Thrifty

BB and I have been having a conversation of late about how women love bargains and will often answer the sentence "Oh I love that new [insert item here]" with "3.00, Goodwill!" There are days when the only thing retail are my shoes and my watch. So this morning, when I heard "Second Hand Rose" I thought what a great idea, a music list of "thrifty" songs. There was one on a CD I catalogued last night, called Thrift Shop, and then there's "Estate Sale" by Cheryl Wheeler, one of my abs faves.

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Bumper sticker on the way to work: "Nice Brain."

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All the way to work I listened to WYEP, "Where the music matters." I mean, if you were a radio station, wouldn't you want that as your tag line? So much better than "Original Hits, Original Artists" or "Turn your knob to Bob" (who has knobs anymore?).

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All morning, I've been kneeling at my computer, emailing our webmaster who is trying to launch our new website. For some reason, I can't access it, I always get a run time error or "Internet Explorer must close this session" even though my collegue Laura accessed it just fine. It seems I have the anti-Midas touch this morning....

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Interesting factoids: my dad just called. We discussed gas prices and I told him 2.09 (ain't it great?) but at Citgo by Laroche you can get it at 2.07.
--Citgo is owned by the Venezuelan dictatior Victor Chavez, my dad interjected.
--But, he continued, when the oil companies were asked to give the poor people a break on gas prices for the winter, Citgo is the only one that came forward.
--I don't know what to do with that information, I replied.
--I don't either, said he.

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In the interest of waking up at a normal time, I didn't take my muscle relaxant last night, since I didn't get off my "heavy machinery" (read: car) until close to ten pm. I actually forgot to take my other bedtime med until 2 am (when I awoke to a fascinating documentary on Influenza--why is it that WQED airs such quality programming WHEN MOST OF PITTSBURGH IS SLEEPING?) Falling asleep to PBS is how I intook some of the Einstein documentary last month. I guess I should be happy that they're not broadcasting infomercials--but whatever happened to playing the national anthem and then test pattern? I had to explain this Billy Joel song to my brother, who never lived in America at a time when TV was not 24/7. Glass Houses is one of my favorite Joel albums, as it has sound effects in front of most songs. (Glass breaking, the national anthem, etc.)

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Topics as yet unwritten about:

All about my birthday party at a local bar/restaurant: We met at the Sharp Edge, a local watering hole. Many a Sunday night after the Open Door, Abraham shouts out an invite to all join him at the SE. I hadn't been for the month of November (a big surprise to me) and so was unfamiliar with the "Specials." But we had a Mediteranean appetizer: baked pita smothered with cheese, olives, and other good stuff. In attendance: Laura, a librarian at my libe, BabelBabe, who was in a class with Laura at library school (they had a fun reunion), Hannah, and Lilly, two women I know through the Open Door (though neither of them are currently attending). I got many nice gifts, which I photographed, but since I don't yet have a digital cam, you'll have to wait for me to develop the film and scan the picture "the old fashioned way." Chocolate, stationery, and socks were among the gifts. Pink was the color of choice (duh!). BB even wore a pink shirt! And Lilly knew one of the cooks, who used to work with her when she waitressed at Ritters, and he came out and they chatted, and he paid for my dessert as a birthday gift! How sweet is that! Actually, the pumpkin cheesecake was worth eating a small dinner for. (Does that sentence make sense? I ate half a reuben on panini (pictures, BB?) so that I'd have room for dessert.

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Kneeling is nicer for my "uh, injury" as Joke puts it, but my legs and knees get tired...the weather changed to colder (23 Fahrenheit) today and I think that has affected my senses too.

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So this is my diversion of the day--go to one of the emails from the webmaster, see if it works, it doesn't, and come back to blog some more.

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more about the party? I can't think of anything else to write at the moment: a good time was had by all.

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Jack Prelutsky on Monday: I was like ehh, whatever, (about going) but he was great. It was funny, in that he's not a morning person and he was still on West Coast time, so the first 5-10 minutes he was getting his bearings...it was a "private lecture" just for Pittsburgh librarians and maybe a few teachers. JP was in town for the NTE (National Teachers of English) Conference, what brought Cynthia Voight and Jean Craighead George to Pittsburgh back in 1993. Random thought: I had dinner with an alum from WAC (Washington College, my alma mater) that week, I wonder what ever happened to her. Her name was Susan something and she did children's lit stuff...that was eons ago!!

So anyways, Jack read excerpts from favorite letters: Dear Jack, I lick your books. Dear Jack, I haven't read any of your books, Inge. Then he sang his poem "Spaghetti" to the tune of a Mexican folk song, the national anthem, the Yellow Rose of Texas, the Marine song, etc. He regaled us with stories about his endeavors into haiku and his late friend Ted Rand, who did illustrations for a bunch of Jack's books. While sitting there, listening to him, I made a list of people I'd seen at the Carnegie Lecture Hall, I'll dredge it later. Right now I'm actually semi-comfortable, kneeling and typing. He was very funny. Oh, alright, I'll dredge my notes now...although, the clock is about to strike 1pm at which time my father should appear for lunch at a local restaurant. (If I told you which one you'd know where I worked and that would take all the fun out!)