Empty Booth by Wetsun, published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
They’ve been tarting up the west side of the 3rd floor. The old study carrels are gone, and in their place are some lovely new booths. I swear, it looks like some sort of breakfast dive.
Pictures shall, of course, be forthcoming. In the meantime, I’ve trawled Flickr for IHOP photos.
There are few things that gross me out more than the sound of fingernail clippers. I have two coworkers who clip their nails at work. Why? That strikes me as the sort of personal grooming that ought to be done at home. Aieee!
Also, it smells like chow mein. I mentioned it, and another coworker said it must be her–and I am not making this up–Saskatchewan beef. I said, “Your what?!” And then I realized she must’ve meant Szechuan beef.
Kill me now.
The USGS site and the real time sites aren’t showing anything, at least not yet, but several of us felt the tremors. Four of them, altogether. I think being on an upper floor of a building that’s resting on bedrock may magnify them. I also noticed that having my feet flat on the floor made the shaking sensation more pronounced.
I was suddenly possessed by the baking urge, so I spent the evening making 8 dozen chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. They are Teh Yum. Now, to decide whether I’m going to take them to work tomorrow, as a general holiday treat, or to wait until Wednesday, and take them for a coworker’s retirement party.
Decisions, decisions.
I think I’ll go ahead and take them tomorrow, because the baking urge, once it hits, tends to stick around for awhile. I can make something else tomorrow night for Wednesday, right?
Electrical Box
I took this yesterday, while the sun was trying to shine. It’s been sitting on the outside window ledge on the 3rd floor landing of the main library for months. I assume the workers left it there when they were doing the facade repairs.
I don’t know when or if we’ll ever see the sun again. We got the promised snow. Are still getting it, in fact. I thought it might be a false alarm, because when I took Miss Brown out for last call, there was a distinct lack of cloud cover. I could clearly see Orion.
Snow
Dog Tracks
A coworker is retiring at the end of the year. Someone sent her a bouquet of gorgeous red roses yesterday, I assume because she’ll be leaving soon. It’s sort of bittersweet. She’s worked here her entire life, and I don’t think she’d planned on leaving quite yet, but she’s developed some mobility issues that make her job very difficult.
Anyway, the flowers are pretty. I think I probably caught them at peak color, but roses are fragile, and they’re starting to decay already. The whole thing makes me think of the Rasputina song Rose K.
It blooms, it grows, it wilts and then it is dead.
I’ve been kind of meh about Library Thing since the beginning, partly, I think, because who the hell wants to go home and do more cataloging?! Anyway, one of the assignments for our Fake Blogging/Web 2.0 course is to create a Library Thing account. So I did.
The free account only allows you to add 200 books, which I think is kind of hilarious and adorable. I mostly added art history, art, and classics, along with a few books from the miscellaneous stack, but if I want to add anything else, I’m going to have to upgrade to a pay account. It’s only $25 for a lifetime membership, so it’s not like it’s expensive, but it’s not in the budget right now.
Blue d’Anjou Pears (detail left & right)
acrylic on 90lb Stonehenge paper
9 1/4 x 11 5/8 inches
This spread was done with just acrylic on paper, with the addition of a little bit of acrylic medium in a few spots. Mostly, I worked with the paint without diluting it, because I tend to prefer a bit of texture (you can see it in the detail views).
Non sequitur alert!
What do you say when a coworker walks past your desk and helps himself to a handful of Kleenexes? Seriously! I was at a total loss for words, and that just doesn’t ever happen to me! I have an evil temptation to buy him a box of tissues and leave it on his desk, anonymously. It would be worth it, except that I have a feeling that anyone who is that oblivious to what is and what is not socially acceptable would be unlikely to get the point.
Grrr.
And with that, I believe I have fulfilled my NoMoPoblano (or whatever the hell it’s called) commitment, and without having to resort to fluffy padding, either. Alas, I didn’t quite finish NaNoWriMo, but I gave it a good try. Getting sick didn’t help, nor did having my image database crash and having to rebuild it[1]. I also didn’t manage to do a pear a day, but I’m still working on it, and I’m not worried about completing the project. That, I can do.
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1. On that front, things are going well. I have everything (I think) uploaded and sorted, and about 90% of it is cataloged. Whew! That was a long, tedious, and thankless job.
It’s also a good lesson in why it’s important to do regular back-ups. Or, back-ups at all. I r st00pit. I am religious about making multiple back-ups of my files, but not my databases. Oops!
Something has gone horribly wonky with my Coppermine database. God only knows what, but I have a feeling that it’s beyond my ability to fix. As far as I can tell, my web host is not experiencing any known issues, so whether it’s something on their end, that will miraculously heal itself, or something I’m going to have to fix (ha!), I don’t know.
I am not amused.
The only bright point is that it looks like images are showing up fine within my blog, but if you try to click on anything to view it larger, you won’t be able to. I think pretty much everything is hosted over at Flickr, though, so if you really want to look at a full-size image, that’s the place to go.
Did I mention that I’m not amused?
However, as promised, here’s the sink from our conference room. Charming, isn’t it? It sort of suits my incredibly cranky mood!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the ever popular Sinks! In! Bags!: The Musical! has been remade as a one-sink play. Alas, today is the one day I did not bring my camera, so pictures will have to wait until Monday (assuming the play in question does not close on opening night).
In the meantime, please join me in welcoming the ensemble cast of the original Sinks! In! Bags!: The Musical!
red paper boat 