One of the biggest and busiest events we hold at our library every year is "Pride in Library Day," a local event during Stow Pride Week. Every day of the week leading up to July 4th is some sort of Pride In... day, with a Pride Breakfast and a concert and a golf outing and fun run and ice cream social, etc. For Library Day we hold a booksale (the day before, now, because it's so busy!), special children's programming (this year we had a magician and a balloon twister do programs), our annual pet show, and annual Dixieland Jazz band concert. The jazz band and the pet show are held outside on our library lawn, a secluded grassy area that's walled off from the busy street. I took a ton of photos of the various events, and posted them on our library's Flickr stream. I think this little wirehaired dachshund comforting his owner was just the cutest I've ever taken... But it was hard NOT to take a cute photo with so many adorable animals and kids together in one place! You can also see the pics from our library's main webpage, http://www.smfpl.org/ (scroll down below the first few announcements). I was disappointed that the miniature horse wasn't able to make it, but we had a variety of other pets from chinchilla to hermit crab to rat... :-)

Well, I've been meaning to post for a couple of days, but it's been a crazy couple of days and I haven't gotten around to it. Work has been busy, with teen summer reading in full swing and programs like Recycled Crafts (where we made a wallet out of an old audio cassette tape, and tried to finger-weave a lei out of plastic grocery bags-- but did not have much success because despite doing it twice before at workshops, I just couldn't get the hang of it using only the photo directions :-( And we had a horse show at the farm two weeks ago; I took a bunch of photos of "my" horses in that, which you can see on my Flickr stream. (It rained for a solid hour during the English riding portion of the horse show, then the sun came out for the last half, when all the Western classes were on: does someone Up There have something against English riding style? :-)

My July Fourth started on Friday night with some great fireworks at the public park in Independence, Ohio--great place to be on Independence Day, eh? My friend Peggy had invited me along with her family and friends to watch the display together. I took some pretty decent fireworks photos, had some burgers and fair food, enjoyed the company. Then early Sat. morning I was up and in downtown Kent for the annual Kent Heritage Festival, which is a daylong party in the streets with craft and jewelry vendors, information booths, kids activities, a classic car show, lots of food vendors, and live music and dance troups on 3 stages. I sat at the PDC (Portage Democratic Coalition) booth for several hours, asking folks to sign a petition to get Single Payer Health Care onto the ballot in Ohio. Not the most fun way to spend the day--lots of people heard our "get health care for all Ohioans" plea and said "oh but I've got health care!" as if we were personally handing out health care to people. Sigh. And one woman was just so steamed at the idea that she spent five minutes yelling at the top of her lungs at us, despite our calm requests for her to stop yelling and just tell us her opinion like a civilized human being. We weren't twisting anyone's arm, it's just a petition to get the legislature to consider the idea for crying out loud. Anyway, that was a bit disconcerting. But I had the company of my good friend Kat and we enjoyed the weather (70's, sunny then overcast) and the smells (if not the sight) of the pig roasting on a spit right across the way from our booth. (!) The new cajun restaurant was advertising its pulled pork sandwiches (which were very tasty) with this poor naked burning pig, blecch. Quite a risky endeavor considering all of the vegetarians who live in Kent! But it was a very oft-photographed attraction...

The highlight of the day for me was getting to ride in the caboose! Of a train! Whoo-whoo!

It was only a twenty-minute ride up and back on the tracks running from downtown up along the river, but it benefitted the chamber of commerce and I've never been in a caboose before, so it was fun. We got to sit up high in the "cupola" seat and everything. Felt just like a little kid. Even had to wait at a crossing for the dumb car drivers to finish racing across the tracks: evidently the crossing arm didn't go down when it was supposed to, because we were sitting there for a few minutes blowing our whistle as these idiots kept driving across, right in front of us! Makes you wonder about people's IQ sometimes.



After the train ride we walked around enjoying the festivities, and ate a "butterfly fry", which my Nebraska friend cannellfan informs me is called a "spiral spud" or something like that where he comes from. I'd never seen these before, they were quite tasty--made out of one giant Idaho potato spun into one long curly strip. It was like a series of potato chips connected into one strip. Mmm.

I was to end the day with a quick jaunt down to the riverbank to watch the River Ducks Race: they drop about 1,000 rubber ducks (each sponsored for $5) into the river and the first duck to make it to the ending point wins. Something, I'm not sure what (enduring glory and its own song? Oh but Ernie already wrote that song.). So after stopping home to feed the horses I parked at the Kent Free Library and walked down the street to go to the river. THEN DISASTER STRUCK. (cue dramatic music, or rather, the silly Benny Hill music) As I prepared to cross the street at the curb, I looked up for cars, there were none, I glanced back down and stepped off the curb but wasn't looking closely and CRASH! I fell down. Landed on the outside of my right ankle instead of the bottom of my foot. I think I misjudged where I was on the curb; I thought I was on the high curb when I was angled to go over the ramped curb cut instead, so I had farther to land. I dunno, either way I'm an idiot. Passersby were very nice and helped me back up. Now I was mad, because all I wanted to do was see the silly ducks and then I was going to drive to my parents' house to enjoy a fried chicken picnic with them. So I hobbled over to see the ducks anyway, because I was that stubborn (and I was practically there anyway). That turned out to be more entertaining than expected, because one of the girls who dumped the box also had balance issues and slipped into the river! Got soaking wet. It was pretty funny, after we determined she wasn't hurt at all. (Those photos haven't been uploaded just yet, but the little duckies are very cute.) Then I drove home and asked my parents to come to me instead of me bringing the food to them.

Ever since then I've been resting my ankle, icing it, keeping it wrapped and elevated. I have had other people feeding the horses so I don't have to worry about that job, and I stayed home from the library for 3 days in a row. The ankle's much better now, still keeping it wrapped and staying off it as much as possible. But the swelling's all gone and it doesn't hurt unless I bump it. I have nearly all of my mobility back, but I'm not walking on it yet. I've been learning the fine art of walking on crutches, as well as a walker and a cane borrowed from friends, and I even used my office chair at home as a wheelchair :-) I will never take two good legs for granted again, lemme tell ya....

Last night my Bike MS team held a fundraiser at a bar/restaurant called The Red Onion. We charged $20 admission and for that you got all-you-can-eat wings and beer and pop. Then there was a 50/50 raffle and baskets o' prizes raffled off too. We ended up raising over $1,000 for our team. Pretty nifty! I took a couple of pictures of us hanging out, before the karaoke started. (At which point I was really too tired to stay, had an hour drive home, but I was sorry I missed the singing fun. Er. Or maybe not.)

