Exploring locally

After meeting up with a friend who was getting some work done at the college library (with slight guilt since bothering her at work at the library is closer to my house than cycling uphill to her house) I was amazed to discover I had the college library in my wallet. Yippee.

I found someone to ask about renewing it since I had not used it in quite a while. The process was very quick so then it was time to find the book. I had been wanting to check it out since I had seen it in London in the Wellcome Collection Library and learned through World Cat ("The World's Largest Library Catalog") that there was a copy close to home.

Boring Postcards is exactly what the title implies and nothing more. There is no introduction and no commentary, but

Boring Postcards is multi-layered: a commentary on British architecture, social life and identity, a record of a folk photography which is today being appropriated by the most fashionable photographers (including Parr), an exercise in sublime minimalism and, above all, a richly comic photographic entertainment.

The floor plan for the library is complex because originally it had been two distinct buildings and has been combined into one. If I counted steps I would have added quite a few tracking down the book. On the other hand I enjoyed poking around.

It seems that a lot of the library is modern and things are on shelves, but there seem to also be a few nooks and crannies with areas that have bits of this and that.

One of the ways they are trying to house more books (the collection grows but the building stays the same size) is with the use of these kind of shelves. I loved moving them along to find the book, but I heard from a librarian that am among the few who like them.

After finally tracking down the book I realized I no longer had my card. Lots more steps, but I found it on the floor right where I had stopped to put some other things away. Finding it was definitely my good thing of the day (not that I am going to intentionally misplace anything just for the joy of finding it later).

I figured out how to use the self-checkout machine and was on my way. I love libraries!

Variations on a theme

At least I can get a blog post out of it.  Sounds familiar.

If parents of the high school mountain bike team members want to go through the training and screening they can become Class I coaches, which allows them to ride with the team but not actually give any coaching advice. A lot of parents do this because they enjoy riding with their kids. D. was one of those parents.

It is sometimes a challenge for a cautious adult to ride with fearless teens, especially going downhill. Zipping down a gravelly path and trying not to hit pedestrians led to a fall close to the end of a training ride. One of the other parents took a picture of the injury (available upon request) because D. couldn't see the extent of it and was going to head home. Instead he accepted the medical advice to go to the emergency room to have the the wound cleaned and stitched up.

The wait in the emergency room was long enough to make me glad I had time to grab a book, water, and a snack.  I felt a bit bad about not showering, but a friend pointed out that it was better to be stinky than to be contagious.

We spent a lot of time near the Laceration Cart in #3 PIT (physician in triage?) Area.
The people were all friendly, just trying to deal with multiple situations at the same time.

Yippee, no broken bones.

Eleven stitches. 

All cleaned and having vitals checked one more time.

The day was not what we had planned, but it turned out fine in the end. D. was able to sleep some last night and go to work today. Onto the next thing.

Open Space

I ride by the Bernard Field Station on the way home from swimming.

I had never stopped to read this sign.

For weeks I saw them working on this gate, just west of the other gate.
Once the construction was done I stopped to take a look and then read a bit about it here.

Nice view

You can tell this is an old picture because the houses at the top
still have vegetation separating them from the building in the field station.

Since the satellite image was taken a more formal road has been built.
A new gate and street sign are also in place.

I wonder what the updated building will be used for.

And I wonder what the other colleges will do with their land.

Entertainment

 Before the excitement of driving to LAX we had the excitement of the first rain storm of the season. Of course I was happy to have rain for my garden and rain barrels, but I would have also appreciated warm and sunny weather while entertaining people from the chilly heartland.

Twice I took my dad to the pool. In the upper-righthand corner of the picture are four circles, which are hot tubs. Even though the pool water was on the warm side it was still wonderful to get into the hot water after a swim.

Mom and I started four puzzles and finished three. It was a great rainy-day activity.

