Genealogy, Photography

Autumn

Shelly

Autumn

The reason I have been useless and boring the past couple of months is that I’ve gotten sucked back into genealogyland. It’s like a giant black hole. I sit down at the computer for five minutes, and the next thing I know, it’s 2am. But! I’ve made a few discoveries and solved some mysteries that had been bugging me. Of course, that means I’ve created a few more that now have me completely stumped.

Like, there’s a John Joseph Baskwell living in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Anne Simerson. According to the old city directories, he was at some points living with Baskwell/Baskerville people who I have linked to my family tree, but I cannot for the life of me figure out where he fits. The George S. Baskerville living a few doors down from some of “my” Baskwells/Baskervilles might be a plausible coincidence (as far as I can tell, he’s totally unrelated, or related so far back that there are no records to show how), but in the same house? At the same time? I can’t buy that. So John Joseph and the missus are “mine,” but I have no idea how or what to do with them.

It’s frustrating!

However, today I found my great-great grandfather Walter Basquill’s sister, Margaret, living in Massachusetts. I also found Walter’s daughter, Mary, living with them. It’s not a big thing on its own, but sometimes the small additions and connections make other things fall into place, like dominoes.

Art, Crankypantsing, Doodles

Hark, a Doodle!

Shelly

Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle

Today may have been the most annoying day EVAR. For reals. Have I mentioned that our entire department (about 60 people) is being temporarily moved because our floor is being renovated? The cataloging division is going to another building on campus, which is not the annoying part. The temp building is closer to my house, and we won’t have to fight with students for parking. However, we found out today that we will not have cubicles at the temp building. The work spaces are shared. As in, several people will be sitting at one table. I work with the most annoying people on earth (most of whom I like! I just don’t want to sit rightthefucknexttothem). This is not good.

And then, because this day did not already suck enough, we had a training webinar for RDA. Which would have been fine, actually, because for perhaps the first time in the history of webinars, the audio was pretty good. What was not good was that the speaker only pronounced half the syllables in each word. Bibliographic became bib-uh-graphic. Every time she said MARC 21, I could have sworn she was saying Mark Twain One. So I had some trouble decoding WTF she was talking about, which did not help my listening comprehension one little bit.

So. Hrmf.

But on the plus side, Harriet didn’t have any leaky accidents today. YAY!

Pets, Photography

HELP! I’ve been swallowed by the couch!

Shelly

HELP! I've been swallowed by the couch!

Harriet is doing fine, aside from the couch swallowing incident. No more seizures, as far as I know. She’s developed paralysis on the right side of her face (sort of like the canine equivalent of Bell’s Palsy). It isn’t bothering her, and the only time you really can tell something’s wrong is right after she eats or drinks. Then, her lower right lip gets floppy. Her new nickname is Whopperjaw.

(About the couch. I’ve got waterproof covers on the cushions, because Harriet leaks. I’ve been covering them up with towels or sheets or whatever is handy that can be washed easily. Under that is a pee pad, and under that, there’s a waterproof mattress cover.

And Henry, being a total dork.

Henry

My Garden, Pets, Photography

Monarch

Shelly

IMG_6883

IMG_6889
Monarch (Danaus plexippus) on Zinnia

This guy was VERY shy. Every time I went out to get a photo, he flew off.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with drama-llama-ding-dong. The cherry on top was waking up early Monday morning to Harriet having a grand mal seizure. As far as I know, she’s never had one before. Hopefully it will turn out to be an isolated incident. It’s likely though, since she’s an old dog, that it was caused by a brain tumor. If so, she’ll have more seizures, and they will get progressively worse and more frequent as the tumor grows. For now, since we don’t know what’s going on, we’re in “wait and see” mode.

You would not know that anything had happened judging by Harriet, though. Within half a minute of the seizure, she was up and asking to go outside, and then she came in and demanded breakfast.