Not just another day...........

Today we did not accomplish too much due to having to go back and re-do many pages.  If we are not careful and two pages get turned instead of one at a time, it puts the whole book out of kilter and we have to go back and re-do it.  They brought us the rest of the books in this series and it looks like an overwhelming task with 9 books newly arrived.  Today we were working with 1904-1906  court records.  As I digitize the pages the unhappy words seem to pop out from the face of the page – words like neglect, under nourished, badly treated, ignored, pursued lewd persons, drunken stupor, stole, embezzled, failed to appear, among many others.  Instead of the beautiful handwriting from the 1820-1830 group of books, we now have a person who has, for want of a better term, jagged writing.  Either the writer was in a hurry, or he just never learned to write well.  Oh yes, it is a man because I have seen his signature under each judgment noting him as clerk of court.  In one of the recent books, the writing was so scroll like that it resembled yarn that had been unraveled from a sweater.  I had to look at it twice to see if it really was writing or if someone just did a series of scrolls across the page.  Another clerk wrote so big that it took up a number of pages just to record one court case.  On another page, the clerk put two lines of writing between the ruled lines and the writing was so small it was almost illegible.  One recent book had about 10 blank pages between each session – what a waste of paper.

After we had finished at the archives, we were in the parking lot getting into the car when Art came out to get into his car.  As he drove away I was surprised to read his registration – RKIVER – guess he has been at the archives as a worker for many many years.

We went to the YMCA to exercise after being at the archives all day.  My attention was drawn to the fenced in area where the pre-schoolers are sometimes playing.  As I looked at them, I found that they were “miniature Michelin Men with pompom caps on their heads”.  Over on the football field, a mother was playing with her tiny child and trying to teach it how to jump.  This baby also looked like a miniature Michelin Man with a pompom cap.

I walked around the track for 2 ½ miles and then sat down to read the Smithsonian magazine.  I managed to find it among all the MACHO body builder magazines that are there.  I noticed 3 young girls who came into the gym.  They looked totally out of place in their designer clothes (what there was of them) and then I noticed two young men who then began huffing and puffing while doing the machines – now that really was a MACHO show put on for the girls and there was lots of giggling and preening and for a minute I thought it might be spring with the spring rites taking place.  Reminded me of the giggling gaggles of teens in Japan in the spring………….and invariably someone would drop a purse or book bag and the whole group would dissolve in laughter………….and I should mention that the boys were on one side of the road and the girls on the other and the giggling would start once they saw each other.  With that in mind, I can see why they instituted arranged marriages – with a major road between them, no one will ever get close enough to date.

When we got the mail out of the box, I was chagrined to read yet another letter from the prescription drug plan people.  They say I need to pay extra money for my premium because I was not signed up in time for the Medicare plan.  I had insurance under my husband’s insurance prior to signing up with this company and it seemed like an exercise in foolishness to pay two premiums at the same time.  Well, after almost 30 minutes on the cell phone with then, they agreed that I could dispose of the letter that they sent me because they have accessed my account at the bank for the premium charge.  EUREKA!   I never cease to be amazed at the efficiency level of the big corporations – mostly it is not efficient and I wonder how they ever make money to pay their employees…..let alone the massive claims against them by seriously ill persons.   I think that we have ironed out the bugs (yes we will be running on flat bugs from now on!) and 27 of my precious cell phone minutes are now history.  BUT, knowing how well oiled this machine really is, I expect that we will get yet another letter from them really soon – or sooner.