I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin...

...but by the content of their character. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Happy Martin Luther King Day! This is an excerpt from "The Drum Major Instinct," so turn up your speakers.

And here's the "I have a dream" address.

If yins want to go to a knock out amazing King Day event, the Open Door and the Union Project (click on the UP link for directions) are hosting their second annual King Day event. It's free and it's from 7-9 pm tonight and features step dancing, choirs, and audio of seldom heard audio of MLK speeches. Go early for some soul food. Go early in general--last year it was standing room only...

I'm going to be an introvert and watch the GG's, but I highly recommend the King event!!

Oh, look, here's the blurb from the OD:

Martin Luther King Jr. Event Jan 15th, 6:30pm@ the Union Project
The Open Door and the Union Project welcome the Pittsburgh community for an evening of motivational entertainment on January 15th at 7pm, held to honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his vision of connecting communities, cultures and individuals. The evening will include a community dinner beginning at 6:30pm, step performances, local gospel choirs, readings of Dr. King's selected works and a featured speaker, Rev. B. De Neice Welch.

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In other news, I'm at work today. Yes, I know, I never work on Mondays, but my boss is on her way to Seattle for the midwinter American Library Association meeting, so she needed someone to come in. Plus, it being a holiday n'at, two other folks that work in our department on Monday are off.

The biggest thing to happen today: Eragon, the beta fish that is the mascot of the Administration Department lost his home. His bowl (a tall vase) was leaking and when Terry went to pick it up, it exploded. Dear Eragon was on the floor, gasping for dear life. There was a lot of vacuuming, to clean up the water and gravel...but the good news is that Eragon has a new home, and by the time I returned from lunch, he was swimming around again. Hallelujah!

Everyone and their uncle is here at the library, since we are one of the only libraries open today. No trash pick up, and no mail...and flags are still at half staff for the memory of former President Gerald Ford.

She's a brick house (Lionel Richie) or Sarah Louise live-blogs as she watches morning television on the first day of the new year...

Not the song I would use to send us off into the New Year--I would have chosen something like "Dancing on the Ceiling."

Yes, I'm watching the Today show, can you tell? I fell asleep to Garrison Keillor (on PBS) and woke up to Clifford. Apparently now they have live action people that let you know that the next cartoon show is Dragontales. I suppose I should add the Clifford website to the list I maintain for the library's kids page...

I went to two parties. The guy who has been so helpful with my car and his wife had a party and I like them, so I went there first. I gave them some of the ginger ale my dad (Santa) gave me--a case of Dominion Ginger Ale. (I only took a six pack to B.) Fun was had by all. I wasn't drinking anything stronger than Coke, as I had Tylenol earlier for a monster headache and all my nurse/med student friends will tell me that that's going to kill my liver. (I can't take Advil, folks!) On the way home, I went to the Creasy's and increased the librarian population at the party to two. K said, "when did you come in?" and I said, "I'm a librarian, I'm quiet." Abraham came in just as I was leaving--he's going to Russia in February!! I told him, remember, there's no cow in Moscow.

So far none of my regulars has posted this morning except for Adrian, who posted at 2:48. I think I was asleep by then...he talked about how he dreads NYE (I'd never heard that acronym before) and big parties and the passing of time. He talked about ambition...and it made me realize how much I've mellowed in the past year.

I'm really happy where I am. I know eventually I'll get to the place where I'm no longer renting, living in a third floor walk up, but right now I want to spend the next six months getting ready to tackle the MFA admission application. I'll be taking contributions to the "Send Sarah Louise to grad school" fund in my paypal account...

Oooh, Ellen's on! She's spoofing infomercials today. She just cut a can with a Ginsu knife. Ooh, and Charlie Sheen is up next...drat, he's dating someone named Brooke. Well, I didn't want to move to California anyways...

So for today, I'll be finishing up the year end post (it gets more complex, the longer I work on it) and going to see Night at the Museum. I'll also be unpacking and cleaning, instead of going to IKEA--oh but how I want to...

Oh, and send all your suggestions for Show and Tell...I'll have a topic up tomorrow.

That is all.

I think...

