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maura @ 9:06 pm

I feel like some of my tweets are missing from this list, but I’m not entirely sure. I *have* been really busy lately and not twittering as much as usual, so maybe that’s it. Though I also think I remember hearing that Twitter was down at some point so maybe some got sucked into the ether. Anyway, complete or incomplete, here’s what I’ve got:

@Annefesto yah, there’s usually karate on sat mornings which helps, but yesterday it was canceled.
about 11 hours ago via Echofon in reply to Annefesto

@divanoir no baking, but I did make lunch & dinner fer the kid, does that count? also vacuumed enough cat hair to make a new cat, srsly.
7:07 PM Mar 27th via web

Finding myself somewhat paralyzed by the Saturdayness (and the chilly weather). What should we do today?
10:29 AM Mar 27th via Echofon

@lwaltzer If you’re NYC museuming next Monday many are prob open because the public schools are on spring break.
8:59 PM Mar 26th via Echofon in reply to lwaltzer

Lunchtime reading: library graffiti hilarity from my alma mater. Nerds FTW! http://www.crescatgraffiti.com/
12:20 PM Mar 26th via web

Today’s tactical error: I should have worn a hat. Wwwwwindy!
8:31 AM Mar 26th via Echofon

@librarianmer is the fruit heavier? if so, it might ooze downward & not look very nice. (also, thrill of discovery!)
8:29 AM Mar 26th via Echofon in reply to librarianmer

@divanoir j says April 1 for #fringe.
10:36 PM Mar 25th via Echofon in reply to divanoir

@mikhailg can you ask yr students if they’ll let you post their extra credit on the blog? I’d love to read their answers!
11:11 PM Mar 23rd via Echofon in reply to mikhailg

@divanoir A colleague of mine @s_francoeur from Baruch College Library tweeted it. Interesting! Might show to my class.
7:24 AM Mar 17th via Echofon in reply to divanoir

Found a small hole in my cardigan :( #yesimalibrarian
1:24 PM Mar 16th via Echofon

all this pushing and shoving

maura @ 10:46 pm

WARNING: this post is about cats. Even though the internet is made of cats*, I don’t spend a lot of time writing about ours. But tonight that’s all going to change, so if cats aren’t yr bag you might want to come back next time. I promise never to talk about cats for 2 posts in a row, scout’s honor.

* Link not entirely safe for work, just so’s you know.

We have had a bit of cat drama around here recently. Kind of an escalation, if you will, of bad behavior.

So, a little while back we started to have some issues with pooping outside the box. And the thing about that is that it’s not at all like thinking outside the box. It’s much much MUCH smellier and (potentially) more inconvenient.

At first it was just the one cat, and it was happening in the bathtub. So we started filling the tub with a few inches of water. There was one hilarious incident with a jump and a surprised “meow!” and then it stopped for a while. And then it started again, except on the floor. And then the other, stupider cat was like, “hey, this is fun for me, too!”

I looked on the internets, where all the crazy cat people live. Advice is, as you may imagine, plentiful, though never exactly what you want to hear. Why no, we are actually NOT going to have 3 litterboxes for 2 (smallish) cats in our 2 bedroom apartment, why would you think that?

Finally this week we took the main offender to the vet. (And his poop, too, because what’s more fun than collecting cat poop in a container in the freezer?) She doesn’t know what’s wrong but gave us some antibiotics to try. Wrestling the meds into the cat is taking us back: it’s just about as much fun as it was to try to get Gus to take antibiotics when he was a toddler. We finally resorted to vanilla ice cream for Gus, even for breakfast, but not sure what this cat would like since he’s not a fan of canned food.

The weirdest thing is this: the other cat has been totally, completely FREAKED OUT since the pooper came back from the vet. It must be the smell of the antibiotics, but I’ve never seen anything like it. He’ll walk over to the pooper, take a sniff, then hiss mightily and run away to hide! It’s a very weird feline showdown thing. The pooper is unfazed, and in some ways seems to be enjoying the freedom — the other cat is usually dominant when it comes to food and preferred spots for hanging out.

