Happy New Year

This was to be the year I started a Christmas letter with all the free time not working would allow me. Didn't happen. Probably for the best - a yearly letter seems quaint in the era of constant blogging. The New Year's cards I bought also didn't happen so please allow me to indulge in reminiscing about the past year.



A three week trip to Romania to visit Erin brought me to a deeper appreciation of the good old USA and of course, Texas. Things I took for granted but now appreciate:

• traffic laws that drivers actually obey
• street signs
• colorful clothing
• discretionary income
• attentive waiters
• my car
• people who smile & make eye contact
• drinkable tap water
• my local gym
• small bodied airline seat mates
• television stations other than those offered on the Armed Forces Network
• taxi drivers that speak English
• cell phones

Retirement has allowed me to like children again! I actually sat by the playground at Central Market and reveled in watching them play. I also didn't mind the Christmas crowds. Not having to deal with the public every day and be responsible for the children's behavior in the library has allowed me to revert to the fairly nice person I used to be!

As your probably know by now if you've read any of my blogs, my children are spread out over the nation and the world. Justin's an FBI agent in Miami, Erin & Jon work for the State Department in Romania and Rachel, Justin's wife, is busy with a residency in ob/gyn in Charlotte. I always said I'd raise my kids to follow their dreams, even if that meant leaving the Fort and damn if they didn't do it. Lucky for me, they're all coming to visit at the end of January.

I've decided to focus on the positive in 2010 and note something good that happens to me every day. There's too little time to let other people's hatred bring me down and I of all people, after dealing with the public all those years, know that the vast majority of people are good and it's that small minority that cause all the problems. Two good things have already happened today - 1) the calming relief I felt after an extremely hard yoga class when I finally got to lay on the mat and breathe deep. 2) the smile and "Happy New Year" I received from a musician, playing practically for free at Potbelly's, when I tipped him and told him how much I enjoyed his playing.

My New Year's Resolutions:

1. This will be the hardest. Focus on the good traits of family & friends and not their annoying traits/habits/personality flaws/etc (I knew this would be hard, but I have one more night of sniping).

2. Make more of an effort to contact friends and to actually do something with them.

3. Improve my yoga moves! This should be the easiest - there's no place to go but up.

4. Find a rewarding volunteer opportunity. My goal was to be selfish for 6 months but that's harder than it sounds.

5. Join the local Audubon Society. I'm a bird nerd!

If you have any comments for my blog please let me know something good that happened to you today!

Joe Biden Visits VIPs in Bucharest

What can I say? Joe Biden came to Bucharest, invited the embassy staff to a meet and greet at the ambassador's house and the staff were allowed to invite family members. How's that for a round about way to meet the Vice President of the United States?

He was very charming, friendly - even asking me where my home town was. When the children of the embassy staff became restless he invited them on the stage. I'd definitely vote for him again!

Honey Bunny does Istanbul

4 Days in Istanbul:

Turkish Airlines managed to serve lunch for a 1 hour flight! It was not bad either, if you like tuna, which I do. Just don't try to step in the aisle during the flight attendants' lunch sprint. Checked into the Ferman Hotel in the Sultanahmet District of Instanbul's Old Town area. There was a problem with my room, something about the water going pfooosh! I was downgraded from an ocean room for 1 night and Jon & Erin were upgraded to a penthouse view of the Sea of Marmara to make up for it. They deserved it since I was basically tagging along on their Anniversary and Jon's birthday trip. The hotel was very near the Blue Mosque and was easily walked to be going straight up a narrow squiggly street, turning right where the fresh fish were displayed in artful, bizarre (prawn in fish mouth) fashion, walking to end of narrow street, turning left or right on another narrow street and breathing a sigh of relief when one of the minarets from either the Blue Mosque or Hagia Sophia popped into view. After counting the minarets to verify which one was the Blue Mosque I was sort of oriented as long as I was standing between the two. Thank goodness Jon was usually taking the lead. I guess my sense of direction only works in wide open spaces. At least I knew that walking down was to the sea and up was to something else. This logic could backfire however since there was not only the Sea of Marmara, but also the Bosphorous Strait and the Golden Horn to contend with.



