Moving

After my husband died, I decided to move cross country to live near my children who had moved to California.  

My sister's husband told me it would be so easy to just pack my stuff into one of those storage units on wheels. (that are used by many people just to store their things in town.) They did it to move from one house to another in the same city in Ohio. I kinda looked at him bleary-eyed. Kept my mouth shut. Because I wanted to yell at him that I was all alone and was in my 70s and there was no way I could lift boxes and carry them into one of those things. Plus, I was moving from coast to coast. Just no way I could do that. 

So I did the safe thing and hired a moving company. Had to ship my car, too. Had to leave several generations of stuff there on the east coast. Yes, for years I kept wishing I had packed this or that, but I was trying to save money on the move. Didn't even have a place to move to, so spent several weeks looking for a place.  

Finally bought a small place a year later, which wouldn't have been able to hold all the stuff that I wanted to bring but didn't bring. But I do love my little one level condo.

Before my marriage, I lived in 12 states and have survived those moves. (my Dad avoided all the Red States.) So I knew a bit about packing for moving. But this last move cross country right after my husband died was horrendous. No wonder I didn't manage to pack and bring all the things I later wished I had brought.)

October begins

 October! I gave in and bought a pumpkin (one of those small ones in this picture) and have had it beside my gate to welcome Fall. Sometime this week or next I should bring out my Halloween stuff. (The only reason I haven't asked the condo to remove the half dead tree beside my gate is that I need it to hang my 'ghost' on. (It's a wind sock, so it's neat when it flaps in the wind.

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Yes, I wrote that book

I'll never forget the day when a child and her mother brought one of my books up to the Information Desk (where I was stationed) and asked if that book was any good. Picture me standing there with my name tag in full view. What could I say but - "yes, it's a good book. I know the author. She does deep research for her books."  

Still waiting to this day for them (or anyone) to notice that it's MY book. (books) In fact, when I did talks at libraries about writing and sat only 7 feet from the poster that had my picture on it -- nobody asked it that was me. 

One person brought her children to my talk because she thought the speaker/ author was a black writer. 

(this happened several times. I guess I photograph as an African American - which would surprise my English and German ancestors.) 

Or maybe it's because I wrote about some of my favorite people - who happened to be black. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington - I grew up listening to their music and was a musician myself.  

Stories come at awkward times

  I was driving to work, thinking about the fact that it was my co-worker's birthday and I didn't know what to get her when suddenly words came. And more words. And it was a poem. 

And I knew I wouldn't remember it by the time I got to my workplace, so I pulled into a side street and WROTE it down. Success!  

(and yes , reader, she liked it.)

Where's the delete button?

 in the years before laptops, when we visited my parents in another state, my husband would get so frustrated because of no access to his computer.  

One day he sat there, holding a pencil and paper pad, and moaned because he didn't know where the 'delete' button was.  

(I walked over and pointed to the eraser .)

History of computers in libraries

 I worked for large Maryland libraries from 1969 on, and we switched from card catalog to various forms of microfilm in the 1970s. Converted to a clunky computer system in the later 1970s. It was actually intended for check out and check in , but librarians (mostly my husband and me but others chimed in too) insisted it would be very useful for librarians to quickly find things for our customers , so librarians were 'allowed' to use it.  

The first computer system was sooooo slow compared to today, but so much quicker than flipping microfilm back and forth. (a single modern web page uses more bytes than our whole computer catalog used in those days.)

It was years before libraries could afford to install computers for library customers. At first librarians held classes in computer use. Later on a lot of libraries had 'computer volunteers ' who would come in and help computer newbies learn how to use them.

Best place to write

Writer's life:

Go to writer's retreat.

Good food and conversation.

Revise several manuscripts.

Read one at the last day's gathering. (We all did a reading of something we had been working on that week.)

Now sending it out.

Crossing fingers and toes that somebody buys it.