Rochester

Well, I'm back from Rochester, and I had a great weekend. I got to see my cousins, and their children, which was good, and all too rare. My mom had a good time, too, and is now talking about moving to New York after they sell the house -- which will be sooner rather than later, the realtor is stopping by the house today.

I'm not going to go too in depth about the weekend, because frankly it's not that exciting. I went to the first indoor mall with my cousin Ryan, and we also went to the largest grocery store I've ever seen. It's so over-the-top, even Cher was impressed by the grandeur of its capitalist pretentions. We then went to see Hotel Rwanda. It wasn't a great film -- it was shot rather conventionally, and I don't think it really conveyed the full horror of what went on in that country, although it did effectively convey how arbitrary the distinction between the Tutsis and Hutus. I guess the sight of too many bodies hacked apart with machetes would be a wee bit depressing; actually, the film was a bit of a downer all on its own. I know, big shock there. Don Cheadle did a very credible job as a hero who didn't really set out to be heroic. I went into the movie already being quite familiar with the story from a number of features on NPR, and I knew the ending because of that, so my judgement might be suspect when apraising the movie.

I got to see my cousins' children, too which is fun, since I'm apparently never going to be an uncle. The two youngest are wary of me, and would onlythrow sidelong glances my way when they thought I wasn't looking, but the oldest (4 1/2 years old) took a liking to me, although he doesn't remember that we've met a few times before. I watched Veggie Tales with him, let him noodle around with The Sims 2 on my laptop, and he went shopping with me, where I gave him a handful of change to throw in the wishing fountain at the World's First Indoor Mall. After a few coins, he turned to me, and said in all earnestness, "I'm going to make this wish be for you, 'cause I think you need it." I chose not to be offended. I returned the favor by buying a couple issues of the old Power Pack series for him when we went to the comic store. He can't read yet, but he likes looking at the pictures, scribbling on the pages, and then ripping them apart. Money well spent, as far as I'm concerned: he's really into comic books right now.

On the way home, my mother and I stopped at Ikea in Canada. We didn't buy much -- I bought a collander, a cheap knife block, a couple candle holders, and a stuffed rat (!) that I've named Templeton -- but it was fun. But then on the highway, there was a pretty heavy snow storm, and a pretty major accident just ahead of us, which kept us from getting home until after 9:00 PM last night.

One last thing: Thursday morning, I noticed I had a voice mail from the day before, from a phone number I didn't recognize: it turned out to be from the director of a college library in Jackson, Michigan. It was still early, so I didn't call, and then through Canada, my cell phone was on analog roaming. So we get to the border to New York, and the line we're in is backed up, as it always seems to happen, so I call the woman. Basically, she was just informing me of the details of the job -- night-time librarian, school runs on quarters, occasional weekend work would be expected towards the end of each quarter, $30,000 a year, am I still interested. Definitely, says I. Unfortunately, by that point the lane had sped up, and evidently you can't go across the border on a cell phone, even when my mom protested that it was for a job interview, so I had to hang up and call her back. This made me feel like a moron when I had to explain it to her, but then she mentioned when I did that she had worked at the WSU Undergraduate Library, and had noticed where my practicum was. Basically that's all there was to it, but she said that they were going to be accepting more resumes, and that she would be in touch. Here's hoping that something comes of it.

And I like driving the Prius. Its navigation system came in very handy when I was trying to make my way to the nearest Target.

Song: The Dixie Chicks, "Landslide". My mom's song selection.