Did I mention that 15 million people live in Istanbul, not counting the 10 billion tourists (that figure I just made up by counting the number of tourists inside of the Topkapi Palace while we were there, multiplying by 2 and dividing by the number of feral cats). There also seemed to be a taxi for every person living in Istanbul circling around and having stand offs in the one lane streets. The stand offs would be solved by self designated neighborhood traffic watchdogs standing in the middle of the alley yelling at drivers and pointing in various directions. The streets were not actually one way, but could only accomodate one car at a time. This was just in the Old Town. In other parts of Istanbul such as the New District there were plenty of lanes for the cars to altnernately standstill, cut each other off and gauge how close to pedestrians they could get without actually hittting them (lightly grazing pedestrians, especially tourists is an acceptable practice, even encouraged).

The 10 billion tourists moved about the city in groups following upraised umbrellas and flags. These groups of people did not flow in and out of the city nearly as gracefully as the taxis. They were more like connected train cars following their engine, making it very difficult to cut through the middle of them. It did make for very interesting people watching. In the New District the throngs of people were mainly Turks out for the evening, all dressed in black. We ate dinner in the New District but didn't hang around as there was a protest coming down Istiklal Street. We hopped into a taxi and asked to go to the Blue Mosque which posed a problem since the driver didn't know a word of English, never mind that the Blue Mosque is the most popular tourist attraction in the city. We managed to find it with the help of a few shouted questions to other taxi drivers.

We managed the major tourist attractions in Istanbul: Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and the Harem within, Underground Cistern, Grand Bazaar, Archeological Museum and the obligatory Bosphorous Strait cruise featuring Turkish dancing. Highlights for me were the beautiful tile work everywhere, the harem, the Alexander Sarcophagus in the archeology museum and people watching at the outdoor cafes. All the cafes near out hotel seemed to have similar menus and frankly seemed interchangeable, but had much charm. The cafe employees worked the streets, encouraging everyone to try their food. Many of the waiters had limited English and were quiet endearing with their English phrases - one even called me honey bunny.

Honey bunny was an apt nickname for me when it came to bargaining. I bought 1 souvenir in a shop which had fixed prices. Jon did much better, sticking a minimal amount of money in his pocket and claiming that's all he had. Erin wasn't much better than honey bunny but at least she braved the bargain.

Back in Bucharest now. Yesterday had a True Blood marathon watching 6 episodes due to cold, rainy weather. Did manage to go to the local grocery store and get slightly lost on the way back. More of the same weather today so might just finish Season 1.

Metro, peasants & 1 naked lady

10-14-09 Braved the Metro today with no mishaps with the help of random Romanians and a prepurchased Metro ticket (Erina bought it for me). Hopped off at the Piati Victoriei - one of the very large traffic circles where the crazy drivers keep swerving in each other's lanes and there are no apparent street signs. I managed to find Sos. Kiseleff where the Peasant Museum is located - glad I had written down the Romanian name - Muzeul Taranului Romanbecause there are 2 other museums nearby. It looked closed but the front gate opened and I seemed to be the first visitor. With no help from the many employees guarding the exhibits by talking to their coworkers or their friends on the phone I finally figured out that most rooms had this laminated sheet you could take explaining what area and century the items were from. Well worth the visit - I've always thought that nobody paid attention to signs but when they are not available they are sorely missed! I'm tired of asking where the toaleta is.

Walking back from the Metro stop I spied a naked lady (not quite buck naked thanks to a pair of socks) across the street. After the classic double and triple take I watched for awhile to see what would happen. She failed to board a bus stopped nearby and was giving what I feel was a nasty gesture to passing motorists honking at her. She crossed the street and hung out for awhile, ignored by a passing police car. Not knowing whether this was normal crazy Romanian behavior I went back to Erin's apartment and she informed me that she has never got to see a naked Romanian lady. Aren't I lucky!

