 p.m.

A few hours earlier, my newest great-niece, E.C., was born -  a harbinger if there ever was one.

The snow is melting (though there are still piles on the side of the road); the frost heaves are subsiding; and the pot holes are increasing to sink-hole proportions. Heavy trucks are leaving deep tire tracks in the mud of our gravel road. Ah, you've got to love it.

My geraniums are starting to bloom as well as my hibiscus. Oh, yes, I've spotted several ants.

On the work front, I'm zipping along. I've finished working on titles that begin with No, Not, Note and I'm part way through Nothing. I'll be done with the letter N in only a few weeks despite the tiny font I accidentally used for my list.

If work continues to progress this smoothly and quickly, I won't bother to reprint the list with a larger font.

This evening, I'm heading to Black Birch Vineyard to pick up my quarterly share of wine. Despite the difficult driving conditions on their gravel road (Hatfield does have paved roads, but also lots of gravel ones), it's such a pleasure to visit this vineyard. The setting is absolutely enchanting. I've attended a couple of fundraisers there and also gone just to sit and enjoy a glass of wine.

It's a pleasure to support a local industry, to support a hard-working, industrious couple, and enjoy a sipping wine all at the same time.

Navigating the letter N

It's March 1, a mere 3 weeks till spring according to the calendar. There's snow on the ground and more predicted for this weekend.

I'm always conflicted at this time of year: I don't want time to pass so fast but I want winter to be OVER! I want to put out my pots of geraniums that have been in my living room since October. I want to begin new pots of geraniums and put them in hanging planters. I want to plant impatiens and begonias in the shadier spots around the house. I want to be surrounded by sunshine and flowers. I want to open the pond and spend time with my fish.

In the meantime, I'll plow through my alphabetical list of potential duplicates looking for bib records to merge, enhance, correct and otherwise clean up. I've finally reached the letter N; I'm now officially on the second half of the alphabet.

My supervisor created a list based on a report he ran. I printed the letters N-Z of the spreadsheet. Unfortunately, I'm not that adept at managing Excel and printed a list with very tiny letters. It's 66 pages. I've been using a magnifying glass to read it.

I've been trying to decide if I should just reprint it - a few pages at a time to avoid the same mistake. But, being the parsimonious person I am, I'm just coping. It may get to the point I can't stand that minute font any longer and just reprint. I can always use the pages as scrap, though I have plenty of that.

In the list, I'm beyond the words Narrate, Navigate and Nazi and have begun Need.

Too bad I didn't see the word Narcissus in there. I'd like to see a few of them blooming.

My Queen Phase

That's the band Queen. I watched the DVD of Bohemian Rhapsody last week and I can't stop thinking about Queen.

In the 70s and 80s I listened to Queen's music and liked it, but didn't pay a lot of attention to the band itself. That was the same for The Who; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and (sometimes) Young; Pink Floyd; Traffic and many others. I watched parts of the Live Aid concert. I remember when Freddie Mercury died. Was it really 1991? It doesn't seem that long ago.

Anyway, after watching the movie, all I want to do is listen to Queen and read about Queen. I can't stop thinking about Queen. Their music keeps running through my head.

Here's what I've done during the last week:
Watched Queen's performance at Live Aid on YouTube.
Borrowed 2 CDs via my local public library; I'll likely buy some CDs if the used CD store has any.
Ordered books on Queen via my local public library.

I'm not certain when this will end, but I'm enjoying learning all about the band and listening to the music again.

After all, sometimes I need a break from classical music and mystery books.

My, My, My

There are lots of titles that begin with the word "My" and I've reached that section in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates. That means very soon I'll be half way through the alphabet (M being the 13th of 26 letters). I began the letter M in mid-July - seven months ago. I began working on the letter L a full two years ago. I'm speeding up :-)

Rest assured I've done much more than merge titles beginning with the letter M. There are the typos and those weird characters that are supposed to be accent marks that I've corrected, the skimpy bib records that I've upgraded. Plus the files of records sent to me from MassCat libraries I've imported. And I've searched for many, many records that MassCat library staff haven't been able to locate. Sometimes I've had to create records from scratch. Well, that's my job.

One major transition I've made is to stop teaching continuing education workshops for librarians. Yes, after a couple of years of ambivalence, I told my contact at the Connecticut State Library that I just didn't want to do any more. Since I've been teaching so few, it gets harder and harder to rev up.

I haven't been attending any workshops or training or conferences myself, so I feel as if it's getting harder and harder to keep up. I can handle the MassCat cataloging because it's pretty simple and it's mostly copy cataloging. The original cataloging is usually straight forward.

I continue to subscribe to the various cataloging e-mail discussion lists, but I find I'm deleting more and more of the posts without reading them thoroughly. Very few of them address issues that I face.

I'm still enjoying my work at MassCat. It's enough of a challenge to keep me interested but not so challenging that I get frustrated. It's only 18 hours/week, 5 miles from my home and I get free coffee. What more could I ask?

Reading about the South

When I read books by Miranda James I can't help thinking about the movie Victor/Victoria. In an early scene, Julie Andrew's character exclaims to Robert Preston's character "A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?"

Male librarian Dean James writes the Cat in the Stacks mysteries as female author Miranda James whose main character is male librarian Charlie Harris. These books fit into the "cozy" genre as they take place in a little town in Mississippi called Athena. They're fun, easy reading with no graphic sex and violence - a nice break from some of the grittier mysteries I read. I recently finished Arsenic and  Old Books, the sixth book of the series.

And I just started reading Rita Mae Brown's Crazy Like a Fox. This is part of the Sister Jane Arnold series about foxhunting. This is another fun, light read.

