Thursday, November 04, 2010

Fire on the ground






Missus RR and I recently drove to New England : Connecticut traffic was hellish. On the bright side, though peak had passed, trees in southern NE still burned with autumn fire. Sugar maples,missed here in the Yellow Tavern quadrant, are the core of the fire. They can be red , yellow, or bronze. Many white birches, too: we never see that type in VA.They stand out, leaves flicking a royal wave.

My brother was laid off last week. He worked for a family firm, spice makers (Bell Seasoning,etc.) and bartender's mixes; they do Tang, contract work for Kraft and others. Brother has been in high speed food production most of his working life, though he has an HVAC background and training . Our father lost his job at around this (50s) age; a knee jerk reaction of capitalism, perhaps?

My employer, scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for semi-warm bodies to staff our newest branch in Stafford county. asked me to work public desks in the youth area. I am having a blast: 65,000 books, all brand new, gotta love opening day collections! People get into librarianship for two reasons: the classification and organization geeks (very smart, too organized, sometimes poor 'monkey skills', fun; more on this someday, maybe) get their rush from codification; others want to be the synaptical point between patron and book. The spark one gets when one hands a child a book, something they wanted. Amazing, , the things one forgets over the years.


A public tip o' the hat to colleagues and pals who have been asking about the Shebeen and the state of health of us here in the cul. We are ok, thank you.