Miscellaneous thoughts

It's a beautiful day today, so I spent some time bringing my plants indoors. Every fall, my house gets a little smaller, despite the extreme haircuts the plants get. I've got thirteen plants in my office, soon to be fourteen when I find the courage and strength to bring the China Doll in off the screened porch. I was given this plant in a three-inch pot in 1995 or so. It's now over six feet tall--it would have been taller, but I snapped off the top as I wrestled it in the porch door. A few years ago, I thought it was dead, so I whacked it way down. I figured I'd use the pot for something else. Ha! It flourished!

I couldn't bring this tree into the office yet earlier this afternoon, because of the 1000+ DVDs in front of my desk. I got out the stepladder and put 900 of these in the storage space above the puppet closet (yes, the puppets have their own habitat). That's all well and good, but tomorrow 1000 CDs will be delivered from OasisCD, and I'll have to figure out where to put them. I've still got some kitchen cabinets available.

In heaving the DVDs up into the storage space, I had to take stock of what was there. Do people still listen to cassettes? I sold a few at libraries this summer, to my surprise. I've got plenty left, but not so many that it feels oppressive.

Work has started up again. Yesterday I told stories at Cornstock, the Anderson County Corn festival in Garnett, KS. Though it was windy and cold in the morning, windy and sunny in the afternoon, the audiences were great. They sat on the tennis court and listened to my stories and to Alan Cunningham's music. It was fun to perform with Alan, who does some wonderful original songs.

Tuesday will be my first performance of a series at Wonderscope Children's Museum. This is an experiment: I'll be performing on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 9:30 a.m. through May (with a couple of breaks in December and February). I'm looking forward to having a regular gig!