And don't get me started on "alternative facts." I'll just leave this here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdV_8TG
Treesville Library wasn't so lucky. We've got a metal roof, and it's always been a problem - well, this time, we had leaks in several different spots. One of the ones in the children's room wasn't too bad, a ceiling tile got soaked and fell but there wasn't anything except a lego table under it, and that was plastic so it wiped clean easily enough. The other children's room leak was more problematic, but it was one that we'd been keeping an eye on and we had nothing on the top shelf to get damaged when that one got soaked through again and disintegrated right onto the stacks.
The third leak, however, was over our public computer area, took out one computer, and almost took out a second. Another tile came down, right on top of the computer, water was actually inside the CPU case, and once it dried there was obvious crud right on the circuit boards. It probably isn't fixable, but our IT contractors are SUPPOSED to come and get it and try to salvage it. I'm not holding my breath for them to come - it's been almost a week, and they are notorious for not wanting to leave their cozy office chairs over in Boro. I understand that remote work is more efficient than coming 20 miles to flip a few switches or whatever, but "crud in the computer" is not something that can be fixed over the internet!
Fortunately, Branch got off unscathed. Even more fortunately, since we had a staff training day planned for Monday, the multipurpose room in Treesville was unscathed, which meant we didn't have to do an emergency relocation of the event - especially since our afternoon program was "familiarizing ourselves with the new equipment received through a grant" (better known as "playing with all the cool new toys") and that stuff was all at Treesville and not yet inventoried.
So, if anyone was still worrying, I'm fine, damage was minor at the libraries, and all is well with the world. Except of course that I'm trying to the job I originally had, the assistant director job, and now the branch manager's job for Branch. And CO is going to be out for at least 2 weeks for surgery, so I'll have that on my hands too while I'm trying to do training over in Branch...
Oh, and since New Manager is actually Coworker, we'll be hiring two new part-timers and THEY'LL need training.
Fun.
That said, I have plenty of food, including non-perishables that don't need cooking, and the means to cook what does need cooking. I have plenty of water on hand. Kitty supplies are stocked up too. There isn't a lot that needs to be brought under my carport, and plenty of room for what does need to be protected. My house is sturdy and the roof is solid, and is set halfway up a hill, so flooding is unlikely. I'm about a block from firemen, police, sheriffs, state patrol, and the local hospital.
Basically, I'm in as good of shape as anyone in this area can be, better than most, but any good wishes, positive energy, and prayers for folks and critters in the path of this storm would be welcome.
The only way to fight fear is with knowledge. The only way to fight hate is with love.
Reach out. Sometimes you'll be hurt.
Reach out. Sometimes you'll find a friend.
Reach out.
Because if we don't reach out, and they don't reach out, then our spirits will never touch.
We will never find our brother or our sister, our friend or our lover, unless we reach out... and touch.
Don't get me wrong - it's not like I knew him well. I will probably grieve more over his brother, my other uncle, when he passes, because even if I don't know Uncle George any better than I knew Uncle Dennis, I have more in common with Uncle George, and have fond memories of visiting him. Uncle Dennis was just my mother's brother - Uncle George is the uncle who was quiet, but had a certain dry humor, who collected books and comics and let his (pre?)teen niece read his Judge Dredd collection when my siblings were out roaming around the woods or shopping or whatever the hell they were doing when we visited when I was a kid. I think the others saw Dennis as the fun uncle because he'd take them out to do stuff, but George was my favorite.
Still, I am saddened by his passing, but more by the fact that I never took the chance to get to know him better. Most of that sadness, though, is for my mother, for his brother, and for his wife and children. I grieve, I suppose, for the ones left behind.
But maybe it will come.
Probably not, though. And my apologies, it seems that only death brings me back to posting on LJ. I'll try to post something more cheerful soon.
A few days ago, I came home late from work and found that Addy not only hadn't made it to the litterbox, but that he'd left a trail of bloody pee. He'd been lethargic and off his feed for a couple days, but I thought he had a kitty cold. The pee told me otherwise, but it was late and the nearest emergency vet is over 20 miles away. He seemed uncomfortable but he was drinking and moving around, so I decided to wait until morning when I could take him to his regular vet.