I laughed at the sign they put up: it was nice to see us on there but it made it look like it was a "psychic fundraiser" :-) So, in that case, we all already knew how much money we were going to raise and who would win the prizes, eh? Ha ha! Anyway, good times to end a long day of working at my library where we are still on pins and needles about impending budget cuts.

I had a fantastic Friday indeed! My friend Diana and I took our minds off the current library budget crisis by driving to our friend Chrissy's house (she used to work with us at our library) to spend the afternoon picnicking and playing with Chrissy's beautiful daughter Katie and her handsome well-behaved stoic dog Carl. (Anyone know the great picture books, "Good Dog Carl" etc by Alexandra Day? That Carl is a Rottweiler but this Carl has a similar wonderful personality and is great with kids, and he's named after the storybook dog.) This Carl is half Doberman Pinscher and half Rhodesian Ridgeback.

We had a wonderful time. Three-year-old temper tantrums aside, Katie is perfectly charming and so.darn.cute. (OK loyal Auntie Christina has to say she' s not as cute as my niece Mira, but it's a close thing!! Grin) Here she's on her trampoline. We played games and had chicken and potato salad outside in the not-quite-too-hot yard. Saw their fantastic acreage, pond, toads hopping about, nice idyllic place to raise kids. (and let a dog run about!) Then we ended with a visit to Chrissy's library, which is a very nice small town library with a great collection, friendlyl staff, and this cool statue outside.

I'm always up for a visit to a library, and I hadn't been to the Newton Falls library since Chrissy began working there. I saw a couple of things that I found new and interesting and filed away to maybe implement at my library someday, which often happens when I go on busman's holidays like that. I just hope that the impending budget axe doesn't hit this library too hard.

I returned home in time to see our killdeer have returned and raised a pair of young again--only this time I was able to see them and take photos! yay! Last year I never did get to see the babies.

We were concerned that moving the horses in from the paddock might result in killdeer roadkill, since the birds were running around the ring where the horses must pass through, so we were careful not to go near them. I had to go feed in the barn so I didn't see how it went, but I'm sure the birds were fast enough to get out of the way. We have another horse show on Sunday so there's lots of mowing and weedwhacking and maintenance going on; those birds had best take a holiday for a while.

My colleagues in Ohio's public libraries and I have been working frantically over the weekend and today to get the word out to our patrons: we need their help to stop Ohio's legislature from enacting the Governor's proposed budget cuts. The Governor wants to cut the budget for public libraries by 50%. About 70% of public libraries in Ohio are funded solely by this fund, so cutting the already shrinking budget means library closures, layoffs and cutbacks in hours and materials. Of the other 30% of Ohio libraries that do have some sort of local property tax levy (like mine), this will still mean that their budgets will drastically shrink. And he proposed this on Friday, the sneaky devil, knowing that would mean it gets buried for a couple of days. We have until June 30th to get our voices heard--because the budget goes into effect July 1--but actually we have to do something by THURSDAY June 25 when they get ready to vote. !!!! this is just heartbreaking. Our budget has been through downslides before, the last few years have been tough as we switched from receiving a percentage of income taxes to a percentage of the total state revenues, and with the state's economy going downhill there's less money to share. But now we're up against a brick wall, and it looks really bad. And the irony? LIBRARIES ARE USED MORE THAN EVER IN BAD ECONOMIC TIMES!! We provide free internet access, resume writing help, job fairs, computer classes, not to mention all of the free materials for lending and the programs for teens and kids. And summer reading programs have just begun! Many libraries will have to CLOSE this summer, it's a crime.

We have been sending out emergency emails and posting signs and contacting everyone we can think of, to let them know we have only a couple of days to contact our representatives and let them know how crummy this is. (And by a governor who claims to be on the side of education and the lower income population. Sigh.) If you're reading this and you're an Ohio resident, please please contact your representatives TODAY! We have more details on our library website: www.smfpl.org and more details on saveohiolibraries.com. Thank you!!!!

Catching up on some older batches of photos, today I posted my set from a visit to Northfield Park, the harness racetrack here in Northeast Ohio. I'd been invited to attend by my friend Diana, and with my friend Sandy we had a grand old time in the grandstand. We got free admission to the grandstand and had dinner in their nice restaurant, where you can eat while watching live races out the giant glass windows. I'd never done that at a Thoroughbred track! I'm not as "up" on the ins and outs of Standardbreds, so a lot of it was new to me, and I'm sure D & S got sick of hearing me compare everything to the flat tracks. For example, i don't know how they manage to have a fair start when they have to line up while moving, behind a car, instead of standing still and starting. Sometimes there are horses behind other horses when there clearly is room for them on the ends, so I don't understand how their post positions work. Anyway, I met some new friends, the group who had organized this outing because they won a raffle prize of free admission for up to 20 and the honor of presenting an award in the winner's circle for "their" race. (I was totally jealous of this! Although I do have my own winner's circle photo from years ago, at Thistledown, long story...) I tried hard to take some decent photos, but I was hampered by the nighttime setting, and also stupid me had left my camera's White Balance setting on Flourescent from something else I shot, so a number of the early shots came out very blue. (I should just tell everyone I am going through a Blue Period like Picasso.) And I really do need a faster lens for sports photography. But, self-criticisms aside, I got a few that I liked, and it was a fun night nonetheless. (I have to watch falling into the trap of treating every event as a photo-opportunity first and a carefree evening second.) Obviously I did not win a bundle in my wagering efforts or you'd be hearing about this from my deck chair in the Bahamas right now. :-)

Click on the photo above to see the whole set.

From redpimpernel , comes news that rolanni (SF writer Sharon Lee) has declared June 23 to be Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Day (you know how there's Secretaries' Day and all that)! That's a cool idea, I think. A time to reflect on your favorite authors' work and to thank them for their efforts to enliven the world with fun and provocative speculative fiction. I'm going to see if we can put up a display at my library for it. Here's her original post.

I had another really full weekend, one of those times where you need a weekend to recover from your weekend? :-) I managed to cram in: book discussion group at a bookstore, going to the movies, going to a hot air balloon festival, attending a graduation party and a horse show, riding my bike on a 20-mile ride, AND spending a few hours catching up on tv shows with friends. In addition to the usual horse duties. Whew! I am amazed that it all went off without a hitch; the timing was pretty good. And thank heavens for caffeine.

