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I had planned to go to the farmers' market and the post office today, but my ankle started hurting yesterday, and I thought I'd better be sensible and limit the stress I put on it. Right now, it's not hurting too badly. It twinges when I move wrong which basically means any wobble to the joint. That got me out of bed early because I couldn't move my leg without pain. The weight of the blankets was enough to move the foot off from straight.

( Tendonitis and me )

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The informational meeting for the Girl Scouts didn't give me much. The odds of Cordelia's school having a Daisy troop for this year seem very low (unless I want to lead it which I think would kill me). There aren't leaders available right now for any level of Girl Scouts at the school. The next closest elementary school has more leaders and interested girls than it can handle and so won't take transfers even if the logistical barriers can be overcome.

The primary logistical barrier that the organization's considering is timing. A meeting that begins right after school lets out would be half over by the time girls from another school could get there. I could, in theory, get Cordelia to after school meetings at another school because we'd have more than three hours to make the trip, between when her half-day kindergarten lets out and when a meeting would start. It's only in theory, however, because I can't commit myself to that trip, not without some backup.

I did sign Cordelia up for a Rec & Ed class that will meet Tuesday evenings at her school. It was cheap, only $29 for six half hour classes. It's martial arts for 4-5 year olds (with a liberal interpretation of the age range). The listed instructor PKSA. I can't find anything much about them online. I guess I'll just keep my eye on how it goes. I would hope that somebody running a class listed as open to those between the ages of three and a half and six and a half would have some flexibility and experience with small children, but...it's Rec & Ed. You get the teachers you get.

I'm mainly hoping for a regular activity that will use up some excess energy, let her be around other kids for a little bit and give us an idea as to whether or not she might like that sort of class in a more formal environment. (She loved gymnastics but was scared of some of what she was asked to do. That instructor was great about not forcing kids. If I could drive, I would seek out more classes taught by him.)

The first class is next Tuesday. I suppose I'll find out more then.

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I'm doing a bunch of little LJ entries today. I'd like to do some fic writing, but I've got Cordelia distracting me. I don't have any time to focus on a story. I should have used the morning for that. I'd meant to.

I lost the weekend for writing, too. Saturday, I made the mistake of trying a sling for my elbow. It helped my elbow but gave me muscle pain and spasms in my shoulders, neck and upper back. The medication I took for that helped, thank goodness, but it also pretty much knocked me out. I'm not sorry to have taken it. I'm actually pleased that I recognized what was going on in time to stop it from building further and losing me more days to pain and headaches.

Losing Saturday left me with a long to-do list on Sunday. I got through everything but the writing and the phone calls. Monday and Tuesday, I managed half the phone calls, all the e-mails and some other errands that popped up. I also got in some writing Monday evening, while Scott watched Heroes, enough to almost fix the section of fic that had gone in the utterly wrong direction. That fic is probably going to be the story for my livelongnmarry winner. I'm still poking at chapter 18 of "Rheotaxis" for that, but this story's moving, fits the request (I think) and has an interested cheerleader. Chapter 18 fits the winner's request as she said she was interested in it if another story didn't work, but I don't have a cheerleader for that one.

(I'll probably talk about writing cheerleaders on my writing filter later.)

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We now have an Obama lawn sign. evalerie picked it up for us when she got hers. Scott's one caveat about putting it up was that we have to hide it if his parents come to visit. He doesn't want to talk politics with them, doesn't want to officially disagree with them.

I tend to assume that they know that we're liberals, but I suppose they could be lying to themselves about it or just not wanting to think about it. Kind of like them not thinking about what was happening when Scott and I were engaged and he spent every weekend at my apartment (he was living with them, so they couldn't avoid knowing that he was visiting) or them deliberately not asking whether Scott's brother and his then-fiancee had separate rooms when they were living in the same house in college.

I may have to take the sign down on Saturday. Cordelia has a birthday party to go to, and the odds of Scott having to work are high. We might get lucky, but I'm making contingency plans anyway. We can get there by bus, but I don't know how long a walk we'd have after getting off the bus (a concern with my ankle acting up), and it would involve a transfer.

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Monday, I finally had my training on the school library's circulation system and such. It didn't take long, and it seems pretty straightforward. My biggest problem is going to be learning the kids' names so that I scan the right barcode for each patron. Rather than having the kids have library cards, there's a binder at the desk that has a section for each teacher with a list of kids and a barcode for each child.

I assist for the first time on Friday. I expect that I'll find the check in and check out process easy in practice, too. At least, I hope so.

The library's to-be-shelved carts were nearly full, so I spent some time after my training shelving. Now that I think about it, that might be what upset my ankle (my elbow certainly didn't like it). The fiction is all shelved in low shelves, so I was up and down a lot. I shelved about half of the non-fiction (there was a table in front of most of the 900s, so I stopped after the G biographies), all of the videotapes, DVDs and magazines and all of the fiction for older kids. I didn't touch the picture books or the paperback introductory chapter books. Basically, I cleared most of one booktruck and left the other untouched.

I expect that I'll end up doing a good bit of shelving for the library. Cordelia's class' library session is scheduled so that there's only about twenty minutes between the end of it and the end of the school day. There's no point in my walking home, sitting for ten minutes, and then walking back.

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Yesterday, I took Cordelia out to buy a birthday present for the party she's been invited to. I also bought a few groceries. We ended up eating at McDonalds. I'd originally suggested Baskin Robbins, but Cordelia saw the McDonalds and wanted a milkshake. I got us food because I was hungry and because I was really, really hoping that Scott would call to say he was on his way home. I wanted to avoid taking the bus home and having to deal with the full wire cart on the bus.

The delays didn't help. We took the bus home and climbed the big hill. I need to get a copy of the #1 and #2 bus schedules for my purse. The full schedule is too heavy, but I need those two. The #1 avoids the big hill but only runs once every half hour. The #2 lets us out at the bottom of the hill but comes every fifteen minutes. I guessed wrong and waited for the #2. The #1 came first, but we were way too far away, across a street and down the block a bit, to run for it, even if my ankle weren't cranky and we weren't pulling a cart behind us (Yes, my elbow was cranky about the cart. My own stupid fault).

Scott, Cordelia and I have gradually been watching the original Star Wars movies. The little boy down the street who Cordelia plays with most afternoons has seen the movies and is passionate about them (he has two older brothers. I suspect that's why he's seen them). She already knew that they were important movies for her Daddy, and she asked if she was old enough to see them. I had some hesitations because she tends to scare easily, but we've taken it slowly, about half an hour at a time, and have watched with all three of us together on the loveseat so that she has strong parental presence.

We've gotten up through Luke's arrival on Dagobah in ESB. We watched that last night. Looking at both movies, the part so far that's scared Cordelia the most was the light saber duel between Obi-wan and Darth Vader. She couldn't watch it. I think that other things have scared her, too, but a lot of what worried me has gone over her head.

Scott had reservations about going on to ESB, but Cordelia insisted. She even found a little ESB book at the Friends of the Library book sale and has been trying to follow along. The book summarizes everything and is half illustrations, so she's not doing too badly as long as we help a bit. I think Scott likes it because he can use it to explain what's going on to her.