Romanian Ruminations

10-6-09 Flew on American from DFW to London to Bucharest arriving in Bucharest late afternoon of 10-7-09. Ate at Quatro Spaggiaano in Herastrau Park by Erin & Jon's apartment. Italian food is very predominant. Herastrau is the largest park in Bucharest. Next day spent catching up on missed sleep - I don't understand how anyone in economy can sleep, but I think I was in the sleepless minority.
2nd night Erin & I walked to Hard Rock Cafe on the north end of the park. We encountered typical Romanian logic after switching to a table with more light in order to read our menus. 20 minutes later the man who seated us came up and said we hadn't been waited on because we were sitting in a "closed section". I guess that meant we had lost our appetites.
Did finally manage to order and eat typical Romanian meal of cheese burgers and nachos.
3rd day explored Herastrau Park and visited the Village Museum which I actually thought was the Peasant Museum. No wonder the random person giving me directions to the Peasant Museum pointed me in the wrong direction! I realized this immediately and retraced my steps to the sign pointing to the Village Museum (in Romanian, thus the confusion about peasant & village). The arrows were ambiguously pointing to some bushes behind the sign. Having already taken the wrong direction I headed in the only other direction available to me and found the museum 20 paces away. I had actually already bypassed an earlier shortcut but of course there were no signs! As this was a minor entrance, there was no map available to buy that I could discern but i was encouraged by the availability of a toilet immediately upon entrance putting my mind and other body parts at ease. There were over 60 houses & a few churches brought in from various parts of Romania as well as many varieties of mills. Very interesting - I spent about 2.5 hours there and wilted about 3/4 through. Should have brought food & drink (concession stand closed right before I needed it) but I thought I was going to the Peasant Museum with a small cafe. Upon exit, finally found a Coke Zero - thank you for your world dominance Coca Cola! - and collapsed on the river bank. Romanians love this park and seem to be here all day and night - Erin said there used to be a problem with extreme public display of affection that no longer seems to be an issue.
3rd night Jon and I picked up Mexican food from El Torrito to bring back - Jon is amazingly brave to drive in this traffic with no apparent law abiding drivers. My chicken enchiladas with salsa verde was great; unfortunately, the Mexican food place is not doing well - if you come to Romania be sure and go there.
On Saturday morning we took off to Transylvania. First stop was Sinaia to visit Castle Peles. Built by King Carol in 1866. My gracious tour guides - Jon & Erin - know that to be polite in Romania is to always be last so we stood our ground near the front of the tourist throng - no polite British queues here. Our English speaking castle tour guide was about 5 feet tall and was rather soft spoken with a heavy Romanian accent. Therefore I can't really relate much of what I saw which is lucky for you since there is nothing more boring than a play by play of a museum, castle or church. Suffice it to say that the woodwork was German and very fancy with antique collections, mostly of weapons, from all over the world. Had lunch at a Romanian/Serbian restaurant named Taverna Sarbului. Wonderful inexpensive food - all the food here is inexpensive. I had an eggplant dish similar to babaganoush and bean soup - OK there is something more boring than a play by play of a castle - it's a detailed description of everything I had to eat! Too bad - this is my travel diary. On to Brasov!
By the way I failed to mention we are in the Carpathian Mountains. Very beautiful but a bit hazy at the time. Weather is unseasonably warm - another boring topic but I won't tell you what I was wearing. Brasov is a mid sized Saxon city with a wonderful medieval square (Piata Sfatului). We stayed across the street from the square at Hotel Bella Muzica which also has a wonderful restaurant (trout, mushrooms, greek salad and Ursus - a Romanian beer). Hundreds of people mill about the square - many shops line the streets (I broke and bought my 1st souvenir in one of them) with outdoor bars and restaurants. Ate Mexican food (located next to the KFC) again on the square the next morning and here I thought I would be without it for 3 weeks. Visited another very different castle further up the road - Braun castle, known as Dracula's castle for tourism reasons. The castle was first documented in 1377. Back to Bucharest that evening along with the other 2 million residents on a 2 lane road. Leaving the city on weekends is a national pastime.
Monday - rainy day in Bucharest on Columbus Day. Erin and I took a walk around the lake, joined by one of the 200,000 stray dogs. They are well fed and seem non threatening unless meeting another group of dogs from another territory. It's Jon's birthday and we're off to a Caru cu bere, an historical beerhouse. Here's an excerpt from their web page which is a great example of the translations encountered here so far.

Along with the beer made after a secret original recipe, Caru' cu bere is also famous for the tastiest culinary recipes. For a long time house specialty was considered to be hot dogs with horseraddish, of wich tonnes were consumed every day, and for the gratered horseraddish many waiters generations wiped. The Frankfurters, boeuf salad, black radish and olives offered for free along with the wine bottle created for many people a pleasant addiction. But no one complained, on the contrary!

The beer was good and could become a pleasant addiction!