Friday night I went to Rollie's

( teen book discussion group meeting )I have more of a review of these two books on my goodreads.com page.

Saturday around noon I went to see ( Night At The Museum 2: Battle at the Smithsonian )

Went straight from the theater to pick up my friend Amy and drive an hour and a half down south to ( see the 2th annual Coshocton balloon festival )


This mosaic was made entirely of bottlecaps and lids! cool huh?


A first for me: seeing two identical balloons go up simultaneously. They eventually drifted apart, but for a few minutes they were a tandem. Very nifty.



I love it when there are enough balloons in the air at the same time that they make cool patterns. And I also enjoyed seeing some new balloons that don't come to Ravenna, like the black "Pancho's" balloon at the right. Some of these balloons came from other states or from down in Cincinnati, and so forth, according to the announcer whose every fifth word I could just about understand. [Cue sound clip from Charlie Brown: "Mwuh wah wah mwah mwah"]

So that was Saturday's events. On Sunday, I crammed another 4 things in to my day. First was a ( horse show )




I took some shots of my friend Sandy's friend Becky as she handed out ribbons to winners, so that Becky can use them in her judicial campaign; one of them happened to be our horse Baby Girl ("BG," registered name She's a Calamity) who won her class. :-) So I wasn't just there to enjoy my horses but also as an unofficial campaign publicity photographer, in a way. That was different! And the two meshed in this shot.



This is PrimeTime Player ("Primer" around the barn), an Arab who is leased by a young girl at the barn for showmanship classes and riding, but who is being ridden here by her owner (I think). He was just gorgeous to watch.


And this is Tanya, the horse, with Lisa, the rider, after they won a ribbon. Another Arabian, and I just love this head shot of her, even though the composition's not the best. Beeyootiful.




I went from the horse show up to Cleveland Heights (45 min drive) to ( ride my bike )

Here's my teammates charging over the bridge at the Shaker Lake park.


And this is the cutest little Canada gosling, enjoying the snacks at the lakeshore with his parents.

So, to wrap up, which I always seem to have the hardest time doing in these things, I got in a good ride, we had homemade fruit smoothies afterwards, then I drove home to clean up and attend a high school graduation party for the teen daughter of a library colleague, whom I've watched grow up these past several years as she attended teen programs and then got a job working at the library. These occasions always get me to remembering my own high school years, ugh, bittersweet as that can be. Then back home to feed horses, then over to Karen's house where I collapsed on her easy chair to watch the final three episodes of Dollhouse with her and Diana. Wow! Great ending to a great season, but it's going to be hard to wait til fall for the resolution! (Anyone out there watching it too? We need to talk. Wasn't Alan Tudyk amazing?!)

 

Last week, the day before the Relay for Life, I spent an afternoon touring our very nice Akron Art Museum. Not as big as the Cleveland Museum of Art, but a very nice museum nonetheless, especially with its radical new addition, which I had not visited yet. I'd only driven by it a few times. It is really striking, and although my original opinion still holds that it doesn't mesh with the original building much, it certainly is cool and eye-catching and very modern-artsy. The brick building was built in 1899, and the addition was made in 2007. I wish I had time to come back at sunrise or sunset and try to photograph it in that light, rather than at noon. But I did have perfect weather for it that day.





The exhibits I saw were: Leo and Diane Dillon's illustrations for children's books, Lee Friedlander's Steel Valleys photographs, and the new William Wegman exhibition. I enjoyed them all. Friedlander's photos, done in 1979 for the museum, were black and white studies of factories and steel mills and what was just coming to be called "the Rust Belt" area of Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh etc. There were even a couple of shots from my former town of Johnstown PA. Stark landscapes of decay. He also shot scenes inside of workers working in the factories, which were just as interesting for documenting what has really come to be a declining way of life.

The Dillons' illustrations are FANTASTIC. It was so cool to see the original art up close, to see every tiny brushstroke (when they weren't airbrushed or in other mediums that didn't use strokes; they really do a wide variety of work). And I mean tiny: these were done actual size for picture book reproduction, so they were much smaller than I had expected. Some were only a couple of inches high! I'd thought they painted on bigger canvases that were then reduced in the publishing process. They're the husband and wife team I got to know when I hosted them at this year's Viriginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth (see photo in comment below) and I really admire their work.

And William Wegman's many photographs of his dogs, Fay Wray, Chip, etc. were hilarious and yet sometimes slightly disturbing. The exhibit has some of his videos playing, too, which is neat because he's really into so many mediums, including his b&w student films from the 1970s (one of them showing a closeup of his bare chest, head out of frame, as he "sings" and rolls his belly so that it looks like his nipples are eyes and his bellybutton is an expressive mouth, is so frat-boy crude and funny at the same time). He's the one who poses his Weimaraner dogs in very weird poses or coverd by a blanket or with a person standing behind them so that the human's hands are in view, and with clothing they look like a dog with people hands. Odd but fun. I first learned about them from his children's picture books, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, ABC, etc. I tend to prefer naturalistic dog portraits, and he does have a lot of those too.

In any event, it was a nice leisurely art afternoon for me. I saved the majority of the galleries, the art before 1850 and after, for my next visit when I bring my parents to see the museum.

[Edited: added VHamilton details and photo in comment.]

Finally uploaded all of my Chicago "Not MediawestCon" photos this morning. The full set is here. We saw some really pretty plants and flowers in the Lurie garden (above), ate a lot of good food :-) and generally had fun walking around the city.

Under the "Bean" or Cloud Gate sculpture we saw ourselves reflected very weirdly.





The Crown Fountain has video images of the faces of Chicagoans, and every five minutes or so they spit at you!



And we even saw some wildlife, this duck family, at the Lurie Garden.
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Now on to Relay for Life photo-uploading...