I really like reading Rita Mae Brown's books. While I found her Mrs. Murphy series sort of silly, I don't mind the animals talking to each other in the foxhunting series. To me, it feels as if their conversations add depth and insight to the story and also adds to the information about the history and ecology of foxhunting that is woven into the plot.

Best of all, I like Rita Mae Brown's stand-alone titles. While Rubyfruit Jungle feels a little dated now, it was a real shocker when it was first published. Other favorite titles are High Hopes (about the Civil War) and Alma Mater.

What ties these two author (Miranda James and Rita Mae Brown) together is their detailed descriptions of life in the South, especially manners. Both authors are perpetually referring to "proper" behavior.

As much of a rebel as Rita Mae Brown is, Sister Jane Arnold, Master of the Jefferson Foxhunt, is always properly attired on the hunts and expects others to be too. There is a lot of description of the traditions of foxhunting and of the refined and cultivated south.

Charlie Harris sometimes gets angry or upset and would like to do or say something but doesn't because of his Southern upbringing. He also dislikes it when others ignore traditions.

Having lived in Massachusetts all of my life, and despite the state's Puritan history, Southern traditions and manners seem a little extreme to me. After all, I became an adult during the 60's when we "let it all hang out".  Since then I've found a comfortable behavior pattern for myself somewhere between being a Hippie and a Southern Belle.

Ultimately it all boils down to the Golden Rule.

Two New (to me) Authors

Mary Roberts Rinehart is a name I've seen in other mystery books. Wanting to expand my repertoire, I checked Fantastic Fiction and learned that The Man in Lower Ten was her first mystery novel published in 1906.

Checking through C/W MARS, that title was only available as one of a set of 3, so I requested it.

I'm afraid my first impression was disappointment. The book, while newer than 1906, was still old and had been rebound in a less-than-appealing plain red cover. Because it had been rebound, the inner margins were minimal, making the book hard to keep open and I had to work to read the ends of the lines on the left-hand page and the beginnings of the lines on the right. And the print was small. I considered returning the book and forgetting about this excursion.

It is a testament to Mary Roberts Rinehart that I finished all three stories.

Her writing style reminds me of Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett and Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories are somewhat convoluted and not always easy to follow. But I found myself enjoying them.

Typical of her times, she tends to make sweeping generalizations such as this sentence from The Case of Jennie Brice written in 1913. "There was something big about her, something which is often found in large women, a lack of spite." While that's a nice thing to say about someone (in this case Jennie Brice), I'm not sure that all "large women" can be described that way. Another comment about another character was that if he left his light on at night he must be a murderer.

My preference, however, is to read contemporary mysteries and I recently read my first book by Louise Penny Kingdom of the Blind. It had just arrived at my local public library and was listed in the
Wednesday morning email Wowbrary.

This series takes place in the Canadian province of Quebec and features Chief Inspector Gamache. Like Donna Leon and Faye Kellerman, there is a lot of character development and description of family life. It makes the characters more real and gives me a real appreciation of a different culture.

Since this series started in 2005, I'm adding Louis Penny to my list of authors to read from the beginning.

Where My Money Goes

It's not that I have a lot of extra money. After paying the mortgage (yes, at my age my house is still mortgaged), utilities, the cable bill, property taxes, buying food and clothes, gas for the car (not to mention maintenance of the car), and other necessities, I'm left with what's called "discretionary" income.

It's not a lot, but I have choices. I can buy more clothes (which I sometime do). I can buy more shoes (which I did just last week). Or I can donate to a worthy cause. And there are lots of worthy causes.

Rather than give $5 or $10 to every solicitation I receive in the mail, I've chosen to focus my efforts on to the areas that are most important to me.

1. Education. Not everyone is academically inclined, but while I was still in junior high school, I decided I really wanted to go to college. I'm not sure why. No one in my family had gone to college. I didn't even know anyone who had gone to college. In my family's social circle it was something "other people did". But I wanted to do it.

For me it was a good choice (though sometimes difficult as I was not a great student). It presented opportunities I would never had otherwise. Before I graduated, I realized that having a B.A. in History was no guarantee of a great and exciting career, but I had also discovered that I wanted to go to Library School and become a Librarian and I needed that B.A. to do that.

Being a Librarian has been a a great (and, yes, sometimes exciting) career for me. It's important to me that as many people as possible have a chance to go to college if that's what they want. I regularly donate as much as I can to UMass/Amherst and Simmons College School of Library Science.

2. Libraries. Since libraries contribute substantially to education, and since being a Librarian has meant so much to me, I also contribute regularly, and as much as I can, to the W.E.B. DuBois Library at UMass/Amherst and my local public library.

Of course there are other worthy causes that sometimes strike my fancy and when that happens I contribute to them. But the bulk of my "extra" money goes to Education and Libraries where I feel it will do the most good.

The End of an Era

I'm bummed! I found out about this situation a few months ago, but I've been in denial and too depressed to blog about it.

The Dewey Decimal Classification schedules will no longer be printed on paper. The last books were published in 2011. Since new editions have been published every 6-10 years, I fully expected a new edition soon. It won't happen. The Dewey Decimal Classification will be available online only via WebDewey.

I know this makes a lot of sense. It costs a lot of money to publish a physical book. The unabridged, 4-volume set cost nearly $500. The abridged, one-volume version was over $100. And before they hit the market, they were out-of-date.

Since the schedules are updated regularly, it makes sense to access the information digitally, but for some reason, I've always preferred to hold those books in my hand.

In contrast, when the Library of Congress subject headings were made available online, I rejoiced and wondered why anyone would bother to buy those "big red books". Even better, once they were online, the Name Authority File was included. And all FOR FREE!
 
WebDewey requires a subscription fee. And I do not find it very easy to use. Perhaps it's because I'm used to the books and I need to practice more with WebDewey. Regardless, I still have my DDCs and will keep them for a LONG, LONG time.