Library Thing #16 LibraryWorm #117

LibWorm - I've had this as part of my professional bookmarks since it was started and use it as a source when looking for library information.

Library Thing I love you! It's hard to keep up with favorite authors and books when you read constantly, don't own the books and your library record is wiped clean every time you return a book. I was just having a conversation with two other librarians and none of us can tell you the title of the particular book we happen to be reading, the author yes, the plot yes, the subject matter, yes, but not the title. My problem is compunded when I'm reading a book and listening to another. Not only do I forget the titles, but am confounded for a moment or two when I start reading or listening expecting the thread of whatever I last heard or read.

I read about a book a week, yet could only remember about a dozen I'd read recently when entering titles into LibraryThing. The recommendations in LibraryThing following a book title reminded me of other books I have read and authors I love.

Can't wait to go home and add more titles. On to the next thing.

# 10, 11,12,13,14,15 Ning, IM, Twitter, Tags, Delicious and Digg

Digg - not for me. I'd rather filter my own news and information than have others do it for me. I would have been more interested if it was only recommendations for news and periodical sites. To add everything from the web including blogs and videos diluted the site too much for me.

Delicious is great - it's similar to Backflip which I joined years ago when changing jobs. It's interesting that I didn't keep using Backflip in the new job but instead reverted back to Internet Explorer's favorites (I think it was because of the slowness of connecting). I definitely will keep using Delicious since I'm retiring and want to be able to see my bookmarks from any place in the world. It will take awhile to tag the bookmarks I transferred from Explorer. http://delicious.com/sallymctravel

I joined Ning 2 years ago, formed a group for managers which none of us ever used. The concept is great - finding time to do it is problematic. How many things can one person keep up with realistically?

IM I have google talk at home - won't load at work. I keep waiting to try it with my daughter who is in Bucharest but since it's 8 hours later there we haven't connected yet.

Twitter is intriguing but so far I've just wasted time on it. I searched using the hashtag #ALA2009 and waded through everyone's comments but only found 2 entries out of 20 helpful professionally. I'm following mainly news sources now and don't see the advantage of tweets over having the news sent directly to my e-mail as I do now. When I upgrade to a better cell phone I can see more value in receiving these on a mobile phone. I'll have to spend more time searching for meaningful tweets. I did read the following articles that convinced me to keep trying. Update: I am now following Mary Ellen Bates, Research Buzz and Lance Ulanoff from PC Magazine. More useful.

All A Twitter: Want to Try Microblogging?
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6573999.html

Mary Ellen Bate's May 2009 InfoTip: Twitter on Context
http://www.batesinfo.com/may-2009-infotip.html

I have saved Unshelved's comic strip about microblogging in my e-mail since March and it still makes me laugh http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20090311

Tags are with us whether we want them or not; it's similar to keyword searching of databases - I like the concept of graphical tags or tag clouds explained very well in another post by Mary Ellen Bates http://www.batesinfo.com/march-2009-infotip.html.

One of millions

Took the plunge this week and joined Facebook - not only am I one of millions (thank goodness it's not as big as the national debt) BUT the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55 - there are now nearly 1.5 million of us active on Facebook each month. It is still a small percentage (3%) of users overall but still impressive.



I was just relieved that a few people (under 1.5 million) answered my plea to be a friend. It felt like begging and the old fear of being snubbed from elementary, middle & high schools reared it's ugly head.

Also had to get over the yuck factor from years of observing creepy people in the library viewing strangers' photos on the social network sites. The last altercation I had was a family looking in horror at "creepy fedora man" talking on his cell phone to a woman on a web camera. Who knows what he was saying - I told him to hang up but I really wanted to yell at the woman - what are you thinking??? Why don't these women realize that they are talking to jobless, possibly homeless men that have time to look at these sites all day long.

So far I like blogging on this site a lot more than messing with Facebook but that might change with time and having more time when I retire.

Don't talk to strangers!

Things 6 & 7

In keeping with the travel theme most of the selected sites for my Google Reader are in the newly created travel folder. I also selected a word for the day, including pronunciation. In the last three days I've learned the meanings of louche (of questionable or immoral taste), sartorial (relating to a tailor) and ineffable (incapable of being expressed). In order to get more out of this exercise I will create viable sentences using these three words. After reading a recent article in the New York Times entitled "Watching Whales Watching Us" my feelings were ineffable: the interaction of the whales with humans was often not initiated by the humans but by the whales. How must the whales think of us and our sartorial styles; all they wear are barnacles and orange sea lice. How must they perceive our louche behavior as compared to their straightforward lives?

