The hustle has officially left my bustle.

This is the fifth blog post I've started - the others were deep-sixed, so I'm hoping that this makes it through my filter of mass destruction.  A series of things have dropped me into a deep blue funk and I need to get out of it.  The biggest disappointment was realizing that I would not be able to take a short vacation I had planned (and needed) for quite some time.  I hadn't realized how much I had counted on it until I couldn't go.  I then slipped into that quagmire of feeling that the lifestyle I love so much had become a millstone around my neck.  THEN I realized that that was ridiculous.  I needed to change my thinking.


So I have.  Or at least I am working on it.  As these things tend to go, once the negative energy is radiating out into the Universe, it tends to attract like energy.  Case in point:  I have been spending hours and hours in the company of The Journal of Commerce Import Bulletins.

You see that white piece of paper?  That's as far as I had gotten after three days.  Shoot me.  Each over-sized tome is classified as "fragile", so I have to very gingerly leaf through months' worth of shipping manifest lists until I find the ones I'm looking for, then equally as gingerly scan it without damaging the yellowed pages.  An equally distressing thought is that these "fragile" documents were printed when I was 15!  I feel like a relic...


There are some upsides - I am in a very peaceful environment for hours:

Research floor of the State
Library

I am getting plenty of exercise - the round trip is just under three miles and has to be walked.  And there is lots of cultcha to be absorbed.

One example - it's YUGE!

Our state capitol is a formidable and beautiful edifice, another example of millions of dollars invested in the glory of government.  The most direct route from my office to the State Library is via the underground concourse.  Access is gained to the concourse by passing through two metal detectors, going through the Capitol, and then through the concourse - a long corridor that passes under a road or two.  Both sides of the concourse are populated with fast food restaurants and with items from Mr. Rockefeller's massive Modern Art collection.  To which no one pays any attention.  I am always amazed that these works are hung in a closed area that reeks of McDonald fumes, diesel fumes from the bus garage and, until recently, cigarette smoke.  Geezlouise.  Anyhoo, one walks through the concourse, then down a flight of steps - under another road - then through a series of escalators and elevators that haven't been updated since Eisenhower was in office.  Finally, one emerges into the upper/inner sanctum of all things NYS history.  I make this trip twice a day - I do have my real job, after all.  Scanning these documents has posed a real challenge.  The pages are oversized and are printed (in tiny print) on the aforementioned yellowing, fragile paper.  You cannot flip the thing over and copy it.  The overhead scanners are not capable of scanning the whole page.  I finally came up with a free app on my iPhone that scans and turns the scan into either a jpeg (photo) or pdf (copy) file.  These I email to my office address and then send along to another office.  It is hair-raisingly tedious work.  I am through two and a half years, with two and a half to go.  Geewillikers.


It's nice to come home to this:


Modeling his lovely sweater, gifted to him
by his distant cousin in the Northwest, Mandy.

Of course, the weather is in no way suitable for sweaters, having not dipped below 75 degrees for days.  Having said that, we are due for a freeze tonight into tomorrow morning - this means some swaddling of lemon tree and geraniums.  Repotting geraniums and schlepping the lemon tree inside are on The List.  So far, however, I have not had more than a portion of a day per weekend into which I must cram five-days worth of work.  Not surprisingly, I do not succeed.  I am hoping - after this, another truncated weekend - to get most of my pre-Winter things done by the end of the month.  Har, har, ho, ho, har, har.