Hopefully the antibiotics will fix everything right up, because I have to admit that this is getting a little old. I like the cats, really I do, but I am tired of the shenanigans!

(That’s my instant make-Gus-giggle statement these days: he can’t get enough of my old-lady complaints about being tired of the shenanigans.)

kind of a cop out

maura @ 6:15 pm

Yeah, you guessed it, this isn’t really a post. Kind of a finger in the eye after 6 days, huh? But I did write a post on my other blog about the website I made for the course I’m teaching this semester. It’s long enough that I can add a “W” to the calendar for today (= I wrote something somewhat substantial), and will just have to do for a Sunday evening.

what did you see there?

maura @ 10:02 pm

Has it really been over 2 weeks since I posted my Twitterstream? Oh my, it has. And now I have to go read about plagiarism because this book is due back to the library soon. While I’m at it, you can read this:

@MissTanya @paigecasey stop it y’all, I’m about to start crying.
44 minutes ago via Echofonin reply to MissTanya

RT @aegisnyc: Sunday night and I want a do-over. (me too!)
9:17 PM Mar 14th via Echofon

I just don’t have time for daylight savings this year, can I get a raincheck?
9:14 PM Mar 13th via web

Trying to take advantage of Gus @ bday party time to get some work done. Hard to decide where to start.
12:39 PM Mar 13th via Echofon

Collaboration/interoperability across academic libraries is all good, but we can’t do it w/closed systems like Blackboard. #refsymp
10:52 AM Mar 12th via Echofon

RT @eszter: I’m hiring a postdoc. See details here: http://webuse.org/postdoc10
9:09 PM Mar 10th via Echofon

About to teach my first English instruction session of the semester!
8:32 AM Mar 10th via Echofon

I would like to have self-brushing teeth. Self-flossing, too.
10:35 PM Mar 8th via Echofon

Gus has a joke for librarians w/kids who <3 Kirby: metadata is data used by Metaknight
9:02 PM Mar 6th via web

@mkgold I’m not doing archaeology right now, but I’d be happy to help yr student if I can.
7:36 PM Mar 6th via Echofon in reply to mkgold

@jrrnyc right there with ya — spent the afternoon grading & emailing. I can go outside tomorrow, right?
7:31 PM Mar 6th via Echofon in reply to jrrnyc

@mkgold thanks for sharing that article (http://is.gd/9PnF8) – maybe something we can draw on for the grant proposal?
1:48 PM Mar 6th via Echofon in reply to mkgold

Gus is watching Kirby videos on the iPod, I’m catching up on rss feeds and Twitter. Friday night, y’all.
8:20 PM Mar 5th via Echofon

watching this: http://bit.ly/Hb9pW creepy, weird, cool. thinking I should reread the book. eyeballs!
10:54 PM Mar 4th via Echofon

Yay! RT @mkgold: RT @nowviskie UVA Faculty Senate unanimously approves [opt-in] Open Access/Authors’ Rights resolution. http://is.gd/9sEtY
1:51 PM Mar 1st via Echofon

Done! http://twitpic.com/15yov7
9:42 PM Feb 28th via Echofon

Ok, iphone cozy, it’s ON. I’m going to finish you this weekend if it’s the last thing I do!
9:50 PM Feb 26th via Echofon

my office glows

maura @ 9:41 pm

We’re on Day 6 of the 10 Days of No Electronic Entertainment and doing pretty well here. The week was pretty easy, and as a bonus we discovered that Gus’s morning pokiness has nothing to do with video games at all: he’s just as much of a dawdler when he’s reading a book. I will admit to a bit of panic when I first heard that it’s going to torrentially rain all weekend, but today was fine. (Okay, I confess: he did have a birthday party in the middle of the day.)

