Thirteen Fountains, or, A Gardener in Spite of Himself

I'm at my mother's house in Canebrake. She's out of town and has asked me to watch her shop for a few days, which I have. Her shop has a lot of pottery and gardening accessories.

I'm no gardener. When I was younger, my parents had to mark plants with surveyors tape so I wouldn't mow over them.

My mother has had her shop for a little over a year, and I suppose I've become more of a gardener in spite of myself. I can recognize some plants now, which is not nearly as scary as recognizing individual Beanie Babies.¹

She's recently acquired some fountains. I know she's sold a few of them. I've helped move and install them at people's houses in Hattiesburg. One thing about watching a shop with thirteen operating fountains is that eventually you get so comfortable that you want to sleep.²

Before I headed off to Hattiesburg, I had some fun in Jackson. Thursday, I attended the Chick Ball where I saw friends.

Friday, I attended a retirement party and then met up with Pezgirl for some Japanese food at Little Tokyo. We talked about her upcoming trip, our jobs, and our being single. It was good to socialize. Pezgirl is one of the few people from work I can socialize with outside of work.³

I had also done some work, not only concerning my library, but additional stuff concerning one of the library associations to which I belong, and I think it's proved to be fruitful. I've been doing some followup work concerning that association matter the past couple of days, but fortunately, I've not had to do too much.⁴

After dining with Pezgirl, I went to the local Barnes and Noble and ran into Satsuma as well as some friends of mine from college.⁵ It was good to visit with them.

And, so, since Saturday, I've been in Hattiesburg. I've been doing some reading. I finished my book club reading, but didn't quite feel up to reading What is the What. I read some paperbacks instead.⁶

I've also been bored. I've called friends and tried to meet with them while I'm here in Hattiesburg. With no success, I'll add.

I've also heard sad news. A couple of very good friends of mine look like they're on their way to being divorced. I attended their wedding some seven and a half years ago. I feel very sad for them.

On that note, I'm heading back to Jackson tomorrow morning. I've got to attend a conference at another library. Friday, I'll be back at the college.

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¹My mother sold Beanie Babies for some seven years from 1997 to 2004. She started out selling at fairs in Mississippi and Louisiana and had a shop in Laurel as well as kiosks at shopping malls in Hattiesburg, Ridgeland, and Tuscaloosa. I occasionally helped. One such stint was watching over a kiosk at Hattiesburg for a week while she was on a medical mission trip in Africa.

²I didn't fall asleep though.

³The reason being, we're similar in age and are single, a rarity at not only my library, but my college. We have some things in common. For example, she had wanted to go to the Chick Ball, but didn't feel up to it. No, we're not going to go out with each other. While we're fabulous friends, we're not compatible boyfriend-girlfriend material, which is something we've both known for many years in spite of suggestions to me from other friends to ask her out.

⁴Yes, when I'm on vacation, such as it is, I'm still working.

⁵Friends from when I was an undergraduate student at MSU.

⁶Coraline, The Good Fairies of New York, and Beguilement in case you're interested.

Three Beatle Monte

I long have had my own opinions about myself; I have my own little list of words and phrases that I would use in my self-descriptions.

There are also words I rarely use; one such word was used twice to describe me in my presence in the past few days. That word is handsome.

I'm nearly 40 years old. I'm single. I've never been married, and I've never considered myself handsome. For me to be called handsome more than once in the past few days is something unexpected, and to be frank, something I'm not accustomed to hearing.

It's odd. I'm the smart one who more often than not is the quiet one, and now I'm the cute one? What's next? Drums?

Melville Dewey's Locker?

I'm in Hattiesburg. I had a dental appointment this morning.

It didn't go too badly. I was in and out of the dentist's office pretty quickly. My mouth is not too far away from not being numb anymore. When I returned, I went to cnn.com and saw that Jerry Falwell died this morning-- four years to the day after my father died.

I checked out lisjobs.com this afternoon. It looks that Guantanamo Bay wants another librarian. I don't know if the position is the same as the one I mentioned in September.

The California Maritime Academy is looking for a librarian. One of the requirements of this position is to serve as a librarian at sea for two months during the summer. Heh. I love the college's mascot.

Fount of Useless Information

This past weekend was hectic and fun.