Update: I have added many RSS feeds to my Google Reader as I find them - just added one for Google Documents after doing # 19.

Cat People (#4,5)

I used this photo for mashup and image generator - I also did a peace symbol image generator but it was so lame I couldn't publish it!

Why are most librarians cat people?? This has always confounded me until I started looking for dogs and book photos on flickr. Cats are definitely the smarter animal. They rarely let themselves be photographed doing something undignified. In photos of dogs and books, the books usually met a sad demise or the dogs actually let their owners put a pair of reading glasses on them and take their photo slobbering on a book. Pathetic. Says more about the owner than the dog.

Disclaimer: I am allergic to some cats, we feed 4-6 feral cats (have had 5 fixed) (this is my husband's fault), I grew up with dogs but have had cats and dogs as an adult, I cried shamelessly at the end of Marley and Me (both the book and the movie), I don't believe a cat has ever made me cry shamelessly- wait, I just remembered Thomasina - retract last statement, I have definitely spent more money on vet bills for dogs (didn't know there were large dog surcharges until I had 2 very large dogs) and finally I am fighting the urge to have another non-feral pet.

Beach Lightning (#3)

Originally, I said this blog would be about my exciting retirement travels. The retirement has been delayed for entirely selfish reasons having to do with incentives to retire that might be forthcoming.

I do want to share my first trip even though it is preretirement and was taken not with Charley (as in Travels with Charley, the name of my blog) but in an American Airlines jet. Don't want to bore you with details - I'm adding those to the bottom of the post for my own gratification and reference guide.

One of the highlights or scarier moments of the trip was the lightning 0n the beach - I found this fantastic photo on flickr which is exactly what I witnessed while being outside! Another scary moment had to do with a transparent jellyfish floating right in front of my face mask. Didn't know such a small creature could give me such a thrill. Luckily I was on the surface and didn't suck water when I gasped.

Lauder by the Sea was an old school Florida kind of place with some low rise hotels still available and reasonable food prices especially at the diner on Commercial Blvd. The best thing about it was that a coral reef lay a little over 100 yards out to sea; an easy swim for snorkeling. The 4th of July fireworks were right off the beach next to where we were staying. They were beautiful, although I felt for the sea turtles who even thought about laying eggs in the sand that night. A small trail the next morning attested to one actually coming up on the sand only to beat a hasty retreat from all the drunken revelers. I found my perfect retirement job by the way - driving a mule along the beach looking for turtle tracks.

Hotel - High Noon Resort - great place right on the beach. Well insulated, thank God, or the Bumpusses' family reunion would have been hard to bear. Even grandad started drinking beer after or instead of breakfast.

Restaurants:

Aruba Beach Cafe- great Bimini bread and an interesting tomato based conch soup. Beautiful view of ocean

Oceans 234 - down A1A or Ocean Drive as name implies. Right on the beach in Deerfield Beach- great seafood place. Nice but casual.

Village Grill - good omelets

By-the-Sea Diner - breakfast and lunch. Booths only wide enough for 2 people. Lots of bar stools. Delicious inexpensive breakfast.

Zuckerello's & Fish Co - My son, Justin's GPS directed us to Zuckerello's after being too underdressed for Blue Moon Fish Company. Very friendly service with Italian flavored seafood.

Snorkeling highlights - turtle, parrotfish, French angelfish

61 days and counting

When I first started at Fort Worth Public Library it struck me how many city employees knew the exact number of days they had until retirement. No way was I going to get into such a rut even if I stayed at a job long enough to retire.



Fast forwarding 22.5 years, as I look at the retirement clock sitting in my cubicle, I can barely recall what that young version of me was like. I do remember a business reference librarian that would be shocked to know she would become a branch manager.



When told that I am going to retire soon, the vast number of people ask me what I'm going to do. For those unimaginative beings out there I have decided to dedicate this blog to the vast opportunities awaiting.



Charley is my new Santa Fe, named for Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. She will be my new traveling companion. Not having read the aforementioned book in quite some time I was dismayed to learn that it was written when Steinbeck was 58. I distinctly remember him being an old man when he wrote it!