Inauguration day

So, on my inaugural day as Director of Research Services, Tuesday January 20, 2009, Barak Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. I hope that his inauguration day went better than mine. Within the first two hours of my day I had an employee scurry out of the library crying, a managing director looking for some obscure piece of data that she needed to insert into her presentation in 15 minutes, about ten phone calls from vendors wondering where Jessica had gone, and a to-do list about five miles long with no way it would ever get done. Ever. I really hope President Obama (how lovely to say!) has a better time at it than me!

Oh well. I haven't cooked in ages, so no photos of my latest cooking catastrophes. Instead, I'll post a photo of the newest addition to our little family - the loon.Doug's big into birds of all sorts, but particularly those that have webbed feet and swim around in various waters. What's ironic about that is that Doug doesn't swim himself. Maybe it's an envy thing with him, because I think he's a little obsessed with water fowl (have you seen how many faux ducks, gulls and other such birds we have in our house? If not, stop by. We can show you.). In this case, though, I don't mind because I actually really like this loon print. It reminds me of New Hampshire. My aunt and grandparents had cottages on Crystal Lake in Enfield, New Hampshire, and growing up we would spend much time up there. We don't go there so much anymore; in fact, almost never. It's a shame. Now my grandparents' cottage is owned by my father's brother, which is a different family entirely from who owned the house in the first place (it was my mother's parents who owned the cottage before), and so it's just slightly weird that my father's family now represents up there at the New Hampshire compound. That's not why the family doesn't go up there anymore - our absence is more due to the fact that we're all older and just don't have a whole lot of time to go up there on weekends, summer vacations (what's that?), etc. But there are always a few loons that swim in the water up there. I think they're beautiful birds, but I don't think they're good for the fishing prospects in the lake. I think they eat the fish. Doesn't bother me any... I'm not much of a fisherwoman and I think I've eaten fish maybe 3 times in my whole life (not counting canned tuna, which I don't consider fish), so let the loons eat as much fish as they want.

Today we're off to Maine. We're getting a late start. We apologize about that. But we are going to get there! Doug's out of the shower, so I guess we're ready to go. Maine here we come.