In the morning, he was barely responding, and when I was taking care of the litterboxes, I saw that there was a pool of blood where he had been sleeping the night before. I shoved him in a carrier and drove down to the vet. The vet was making no promises, and admitted Addy might not pull through.
He rallied, and it looked like he was going to pull through, but it was not to be. He died this afternoon. Now he'll be cremated, and his ashes spread across the fields of a local farm. I thought he might have liked the idea of being out in the sunshine and fresh air, and his body will help bring new life to the earth.
I've had him 10 years, since he was rescued from the Gulfport area after Hurricane Katrina. He was sweet, shy, big, beautiful, and had the softest fur of any cat I've ever known, and a tiny meow like a kitten's. I'll miss him.
So, a couple weeks ago, I made a batch of pumpkin bread. Literally everyone who tried it loved it, and a couple people who normally aren't into pumpkin even liked it. So, here's the recipe!
PUMPKIN BREAD
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 2/3 cups (1 lb can) pumpkin - NOT pumpkin pie filling!
4 eggs, beaten
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2/3 cup water
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease 2 9"x5"x3" loaf pans, dust lightly with flour and tap out excess.
Combine sugar, oil, pumpkin & eggs, beat until light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice & cloves onto wax paper. Add to pumpkin mixture alternately with water and mix alternately with water until blended. Turn into pans.
Bake in moderate oven (350F) 45 minutes until center springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire rack, cool completely.
For pumpkin bread muffins: instead of greasing & flouring loaf pans, put in cupcake pan (use cupcake liners if you don't want to grease & flour the cupcake pan) and cook for 15-20 minutes, until top springs back when lightly touched.
The result? A sweet, rich and spicy pumpkin treat that is perfect for fall breakfasts and desserts!
Okay, first of all, Amazon, you are sometimes WTF, but when it comes to turnaround time, you are frequently WTFHOWDIDITGETHERESOFAST? And this most recent time definitely comes under that heading.
See, less than 2 weeks ago, we were told that the state had some federal funds that they needed to spend on STEAM projects (that's Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts or Math, for those of you not up on US education trends) and they had to spend it fast... as in, "we will give you $10,000 if you will write us a paragraph saying what you want to spend it on within the next couple days" fast. And we had to spend it just as fast, as in "if you haven't placed your orders before the end of the month you get no money" fast.
We have spent all $10,000 and then some since this Tuesday.
Today, most of what we spent it on came, in 4 boxes - 2 3D printers, and 2 filament extruders with which to make new filament. We placed the order ON TUESDAY. At around 8 pm. We did not pay for expedited shipping, or shipping at all (there are advantages to having a business account with Amazon) and They. Are. Here.
Wow.
And I am talking about this here because no one in our county knows we even went for this grant, much less got it and spent it. Including our board.
And I am so freaking nervous because I made the selections on everything, and if it turns out that the choices I made weren't good ones, I'll be catching hell for it for months.
Holy hell, that was a lot of money we just spent on my say-so.
Look, I do understand not agreeing with the laws of the land and believing that the government is overreaching itself. HOWEVER: no matter what your pappy told you about how the Civil War was about state's rights, the right in question, as plainly stated in the Articles of Secession of each state in question, was the right to deny the majority of your population the right to be considered as human beings in the eyes of the law. This is something that is in direct contrast to the human right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and something that the Founding Fathers and every generation since had been trying to phase out and the slave holders had been fighting a losing battle at the legislative level to preserve.
Regardless of the causes of the war, however, dressing up in a uniform you didn't earn for a government that has been dead for over a century and was on the wrong side of history anyway, while carrying around a flag that wasn't even the official flag of our state government during that war, and parading around our local arts & crafts festival is not about state's rights. It's about your desire to shove your reactionary, antiquated and wrong-headed views into people's faces because you realize that society is evolving past you and you want to force us back into the backwards mentality that you were raised in. We can't kick you out because it is your First Amendment right to express yourself as long as you aren't actually inciting a riot... but you are injecting an element into our celebration that we don't want here and that makes us look bad.
And dude, I know you. You might say that it's about heritage, not hate, but that's a big a crock of shit as everything else you spout out.