I participated in my first ever American Cancer Society Relay for Life event this weekend, and I'm feeling very thoughtful and grateful. A friend at work asked me to be on her team, "Send Cancer to the Showers!" Sounds like a silly name, but we had fun with it. They had a Broadway musicals theme, so we wore our bathrobes and flipflops and had towels on our head as we sang "Send Cancer to the Showers" to the theme of "Singin' In The Rain." (The day opens with a Survivors' Lap around the track, and then the teams parade by the judges and you can make a brief presentation there. We also had a guy wearing a shower and we squirted him with water guns as we sang!!) The whole day was a weird mix of the carnival and the somber and sad. Every team had a tent and a booth set up, where they sold stuff to further raise money--I had not known that aspect of the relay existed, I thought all of the fundraising was done beforehand and then you just cheered on your team and took turns walking. We sold scrapbook pages and towel turbans and suncreen and other stuff at our table. There were volleyball and football games going on in the infield, plus other activities to keep kids occupied, while people constantly walked, jogged, or even *leapfrogged* around the track. (One team was called "Team Kermit", using Kermit the Frog as their theme, and their motto was "Someday We'll Find It." I thought that was too clever!) I couldn't stay the entire day on Saturday as I had to work a half day shift at the library, but I managed to be there for opening ceremonies and to help our team sell sloppy joes at the concession stand; then when I came back in the evening I walked some more laps and was there for the Luminary Ceremony. That's the sad part: a very poignant slide show of names of cancer survivors and cancer victims was projected on big screens, as the luminary candles were lit and lined the track all the way around. There must have been thousands of them. All the while soft emotional music was playing (including a live singer at one point; we were all quite choked up). And up in the stands opposite our bleachers, candles spelled out "Hope" and then were changed to say "Cure". That was really cool. I had a luminary in Memory Of my friend Tonya, and a luminary in Honor Of my friend Teresa who recently underwent surgery for breast cancer. But to my extreme irritation, neither of their names made it into the slide show. Clerical error I guess. Oh well. I still honored them, and their candles were there. I forgot to put one in for Mikki :-( another friend with breast cancer, and then I realized I could have also honored my grandfather who died of lung cancer from working in the steel mills, and the list does really go on and on. So insidious is this disease, it really affects so many people.

I have photos of the day and of my team, of course, you know me, but today all I did was SLEEP in between horse feedings so I haven't uploaded them yet. [Edited: here's the link to the Flickr photoset.] I had quite a sleep deficit from the week already. I didn't stay all night to walk, but I went back for the 4am to 5am lap to help my sleepy team out, and then (after horses) helped clean up the luminaries and saw the Closing Ceremonies and Final Lap. And our team won "Best New Team" and made it into the Silver rank of fundraisers: we raised over $3,000! That was an unexpected and nice surprise. I will definitely do this again, even though I didn't really do very well at my own fundraising, because I felt guilty asking friends to donate to this AND to my usual cause of MS research. :-/ But I enjoy helping the team and being a part of it, and that counts too I guess. All of these years my friend Laura in NY has captained a team at her local Relay, and now I know just what effort goes into it. As one of the other teams' mottos says, (they were a Rock N Roll team using Grease as their theme) we're "Hopefully Devoted to a Cure."

Now we're back home and I can blog about the rest of our trip. I don't have the "real" pictures from my camera uploaded yet, but here are a couple from my cellphone. On Sunday, we eschewed the train route and instead I drove all five of us about an hour to downtown Chicago, where we found an underground garage in which to park. We then spent the whole morning walking around Millennium Park, where this "bean" sculpture is located. It is so cool! Especially on a bright sunny day like we had. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and 60 with of course a strong breeze from off the lake. Perfect.


We went to the Lurie Garden, another part of Millennium Park, where a nice volunteer tour guide gave us a brief history and tour of the garden. It is a four seasons garden, so there is something growing or blooming all year long. And part of the design is this big purple "river" of salvia plants, which was not quite fully in bloom when we were there. She showed us photos of it in summer, and it really does look like a winding river of purple flowing through the entire green garden. It is supposed to represent the Chicago River. We thought that was a neat idea. I took a lot of closeups of flowers which will be on flickr later. After exploring the entire park, just about (it's 57 acres, if I remember right! so ha ha, no we didn't walk through ALL of it), we stopped for lunch at the Park N Grill outdoor cafe area, and then we wanted to stop at a Garrett's Popcorn shop for some awesome carmel corn. But despite getting great directions from a friendly couple of guys in the park (they had their IPhones out and Pat had her Ipod Touch out and we were all geeking out), it turned out not to be at that location any more. So we drove back to the hotel empty handed. (However, on the drive home, Pat and I were stopped at an Indiana Turnpike rest stop where they happened to sell South Bend Chocolate Company popcorn, which is drizzled in chocolate, so we bought some to pretend it was Garrett's. :-)


Back at the hotel we hung out in our room--we had lovely suite rooms with a living room area, couch, tables, plenty of lounging area--playing The Amazing Race DVD board game and our favorite board game "Survive!".

Then had a fantastic steak dinner at Jimmy's Charhouse nearby. (This hotel, Marriott's Springfield Suites in Lincolnshire, was a great choice because there are a TON of places to eat nearby. Plus the movie theater and shops.) After dinner we watched a little fannish tv--episodes of Sports Night and Firefly that I had brought with me. On Monday, we slept in, and missed the hotel's complimentary breakfast, so we ate at Walker Bros. pancake house. OH. MY. GAWD. did they have good food! tons of breakfasty stuff--omelettes, french toast, pancakes, crepes, German pancakes (which I was sorely tempted to try), a huge Apple Pancake that looked to be as big as a loaf of bread and which you could get frozen to go, and so on. Very nice. We hung out some more, sharing a fanfiction story I had brought--I got to practice my Read Aloud skills as I read the story to all of us, that was fun! It was a Quantum Leap/Vampire Files crossover--so that we were a little bit of Mediawest--then we checked out of the hotel and went to lunch at Big Bowl. Mmm, terrific Chinese and Thai food. Just perfect. They had a great stir fry bar (kind of like Mongolian BBQ) where you picked your own veggies and meat and sauce and they fried it up for you. Sadly, all good things must end, and we had to say our goodbyes and hit the road for home. Pat and I didn't get home til midnight, our time, but it was totally worth it to have one more fun mealtime with J & B & M. (And with a good book on CD playing in the car--Doomwyte by Brian Jacques: full cast of voices--the time flew. Pat did her knitting while I drove, so we were both multitasking.)

Now it's off to work again. Sigh. And to find out how everyone else's Memorial Day went. Hopefully a good time was had by all. I did follow some Tweets by cannellfan from MediawestCon, so we were virtually there. But we missed seeing the usual folks, though not enough to go back to Mediawest--our first NotMediaWestCon was a rousing success and we're already planning next year's trip.

