September splendour and sadness

It's not August any more, and DD drew my attention to a rather good piece of news.

It appears that South Africa is about to get a new national park. It is apparently set to include the highest-altitude public road in the country (Naudè's Nek, 2500 m) and some rather special scenery and high-altitude grassland. The story I've linked to indicates something else rather unusual for here: if I understood it correctly, this one comes with a covenant scheme vaguely similar to the one the English National Trust has run for years.

I have no idea when it will be possible to visit this one.

This evening's news showed horrendous pictures of flooding in New York state caused by Hurricane Ida. One can only hope that Clam and other NY Dragoneers (Groo?) are surviving.

I'm okay. Suffering from lack of sleep, but fine. It was a scary night. Was under flood and tornado watches then warnings half the night. The rain was so heavy it sounded like a freight train barreling through. I got 4.7 inches of rain in about 6 hours. And at one point it was coming down so heavily that my weather station recorded a rate of 13.7 inches an hour!

>3 clamairy: We have really got to figure out a way to split our weather in half and do some swapping. Stay safe!

>3 clamairy: Glad to hear you are ok, that's 2 such storms back to back! Everything stayed dry?

We got hit pretty good by Ida here in NJ. There were road closures all over Wednesday night because the water couldn't drain off as fast as it was coming down. Those roads are pretty much open now, but, now we're moving into some closures because of river flooding, and some of them won't even crest for 24 hours or more.

There was a minor "plus" side to the closures tho. Because I finally gave up trying to find a road that was open to get to work, I had my first night off in three weeks. (And the reasons for that started a month ago and would involve a whole post to explain the madness and mayhem behind it.)

Best wishes to all the Pub denizens that got dumped on/blown about by Ida. Stay safe!

I'm still dealing with a lot of family stuff, very heavy stuff, and it's been taking a lot out of me. But I've been working strenuously on detaching from the things that aren't mine to fix or solve and focusing instead on things that are (i.e., applying the Serenity Prayer).

And I am remembering several times a day to acknowledge: I'm okay right now. Right now, I'm okay. Surprising how much that little affirmation helps.

My best wishes to all those who are suffering heavy weather of all kinds.

>8 Meredy: Big hugs to you. You are in my thoughts.

>5 Karlstar: Yes, thankfully! I could see the lower part of my backyard was all standing water at around 3:00 AM, but by the time it got light out it had all drained off. I'm not sure what would have happened if we'd gotten 9-11 inches of rain, like some areas did.

>8 Meredy: Keep strong. Thinking of you.

>8 Meredy: Keeping you in the light. I remind myself daily that I can only control what I do each day, and each evening I try to reflect on whether I lived up to myself that day. Unless I fall asleep first. May your days be filled moments of joy.

Feeling very thankful today. I went hiking today with my good friend Mavis and another friend. We climbed a mountain, although not quite to the top. Mavis will be 83 in November, and is in great shape for her age, and one of the most positive people I know, despite losing her husband of 65 years at the end of June. What makes me so thankful, though, is that she told me today she had got her first Covid vaccine shot, and will get the second in about a month. She's the only one of my close friends who wasn't vaccinated, and although there haven't been a lot of local cases, I've been worried for her.

>12 NorthernStar: Sounds like a lovely day, and some great news too.

I'm still covid isolating. but feel ok. And last night had (separately) both a fox and a hedgehog pass within a few feet of me.

>14 reading_fox: If the critters start a conversation with you then you'll know the isolation is getting to you.

>12 NorthernStar: I'm glad your friend opted for the vaccine, and you had such a good day.

My kids are going to be here for the Labor Day weekend traditional Moran family beach picnic today. Keep your fingers crossed that the rain holds off, or everyone will be crowded into my house. 🤞

>15 clamairy: Have a great beach picnic. We are back home and are preparing a teddy-bears’ picnic in the front garden as three grandchildren are about to descend on us for a few hours.

