Happy Birthday NASA

Evacuation Updates -- Status your out of Houston Friends

We have been keeping up pretty well with everyone on our evacuation plan but did not inform all of our friends outside of Houston of our whereabouts. I also failed to factor in loved ones that do not use e-mail/blogs etc.

BIG MISTAKE. My dearest friend of the last 47 years, Darlene, was not on my list. She lives in Ft. Worth and has no idea how hurricane evacuations work or what plans we had in place. She left frantic messages that did not reach us and was headed to Houston this morning to try to find me. Thank God her husband delayed her rescue trip long enough for us to reach her before she got close to the mess. Darlene is one of the brightest and best women I know, but she won't use the Internet and never calls my cell. We very nearly had a serious problem just because we left someone out.

We've been able to check our voice mail from the house. Since the account is through the phone company and not tied to power in the house, we heard from several people we left off our call list. If you may have let someone fall through the cracks, check your address book and call those people before they send the national guard after you.

Evacuation for Ike

We have evacuated to Austin very close to Henri and Suzanne. We've checked on everyone we can. Here's what we know. If you find out more or can let us know how you're doing, please leave a comment.

Everyone's cells are working if you need to reach them/us, and Bill's had a tag-up with JSC today. Short-term, we will stay in Austin and can get help from friends if we need anything. We will not try to return to the house until we know if it is habitable.

We've been watching the news and praying for the folks still in Houston. A few of our folks are part of first responder/critical services and unable to leave. Nick's grandmother is in the sheriff's office in Dickenson.

UT canceled the game with the Razorbacks and freed up several thousand beds in Austin yesterday. Gov. Perry issued orders freezing lodging costs at their lowest rates. That's saving us about $30 per night and is much appreciated. Y'all would be so proud of Texas if you could see how well everything has been managed for the evacuation. We had no problems with finding gas and the traffic was very heavy but nothing like Rita. Carol said it took about 8 hours to get to Dallas, but they left late yesterday afternoon. Even so, the road were safe.

It would be great to hear status from anyone in Houston. For some stupid reason, I can't stop crying. I'm not very upset about our personal belongings but feeling very sad about what may happen to Galveston and Clear Lake. We've heard that Galveston may be totally submerged sometime tonight. Or neighborhood could be under 15-20 feet of water. Obviously, we all love Houston, and it hurts to think of what may happen to our city. More importantly, please keep yourselves safe. Everyone is going to have a combined birthday party Saturday, 7:00 at Tomi's, God willing. Keep safe and be there. We are praying for you all.

Power/communication could go down during and after the storm. So, please leave a comment here if necessary to let us know you're OK when the storm has passed.

Love,
Donna

Dreading Fridays

Several months ago, my rheumatologist prescribed an injectable medication to treat my arthritis. The medication is administered with a tiny subcutaneous needle and she therefore agreed I could do it myself at home.

I've been very happy to have the option of self-injection. However, the week in, week out toll of all of those shots has started to wear on my nerves. The needle/syringe are exactly the same as those used by diabetics to administer insulin. Those folks do this more than once a day and here I am starting to complain about one little shot once a week.

The whole thing really started to freak me out two weeks ago. I had skipped two weeks because of constant migraines. Finally the rheumatologist insisted I go back to my regular schedule. The first week was fine. No more headaches than usual. The next week I was dreading the shot, dreading worse headaches, mad about the arthritis and screwed up the injection.

It really is a tiny needle. Somehow, I put it in at an odd angle and the needle and its plastic support separated from the syringe. The medication poured out all over my leg. At first, I thought I'd broken the needle off and was in hysterics. When I realized it was safely held just as it should be, I was able to remove it and clean up. I didn't have the heart to give it another try.
So, Friday is really a gloomy day today. I think I'm going to wait for Bill to get home before I poke myself.

Oh! Then I had a nice announcement from the Arthritis foundation that certain medications, mine included, may increase my risk for fatal fungal infections!!!



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Now playing: The Beatles - Let It Be
via FoxyTunes

Booking Through Thursday -- Peer Pressure/Vampires and Librarians

I was looking through books yesterday at the shops and saw all the Twilight books, which I know basically nothing about. What I do know is that I’m beginning to feel like I’m the *only* person who knows nothing about them. Despite being almost broke and trying to save money, I almost bought the expensive book (Australian book prices are often completely nutty) just because I felt the need to be ‘up’ on what everyone else was reading. Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

I was planning to say, no. I don't feel the need to keep up with trends in popular literature. But staring me in the face is my last post for booking through Thursday in which I described the Twilight series mentioned above. So, let me say that vampires don't count. I read pretty much everything. This is a young adult series and I didn't pick it up right away. Someone at the books store suggested it. I'd finished the Tanya Huff series Bloodlines and she mentioned Twilight when I complained about being out of vampires.

I also have to say it is a bit different when reading becomes part of your professional life. I do have a sense, as a librarian, that I should at least be aware of trends. I read the best seller lists, awards lists, etc. and try to read at least some of the works. I make sure I've read the Newbery and Caldecott books every year. I also read the books from the Texas Bluebonnet list. Very often the children's books are better than the grown-ups. The NYT bestseller stuff I don't really count as personal reading. Very often I just skim them. Sometimes, I'll just take a few minutes in the bookstore and work my way through the new books shelf reading the book jackets, skimming the tables of content, etc.