Writing this from our lovely hotel north of Chicago, where we just finished our first full day of "NotMediaWestCon 2009." Normally I spend Memorial Day weekend in Michigan at Mediawestcon, but this year I and my four friends Jenn Bonnie Michelle and Pat all decided to skip it in favor of our own vacation get-together. So we have two great rooms (though they were supposed to be an adjoining suite, but that was changed at the last minute because there are two wedding parties here!) and we are having fun so far. Yesterday we all arrived by 2pm and had lunch, then hung out talking and exploring the local restaurants to pick something for dinner (Cheesecake Factory won, because the unique places all had long waits). after dinner we went to the theater next door to see Star Trek. (Second time for all but Pat.) In the parking lot I happened to park right next to a van decorated as the shuttle Galileo from NCC-1701D--the license plate was WARPD. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera nor my cellphone with me at the time (a rare occurrence!) so I never got a photo of it. We figure a local Trek group was there to see the movie. (In another spot I saw a car with a license plate TARDIS, so evidently the Whovians were there as well. :-) Anyway, we love the movie and had a lot of fun dissecting it and talking about our favorite parts.



Today we had breakfast at the hotel and then began our trip downtown to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to see the Harry Potter Exhibition. (this is our group shot outside the museum, using my cellphone so that we could upload it right away, and no one was around who could take it for us so it was goofy with me holding my phone out at arm's length!) We wanted to avoid driving in the city, so we took the METRA train (commuter train, like Cleveland's RTA but these are bigger--they all have double decker cars!) most of the way, then had to get 1.3 miles to the other train, so after some discussion over which transportation choice to make, we hopped on a bus to get to the next train station, down on Michigan Ave at the lakeshore. Eventually, with only one missed train stop, we made it to the museum: it took us three hours!! Sheesh. We had hoped to see the museum first, then the HP exhibit, which you had to buy timed entry tickets for ahead of time (it was sold out today), but because we were so late getting there we just did a quick tour of the U-505 German submarine exhibit before going in to Hogwarts.


Ah, Hogwarts. The Quidditch stadium. Gryffindor common room. Potions and Divination and Defense Against the Dark Arts classrooms. They were all there. There were props and costumes from all 5 movies, plus a couple of things from the not-yet-released Half Blood Prince. Very cool! I loved looking at stuff up close, seeing the details. I can't go into all of it here tonight, but I took notes (because we coudn't take any photos) on what I saw so that I could remember it and write it up later. Lots of fun. The costumes are beautiful, and so much attention to detail on everything. The self-guided audio tour is a must, because you get to hear behind-the-scenes tidbits from the producer, costume designer, prop guys, art designers etc, on why they made certain choices or how things came to be done that way. Neat. After the tour, which we took our time with (two hours! the audio adds half an hour, plus there were a lot of people in the exhibit so we had to wait for slow people to get out of our way too), we ate late lunch and did the rest of the museum exhibits in a whirlwind. great stuff. Tomorrow we are going back downtown to Millennium Park and not sure what else. But I am deadbeat tonight, lots of walking! so I am signing off. Look for photos on my Facebook or Twitter or Flickr account; as i get them on my phone I'm sending them there. Night!

Last night my friend Diana and I went to see a fantastic concert: the Cleveland stop on the Unwigged And Unplugged Tour--Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest. Yes, that's right--I saw Spinal Tap and The Foresmen in person! :-D And man were they good! I love these guys--even though I'm not the hugest Spinal Tap fan, I got hooked later during Best in Show and A Mighty Wind and so forth. Their movies are hilarious, and they can really sing and play too. It was a lovely concert, in our beautiful Ohio Theater, which is the smallest of the Playhouse Square theaters so although we were up in the mezzanine we had a perfect view. The sound quality was a little iffy sometimes--or I'm just starting to lose my hearing :-( --I couldn't always catch their ad libs and jokes between songs. But they're such longtime friends that just watching them interact was great fun, you can clearly see how well they get along and that they have such a history together. There was a screen behind them that played an occasional video clip, from fanmade Spinal Tap music videos (the LEGO concert is hilarious!) to old mockumentary scenes (Scandinavian Cheese Festival, anyone??) to clips of Harry Shearer as a child extra in The Robe! Wow! They played several Spinal Tap songs and several folk songs from the movie A Mighty Wind--and just as I was thinking, hmm, it's too bad there's no female vocals on these songs, they do sound even nicer that way, Michael introduces his wife, Annette O'Toole, who comes out on stage to sing two songs with them!! (The Mitch and Mickey song from Mighty Wind and the Noah's Ark song) I was in total gleeful shock! This is Clark Kent's mom after all! :-D (on Smallville) What a neat surprise. And she has a lovely voice. We had a terrific time, once I got over my slight irritation at not being able to take any photos in the theater, grrr. (OK I know you usually can't bring in cameras at these things but I thought I'd try nonetheless, because I really wanted to have a photo to remember them by. Oh well.) Just a toe-tapping hilarious good time. For another perspective on the evening (and probably more details, because she was actually writing down the names of the songs they performed) check out Diana's blog.

Getting excited for my Memorial Day weekend vacation trip to Chicago--yay!! Gonzo arrives here tomorrrow and on Friday we leave. Should be a lot of fun.

We had our first dog show of the season yesterday! It's a UKC show, so it's pretty small, but it was neat. I was too busy with work on Saturday and my bike ride yesterday to see much of the show, unfortunately, but I managed to walk around the grounds a little bit and see some really pretty dogs. I also met a breed new to me, the Kangal Dog, which is a Turkish breed. This guy, Aslan, is a therapy dog at the Cleveland Clinic when he's not being Best of Breed and stuff, and he was very sweet. Here are some other portraits from the day on Flickr. We have 3 more shows this summer, yay! And I just found out that next month there will be TERRIER RACES at the show, cool!! I hope I don't have to work that day. Goldie was of course rather miffed at all of these pesky canines on her property, but she managed to contain her contempt by totally ignoring the distant barking.

Just got back from a 30 mile Patti's Paladins training bike ride. Whew! Much farther than I usually go this early in the season, but I've gotta get my rear in gear sometime, so it might as well be now. Kevin and Lisa and the other Kevin arranged the ride, mapping it out for us with as few hills as possible (kind of impossible in this area but they did their best), all around Twinsburg to Aurora and by a nature preserve. What they couldn't plan for was the WIND! Good grief was it windy. Makes it much harder to ride. Beautiful sunny skies, just gorgeous, but also chilly--the high today is supposed to be 60, but it was 45 degrees when we started and only got up to 52 when we'd ended. Brrr. This lake was our halfway point, at a very nice little park called Sunny Lake Park. Along the way we saw lots of farmland, houses (much of it was through suburbs or higher traffic roads), the wetlands nature preserve which I would have loved to walk through, and a couple of alpaca farms.


