Amphigouri: varnished nonsense

After a couple of weeks of disgustingly hot weather, particularly for Maine — exacerbated by working in a building with no AC and an office suite that’s directly over the boiler room and is at least 10-15 degrees warmer than the hallway just outside the suite — we’re finally experiencing weather that I wish would run from June through August every year. Beautiful!

Company coming tomorrow for a weekend visit, so thankfully we won’t be rained in the whole time. Will be nice to have a diversion from crazy-busy project at work that we’re pushing to roll out w/in the next couple of weeks.

From last week’s storm:

And now it’s snowing again - a big nor’easter that’s supposed to dump another 8-10″ in our area (update: turns out it was only a few inches of snow, then sleet, and now lots and lots of rain & wind). I feel sorry for the kids at school doing outdoor sports this spring - softball, baseball, track, etc. - to still have this stuff around a month and a half before the end of the school year has got to be the pits. Thank goodness for spring break, when a number of the teams travel to warmer climes in order to get some games in.

Has been a relatively event-free weekend for us; I discovered 6 or so more boxes of books that we’d overlooked and got those unboxed (though the proper organization and shelving of our book collection still remains to be done. I am slightly overwhelmed at the project), a dump run has been made, and we’ve entertained my brother with a few hours of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II, which we purchased this weekend (brother bringing along his own axe to leave with us for multiplayer fun). I have to say, the games are quite entertaining, but seriously screw with my eyes. The notes one has to play scroll down toward the bottom of the screen for a few minutes per song - at the end of play, /everything/ looks like it’s moving. This is particularly freaky when the pattern in our curtains appear to be flowing.

As usual, I’ve still got a list of draft posts, but they’re going to require more time and energy than I’m currently willing to expend. Back to hunkering down with another one of the books I bought while on our vacation, watching the snow, and waiting to watch the pilot for the new show, Drive, one of the creators/writers of which wrote four episodes of a favorite show of ours, Firefly.

Via the Maine Libraries Discussion list (MELIBS), I see there’s an opening for a Children’s Librarian at the Camden Public Library. From the email:

This full-time position is critical to fulfilling the library’s mission of
excellent service to the children of the communities we serve. Duties
include: designing, implementing and evaluating library services for
children and young adults, planning and conducting children’s and YA
programs, and development of the children’s and young adult materials
collections.

This successful candidate will possess a broad knowledge of children’s
literature and children’s programming. A college degree is required and
library experience is preferred.

The CPL is one of the loveliest libraries I’ve visited, and has an absolutely stunning view of Camden Harbor. I don’t know a lot about the workings of the library, but as a midcoast native, I heartily recommend the area and the communities - there’s a lot of neat stuff going on - check out the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville chamber of commerce site as well as the one for Rockland-Thomaston.

Ah, Maine, how I love ya and yer wonky weather. Things had been warming up lately; for the past week or so, we’ve finally seen the deer we’d been told would frequent the grounds - counted up to 14 at one point, all hanging out munching on the newly-revealed grasses. Saturday morning I discovered a woodchuck-looking critter scuffling around in a flower garden:

… staring me down through the dining room window before making a dive for a nice big hole in the ground at the base of one of the garden walls (lovely).

Yesterday it all changed. Wet flakes, colder temps. This morning I awoke to a winter wonderland:

Lovely scene, but for early April I’d prefer the mid-40s and 50s we saw over the weekend. Even North Carolina is conspiring against us… we’re taking a long weekend trip to the Greensboro/High Point and Asheville areas as a kind of celebration for selling our MA house (closing was a couple weeks ago, several months earlier than we had feared, yay!). The weather there yesterday and today? Near 80, sunny. The weather when we’re there later this week? Barely breaking 60 (and according to one forecast, not even hitting 50 over the holiday weekend). Fortunately Husband and I prefer temps at the 60-degree end of the scale vs. 80 degrees and up (one of the reasons we’re heading to NC in early April instead of later in the year)…. and I figure 60 degrees is still better than 38 degrees here in Maine. Plus, they’ll all have green grass and flowers at this point, too. Can’t wait!

I have about half a dozen draft posts that need wrapping up and publishing, but I had to toss this one up quickly.

One of the things that struck us when we moved back to Maine was the ability to buy beer and liquor from the local grocery stores - not just from the liquor store next to the supermarket (or a couple miles down the road for the uber-packie, as was the case where we were in MA). After several months back in state, I’m still left somewhat gobsmacked when I wander down the aisles at Hannaford and note that they’ve got a better selection - both of wine and hard booze - there than did the small liquor store in our old neighborhood.

Even more surprising to me was to go to CVS to pick up a prescription refill, wander the store while waiting, and notice that even CVS sells wine and beer! See below (alas, my camera-phone skills are a bit lacking, quality even worse than usual):

I love how they’ve managed to shelve the wine under the “Juice and Water” sign.
(admittedly, the water is maybe half-way down the same aisle, but you’da thunk they’d at least put the water *under* the signage)

Hee. Jeffrey Zeldman posts the temps for NY. It’s cold!

We can do him one better, tho. It’s dayum cold here. After a start to the winter that made me wonder if I was actually living back in North Carolina, central Maine is now experiencing temperatures more in line with those I remember from my childhood. Thank goodness for the extra space heater in my office!