week 2 of this silliness

[anotheranon]

Yes, I know it won't TECHNICALLY be 2 weeks until Tuesday, but I feel chatty today.

Still getting up, still running mornings (barring hard rain). Still fencing 3 days a week, though my patience is not improving.

Still writing, using fanfiction as amusement/deadline practice and character building as exercises. I think I've built good personality frameworks for my 3 main characters, the class on creating backstories is next week.

Still managing to do a lot of research, in a wide variety of areas: housewifery, architecture, manners, sexual acts/mores, metallurgy/alchemy. Early modern English is rather dense (holy run on sentences, Batman!) but if I read slowly it doesn't seem as strange once I'm immersed for a few hours. And I'm exhausted just reading about all the responsibilities of 16th century housewives.

So all goes well, right? Not exactly:

No work this week, so I don't get paid.

I'm starting to suffer a bit from cabin fever/lack of social stimulus. It was great to see skill_grl on my library run Tuesday and I'm still seeing fencing buds during evenings, but it's not nearly enough. D. is still working during the day so I go long stretches without talking to anyone. My inner introvert doesn't mind but strange though it sounds I worry about getting rusty.

I have not dressed for anyone other than the cats all week: no wild shoes, barely any makeup, I have not worn anything dressier than shorts in over 10 days, even when leaving the house. This may be why I'm not more jazzed about my sewing: in the short term it seems like there's no bloody point in having something shiny and new. I'm tempted to pull out my silk pajamas but I don't think they'd go well with my fuzzy socks. That, and the cats would slide off my lap (and I'm unwilling to give up quality lap time).

I'd go to the Mall museums, or finally visit the LOC except whoops, I can't because the yo yos in congress can't get their shit together. The stupidity grates.

I'd thought of taking a horseback riding class this weekend except I shouldn't be spending money I don't have and have no guarantee of regaining once work is back on.

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

That whole situation just sucks. It's probably a vain hope that your Congress is having to also go without pay, even though they're allegedly "working", during this time ... but one suspects this whole thing would be resolved a lot faster if a sting to their wallets was involved. Shame that the individuals blocking the budget will never grasp that the rest of the world now perceives them as more concerned with their own petty power trips than the people they're harming instead of representing :-( ... one can only hope that this opens enough constituent eyes that none of 'em can ever get re-elected. (a vain fantasy, I know, considering the percentage of "hereditary" voters in your country is just as appalling as the one in mine, but one has to dream ...)

Glad to see the thing has had it's beneficial side by giving you the chance to really get dug into your research ... getting to do that in large chunks instead of stolen snippets of time sounds as if it's been a wonderful treat for you. As for sewing mojo ... maybe think of it as something shiny and new in anticipation of first day back at work? A symbol that you did something constructive during that time instead of dicking around on the taxpayer's time/money? (yeah, I know only you'll know that's what it symbolizes ... strawclutching on your behalf here ***grin***)

Somebody at the LoC is working beyond essential maintenance ... at my workplace we were still, to our surprise, getting into the database through our back door (somebody forgot to block off the Z39.50 accesses), but then, to our surprise, the authorities website came back up last Friday, with timestamps on records showing that updates were happening that day; particularly noticeable was the one for Tom Clancy ... which had had his death info added and a new timestamp beginning with "20131005" (timestamp is line 005 in the record ... there, if you get really bored I can teach you how to read marc coding!)

Shall be thinking of you as I enjoy my own relatively lazy weekend. ;-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Not only does Congress still get paid but their gym is open - deemed "essential" (http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/08/gyms-for-congress-deemed-‘essential’-remain-open-during-shutdown/). I'd be curious who is defined such at LoC - not that I'm not glad, I'm just wondering how they're rationalizing keeping them working when they can't even be bothered to bring back epidemiology surveillance with a Salmonella outbreak going on (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/shutdown-salmonella/)...

I agree, if it pinched the congress critters pocketbooks things would likely be moving more quickly! The last time there was a shutdown was back in 1996; grandstanding of this sort didn't improve the Republican party then and it doesn't seem to be now. IMHO the impetus behind the shutdown were a few freshman "Tea Party" senators who don't know their history.

But enough of my ranting. I have enjoyed having the time to delve into my research instead of fitting it in after hours. But I'm starting to worry.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

For LofC, I would have thought maybe research assistance of some kind would be considered essential ... for data/facts/figures for the members of Congress to use in this so-called debate. Wasn't too surprised at the Z39.50 connection staying live since that's a passive access to the database that bypasses the website. But seeing the Authorities site come back after three days did puzzle me (taking a closer look at the Clancy record, the code in the 040 line tells me that it was likely somebody in one of the external contributor libraries that did the update work ... last code in the line identifies source of most recent edit and LoC's code is "DLC". Still doesn't explain why whoever it was was able to get access to load the data or why the site is up though.

Don't blame you for worrying ... it's disgraceful that it's legal for a few reps to be able to inflict this type of nonsense on those they are supposed to serve (our lot are obliged to stay in session without leave or "privileges" (that gym story just heaps an extra layer on my disgust with the whole thing) if they reach deadlock, but then they can't tack unrelated extras onto legislation either ... everything has to be kept separate)

Enjoy the research time while it lasts ... and here's hoping you'll soon have the joy of complaining about having to fit all the fun stuff into your limited free time back again. ;p

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Re the Salmonella outbreak: along with the main LoC online catalogue and the Authorities site, your National Library of Medicine's online catalogue also came back to life last Friday ... perhaps this is why. National Library of Agriculture, which is a sister site to the other two, was still inaccessible as of Thursday afternoon (we have Z39.50 connections to both of those and even that route is dead for Agriculture)