This street has some of my favorite restaurants in Bloomington. Last weekend I had lunch at one of them with Jennifer and John, before going to practice with the band.
All the spring flowers were in bloom, and Laurelai ate some of them.
4:00 PM: I'm back in my car. My workday ends at 3:30, but somehow I never make it to my car until 4:00. As I leave my workplace, I drive by this cherry-picker rental company. From a distance, it looks like a herd of oddly-colored apatosaurus raising up their long necks.
... and farms ...
... and wooded hills.
When I see this limestone quarry, I know I'm back in Bloomington.
6:00 PM: I made it home! Normally I get home a little earlier, but today I kept having to leave the highway and find safe places to park so that I could take all the pictures.
6:30 PM: When I get home from work, I like to relax on the couch with the cat. I read the paper, and David makes me dinner, because he is awesome!! And also an excellent cook. Tonight he's made me Quorn nuggets, brussels sprouts, and a little whole-wheat pasta with pesto and goat cheese.
7:30 PM: Beading. I'm working on several custom orders right now, mostly for friends, but I also have one order that came through my Etsy shop. It's going to be a wreath like the Victory Wreath, but in black, with pale pink flowers and pale green leaves. After this, I have a little time to blog, clean or run errands, read, and finally watch a little TV on the loveseat with David before heading to bed.
8:30 AM: As documents come into the library, I sort them, enter them into a database, and assign them barcodes. This handy little gadget spits out the barcoded labels for me.
10:30 AM: My work is very repetitive. I try to maintain a zen-like focus, but occasionally my mind wanders ...
I wonder what David is doing right now.
I think of some things I should have written in my dissertation chapter this morning.
11:30 AM: I take a fifteen-minute break for lunch. Today it's actually warm and springlike, and it has stopped raining, so I eat outside on one of the benches outside my building. There is a wonderful view of the city skyline from here. Then it's back to the library!
5:00 AM: Working on my dissertation. Today I'm writing about one of my favorite passages in the Argonautica, the scene where the Argo first sets sail. All the gods look down on the ship as it leaves the harbor, and the nymphs watch from Mt. Pelion. Two centaurs, Chiron and his wife, come down to the shore, and Chiron's wife holds up the baby Achilles so that his father, who is sailing with the Argonauts can see him. Orpheus plays his lyre and sings, and the heroes row the ship in time with his music. As he sings, fish of all different kinds dance in the wake of the Argo.
5:50 AM: The essentials for my morning commute: an oatcake, a bottle of water, an organic yogurt drink, and a book on tape. I drive for an hour and a half to get to work. Usually I get to see the beginning of the sunrise, but instead today there was a thunderstorm, followed by rainy fog.
7:20 AM: This ductwork, actually from the University of Michigan, gives you some idea of what I see every morning when I get to work. I have a long walk from my car: through a parking lot, then through a gate with a turnstile, and then I go through a dark tunnel lined with pipes. On the other side of the tunnel is a futuristic landscape of silver ductwork and vivid yellow tanks, with fans and motors humming and roaring. I walk around an old building that was an airplane hangar in World War II, and then down a long windy corridor to the building where I work.
7:30 AM: My job as a document librarian involves a lot of sorting, labeling, and filing. Most of the time I feel like Psyche, who was ordered by Venus to sort an immense pile of tiny grains. If only an army of helpful ants would come and organize my documents for me!
On Sunday David and I bought this loveseat, the first piece of new furniture we've ever bought together. It's small, sleek, lustrous in brown leather, and makes the rest of the apartment look shabby by comparison!
David, Nola, and Dad all have a birthday in the same week at the end of February and beginning of March. This year we all got together at my parents' house for a big celebration. All the Richey men were there, including my uncle Ralph, who is visiting from Germany.
Everyone gathered around to watch the three honorees open their presents.
We had to force David to stop reading his new book on ancient bread stamps so that he could open the rest of his presents.
All the birthday cards were passed around the room.
Nola's birthday presents featured these gorgeous spring flowers.
We all went in on Dad's 60th birthday present, and it was a huge surprise. He thought that all his presents were socks and ties, like this inspired gift, a zip-on tie from Will.
The final gift looked like a watch case, but it was empty except for a note that read, "This would have been a watch, but we had a better idea." Dad and Socks were both a little confused.
Then Will appeared with something really unexpected: a fantastic Les Paul electric guitar!
It's so beautiful, and it sounds pretty amazing too.
After that some of us played music together, and some of us played David's new pirate board game, or some funny and frenetic word games, or put together a puzzle. There was a pirate hat with a plume! There were three cakes, one of which was a flowerpot! But we were having too much fun to take pictures of the rest of the eight-hour long birthday extravaganza.
For David's birthday, my parents gave us tickets to Senior Night, the last home game of the year. We just had time to snap a quick picture of ourselves and the tickets (visible at the bottom of the photo) before rushing off to the game.