They're pretty popular around here as an income animal--people sell their wool and also the animals for breeding. (Do they make good sheep-guard animals like llamas do? I'm not sure) So of course I had to stop and take a photo of some. They're so cute! And I think these had been recently shorn of wool, because they really looked extra skinny. I left my big camera at home so I only have the cellphone pics, or I would have taken closeups of their cute fuzzy heads.


Then we ended the ride (pretty much--only 4 more miles to go back to our cars or homes) at the Twinsburg Fire Station where they hold a weekly all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast til 1:30pm. We got there at noon and chowed down, mmmm! They were light and fluffy and there was sausage. It was really hard to get going again after a 45 minute leisurely rest, though...ugh...especially with a long hill right after the stop. I sure got a workout today, and I have to thank Lisa, Kevin and Kevin for being willing to slow their pace for me, and for stopping so frequently at the tops of hills to wait for this slowpoke to putt putt her way up to the top. Sigh. I made it, but they could have ridden rings around me and not been winded. (The one Kevin has ridden across the country, and has even ridden a bike TO GUATEMALA from here!! I am so not worthy to be next to his spokes...)

Animals observed on the trip: a great blue heron, red tailed hawk, and osprey all flew overhead or beside us. Roadkill seen: turtle :-( and possum :-( among others unrecognizable. Traffic wasn't too bad since it was a Sunday, but it was still a lot of single file riding with cars whizzing past. Short stretch on bike path was most enjoyable. We'll have to do this again sometime!

I'm a published photographer! Three of my photos have been put in an actual book! Yippee! Ahem. I'm calm. The book is called "Pedaling To Lunch: Bike Rides and Bites in Northeast Ohio," by Stan Purdum. (more info here or on Amazon.com) A few months ago I was contacted by Dan Von Holten, research assistant for the University of Akron Press. He was working on this book, had found some of my biking photos on my Flickr page and wanted to know (a)did I have any more shots and (b) could he have permission to use some of them in the book? Does a pig roll in the mud?! Heck yeah I said he could use them. :-D In return they sent me a complimentary copy of the book, which just arrived this week and which I have been not-so-subtly carrying around with me just to take it out and look at it every now and then. Teehee.... The photos are reproduced in black and white, so for color versions you can of course go to Flickr :-) but they look pretty decent if I say so myself. (They used one of bikers waving to the Cuyahoga Valley Railroad cars as they pass; a sign in Burton talking about the first telephone station there; and one of bikes crossing a bridge in the CVNP.) It's a really nice book of bike rides all over the region, which all have a midpoint stop at a good place to eat. It's full of Ohio history and is nicely written, complete with maps and biking tips. (I already want to see if my MS150 team is willing to try some of these for training rides.) And I'm not just saying all of that because it has the BEST ILLUSTRATIONS EVER. :-D haha! In fact we're looking into booking the author to give a biking talk/book signing at our library soon. (Does this mean I get to sign copies of the book too? Haha just kidding!) But this is way cooler than the only other time I had a brush with book photography--they paid me for the use of my photo but ended up not using it in the book. So I have a photocopy of the check, anyway. Okay, enough bragging, back to uploading more Rolex photos, which I totally forgot I hadn't finished doing ages ago (sorry!).

Having blogged the other day here about how I was planning to join Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race, for a tiny part of his Ride Across America, I have to say that it was as much fun as I had anticipated, and then some. I drove down to Columbus on the night of Tuesday Apr. 28, late, to stay over at a friend's apt so that I would be more refreshed in the morning than if I'd undertaken the 2 hour drive in the wee morning hours. Had planned to leave at 9pm after my library closed and I got off work; however, we were hosting the fantastic teen fantasy author Tamora Pierce that night, and I was in charge of the building, so I had to stay until she signed her very last autograph--at 10pm! (Plus I was enjoying everything she said, because she's such a wonderful funny brilliant person, so I hated to wrap it up until everyone had their chance to talk to her. I will have to blog about her visit later, if I can remember any of the witty things she said. I took many photos--including of her tattoos!) So, at 8am we assembled at the GNC parking lot, and about 40 cold overcast minutes later, Phil's trailer arrived.



He autographed his book, No Opportunity Wasted, which I had brought with me, or whatever folks wanted signed. He looked so tired, poor guy. The day before he'd been riding from Lima, Ohio in the pouring rain, and had a really bad fall at railroad tracks. So that's why he has the bandage on his face, and during my visit with him he just couldn't stop talking about how awful that track crossing was.



(Here I am grimacing at his descriptions of the fall)
I also tried one of the NOW One Square Meal bars that Phil sponsors and that GNC sells; they're "fueling" his ride. It wasn't bad; I didn't detect much of the supposed Apricot flavor, and it was pretty chewy. they were out of Raspberry, and at one point Phil joked when pointing out his helpers that the bike driver guy "keeps eating all of the raspberry OSM bars!"

After my brief talk with Phil and autograph session (during which I met a very nice man named Rich or Rick? who runs a bike shop in Columbus and who graciously volunteered to take my picture for me--and he took a bunch of them while we were talking, that was terrific of him! He should be contacting me soon and I'll send him copies to put on his shop website.) I spent the next 2 hours chatting with Phil's dad John, Scotty "mumbastic" Shelly the cameraman, and other show fans.



Scotty was amazing, he films The Amazing Race with Phil when he's not filming Phil's bike ride, while riding a motorcycle backwards, and we had all kinds of questions for him, some of which he couldn't answer because they were too technical--I wanted to know things like how they coordinate so that Phil knows where the teams are and if a team is coming to his pit stop yet, and are there really only 1 cameraman and 1 soundman with each team? They get so much footage of taxis leaving and stuff like that, I wonder how they manage to do it and still get IN the taxi before it leaves. But Scotty can't reveal the nuts and bolts of producing the show, because it's kind of a trade secret. The girls next to me when I was talking to him actually asked him WHO WON THE RACE?! As if he would tell us that!! He just shrugged with an eloquent lift of the eyebrows that I wish I'd gotten a picture of.


