September 04, 2006

The End of Summer 2006

So, another Labor Day has come and gone, and summer vacation is officially over. Laurel starts 9th grade at John F. Kennedy, Jr. High School tomorrow morning, and I go back to work at the library "for real". I actually started yesterday, but used the morning to catch up on my saved e-mail and my stuffed in-box.

Sacramento Public has just unrolled a new subscription to Overdrive, which features downloadable e-books and audiobooks. (Hawaii libraries' Overdrive subscription is here.) So Laurel and I went shopping at Fry's this afternoon - she got an i-Pod for her music, and I bought a Creative Zen Nano MP-3 player. (Overdrive doesn't work with i-Pods.) We were competing for use of the laptop this afternoon as a result, since the computer I normally use is still running Windows98, and most new software is no longer compatible. Besides, the book downloads take too long on our slow dial-up connection; stealing the neighbor's fast wireless signal is more time-effective.

I've been using the Labor Day weekend to recover from the great send-off from Hawaii and the great homecoming in Sacramento. I lost 8 lbs during the time I was in Hawaii, and gained 3 lbs back due to pizzas and Portuguese sausage. So I've started walking again in the mornings, and also swimming laps for a half hour in the evenings. I'm hoping to negate the gain by my next weigh-in on Wednesday.

I've talked to Mom on the phone every day since I returned, and she sounds very good. In fact, the last time I talked to her, her enunciation was very clear, and she sounded in very good spirits. I'm sending her a "noodle" for the day she will be able to get into the swimming pool again. It was a gift from a neighbor who moved from our townhome complex to a duplex without a pool. No one here uses it, and Mom and Mary might get some fun out of it.

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