I went to the Living Better Electrically farewell show Friday night. I had fun with friends. I had been so busy this past month that I'd not had a chance to go out and have fun. I did Friday night for a little while.

I headed on to Hattiesburg Saturday. My mother needed me to help watch the shop. What with Mother's Day being this past weekend, she expected things to be quite busy, and they were.

I watched her shop while she had to run some errands. I also helped set up a fountain at a customer's house.

When the work day was over, I gave my mother her Mother's Day gift. She's read a few books by the author, and she was pleased to receive this book. I left Hattiesburg this morning, and am currently at work.

I'm heading back to Hattiesburg after work though. I've got a dental appointment tomorrow morning, and I'd rather have an extra hour of sleep if at all possible.

I need to read Revolutionary Road sometime soon. My mother's shop has several water fountains operating. While it's certainly not water torture for me to listen to the water, I wonder if I'll be able to read while shop-sitting.¹

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¹It might have been a little too loud for me to read in the shop Saturday afternoon, but I'll find out for sure in a few days.

Albums That I Might Be Purchasing, Etc.

I like listening to Pandora when I'm in my office. A consequence¹ of listening to it is that most of the albums I've purchased have been based on what Pandora is playing.

Thanks to listening to Suspended Variations II, Suspended Night by the Tomasz Stanko Quartet is on my to-get list. The song is very good. The album has also gotten great reviews.

I've previously mentioned that I've gotten to enjoy Ahmad Jamal's music via Pandora.

This album is on my to-get list.

This past Saturday, I was at a Kentucky Derby party. One of the people there mentioned a couple of jazz musicians. I mentioned that I was planning on purchasing this album because of Pandora. He was unfamiliar with Pandora, so I told him about it. I hope he enjoys it.
Pandora's been playing mostly jazz and trance music this morning, and as I mention it, a Bo Diddley song now plays.²

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¹A good consequence, of course.

²Pills is the song, in case you're interested.

Pub Quiz, Library Sex Hotlines, etc.

Last night, I went to Hal & Mal's. I'd not done Pub Quiz in quite some time, and I didn't know if I wanted to stay for too long, so I decided to play solo under my usual solo team name.

I finished in third place for the second time as a solo contestant. I won $15. I spent more than that on food and drinks, but fifteen bucks is fifteen bucks.¹

Surfing the blogosphere, I saw that The Heretical Librarian has a note mentioning what Vienna, Austria, is doing to raise money for its main public library. I believe Gustav Klimt would approve.

After work, I'll be going to this event at Lemuria Books. Having a history degree, the topic of the book is of interest of me. Apparently the author in question also knows FP and TD.

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¹Not to mention that the fact that I finished ahead of a few teams also serves as an ego boost. The other time I won $20. My usual goal when playing solo is to not finish in last place. The questions last night weren't so much very friendly to me. I think they were all equally difficult. I only got 7 of 10 correct in my best round. Fortunately, I chose to supersize that round and doubled my points earned for that round.

The Biggest Game in Town

I read A. Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town this past weekend. I thought it was very good. It dealt pretty extensively with the 1981 World Series of Poker. Alvarez didn't emphasize how the tournament went that year. Personalities and their psyches were examined. I thought it was a decent book.

I'm trying to get into What is the What right now. I'll take my time with that book though since I can easily renew the checkout on that book.¹ I've also got to read Revolutionary Road for book club. After that, I'll work on Children's Hospital.

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¹As one might expect, it's one of the benefits from checking out a book held by a library where you work.

Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch

We now know Cap'n Crunch's full name. The hat tip goes to Kottke.

Pannonica

While perusing a couple of blogs, I found out via Marginal Revolution that good-looking guys of high status were rated as less attractive by women than good-looking guys of medium status. Interesting. You can read the full report here. Oh, I don't feel sorry for the high status guys either.

At the Freaknomics blog, there's an interesting note regarding whether attending historically black colleges are good for black students. One thing I'd like to know is how this research was conducted.

Edited to add: Here's the paper in question.

Oh, one other thing. I'll be attending this this meeting up in MSU next month. It'll be good to see what other libraries do. One thing I wonder about is what we can do here at my college that would be applicable since as I've previously mentioned the college where I work doesn't allow MySpace access.

I do like the keynote speaker. I heard him speak at MSU last year, and I've been reading his blog for quite a while.