>8 Meredy: hugs!

>12 NorthernStar: Good for Mavis!

>14 reading_fox: fox and hedgehog! Neat!

I finished my herb garden renovation and I'm really pleased with the results. It was rather more work than expected as I had to re-lay a good bit of the patio to make up for the new garden being smaller than the old one, but it all worked out. I also managed to level the bird bath in the centre of it (always annoys me when it's off even a bit) and put bricks under so hoping it will stay level in future.

We had Sunday lunch outside - our remodel is nearly finished. There's some odd jobs left to do, but little sister decided yesterday evening to come over today (and said yes please when I said we were planning to cook roast pork). I have some shrubs in pots which need to be planted out (one will be fun to extricate).

My herbs are in pots on a plant stand at the house end, but the other end of the garden has got hugely opened out. My planned raised beds I'll do in the spring; they're for my veggie patch. I'll be getting some kits and I'll need more topsoil.

Pictures will follow in due course.

>17 tardis: i do believe that if you enhance the photo, you will see an image of the killer captured in the mirror. Case closed.

>19 MrAndrew: Curses, foiled again!

Sadness: Yesterday I was fired from my job. I had foolishly added a list of "rules" for my students on a private closed librarian's FB page; they were meant to be humorous. Someone from the group forwarded the post to my school district, and the end result was that I was let go yesterday morning. Two or three librarians from the group have reached out to me; one told the group what happened and most are appalled that someone would do such a thing. I spent yesterday alternately having a pity party and binge watching Netflix so I didn't have to think about it. Today, I will embrace retirement, start the paperwork on getting health insurance from my retirement fund. I'm embarrassed, because as a librarian I should absolutely know the repercussions and dangers of social media; I'm equally angry because I feel betrayed as this was a private group. In the meantime, I've deactivated my FB account and will be taking a break from that. Lesson learned.

Splendour: My 12 year old granddaughter has been invited to join the Fort Worth Junior Orchestra; she just began viola a few months ago. She facetimed me last night to tell me the news and it was a really nice end to a really crappy day.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: So sorry about that result. There is no more acceptable humor in this world, someone is bound to be offended. Someone will be offended by this. *Hug*

>21 theretiredlibrarian: safe internet hugs - that's terrible.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: Wow. That is awful. I am glad that you had some good family news to at least take the edge off what cannot be anything but a major shock.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: That is dreadful. My sympathy and virtual hugs.

That is great news about your ganddaughter.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: oh my gosh! How can they just fire you? That’s awful. I’m so sorry.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: That is a terrible thing to have happened. I'm so sorry to hear it. I'm glad you had some good news with which to end the day.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: Another vote that that is a dreadful, terrible, despicable thing to do.

Some good news: we talked with our financial advisor yesterday, and he had thought I was going to retire this month anyway. He had already begun the process of getting money to us. I have my retirement check from Texas. So financially, we are ok. Health insurance from the teacher retirement is only $200/month. I've started a list of volunteer and organization opportunities that interest me (that I've never had time for before): Meals on Wheels, Gardening Club, Historical Society, quilting guilds. My mom, sisters and I play a little with a booth at an antique mall, and I may take that a bit more seriously, as we just break even with it right now. I'm looking to step away from all things library for a while, so I'm not looking at volunteering at the public library, although we have a very nice little historical building (3rd oldest continuing library in the state).

Mrexiled is not ready for me to stop working. I can't get him to understand that schools are not hiring now, and library job are few here anyway. Not to mention the possibility that I would be blackballed, and I'm just burned and burned out. Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to returning to school this year anyway. And I seriously have no other skill sets. This is what I've done for 40 years. I finally told him last night that I just don't want to work anymore. He still works p/t, so we may be in each other's way for a while until we figure out this togetherness thing.

We are leaving next week to attend my son's wedding in Texas, and now we have a few extra days. I had planned on flying to TX in November for a long weekend to care for granddaughters while my daughter and SIL took a trip to Las Vegas for his birthday; I can take a couple of extra days for that as well.