Conflicted Shakespeare topic of local talk
The Shakespeare Club of Pomona Valley meets at 2 p.m. on Monday at the Joslyn Center, 660 N. Mountain Ave., Claremont. Speaking at the free and open meeting is Amanda Zarr, who is returning to Claremont after playing Beatrice in Ophelia’s Jump’s summer production of Much Ado About Nothing at Pomona College’s Sontag Greek Theater. The topic of her talk is “Conflict in Shakespeare.” Ms. Zarr will review the wide range of semantic resources used by The Bard to show characters in opposition. Ms. Zarr is a professional actor and adjunct theatre professor at Chapman University. She has been a company member with Shakespeare Orange County for more than a decade, and has been seen on television and in films. Light refreshments will be served.

Always good to be open to new activities. This one got a thumbs up.

And what would the trip be without a visit to the thrift store?
Seniors (55+) received 25% off and they carded my mom!

This William Dean Perry card was only 10¢ but I resisted temptation.

Add reading two newspapers, eating meals, and hanging out and zip, zip, zip, the time was gone.  I am looking forward to the next visit!

Blog post

Sigh. When not-so-great things happen I tend to think, "At least I can get a blog post out of this." Not much of a silver lining!

A few years ago we missed a flight because we were at the wrong gate and nicest thing I heard that evening was, "It happens all day long." I had that same feeling after today's disaster. Searching for solutions I found 293,000 results.

I had bought steel-cut oats and had a recipe. The first step was to spray the liner with a non-stick spray. I didn't want it to get on the pot itself so I removed the liner to do it. I measured and added the first ingredient. I measured the second ingredient and poured into the pot. But why was it all pouring out?? Aaagh, because I had removed the liner. So sad.

I did my best to clean it and knew not to plug it in and turn it on to see if it worked (learning from a different wet electronic device experience). I did read about what other people did. We don't have a hair-dryer and I was a bit concerned about removing the bottom.

I so lucky to be married to someone who happily futzes with electronic devices! He removed the bottom, cleaned it up a bit, and we are letting it dry out. Other people have said their pots worked fine afterward and I am hoping for the same. Just like we learned the hard way to put the garage remote in the glove box when there is a bike on the room, now I will put the lid on the pot if I remove the liner. Life is a good teacher.

Love

Remember that picture of our Finnish student waiting for the train? At the time he asked for a ride I said I would take only my parents to LAX. Prove it, the universe said.

This morning we were getting ready to go to Ontario airport, about ten miles away, and I am not sure what we were talking about but I thought to check the flight status. Delayed by one hour and 59 minutes ("They couldn't say two hours?" asked A.). I double checked and it was still delayed.

Getting through to a human at the airline was easy and she initially said there was a flight out of Orange County that would have a connection in Houston. Sounded good, but it turned out that the flight out of Houston was unavailable. She checked some more and found a non-stop flight out of LAX and was able to find two aisle seats close to each other. Fantastic!

I wrote to a friend who has been working with a recent arrival to the US who has been driving to earn money, but he was booked. I sent a note to another person who had been recommended. Not available. One shuttle service did not have a working number. Supershuttle had nothing available.

Lucky for me it was not raining, not rush hour, and I have a plug-in hybrid car with stickers giving me permission to use the carpool lane even if I am driving alone. The drive there was uneventful and I was home in a bit over two hours.

My parents had a short walk to their gate and the only empty seat on the whole plane was next to my mom! A friend picked them up and they were home earlier than expected. Good thing because they had this waiting for them.

All is well that ends well.

Working Vacation

When D. has time off he likes to get things done. This break between semesters has not been an exception.

An old hand crank was removed

And he put in a new one.

At this moment D. is replacing my handlebar tape.

A lot of time was spent sorting through boxes.  As usual the matchmaking was the hard part, but we took advantage of a lot of options.

• donate - working modem, books
• recycle - paper with list of modem phone numbers
• ewaste pickup - old computer with hard drive removed
• online freecycling - pallet used to keep storage items off the floor
• keep - treasures

Another big project was mounting four more bicycles. 

Not shown - writing letters of recommendation, financial work, and preparing for a workshop.

Now it is time to do some research and prepare for the upcoming semester.

Leftovers

A few December pictures

latkes

bags of cookies and candy to give to friends at school

new Pomona College art museum in progress

Santa Cruz boardwalk warning

National Park stamp