Phil's Dad, nicknamed "Diesel" on the ride, was sweet as can be. I bought one of the commemorative Ride t-shirts from him--even got to step up into the Airstream trailer!--and spent a few minutes talking about his favorite subject of tumbleweeds (if you follow the video blogs on philridesacrossamerica.com you can learn more about this and other details--on the blog Phil always calls Scotty "scotty mumbastic" and I had thought that was his last name, but it's a nickname they picked up from a song!) and how he really does have one preserved in the van, to take out when they reach NYC. The photo of him on the phone is from when he was setting up a meeting with an old friend he hadn't seen in decades who lives in the area. It was funny, a lot of the fans there acted even more elated to see Phil's Dad than they did to see Phil! When they arrived, everyone asked Phil, Where's your Dad? and he had to point him out. There was a woman who had Phil sign an Amazing Race card that her husband made for the surprise 40th birthday Race he threw for her. What a cool family; they all participated and had to do all kinds of tasks related to the number 40. Several kids were there, either pulled out of school for the day or on their way to school in a hurry after getting a photo with him. And I was surprised at the number (2) of babies present--one family wanted the whole family in the shot with him!

After the meet and greet, it was time to ride. I had woken up to the annoying realization that I only had jeans with me, because I had packed in such a hurry that I left my padded bike shorts at home. I was rather irked at this--the jeans are warmer, and it was nippy at 50 or so, but I really like my padding on bike rides, thank you very much. :-) Well, when this came up in conversation with the MS Society staffers, one of them volunteered to drive over to their office and get a pair of shorts for me to use! It was so sweet of her. I was totally fine with using my jeans, I knew I wasn't going to go very far and it *was* cold, but I realized it would be much nicer to have shorts. So kudos to her; wouldn't even let me give them back as a loan or give her money for them. I told her I'd be sure to wear them at some point during the Pedal to the Point so that she'd see I was definitely using them. :-)


And here is a photo of me in the shorts--not that I look at all good in them, sigh--as we set out together. Phil is on his bike just out of frame to the right. So, we set out, and it was immediately apparent to me that I was probably not going to get very far before I fell behind. We had to ride on a very busy 4 lane boulevard, lots of traffic and red lights, and sure enough, after only a short way I got stuck at a red light while Phil and his group of 4 or 5 pro riders made it through on yellow. Before I could catch up--and I mean up, we were on a hill--there was another red light, and so after only 2.5 miles I could no longer see them. Grrr. I didn't have a route map, so I had no idea where they had gone, had I been able to catch up. I persevered and went on for 5 miles by myself before I turned around, just so that I could have the satisfaction of having gone 10 miles for the day. It was rough riding back; I found a bike trail that was very nice but that ended abruptly, with no warning, but after that it was traffic again. And this time by myself, presenting a much less visible target to cars and having to cross over onramps for state highways and four lanes of traffic and such, it was a harrowing last five miles for me. When I returned to the parking lot I saw Brad Hunt there, pulling in after getting a lift back from his few miles riding with Phil. I just had to take the opportunity to talk to him and take a picture--he was on the Amazing Race this season! As half of the Brad and Victoria team from Columbus Ohio. They were eliminated in the third leg, I believe, but still, wow, an actual Racer! I just had to surprise my friend redpimpernel by calling her and having Brad talk to her a bit. (

cannellfan , I would have had him call you too but I knew you were at work at the time, and I didn't have your number; sorry about that!) He and I talked a bit about the show, the audition process, how his wife had been auditioning for Survivor but when she sent in a photo of the two of them they got a call that they were wanted for TAR. And how the cameraman and sound guy that follow each team around, really keep up a steady stream of questions to the racers, to encourage them to talk to the camera--"Where do you think you are now? Do you think any other teams are ahead of you? Can't this taxi go any faster? Who do you think is in first place?" etc. He said it is really intimidating til you get used to it, and that it might have contributed a little to why they got eliminated: at the pit stops they really grill racers as they do their interviews with them, and they were being asked why they weren't so competitive, did they ever expect to win a leg of the race? Why bother racing? etc. SO they decided to try to get a jump on another team, and it backfired on them. (I don't remember that episode so I can't fill in the details.)



Getting a surprise kiss from Brad. My first meeting with any kind of reality show contestant. :-) We took a straight shot and then he said I needed one more, and totally surprised me with the smackeroo. It was too funny! He was a big flirt. I was rooting for them on the race because they were an Ohio team, too bad they didn't go farther in the Race.

So when I was on the phone with redpimpernel , who incidentally lives totally in another state from me, I said I was going to see if I could catch up to Phil in my car and take a nice photo of him riding as seen from the front, with the trailer and motorcycle behind him. So she told me she had the ride website up, and where he was at that moment riding. He has this cool GPS tracking thing on the site, automatically updated every ten minutes, and for the next 2 hours I drove through the winding back country roads as Red gave me updates via cell phone. It was better than having Onstar! We chatted about other stuff too, it was almost like having a passenger, but mostly I would tell her what crossroads I was approaching and she would let me know where to turn next to keep on the trail of Phil. It was great fun. (I did this hands-free, by the way, not holding the phone, don't worry!) At one point we had to backtrack because the site wasn't updating fast enough and I overshot him. Well eventually I found the trailer, in the rain, but no Phil!


[My only glimpse of the ride in progress.] Phil usually rides right in front of the trailer, and there wasn't any bike or motorbike either, which worried me. I thought maybe Phil was hurt and inside the trailer, but they couldn't fit the motorbike in there too. So I followed them for another several miles, and this is where we realized the GPS monitor must be inside the trailer and not on Phil himself...

Eventually I just had to answer the call of nature, forget the trailer. But I couldn't ever pass the trailer because we were on curvy hilly 2 lane roads (1 lane ea. direction) in the boonies, in the rain. And it was very frustrating. Finally Red directed me to the next little excuse for a town, where as I pulled up, I saw the trailer pulling up, too. And there was Phil's bike!


And the cameraman's bike! Phil was eating in a little restaurant. Turns out they had gotten separated from Dad and the trailer, and Phil's cell phone wasn't getting reception so he couldn't tell him where he was sooner. I was just glad I'd found a place with a working bathroom, but once I was done I listened a little to the guys as they ate and looked at maps. I offered my driving services in case they needed help, esp. since (as Red reminded me) they usually have locals drive their film editor on ahead to the next stop so that he can work on editing the website video blog footage during the ride. But they were fine, and I felt like I was intruding so I wished them luck and left. What a fun ending to a fun day, with a little serendipity.