So I'm trying to make that proverbial lemonade.

Thanks everyone for your support.

(Also I'm giving thought to changing my handle on LT; any suggestions??)

>29 theretiredlibrarian: even though it came about for a really crappy reason, it sounds like it will end up being ok with some perks of time to do the things you want to do. Onward and upward to the next phase!

I've spent the morning in the basement going thru my teaching things. I'd already given a bunch to my daughter who just started teaching 2 years ago. There's a resale shop in St. Louis that may take some stuff, and a HPB to take the books, 2 boxes of them. I have lots of bulletin board border, which the resale shop will only take if it's in the original packaging. I have a whole bunch of Dr. Seuss stuff. And I've thrown out a lot of stuff. Purging the notebook in which I kept all my day-to-day school stuff felt really good. Especially when I came to the book fair pages--yeah, the rep was supposed to call me today...so good luck to them getting someone to run a book fair that is scheduled in 6 weeks.
If you know anyone who wants this stuff, I'll give it away for shipping only.

MrExiled came down to the basement, and asked "Are your really done teaching?'

Me: I'M DONE. I'M NOT GOING BACK. DONE.

I think maybe he's convinced now because he offered to drive to St. Louis to get rid of this stuff.

I emptied 8 tote boxes of stuff.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: Hugs. Not a great way to end your career, but sounds like you are making the best of it. Very sad about whoever forwarded your private comment.

My sister-in-law was discharged from hospital today having been admitted on Monday for what appears to have been a heart attack. She is someone who does a lot of hill walking with her husband and is always very active. She was on a hill walk on Sunday but had to go home because she was not well. On Monday she found she was having difficulty breathing and was taken to hospital by ambulance where the did various tests and confirmed she had suffered a heart attack. She appears to have recovered and is to go back in on an out-patient basis for an MRI to check for any damage. Her daughter, who is a nurse, has spoken to the hopital staff and is happy that her mother is not in any immediate danger and needs to take things a bit easier.

It certainly gave us all a fright, especially my wife.

On the brighter side, my daughter in Cincinatti is 38 weeks pregnant with a little boy, so we are expecting goo news any day now. That will be our second grandson and fifth grandchild.

>21 theretiredlibrarian: Sorry to hear about your news. Not to be cynical, but was there someone in the group who you didn't get on with? Or felt you were blocking their promotion?

In my case it was redundancy - I objected to dropping a pay scale for doing the same work. At least I'm still doing the same work - but on a higher pay scale. I've heard about so many former colleagues who are no longer working for the county because of disillusionment.

>29 theretiredlibrarian: One would be prepared to prophesy that the organizations will have jobs lined up for you in no time flat. Certainly some time after I retired I started to think of joining the Railway Society, with the idea of attending meetings, sitting in the back row and not doing anything else. So I talked to an active member who works on the preserved trains of the Umgeni Steam Railway. He said "good idea, you'll be librarian, come to Inchanga for the January work-day (about 10 days after this conversation); your membership starts in April." I foresee something similar happening to you.

>33 pgmcc: Strength and a complete, full and rapid recovery to your sister-in-law. Strength and happiness to your daughter.

>33 pgmcc: Sending wishes for strength and health to your sister-in-law, daughter and the imminent grandson.

>36 Sakerfalcon: Thank you, Claire. The s-i-l seems to be doing very well, and is grateful for the warning.

In relation to imminent grandson, I was woken at 2am by my wife telling me she had just received an e-mail invitation from our daughter who is expecting the baby, to join her in a Zoom meeting. (I will not go into why my wife was looking at her e-mails at 2am.) We were both wondering why our daughter had sent the zoom invitation if there was news and wondered why she did not phone or text, assuming she was able to. We were adding two and two and getting seventeen.

