January and the Return to School

Greetings. I have the pleasure to announce the successful completion of the Plan with the return of Josey! She spent an enjoyable time abroad in Greece and Germany, and after visiting our friends back in Missouri, she has come back to us. She was rather surprised to find that we had moved but has settled in well here. She would not mind going on another trip, so if any our friends are set to go abroad, or even to another location within the States, please let us know and Josey would be happy to accompany you.

Miss Caitlin has started classes - one about children and language development, and another on language development. She hopes the first will be interesting, while the second has her saying bad things about the Education department. I am happy to say she only needs four classes from said department - it would be cruel, unusual, and unjustified punishment of us if she were required to take more. She is taking one class from her normal graduate school - that for learning to become a school librarian. She is not too hopeful that this will be helpful - rather she has higher hopes in her practicum with a local school librarian.

My good friend Gip sent a package that arrived today. She has given me little stationary cards and a notebook, in addition to some scrumptious snacks. Very thoughtful of her. I generously gave Miss Caitlin a pair of socks that were also enclosed.

After the Funeral

So Cat's Grandpa died over the weekend after several days of not having any brain activity. Several of Cat's relatives poked him, whispering things to the effect of "Teddy, you forgot to turn your body off when you left." So Cat's Mom and Bother were their when he actually died. Then everyone descended on the house (including little children - ah!), and they had a Big Fat Polish Funeral. In addition to black and white, many people wore red - I guess that's from the Polish flag. Also Cat's Grandpa wore it all the time. And they served Polish sausage at the luncheon - and a concertina player (that's an accordion folks) played polkas through the luncheon. Cat says the grave site thing was nice. They put him next to Cat's Uncle Scottie - she's glad the little boy isn't alone now. They did the Catholic prayer thing and then the V.A. did their bit. They were too cheap to get him hearing aids while he was alive, but they did send four nice young service men to help the old guys do the gun salute thing and the stuff with the flag.

Cat's birthday sort of got postponed - you know people were busy with other things that had to be done so they could bury Grandpa on time. That was okay - Cat didn't feel like having a fuss then anyway. Though her Aunt decided last minute to make a cake, and that was good. Not a lot of fuss - just enough to know it wasn't forgotten. So one of these days, Cat will actually have her birthday.

Christmas is also low key, though we do have plenty of presents to guard. Sheepy seems to want to steal them . . . we'll have to keep an eye on her.

Hopefully, we'll get to see some of our friends before we get dragged back to Champaign or out to Michigan, but plans are still really shaky and Cat's not sure when she's going to be where.

Bad News, Bad Time

Cat's Grandpa is dying. It sucks. We're in Michigan instead of under the Christmas Tree at home or at Cat's Mom and Dad's.

Miss Caitlin, the Computer Hog

It turns out that a masters degree in Library and Information Science requires a person to be on the computer a great deal of the time. Miss Caitlin has been constantly doing homework for her computer networking class or her cataloging class, and then she turns it off to read for her children's literature assignments. It is most vexing.

Miss Caitlin has made it into the K-12 Media Specialist program, meaning she will be certified to work in Illinois schools as a librarian. She has to take a bunch of education classes, so that won't be hard, but then she has to do a practicum and student teaching. I am not at all interested in this part of her education - sticky children are not at all interesting to me.

Miss Caitlin is still ill and not sleeping. The sleep specialist has gotten back to her saying her sleep study was "inconclusive." Miss Caitlin thinks that means they want to get more of her money. But she needs to sleep so . . .

In happier news, Deirdre and Miss Adrien came to visit. They young ladies spent their time on campus mostly, while Deirdre stayed with us. However, Tipsy positively hung on her the whole time, so I was unable to meet with Deirdre alone.

She will travel this week for Thanksgiving to visit her Grandparents and immediate family. Hopefully she will remember to take us as well.

Departure for Libraryland

Miss Caitlin and I head tonight to Chicago, where we will attend the annual American Library Association conference. We will be staying at her bother's house, which is a bit away from the conference, though on the correct CTA line to arrive there. She has a loose schedule of interesting things for us to do, though the main point is to go and see how an annual conference works, so that in the future she can take better advantage of it. In the future, in this case, refers to a time when she would be actively seeking a job.

I hope to have pictures to display from the conference, in addition to reports on all the interesting things we learn while there. Fear not, we will continue posting pictures of Josey on her adventures, and I believe that Dierdre also sent us some to post from the National Park she works at.

False Alarm

Cat's still miserable. Air test said mold's not enough to be causing the continued problems. What is causing the problem? No one's sure . . . isn't that exciting? Meanwhile Cat is stupid, incompetent, and really frustrated about it. Examples include repeatedly needing to be shown how to override holds at the public library, replying to a list of people instead of just the one she wants to talk to in an email (even though she HATES people who do that), not being able to read her text book because the words "won't stay still," and leaving us here TWICE when she went to visit her family (and, you know, half our friends). So mostly she cries about it, since no one can figure out anything constructive to do about it. Comfort tries to, you know, comfort her, but there's only so much that can be done. It's been going on for MONTHS now and no one's got a clue. And somehow this is an excuse for her to hog the computer . . .

In other news, more pictures from Josey. These are from some monasteries in Meteora. Look at the view! Josey seemed to like this weekend trip, but CFJ writes in her email that it was really tiring because of all the hiking, and she got annoyed because she had to keep wearing a skirt! I remember Cat had a tie-on skirt she would put on when we visited churches when we went. CFJ says Josey had it easy because she was in her coat pocket - coat pocket!! I'm glad we always had Cat's bag. That seems more roomy, though Cat kept shoving OTHER stuff in, like souvenirs and stuff. Anyway, the Plan continues . . .

Sickness . . . to be Fixed Soon?

Miss Caitlin has been sick and hogging the computer. She has not been getting much done besides work and her practicum at a local library. She had an expert in mold abatement come and he said that the people hired by the landlord were at best mistaken when they said that there was no visible mold. At worst they were induced to report as the landlord wished. Either possibility has Miss Caitlin . . . frustrated with the landlord. She awaits the results of the air testing.

In other news, Josey has gotten back to us about the continuation of the Plan! She has been very busy. We will put up her photographs over a few posts. Here she is on the island of Crete, exploring the labyrinths of Knossos.




It seems Josey had critical bow failure in most of the pictures and spent most of the time trying to not lose it. She had other things to occupy her mind while on her adventures.