I realized I was fairly close to Coshocton, Ohio, where (1) I could get on I-77 and zoom north very easily to get home, and (2) the Coshocton Library has an awesome teen librarian, RoseMary Honnold, who's a friend of mine. I had never seen her library, and I love to visit libraries when I travel. So on a whim, not expecting any results, I sent a text to her on Facebook via my phone (because I don't have her phone number and because I know she's usually on Facebook!)--lo and behold, she was at work and she would love to see me. So that was way cool--I ended my drive through central Ohio with a library tour and some time with a friend. Then how's this for timing? She told me that she was retiring and the next day was her last day at work!! So I am really glad I was able to stop in and see her where she worked. She's also done a ton of work for teen librarianship in general and our professional organizations, she's now editing the Voice of Youth Advocates journal, and it was really an honor to see where she made it all happen. Plus, I got to see this cool sculpture:



Here's a link to my Phil Rides Across America set on Flickr. Eventually I'll upload the other photos I took at Coschocton Public Library, and there will be a set of those for anyone vaguely interested in libraries. :-) I got a couple of good ideas there that I hope we can implement. I always benefit from library visits, even on vacation.

Phil ends his Ride Across America tomorrow, and The Amazing Race season finale is Sunday, so it will be neat to see them both end successfully. I think he's amazing for doing this; he's raised over $300,000 for MS research which is fantastic. I will be happy if I reach my personal goal of $1,000 this summer. And I won't nearly kill myself riding over 3,000 miles to do it, that's for sure! He's in such great shape. Oh, one more link: to redpimpernel's journal entry for a really great description of the day from her vantage point. She describes it so much better and funnier than I can. And sorry this is so late, but I've been writing this for a couple of days, I keep getting interrupted or sidetracked or too tired, it's pathetic.

 

Got home last night from watching two-thirds of the 2009 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, at the Ky. Horse Park in Lexington Ky. Wow. This was only my second time attending, and even though I knew what to expect, I was still blown away by all of the excellent horsemanship on display, and the amazing athleticism exhibited by both horses and riders. The first part of the event is the dressage test, and as you see here demonstrated by last year's overall winner Phillip Dutton (riding "Connaught", a 16 y.o. Irish Sport Horse gelding), it is quite beautiful to watch. They must complete each of the parts of the test flawlessly. Then the next day, after a vet inspection (a couple of horses did not pass this after dressage), it's on to the Cross Country phase. (Did anyone watch the 2008 Summer Olympics? The Equestrian events there are this same stuff.)

Here you see Bruce Davidson, six-time Rolex winner, including the very first Rolex in 1978 and some back-to-back wins (!), on his horse Cruise Lion as they round a turn in the lake between fences 15 and 16. They dropped six feet down into that lake off a jump, and will next have to leap nearly four feet up and onto a bank to get out of it. All at high speed (on the flat parts horses can reach 22 mph!) and trying to make the 4 mile course within the optimum time of 11 minutes. Did I mention there are 30 jumping obstacles along the way, and temps yesterday reached the mid-80's F in Lexington?? Amazing amazing stuff. The most exciting sporting event in the world, I definitely think.

In between riders, I was quite amused by all of the many dogs who came along with their owners to watch the event. They even had a special grandstand bleacher area for them to sit comfortably. (Unfortunately, not all dogs and owners were that well-behaved, and one dog got loose and ran out on the course just as one rider was coming through--the dog nipped the horse's leg and caused them to miss the jump and gain penalty points. They were later reawarded the points, but still incurred time faults. Not good at all. The vast majority of the spectators are very well-behaved, that was quite unusual and a shame.)


This little guy is a pug pup named Amos, who was quite irresistible and entertaining to every girl and woman who came by. (and a huge portion of the audience there is female!) Thoughts of "Chick magnet" sprang to my mind, but the owner was a little boy of 7 or 8, so I quashed them. :-) I tried not to take pictures of every pretty dog I saw, but it was hard...


So these are just little highlights for today, as I am editing and uploading LOTS of photos in the next few days. Keep an eye on my Flickr page or wait for my next post with a direct link to the set. I am having trouble with slow upload speeds here at home, regrettably.

As I write this, the third phase, Stadium Jumping, is underway and almost finished, so soon we will know who won Rolex this year. The event will be televised on NBC next weekend, look for it if you are interested in seeing video footage. We had gorgeous weather and good footing and just a great time. Here are the entries I made last year after the 2008 Rolex, with links to those photos and more explanations of the event.

In honor of the "Friday Five" or "Fabulous Friday" posts several of my friends make to LJ, here's one for Tuesday:
*I just watched the Most. Fab. Episode. Ever. of my new fave show, "Castle" (Home Is Where the Heart Stops)--Castle and Beckett go undercover at a swanky charity ball. Dancing! Witty dialogue! Beckett adorably embarrassed! Castle in a tux! This ep had it all! Oh, and a mystery, but who cares about that part...when we have Castle in a tux, and fencing with his smart cute daughter, and bantering with his mom; even the detectives were funny, rattling off all their names for "perps" to Castle.
*It's supposed to be a rainy set of 4 days, but I see blue sky and sunshine! Ha ha! Take THAT, weather gods!
*My copy of Phil Keoghan's book arrived in the mail, so I'm ready for the autographing part of my PhilSighting next week.
*I had a good bike ride on Sunday, dodging raindrops. Just a local jaunt down the street and back, 4 miles total, but I am determined to conquer this particular street because it is curvy and hilly. One of those that's really fun to drive on--you don't even notice the rises in a car-- but not so much for pedalpower.
*We got the weather report from Lexington and it's going to be sunny and 75 this weekend for Rolex Three Day Event! Yay! Road trip is ON! And I need good horse news like that to counteract the awful news about those poor polo ponies being poisoned in Florida over the weekend, just horrible; closer to home, several abused horses were taken away from a local farm and put in a sanctuary farm, so they'll finally get some good food and hooftrimming and humane treatment. That was nasty. And, finally, saddest, yesterday we put down two of our resident horses, Zany and Cameo. They weren't terribly old but they were never in good shape. One was blind in one eye and really a danger to others, and the other had lung and leg issues that never could be fixed. They were rescues here to the Home for Aged and Infirm Horses (just kidding about the title, but sometimes it seems that way, as our owners are a soft touch). Anyway, gosh, that was a downer ending. Let me find one more Terrific Tuesday thing to end on.
*I am currently enjoying reading a bunch of Tamora Pierce books because our library is going to host her for a signing next week. Woo hoo! Can't wait. She's terrific, and her books are fun. By now the characters feel like old friends, as I've been zipping through the whole Circle Opens Quartet and on to the other two about the mages, Melting Stones and The Will of the Empress. Her newest, Bloodhound, continues Beka Cooper's story and I like those because they're great mysteries too.
Have a great day everyone!