Well we spent ten minutes trying to get Zoom working on first my wife's phone and then my phone. Having had no success with that I rang my daughter directly.

She answered.

Apparently she had switched on her iPad, a device that had not been used for a while, and an old invitation was resent. The invitation was from 19 August. She was most apologetic, but is was lovely to talk to her. :-)

>29 theretiredlibrarian: Not a happy way to go out, and you have my best wishes. I got compulsorily retired too, but no pension—continued contract employment instead. So far it's not too bad. I bet >35 hfglen: is right: people will be lining up to find things for you to do. I take inspiration from my late father in law, who stayed happy and reasonably healthy past 90 doing voluntary work after retiring from the Australian government service on medical grounds at the age of 62.

>33 pgmcc: Best wishes to you and Mrs Pete, and your daughter and son in law and no. 5 grandchild.

>39 haydninvienna: Thank you!

>33 pgmcc: Best of luck to your daughter and your sister-in-law.

That story is a bit terrifying. I'm glad she was able to get good medical care, but yikes! There was no warning?

>21 theretiredlibrarian: I'm so sorry... It seems no one can be trusted to understand what is meant to be humor. :o(

>41 clamairy: Thanks, Clare. I have been Whatsapping (Hi-tech has made a mockery of grammar and the use of English) my sister-in-law, and she seems to be in good form.

She did not appear to have any warning before having difficulty breathing on the hill walk and it was the following day when she had to be taken to hospital. She is one of these people who does everything at one hundred miles per hour, including talking. She now has to slow down and that will drive her mental.

The main thing they are doing now is establishing if any damage was done that they will have to treat.

>40 pgmcc: No worries, mate!

Couple of other highlights (or something) of my trip to London: I encountered a gentleman in Oxford Street evangelising using a moderately powerful amplifier, well and truly audible above the general racket in Oxford Street. Louder than your average busker would use. As if Oxford Street wasn't't noisy enough already! I suggested to his associate that lowering the volume might be a good idea and the suggestion was not well received. I saw another associate with a handful of leaflets something about "free speech and street evangelism", which conflates two concepts that I am in favour of, to the benefit of neither.

And I finally bought an Apple Watch, after dithering about it for months.

Edited so it didn't look like I was thanking myself.

>44 haydninvienna: I hope you like the watch. I liked mine, but it didn’t work well with my exercising app so I switched to a Garmin. Receiving a phone call on my watch was fun and made me feel like I was in a spy movie. :)

I’ve been busy with the start of school. It’s another crazy year with lots of COVID restrictions. I do have another small class, though, so that’s a blessing. I also am really liking my new coworker. I have a sweet group. I think we will have a great year.

>45 catzteach: So far so good. As you say, it's quite fun. It keeps reminding me to breathe ... I wonder how I've managed to do that for mumble mumble years to date.

>46 haydninvienna: ha! My other watch kept telling me to relax. It was usually when I was sitting and doing something I loved, like reading or quilting!

I've been using various FitBits for several years now. My most recent one is a Versa. I bought it because it was supposed to be waterproof and as I swim a bunch in the Summer I figured it would be great to track my heart rate while splashing around in the bay. It died after a couple of months. Apparently salt water is a bit more corrosive than fresh. Fitbit sent me a brand new one, but now I take my 'waterproof' smartwatch off before I swim. I love having it, though. I can't type out answers to messages, but I have a bunch of preset replies I can use. Plus I added a bunch of emojis, including a middle finger. 🤣

>44 haydninvienna: I hope you have a lot of fun using your new gadget!

At 3:30pm, EDT, my new grandchild was born. His name is Liam Eoin and he has not been weighed yet. He is not even an hour old, so give him a chance.

>49 pgmcc: Welcome to the world Liam! Congratulations to everyone in your family.

>50 Taphophile13: Thank you! We are all delighted.

>49 pgmcc: Congratulations! May he find health, wealth and happiness.

