October 14, 1991

Not a restful night.  I think it's my deep-seated frustration over the budget process this year.

At work, Liz and I have a spirited discussion over collection development priorities.  Right now we're looking at a no-increase budget for 1992.

I spend the afternoon printing copies of my reference bibliography and laboring over Wednesday's acceptance speech.  On the walk home, I consider a marriage analogy in referring to staff, but the Thomas hearing circus makes that seem inappropriate   Then I remember a key phrase I mentally filed away a few days ago:  "The best of times, the worst of times".

October 10, 1991

I contemplate my response to next week's awards presentation but so far have written nothing down on  paper.  Today is a slow day.  I continue to revise my reference bibliography.  JoAnna has a meeting in Milwaukee and doesn't return home until after 11.  I give both boys a bath before 9.  A late evening quiet and solitude provides the perfect setting for finishing Rabbit at Rest.  After the final sentence, I rest the book on my chest and then feel my face contort involuntarily, as if to prepare for a rivulet of tears.  No strong outburst occurs, though.

October 9, 1991

The Automation Regrouping Subcommittee, as I refer to it, travels at the speed of Pete Hamon's glibness.  I had hoped to walk away from the meeting feeling upbeat, but the overriding issue of Madison's costs wasn't even addressed.

During the afternoon, I continue to revise my reference bibliography, a project whose time frame I seriously underestimated.

I retrieve the minutes from yesterday's Personnel Committee meeting at City Hall and am chagrined to find no recommendation to fund either of the two library requests.  As a matter of fact, no "real" personnel items have been approved, only two contracts for services and two limited-term  parks employees.

On the return trip from daycare, Andy and I stop at the brown store for hamburger buns.  JoAnna returns home just as I'm forming patties.

May 8, 1991

I get to the library early to push the Top 40 bibliography to completion.  As I'm copying an annotation from the Basic Reference bibliography, I notice that the page is riddled with typos, so I spend most of the morning doing  something I should have been working on yesterday:  proofreading the 25 pages of material and printing an error-free copy of workshop handout.  At lunchtime, I race to Helen C. White Hall to make the necessary substitution.  When I pick up Andy at daycare, he scrunches his face and tells me he wants Mom to pick him up.  I'm heartbroken.