Yes, that is all, for now...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Holiday entertaining--the slow week, (note to self)

No pity party here, but next time I think of having an Open Door get-together the week in between the holidays, remind me that EVERYONE WILL BE OUT OF TOWN!

Alas, at least with an evite, folks can say they might be interested in getting together once they get back.

As you were...

Hang your shining star above the highest bough...

...and have yourself a merry little Christmas now...

Three Christmas parties down, one graduation party to go!

The final Christmas party was a dress-up dessert party. If you didn't dress up, there were decorations like garland or bells or Santa hats to wear. One girl made an oragami star and wore it in her hair. Very festive.

Today's luncheon party was wonderful. Yesterday's luncheon party was also wonderful, except that I lost my lunch pretty soon after it, and so I'll be going in to work every day until Friday to make up the lost time. (I was already behind time and this is the year's last pay period.)

I feel a little (actually a lot) geeky, blogging about a party I just left, when I know there are people still there making merriment. But I have to pace myself and I was starting to fade. It was good to see everybody, though. (The introvert confesses...)

Oh, and my dear brother sent me an email! This is very rare--so it must be celebrated with much fanfare. SHAZAAM, my brother sent me an email. Fanfare, fanfare!

Why did he email me, you ask? There's a new bike path between Northwest Maryland and Pittsburgh and today's Post-Gazette had an article. (It actually is the top of the top five emailed articles for today.) I emailed it to him and in his email to me, he wrote thusly:

haha awesome.

i'm planning my trip already.

thanks for bearing the good news.

A man of few words, my brother. He's the best.

I'm in denial about the other news in today's paper, about Balsillie retracting his bid for the Pens. I remember saying I was going to go to a hockey game this year, and yet, this year is almost over. Perhaps in the beginning of the new year.

Yes, I have hit a new geek all time high--talking about hockey on my blog when there are people playing games and dancing at the party I just left. Oh well, I'm off to read in bed. TTFN!

Show and tell goes Organic: It's a graduation party!

Roses! We love roses!

Organic, as in naturally occurring, not planned out. (And after blogging for almost a full year--this weekend is my first anniversary--I just discovered the spell check!) (And, don'tcha think that blogging might be a word in the spell check for a blogging software? No--it recommended "flogging." Egad!)

Today I lay out photos from the party we had over the weekend. It was, I thought, a party to celebrate my sister's graduation from college. But, as my sister and I pulled up to my parent's house and I said, "Well, the party can start now, the honored guest is here," she replied, "Two of the honored guests." What?!?

Well, I love a surprise party, so I was thrilled and surprised that this party was not just for Beps but for moi, (I got my Master's in Library Science in 2002) and for Terzo (who got his B.A. in 2004). The invitation reads:

"We invite you to share our pride and joy...

(names and dates of us, the grads)

We never celebrated any of these accomplishments with family or friends.

So we invite you to come on Saturday, May 13 at 5 pm."

It was so much fun to see people I hadn't seen in decades. There were two couples my parents served with in Bonn, Germany (It used to be the capital of that great country...), a couple we knew from Warsaw, Poland, one of my dad's friends from college and his wife, neighbors...33 guests crossed the threshold at Walnut Street.

I felt like I was back overseas, at one of my parent's cocktail parties. It's my favorite kind--you talk to someone until you realize the food is ready and then you go get food and talk to someone else. People were the living room, the den, the porch...there was even a badmitten game going on in the yard. I didn't get to talk to everyone as much as I'd like, but all in all, it was lovely!

The cake, which was for all three--I didn't get a picture of the cake when it was whole, but I thought, perfect for the blog!


There was a rolled up "diploma" for each graduate.

Hysterical moments on the mini-road trip between Beps and moi from Winchester to NOVA:

Me: This was the first Madonna album I bought.
Bep: The Immaculate Collection?
Me: Like a Virgin.

(yes, we were listening to my sister's ipod which was playing through the van's stereo system through the magic of stereophonics) Do you see the generation gap, already?

(My sister is 24. I'm 34.)

That is all. Because I need to get some food and finish enjoying ELLEN'S 500TH SHOW!