Author: Jennifer Kuntz

Folks in London have been having a weird week. First the G-8 summit, then they win the Olympics, then this morning’s bombing attacks. My sympathy goes out to them.

I’m not a real big fan of organized religion in the first place. It seems elitist and marginalizing. And when religion gets mixed up with people’s political agenda it makes for this kind of assinine behavior. Fear drives a lot of the conservative religious rhetoric on both sides and the avowed aim of terrorist acts is to sow fear. I don’t think a loving and benevolent God wants people to be afraid, but I think fear is the inevitable human reaction when we are faced with the awesome complexity of the world around us. Maybe Brian had it right after all, we should all think for ourselves and not let other people tell us what to do.

Firday was predictably pretty dead with the minor exception of folks with “no place else to go…” who complained about us closing at 5:00 (regular Friday closing time). I wouldn’t want to have to hang out in the hot barracks on a holiday evening, either, so I can’t blame them too much. Then we went out to dinner with Kate and David and had tasty steaks.

Saturday was a lazy day at home. We slept in, I ran out to cat tend for Kate and David and then we played “Mutants and Masterminds” with Anthony. Our crazy neighbor lady knocked on the door at about 8:00 and said her dogs had discovered “some little creatures, they look like a mouse, or maybe an octopus” (our neighbor is Italian and doesn’t always get the right words together). As it turns out, the little creatures were baby opossums. She didn’t want them in her yard, so Tom and Anthony relocated them to our yard so the dogs wouldn’t savage them any more. It looked like one of them was in kind of rough shape, all wet and shell shocked from being almost eaten. We put them in our pampas grass and figured the mom would track them down. Anthony called us as he was leaving and said he saw her crossing the street towards our house, and in the morning on Sunday, they were all gone, so she obviously moved them.

Sunday we went to the beach with the SCAdians. We had a nice time, but left around 3:00 due to a thunderstorm. Tom wanted to stick it out, but he was outvoted. We’re going to have to plan a “diehard” beach trip with people who want to get there at dawn and leave at dusk, or rent a beach house for a few days. Then we went back to Fayetteville and had dinner at the new Japanese steak house in town. They have an excellent sushi bar. I hope to get back there soon.

Yesterday we went to Durham to participate in the demo at the Festival for the Eno. It was a nice event, but so hot and humid. It was very obvious that the SCA folks were on the last of their energy, having been out in it for the previous two days. It was such a crunchy granola event. All of the area environmental and cultural groups were there, it reminded me a lot of the area in MA where they were doing AGT (near Amherst). I expect the AGT folks could run a very sucessful program in the Triangle area. I did have an excellent lunch from the Medeterranean Deli, so hats off to them.

Now we’re back at work. Ho hum.

It’s either going to be mad or dead here and I’m interested to find out which it will be. I’m hoping for dead.

And I shall call it, Mini Me.

Tom helped me make a Duct Tape Dress Dummy on Monday night. Now there’s a humbling experience. Essentially, what you do is put on an old t-shirt and then wrap your torso and upper arms in bands of duct tape to make a mold of your figure. Then cut it up the back and mount it on a pole/hanger arrangement and then stuff it with fiberfil. The result is an accurate model of your figure which can be mounted at your height. Very useful for tailoring, which is why I made it, but EMBARRASSING to see all the bumps and lumps. And you know how the camera adds 20 lbs, well not having a head or any limbs adds like 50 lbs. It’s kinda hard to look at. I’m going to start making a dress soon, just so it stops sitting there in the corner, naked and accusing.

Maybe “Maxi Me” is more appropriate *sigh*.

So it looks like they’re just going to close us and use our parking lot. That means we get a mini-break (hooray!) for one day.
It will be a relief not to have to fight the traffic at the gates tomorrow.
Guess who gets to sleep in tomorrow… *neener, neener, neener*
I am a bit put out that he’s going to be in the building next door and won’t come over to tour our library.
Insert snarky comment about President and books here. Insert snarky comment about security risk here.
It’s tough being the red-headed stepchild sometimes.

I’ll be going to the quintennial camp staff reunion for Camp Archbald (my old GS camp in PA) this summer and I’ve been thinking about the things I learned at camp.

1. I learned that being responsible for others can help you conquer fear.
2. I learned that you can really, really like someone and still want to kill them.
3. I learned that you can live through pain.
4. I learned too many silly songs to count.
5. I learned that you can’t always please yourself and be a good friend, too.
6. I learned that Thin Mint Cookies taste best frozen.
7. I learned that there is no place like Girl Scout camp.

My boss calls me and says “The President is coming to post on Tuesday, and he is going to be attending an event at the (Chaplain building) right next to your library, so don’t be surprised if some Secret Service guys come in to look around. They’re allowed to go anywhere they want.” Yeesh. Actually, the publicity on this has been pretty low key so far. It isn’t in the paper or on the website, but as the boss is pretty well informed I’m inclined to believe her. Also, the big boss just came though with some guys talking about using the building for something on Monday, so we may be closed.

That may explain the black helicopters flying around over the library when I got here this morning.

Boy do I have an interesting job.

I got quoted twice in Live Journal Daily Quiz.
Not bad for a newbie!
Thanks to deza for figuring out that I don’t have enough trivia in my life.