Dear Family Members

John's Tree

I've taken this blog "private" so that only people I invite (via entering their email addresses) can view. This way, I can be more frank, and you can see when I post. Have anyone else who is interested in following send me an email to madlilbn@gmail.com (you might want to cut/paste the address as it has a typo in it.)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
We had "grilled turkey". Except the grill was a lot hotter than I thought. It cooked in 2-1/2 hours and was falling off the bone. Wonderful!! I would recommend it. I used two aluminum roasting pans and covered tightly with heavy duty tin foil. It still took up a lot of the hickory/charcoal seasoning. I did brine it before, and salted the turkey before--drippings were too salty. If you brine (which I recommend), don't add any other salt.

Deer Hunting
James missed a deer today. John missed twice on opening day. Other than that, we haven't seen very many deer. Tomorrow is last day of firearm deer. We do have muzzleloader deer in Dec. The state restricted feeding (baiting) of deer because of chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease). We are hoping no more infected deer are found and we can put out a little pile of corn next year. Only one farm-raised deer in southern Michigan was found with the disease.

Work
Worked today (Sat.). It was my best Saturday for awhile. Everyone was ready to leave at 5 pm. I helped some people with stuff they needed to do. One guy came in and needed to type up a paper. Both word processing computers were busy, so I set him up on google docs. He wasn't too familiar with using online services, but we got his paper typed and printed out fine. I wanted to ask him where he'd been the last 10 years (while everyone else was learning to use the web), but I didn't.

Til next time, Katherine

Wow! It's been a long time

So much has been going on that I haven't blogged since the end of September. There's a place here called Dahlia Hill because a bunch of people have gotten together to plant dahlias there every year. Here are some photos at Flickr: .

The auto racing seasons are wrapping up. We watched Felipe Massa win his home Brazilian Gran Prix today. However, his competitor Lewis Hamilton, UK, is now the youngest driver's champion. The race was tight right down to the last lap, Lewis had to finish sixth or worse to tie Massa. Lewis passed Timo Glock in the last turn of the last lap to gain the fifth position.

Two more races in the NASCAR schedule, but it looks like Jimmie Johnson may have it wrapped up before the last race at Homestead on Nov 14.

It's been awhile

It's been awhile since I posted. Sorry, trying to get some stuff in order, like my genealogy information.

I went to the Military Records Symposium at Allen County Public Library this past weekend. It was well worth the trip. The speaker was Marie Varrelman Melchiori who gave 3 one-hour talks about finding Civil War records in the National Archives (NARA). The best part is they built in research time, and we were able to have a private consultation with one of their experts.

But the best part was that my #1 son joined us because it was his birthday weekend. And my #2 son joined us for an autocross in Auburn IN on Sunday. Results. It was great to have all four of us together. We haven't been together since early August. We may go to more Ft. Wayne events since #1 son is at Purdue and it's part way in between us in Michigan.

Also, they spent Saturday visiting the Auburn Cord Dusenberg Museum
in Auburn IN. They spent 4 hours there!

Our Old Cat

Thursday I have to take our 20-yr-old cat, Pug, to the vet to be euthanized. She no longer finds the litter box. Her hips are so arthritic, I'm not sure she can completely control her bodily functions. She's very thin because she has trouble chewing. I have been giving her soft food for about the past year.

She's been a great cat. We got her shortly after we moved in to this house 20 years ago. She lived outside for most of our life--our excellent rodent control cat. Several years ago, it got very cold in the winter, and, since she was growing old, we let her come inside. She never stayed outside again on a regular basis. It was like she said, "hey! it's warm in here!". We've had other cats come and go, but Pug has been the survivor, the chief cat, the one who taught the kittens how to hunt. I'm going to miss her.

Summer's End

PROM

#2Son is preparing to drive himself to college to begin his freshman year. Of course, he's only going 40 miles away. We'll be seeing him this weekend. I'm happy and sad at the same time. DH keeps asking me what we're going to do and I look about me and think, "there's plenty to be done here." But we'll both miss them.

Reading

I'm keeping track of the books I'm reading on my LibraryThing discussion list. I have now reached the 2008 goal of 50 books. I wonder how many I'll get through before the end of the year. My family is not impressed--they say I read all the time.

The 50th book is Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. I highly recommend reading Persepolis and Persepolis 2. Satrapi is an Iranian who was sent to Europe as a teenager during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was bombing Tehran and fundamentalists were coming to power in Iran--danger on both sides. Her parents fortunately had the means to send her to live with a friend/cousin in Vienna. These are graphic novels, and although I haven't liked them in the past, these are wonderful. The illustrations intensify the emotions in the story. There is now a movie, too.

I have been trying to read some new authors this year. Among them are: Julie Kramer (1st time novelist), Georges Simenon (Belgian mystery writer a la Agatha Christie), Robin White (mystery-thrillers set in Siberia), Stephen Booth (police procedurals set in English Peak District).

