I’m posting some long newsy entries for people who are interested in what’s going on in my life. If you’re not one of those people, you won’t miss anything by skipping these.
Is it just me, or are people being a lot quieter than they used to be online?
September was crazy, and I had this blissful delusion that things would be less insane for the rest of the autumn, once I got past the last week of September. Yeesh, was I ever wrong.
On Sunday October 19th, I drove up to Manchester, New Hampshire to help some of my fellow Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) members set up the IPNE table at the New England Library Association (NELA) trade show, which ran from Sunday through Tuesday. This was a full-fledged conference with programming tracks and speakers, as well as a very large dealers’ room with dozens of vendors–publishers, distributors, software companies, storage equipment–anything that would interest libraries. I was entitled to attend the programming sessions, but I had so much else on my plate that weekend, I only planned to help set up and take down the IPNE table and exhibit the hardcover edition of Mortal Touch. I did go around the hall several times, picked up some literature from audiobook companies, and entered a raffle for a bookcase made out of a coffin (which I didn’t win).
I got back from Manchester on Sunday just in time to drive to Ashby for a meeting with the new UU church youth group that I recklessly offered to help out with. I also was replying to an e-mail interview with Mayra Calvani, who interviewed me for her series on Blogcritics and her own blog, Dark Phantom Reviews. You can see the interview here, if you’re curious.
On Monday the 20th, I did the usual chores and errands and did workout early because Pepperell’s Fall Town Meeting was that night. In the middle of all that, I got a phone call about something that I don’t want to talk about, but it had me totally stressed for the next week, until I finally learned the outcome on the 28th and it was okay. No, it wasn’t a health thing, just some unfinished business, and it involved some phone calls and information I needed to put together and send out.
As usual, I walked into Town Meeting completely oblivious to the Big Issue. I knew we had a tough vote about the town budget. We passed the school budget contingent on a $1 million property tax increase that failed when it was voted on in an open election. Now we had to vote to fund the school budget from existing town funds or else make brutal cuts in town services. I thought that would be the Big Issue. But no–the Big Issue was a huge disagreement between the Board of Health and the Town Nurse which had already resulted in a fight breaking out at a BoH meeting. There was an article on the warrant proposing that Pepperell join a regional collective that provided services to about 15 surrounding towns. The Town Nurse had stuffed Town Meeting with nearly 200 supporters and was claiming this entire proposal was a ruse to eliminate her job.
I had brought my new Acer Aspire One netbook computer to try it out, and it worked fabulously well for taking notes on each article’s debate. However, the battery has a rather short life. When the BoH article went to a secret ballot vote (normally, in Town Meeting everyone knows how you vote, because it’s voice vote or standing to be counted. Very sensitive or controversial votes can go to ballot, but it takes forever), I went down to the front to plug in the netbook and charge the battery up a bit. What an ice-breaker that was! I got chatted up by one of the presenters for the regional health collective and then the Town Clerk, all because I was charging up my computer!
The proposal to join the collective failed. The budget article passed, meaning that Pepperell is now more or less broke but the town departments are not facing devastating cuts…this year. 🙁 The entire Board of Health, who are elected, resigned right after Town Meeting, and the Selectmen have appointed a new Board. I do not for one moment believe that this will stop the drama in the BoH office!
On Tuesday, I went back up to Manchester for the last day of NELA. I helped take down the IPNE table and carry things to people’s cars. Then I stayed for one of the day’s last sessions, “Hot Teen Books,” about sex (and other adult themes) in YA fiction. Since I’m publishing YA fiction, I was interested to hear the presentation, and it was really very good. I was surprised to see the children’s librarian from Pepperell in the session–I know her from the Ashby UU church, but she was hired in Pepperell earlier this year. She came over and sat with me and we had a nice schmooze as well as seeing the session. She didn’t know that the town budget had passed the night before, so I was able to give her some good news.
On Wednesday the 22nd I had an IPNE Board conference call. On Thursday night, after midnight, I was working at the computer, and the power went out, for three hours. I lit a table full of candles and went on working, offline, until the computer’s battery conked out, and then I went to bed. I never found out what happened–the police blotter in the newspaper just said, “wires down.”
On Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, I got the rest of the outside work done in two marathon sessions.
I finished the raking. No mice this time, but I encountered two small snakes. One of them was curled up under the leaves and was sluggish from the cold, so I was able to pick it up and hold it for a couple of minutes. I thought this was awesome but the snake did not agree, and I put it over in the woods where I wasn’t raking. The other snake was much more lively, and I only got a brief look at it.
I stacked the second cord of wood. This took less time than the first cord because I used the garden cart to move loads of wood over to the stack rather than carry two or three pieces at a time by hand. (Yes, it all has tarps covering it now.) Altogether, I spent 17-1/2 solid hours doing outside yard work this fall.
I did some “fall cleaning” inside the house. This is all to the good–it definitely helps my morale and productivity to get rid of the accumulated dust, vacuum up all the drifting fur, clean the refrigerator for the first time in I’m embarrassed to say how long, and so forth. I spaced out the chores over several days.
I was cleaning because my aunt from Florida came up to visit at my dad’s for ten days. Although she could hardly have picked a worse time to visit, I had to arrange to spend some time with her. I invited her and my dad down to my house for dinner, on Wednesday, October 29. For several days running, I spent a couple of hours per day organizing clutter and cleaning–nothing heroic, just trying to make the place look like it would be safe to use the silverware.
While all this was going on, I was doing more and more work on IPNE’s Publishing University event, which I’ll talk about in another post.