Is It Weird or Just Sad...

I'm at the airport bookstore, because I function on ABBA time and got here 2.5 hours early, that I want to rearrange the shelves. I've met with this impulse in the past at Barnes & Noble and have gone so far as to actually rearrange the books. It bothers me when they have authors out of alphabetical order or they put a book face out in the middle of another author's spine out books just so the shelf is broken up a bit.

Does anybody else out there struggle with this impulse?

Book 16 - Jane Austen Book Club

I actually finished reading The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler on the flight back from camping. Here is the back cover:

In California's Central Valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With an eye for the frailties of human behavior and an ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.

All in all, this was a pleasant book. There wasn't a lot of plot to it. It didn't require a whole lot of thought while reading it. I'd seen the last 30 minutes of the movie they made out of it so I didn't really have any great expectations (in fact, the movie seemed to be a little better than the book). Not a book that I would highly recommend, but since I paid the Barnes & Noble bargain bin price for it I'm not really discouraged over the waste of money. If anybody wants to borrow it, let me know. It is now in my Half-Priced Books stack.

Ranting....

Yes, Gentle Reader, I'm trying to make up for not blogging consistently...

A couple of things have struck me this morning that just chaps my hide and I feel the need to share.

1. I go into the restroom and select the stall on the far end. There are three in this particular facility and the other two are perfectly fine as well...empty, clean, nothing wrong with them, I just want to use the one with the handicap bars to help steady me since I have on The Boot. Somebody comes in to the restroom and instead of selecting the first stall, which I think would be logical as that would put a buffer stall between us, she selects the one right next to me. Now why would somebody opt for that? Wasn't there a whole Seinfeld episode regarding which urinal it is acceptable to select and isn't that applicable to women's restrooms as well?
2. If you are going to stand in the hallway and have a conversation, move out of the flow of traffic. You should both stand on one side of the hallway, not on opposite walls and then force people to walk through your conversation. Better yet, take the conversation into an empty conference room, copy room, break room, or even to the low traffic corner by the elevator...but for the most part, get the heck outta my way.
3. There is a holder in the ice machine to put the ice scoop in. Use it! Don't just chunk the scoop back into the bin and force the next person to have to dig through all the ice to get it out. You don't know what sort of germs are now on that ice. Do you think those germs are killed off when I get the boiling water out of the coffee machine to pour over my ice rather than the water from the tap?
4. If you make me provide you with contact information on your website just so I can get the price for a training class, don't get huffy with me when I don't take your calls or return your email. I wanted a single piece of information, I got that information, if I decide that I want to take your class then I will contact you. But, again, don't get an attitude with me...

Whew, I feel better getting these things off my chest. Perhaps I should just start blogging once a week of all the things that have me annoyed over the past 7 days.... hmmm, that would require me to remember the past 7 days and right now I'm lucky if I can remember the past 7 hours.... (wow, and I even have a label called "ranting" I need to do more of that)

2010 Camping Recap

So, this isn't actually a recap, but more of an update on my ankle that I thought I sprained on my first day of camping.

Last week after a day of trying to survive with just an ace bandage on and watching my toes turn more purple and black, I decided to break down and actually go to a podiatrist and have it all looked at. Turns out that the blood (bruising) that was pooling in my ankle and toes was caused not by a sprain but by a torqued ligament in the ankle. Luckily there was no actual break and even though it had been 5 days since the incident occurred and yes I had done lots of walking and what not on said foot, the doctor felt it was fixable without surgery.

Instead of surgery, I have been placed in a air boot/soft cast, which I have to wear all the time for at least two weeks. It has this air bladder in it that I can pump up to make it tighter and then let the air out when I'm ready to take it off for showers (and once in a while just to let my foot breathe). I don't see how people manage with real casts on their feet/legs/arms. It hasn't even been a week for me and I'm about to scream. I am, however, finally starting to be able to sleep a little better in it, as long as I don't kick my other foot. I've also realized that I can take the whole thing off in my sleep....which I probably shouldn't say because I can just hear my mother chastising me for doing that....Mom, don't read that part.

All in all, things could have been much worse, but I'm hoping that if we do go camping again next year, the group opts to "camp" in the lodge across the lake with real beds and indoor plumbing, and a dock to step onto the boats, rather than forcing me to hike through the outback to reach our destination....