One notable book I have read is Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, which is on this year's Man Booker prize longlist. I hope he makes it to the shortlist, at least. Child 44 is set in 1950's Soviet Union, where no crime exists. Leo Demidov, a state security officer, begins unofficially looking into a far-flung series of child murders with shocking results.

I love reading these books with cultures, countries, and people who are different from me. Child 44 and Robin White's books really give you the feel of living in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Even though the stories are fiction, I think the feel for the culture is real. And this is one reason I read.

Rites of Passage

I spent last weekend taking #1Son to Indiana where he is starting grad school. He has moved out of our house and his new home is his apartment. This is a good thing--but a major emotional change for me. I was a little sad before and after. But also happy, because I get his room to make into an office/study. Now, all we have to do is get rid of or assimilate the stuff he didn't take. He even had books with him in boxes he hadn't opened for 2 years that we brought back! (I just can't stand to throw books away.) They'll either go on bookmooch or ebay. Some, I'll keep.

I have been catching up with a friend who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She has a great blog about her experiences. It's alarming to me how many people I know have or are having an experience with breast cancer. I do work in a library, where 90% of the staff are women--but it's very frightening and saddening to me. Although there's been no breast cancer in my immediate family to date (knock on wood), I have had some experience with cancer in a fairly young relative. My uncle had kidney cancer when he was in his forties. He was young and otherwise healthy and underwent all of the latest treatments. He did live for 10 years after his diagnosis, but eventually died of his cancer. That was the saddest thing in my life.


Here's something to lighten your day:

Olympics

My dh and I were watching the Today show this morning--and we got to wondering when the opening ceremonies were actually happening--since they are on US tv tonight at 8:00. I got online and finally figured out that they happened at 8/8/08 at 8pm Beijing time and what we'll see tonight is tape-delay. Usually I don't mind tape delay, but it was difficult even on the web site to determine that the actual event was taking place this morning. There are video feeds that are blocked for the US. I was trying to find results for events that were already over but nothing was posted yet. I just wanted to look at archery and shooting, not the most popular sports. I don't see how anyone would care if you could find out the results early. It's amazing that a) there's even technology to do this, and b) that nbc has that much power. Either that, or the IOC is really slow at updating the website.

My son asked about the air quality and I found this site--the BeijingAirBlog. The current conditions in Beijing were "Haze" this morning. I really hate air you can see!

Corn & Autocross Results

The summer corn crop has come in. Michigan has the best sweet corn I've ever tasted. A family up the street grows the corn and sells in front of their house. It is the Peaches & Cream variety and so sweet!!!

The autocross went well, I had fun driving my car fast--at least it seems fast when you have to drive around those cones. Here's a photo of my car. It's a 2004 Mercedes C230 Kompressor--a great road car, and quick, too. Another photo of grid with dh's car. Results.

Packing up, I got my ring finger on my right hand squished between the trailer tongue and jack--hurt like crazy. I spent about 10 minutes with my hand in the cooler, then filled a bottle with ice and sat in the car. Monday, it hurt so much, I left work early. My sup wanted me to see a dr. so I went ahead. It's not broken and they didn't do anything for it--just keep it iced. That was a waste of medical resources--they even did an xray. It doesn't look as bad today, but the nail is black and it's still sore and a little swollen. Typing is painful.

Also, my phone spent a couple of extra days at the Tawas Bay Big Boy. I left it there when we had lunch on Sunday. I finally realized it wasn't anywhere at home on Wed. I called them and they put it in the mail--amazingly, it arrived home in Thursday's mail.

More exciting stuff coming up! Stay in touch.

The Mad Librarian

Oscoda Detroit vs SVR Autocross

This year, the Detroit region is joining with the Saginaw Valley Region (SVR) of the SCCA to have an autocross at Wurtsmith Airport in Oscoda MI. I'm going to run my Mercedes C230 "Elsa" this weekend. I finally decided I need to run my own car. I'll post some photos on Monday.

Notice the flowers slideshow. From this year on, I'm only planting native Michigan plants in my gardens. There are lots of native plants in the open areas around the house. I have planted natives in the area next to the house, but they attract lots of wildlife--particularly the six-legged kind. This fall, I'm going to transplant the prairie plants to an area that I'm letting go native. I only mow this once per year, to keep the aspens from taking over.

Interested in native plants? See the Wildflower Association of Michigan and WildOnes.

Summer is flying. We've got to rebuild our pump house because it caught on fire last winter. We finally bought supplies to get it built.

Summer

I've always treasured summer. I miss the long days--lazing around the pool, reading, going to movies with my sisters--OK, I had to grow up eventually. But this summer is going well. After a cool spring, we finally have some hot weather. Graduations are done, vacation is done--the rest of this summer is basically mine to treasure.

OOPS! Gotta go to work!