Done, Done-Done Done!

I just put my dissertation copies in the trust of the USPS.
I am officially Done!

Gloria: "About time you are done!"  (Reminding me a great deal of Georgia...)

While my distractions over the past few months have been many, I have continued to plug away, and successfully defended my dissertation on December 10th.    I arrived back in Humboldt on the 12th, and I adopted Gloria from the shelter on the 13th. I took a needed break for two weeks, which became four weeks.    

And then I worked on the revisions and additions requested by my committee for final approval.  This included submitting a revision for Scott's approval, then preparing the document for format review for the university.  I had another week of work after the format review was completed, fixing tiny things like a missed date here and a misplace period there.   While doing my final reading before printing, I kept finding words and sentences I wanted to alter, proving once again that a good piece of writing is never "finished" it is just abandoned.  :)

The reason most of Gloria's pictures are of her on my bed?  Because I took so many pictures while I was working on my dissertation...

A friend helped me find a good source of 25% cotton paper, saving about $10 per ream over local price. When purchasing 4 reams, that adds up to quite a savings!  Then came printing. I first went to a local printer, thinking I should stay local instead of going with a chain.   Oops.  The first printer put black marks throughout the first half of seven copies, and the entire 8th copy. Never mind that I only wanted 7 copies, and never mind that they didn't let me approve the test copy before proceeding.    When I stopped by to look at the test copy, she'd already printed the first half of 7 more!  Once I saw the marks, I tried to stay calm, but tears filled my eyes.  The copy person said it was my paper, and she would not charge me for what was printed. Oh, and she said, "Sorry about that." What?   Sorry?  Yeah, the age of customer service is long gone.

So glad Gloria got me out every day.   I'd be in much worse shape without her insistent motivation. She's like a personal trainer. 

At that point, I'm worried I don't have enough paper left.   I get my zip drive and leave, not sure what to do.  I re-grouped, and went to Kinko's. They only had 100% cotton paper, not the 25% I had, so if they did the second half on that paper, my dissertations would look like hybrid creatures.    Plus it would be $300 for them to run the whole thing over, or $95 plus tax to print the whole thing on my paper.

While working, my Christmas Cacti bloomed.

The only house plants left from my once enormous collection.

They bloomed and bloomed.

I went home.  Sorted through what I had (did I tell you it wasn't collated, either?  7 copies of page 1.  7 copies of page 2....).  Decided I could live with my copies and my professors' copies having blemishes (sorry about that, Scott, Sara, and Bill), but I needed the University copies to be as clean as possible. So I ran 3 new copies of every blemished page on my printer. It looked like I had enough of my fancy paper to do the rest, so I decided to format a copy of my dissertation that was just the second half, correctly paginated, to take in to Staples.

But when I put my zip drive in my computer, a red virus warning popped up.  What?  I've never had a virus on my zip drive.    Antivirus quarantined it.  I deleted the files on my zip, and ran a virus scan of just the zip.  Got another red virus warning, but for a different virus.  So I picked up two viruses at the copy place?  Wow.

Another distraction. Care taking a herd of 24 chickens.

18 eggs a day, on average. And some of them were extremely above average size. No, there were no geese disguised as chickens. But the big ones were usually double yolks.

Headed into Staples.  The guy behind the copy counter turned out to be one of my former Blue Heron students, so that was a nice happenstance.   He started to run a test copy, and quickly learned that the laser copier turns cotton paper into curled crisp things.  Luckily he only ran 20 pages. But I started to panic about my dwindling paper! Their other Staples printer, the one that wouldn't curl paper, is not working.  Augh!  I head to the Kinko's in Eureka. The lady behind the counter assured me I had enough paper, and she would take care of it.    And she did.

Rare photo of Giovanna and me getting to work. This was the infamous day of the great Cow scare.  Here she is after almost an hour of in-hand work to bring her back to earth. Phew.  

So now my dissertations look quite interesting.  Three different copiers used, so three different levels of ink.  Not to mention the first half had to be hand sorted, so the pages aren't all crisply organized!  Oh well.  It's the words that count, right?  And the binders probably have a machine that tamps the paper into a neat block before binding.  I can hope!

Personal trainer Gloria, at work.

Lesson in this?   Not sure yet.   All I know is I really am done.    Trying not to panic about not having a job (or even a career!), not knowing what is next.  Doing odd jobs to get by, like fixing plumbing, babysitting, cleaning houses, and teaching an OLLI class on writing and doing pro-bono work helping kids with learning disabilities.  All greatly enjoyable.   Also working on getting organized after moving so many times, sorting through the stuff I had in storage at my McK house, and trying to remember what life is like without a huge goal sitting in front of me.  Lots of philosophical thinking lately about the meaning of life and all that. 

