Taking a break
A while back, I decided to rearrange the work area where I do my bookbinding, so, having the time today, I have begun! It's a very small room, which I share with a built-in pantry and the cats' food/water bowls and litter boxes, and a radiator that is unnecessarily large for the space. My work table consists of two trestles and an unfinished wooden table top, and a sheet of plywood that sits on the trestles about a foot below the level of the top, giving me more room to stash stuff. I moved the table so that it faces the windows. This means it's on a long wall rather than the short wall, so there's less room to maneuver the adjustable chair, but I hardly ever use that anyway and am thinking about getting rid of it. (It also means that Marissa has already discovered that the table is a great place to jump up on and keep an eye on things outside.) I'm also thinking of succumbing to an ad that our local community newspaper has been running for ages. They are selling off some flat files, and I think I can squeeze one in. It would be really nice to have one for storing my paper, which is now either rolled up or stashed in one of several portfolios leaning against the wall. Just need to decide if I can justify spending $250.
I hardly ever get to listen to Fresh Air on NPR, as it's on in the mornings when I'm ordinarily in court, at the jail, or otherwise occupied. But on Thursday, I left work right after court to come back to the city for a seminar, so I listened to it in my car. Terry Gross was doing an interview with Robert Sullivan, who has written a book about his cross-country automobile travels with his family (called, oddly enough, Cross-Country. It was a delightful interview, but the best part was when she got his two kids involved, a fifteen-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter. When asked how they spend their time on the car trips, the girl said, "Reading, and being annoying." Her brother answered in kind, "They're letting me bring my instruments so I'll play the guitar a lot and drive my sister crazy." Having made many car trips in my younger days with my parents and sisters (though never cross-country), I laughed out loud. So true, so very, very true.
They are, it seems, a musical family (dad plays accordion!), and Gross prevailed on them to sing a song. (They like "trad" a/k/a "traditional".) I was pretty stunned because the ten-year-old has an absolutely stunning voice, a clear, pure, delicate soprano. Very nice.
I went to a seminar on the death penalty. Small attendance (whose idea was it to have it the Thursday and Friday before the Fourth of July weekend?), but the program was, for the most part, excellent. Very little overlap, and only a couple of the speakers read their PowerPoint presentations (I hate when they do that!), and there were a couple of others who should have been given more time because they were so good. Friday afternoon ran a bit over; one of the speakers was late, having been caught in a traffic jam caused by a Fire Department helicopter somehow ending up upside down on a beach, which resulted in parts of Lake Shore Drive being closed.
As is typical at criminal law seminars, there was discussion about the effect of youth on criminality, aging out, etc. So I got a chuckle when, on my return home, I picked up a New Yorker magazine and found a cartoon showing parents saying to their son, "Young man, go to your room and stay there until your cerebral cortex matures." I think I need to cut that out and stick it on the wall of my office.
Oh, by the way, I have not forgotten about the photo meme. Pictures are slowly but surely being taken, and I hope to have the roll of film used up over this weekend so I can get it developed and pictures posted by mid-week.
Okay, back to housework.