>49 pgmcc: Wonderful news! Congratulations to parents and grandparents!

>49 pgmcc: Congratulations - to you and Caitríona, to the proud parents, and to the young man himself!

>49 pgmcc: Happy new grandbaby day!!

>49 pgmcc: What everybody else said, doubled. Liam Eoin, huh? Never guess his parents are Irish…

>49 pgmcc: yay! Welcome to the world, Liam!

>49 pgmcc: Aww. Congratulations to all! So happy for you.

>49 pgmcc: Happiness to all!

>49 pgmcc: Congratulations on the birth of Liam! Wishing him a happy life!

>50 Taphophile13:, >52 MrsLee:, >53 tardis:, >54 -pilgrim-:, >55 Marissa_Doyle:, >56 haydninvienna:, >57 catzteach:, >58 clamairy:, >59 hfglen: & >60 NorthernStar:
Thank you for all the good wishes. My daughter is delighted to be receiving good wishes from across The World. She, Liam, her husband, and Liam's three-year-old sister are all doing well.

I may be too presumptuous as an overjoyed granddad, but thought you would not mind my sharing a picture of Liam Eoin.



Interesting factoid.
Liam was born at 3:30pm, on a Friday, and weighed 7lb 14oz.

His sister was born at 3:30pm, on a Friday, and weighed 7lb 14oz.

Talk about standardisation.

>61 pgmcc: You aren't the least bit presumptuous. We were all hoping for a pic of the handsome lad.

>61 pgmcc: Not presumptuous at all! Any and all baby pics (human and otherwise) welcome. Indeed, these days they're needed more than ever :)

>62 Taphophile13: & >63 tardis:
Thank you!

It is nice to be posting good news.

>56 haydninvienna: Irish mother, US father, and a sister who can claim , Irish, British and American citizenship.

>61 pgmcc: Wonderful photo. What a gorgeous baby.

How'd she sync that birth timing so well? 0.0

>66 clamairy: The nurse was checking her progress at 3:23pm and said it will be a while yet. My daughter commented, "Well if he arrives in the next seven minutes he will be here at the same time his sister arrived". Then she said, "I need to push!" and the nurse had another check and said, "Yes! Here he comes."

We received the phonecall from her at 21:15 our time. Liam was only 45 minutes old and our daughter was phoning us as cool as a cucumber to let us know. We are all so happy and relieved that everything went so smoothly.

Awww...what a sweetie! Congratulations.

>68 Bookmarque: Thank you!

>61 pgmcc: A very happy tale! Easier to remember the details when you can give birth like that. I applaud your daughter.

>61 pgmcc: and let the sibling competitions begin! ;) he’s beautiful. Thanks for posting a pic.

>67 pgmcc: I'm delighted to see your happy news. Liam is a perfect little cherub. Congratulations to all!

>70 MrsLee: I shall pass on your applause. She is one of those people who takes everything in her stride.

>71 catzteach: We tend to have mother competitions. If one of my daughters posts a picture of one of their children it is usually only a few minutes before a post of a cousin appears. :-)

>72 Meredy: Thank you, Meredy. We are all on a high.

I’m home sick today. Nothing major, just felt a cold coming on yesterday and, due to COVID, I had to stay home today. I’m feeling better. The bummer is, there were no subs to take my class. Another teacher in the building had to step up. She teaches small groups so she can cancel those and do it. But still. The teacher shortage has finally hit where I live. :(

Home from Texas and seeing my son get married. It was a lovely personal ceremony in the park, with only close family, followed by a backyard party at their home afterward.

>75 theretiredlibrarian:
Congratulations. Sounds like a good time.

>49 pgmcc:, >61 pgmcc: Belated congratulations on your handsome new grandson! I wish you and your family joy as you get to know him.

>74 catzteach: Oh no, I hope you feel better soon. This time of the school year is the worst for germs and bugs.

>75 theretiredlibrarian: That sounds wonderful.