All this talk of (no) video games reminds me that earlier this week I took a picture on my walk to work and haven’t had a chance to post it yet. So here it is:

Hard to make out, I know, so I’ll explain it. The college across the street from the college where I work has a dorm, and sometimes the students write stuff on the windows or use post-it notes to create pictures/words. This art using post-its is pretty damn brilliant: on the top is Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, and some gold rings. Moving down on the left is Pac-Man with a trail of dots, then Mario. Out towards the right away from Mario are boxes to jump on with a flag on the end all the way on the right.

Not only is this a cute riff on pixel art but it’s also cooperative. Since it spans many windows on multiple floors, the residents of those rooms had to get together to create it. Wonder if it was all at once or an accretion? Who knows, but I have to smile every morning when I pass by.

whiplash weather

maura @ 6:37 pm

I’m always surprised at how fast things can change with early Spring weather. This time last weekend we were drinking hot chocolate after Jonathan took Gus and a pal to the park to get in some sledding and build a snow fort (after the 2 feet of snow we’d gotten the day before). Today it was 53 degrees and sunny, though there are still a few dirty piles of snow yet to melt. I took Gus to karate this morning, but we’ve spent the afternoon inside.

What is is about the internets that makes us want to own up to stuff that we’re maybe a bit ashamed about? I always feel guilty when we don’t take advantage of the nice weather and do something outside. The botanic gardens, the High Line, riding bikes in the park, getting back on our scooters: we could have done any of those things today. But I’m tired and Jonathan’s tired–indeed, we both napped, which is a rare luxury. Gus was perfectly happy to spend the day playing video games and watching Japanese Kirby videos (subtitled in English) on YouTube. And we’re planning to head to the zoo tomorrow so we’ll have plenty of opportunity for vitamin D and running around then.

You all know how I feel about video games, both for Gus and for myself. Recently we have put some limits on weekend gametime; the weekdays tend to police themselves, what with school and homework. But many weekends we’re doing stuff, too, in which case it’s not really an issue. We didn’t impose any limits today because Monday starts a 10 day electronic fast in our house. In Gus’s school the highest grades go on a camping trip each year, and to raise money for the trip they do a read-a-thon in which sponsors pledge a few cents a page. The teachers have decided that in the midst of the read-a-thon will be a 10 day period with no TV or other electronic devices. For everyone in the family, I might add.

I always feel a bit torn about these digital fasts. On the one hand, I do see some value in taking a break from electronics–they use electricity, and you don’t tend to move much while using them. They can also be kind of antisocial, though I hesitate to even bring that up because they can also be *more* social. When I’m talking to an old college pal on facebook aren’t I being more social than if I’m sitting on my sofa reading? And Gus already reads a ton–one day last month he read 219 pages of Harry Potter #2!–so it’s not like I’m worried that he’s not spending enough time hitting the books.

What I expect the 10 days will do (beyond raising money for the trip) is highlight my own various uses of electronics. Between my phone and laptop at home there’s work work (mostly but not solely email), research work, work-related reading, twitter (which is half work half not), personal email, news reading, facebook (actually not so much these days, maybe 2-3x/week), and TV/movie watching (I’ve been busy enough recently that there hasn’t been much gaming for me). Some of those can happen while Gus is asleep, so I don’t need to worry about them. But I do tend to use the phone, especially, to fill in at certain times. In the morning at the breakfast table I usually check weather, email, the NY Times, and twitter. In the evening while supervising Gus getting ready for bed I’m often catching up on personal email, twitter, facebook, or RSS feeds (overwhelmingly library- or higher ed-related).

Technically I won’t be able to use the phone or computer in that kind of filling in the cracks way during the electronics fast. Luckily I’m also about 2 months behind on New Yorkers, so maybe I can get through those, finally. But I predict that it’ll be hard to remember to check the weather at nights while Gus is asleep.