Luckily Gloria is a daily (hourly?) reminder of what life is about: Live in the moment, and take one day at a time. Enjoy what you are doing, for you never know what's around the next turn.  Whatever you do, get outside every day for a walk or four.

We are out of here!

March 17

Arcy's moon, Boise, ID, March 17, 2010

March 17th marked a year since Arcy left, way back in Idaho.
To honor her memory, I'm sharing a few photos from her life, and a true story about her "hunting" in the house.
I miss my RCA pup, and am so very glad for the memories.

Maroon was definitely one of Arcy's colors.

Our visit to Humboldt, December 2009.  Thank you Kathy!

Cuddling Arcy in Humboldt, before Idaho.

Arcy with her boy.

The girls, Day 2 of our Boise Venture.  Looking sharp in their new coats.

The Great Mouse Hunt

By Emily

One evening, about 8 pm, I was tidying up the kitchen before going to my study to work on school prep for the next day.  As I rearranged tea and coffee containers and wiped the counter, I noticed these tiny black crumbs no bigger than a small ant.  In fact, they looked like little mummy ants.  I called to my husband, “Hey, Pat, we’ve got mice!”

            Our McNab dog, Arcy, had been telling us all week that something was in the house.  Since she can over react to things, we ignored her. But now it was obvious that she had been right all along.

            “Where are the mice, Arcy?” I asked.  She snuffled under the stove while looking up at me and wagging her tail furiously.  Georgia, our terrier, noticed something was going on in the kitchen, and not one to be left out, she trotted in and stuck her nose under the stove, too. 

            Pat and I moved the stove out so I could clean and the dogs could continue their investigations. Sure enough, we found more evidence.  I cleaned. Arcy and Georgia sniffed and snuffed. We pushed the stove back in and I set to work cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. Seems the mice had been just about everywhere in that kitchen.  How did the little mummified ants get into the utensil container?  And under the microwave which is on top of the refrigerator?   Clearly these mice had rappelling gear or suction cups on their feet.

            Pat set some traps in the kitchen that night. The next evening, there was no new evidence of mice.  However, Arcy said, “The mice are behind the entertainment center…No, wait, they are in the bedroom closet. Oops, now they are back in the kitchen.”  She raced from room to room, “tracking” the mice.  Between you and me, I don’t think she knew where they were, but her persistence paid off, and Pat set a trap in the bedroom closet.

            The next evening, Arcy spent two hours telling me the mouse was in my computer table, right behind the printer. She crawled up into the cabinet and sat on top of my printer. I finally put her outside so I could get my work finished.

            No mouse action for almost a week, and then Arcy practically shouted “The mice are in the closet Right Now!”  She ran ahead as I moved towards the closet. She jumped up and down with anticipation as I opened the door.  “Wow Arcy, you were right. There was a mouse in the closet, and now it is dead.  Good hunter!”  I patted her happy head.  The poor little mouse was killed by the trap. As I looked at its cute face, I thought, “Surely we could live with mice?  Nah, they carry diseases…”

            I thought that was the end of our mouse problem.  Georgia and Arcy spent the next hour running from the now open closet to the kitchen and back again. I ignored them, thinking they were having  a good time, so why nag them to stop  Then there was a flurry of activity by the cat food container, and a tiny gray shape bounced into the bedroom, followed by two gleeful dogs.  “Crash!”  Arcy and Georgia ran smack into the closet door as the mouse darted under it.   I opened the closet door.  Five minutes later, the mouse streaked through he living room, hurtling under the couch.  Georgia squeezed under the couch as far as she could go, which was about mid belly, and lay there, tail wagging.  The mouse darted behind the wood stove, followed by two dogs.  Then back to the couch. Then around the corner and into my study, behind the bookshelf.

            Pat arrived home from work in the midst of this chaos.  I explained the situation, interrupted by the dogs (Yeah, yeah, it’s in there!  We almost caught it!  Can we get it now?  Hurry, hurry!”).  He got his BB gun and followed the dogs into my study.  The mouse ran from the bookshelf to my filing cabinet, back to the bookshelf, behind the sewing machine, over to the recycled paper box, then behind the record cabinet.  Each mouse movement followed by two dogs and two humans, like cars on a toy train connected by string. Finally we all cornered the pint-sized rodent and Pat ended the tiny creature’s life.

            The story continued over the next week as the dogs tried to engage me in frequent discussions about mice. They believed there were more in he house. I figured it was just the scent left over from the previous mice. Then, yesterday morning, I found more itty-bitty black things on the kitchen counters. I tried to convince myself that I had missed them during my previous cleaning.  Arcy looked at me with laughter in her eyes, and said, “No, I TOLD you there were more. Let’s go look!”  With that, she raced off into the bedroom, with Georgia seconds behind. Here we go again!