BibliophileBullpen

This little guy caused me no end of annoyance.  I spotted him the 1st day i was out in the jon boat…of course i didn’t have a camera…or binocs, hell i didn’t even have a decent set of eyes.  From a distance in flight and paddling around he looked much more elegant, like a seabird….and the bird experts all told me he was a domestic duck. and…they were right, unlike me he’s a successful escapee from civilization living out on a backwater past the highway.  He didn’t mind having his picture took this time.

Neither did this little fella, who decided I wasn’t all that interesting and wandered away.   This is with the new camera, the last one passed away one feature at at time.   I couldn’t really afford a new one…and i went for three or four days before I broke down and ordered one up.   I feel incomplete without one these days.  Sooner or later I am going to have to DO something with these pictures.

So far it has been a tolerable weekend.  Once customer is pissed at me because he got his package on time and complete…go figure. And another is annoyed because I shipped it to the actual address on the order, not the address he really wanted it to go to.

Then I wander out and sit in the water for a while, watching cute furry rodents swimmin and little birds eating tiny bugs and … i think…well…fuck em.

I have been sitting here trying to remember what i did all day….i know it was a lot of something because i am exhausted, my wallet and gas tank are both empty.    no no the bird rescue was yesterday….or was it monday?  i can’t remember now.   no no monday I rescued an old banged up tom cat and got him medical attention, now he is ensconced in the ARMV sanctuary.  The bird wound up at a licensed rehabilitator…around here fledlings go by the term lunchables….so where did wednesday go?   oh yeah… first think i did was give my last census check to the gas (ptoo!) company…then i did something something something that  i can’t remember…and for dinner ended up disassembling some cabinets being thrown out of a government building, loading them in the truck, toting them 20 miles away and reassembling them…did i mention it was like 88 degrees?  yah that explains why i feel like i have been hit by a bus.    I did  pack and ship the orders on my desk…well all the ones that i have all the products for….i am quickly running out of a couple and i am going to have to start scrounging for reup funds….why can’t i sell something profitable?  like illicit drugs?

I am trying very very hard NOT to schedule anything tomorrow morning…my afternoon is already gone to hauling 2 cats to vet appointments and a red cross first aid for animals course..which has been postponed twice already….IF and that’s a really big IF nothing untoward happens between now and 5 am, i am tossing the jon boat into what’s left of the water in the sanctuary.  i still haven’t gotten any decent pictures as this camera is on its last legs and the new one hasn’t arrived yet.   8(

it’s the 21st century..aren’t we supposed to have teleporters by now?

Dear Bibliobull:

Do you have a product that would remove or diminish rust stains on paper from metal paperclips? Would one of your erasers help? If so, which one?

Rusty Clipper

Depends on what type of paper…how thick, what kind of finish etc…

Generally rust doesn’t seep as far as ink, so you can get away with a little light surface abrasion. Any of my Inkredibles will work, the white/coarse one is more abrasive and the black one less so. If it is a large dark stain you may want to start with the coarse grade for a smidgen then move to the finer grains after the worst is gone.

If it is highly calendared like onion skin, only the lightest touch will do the trick. If it is bristol finish card stock you can put more torque behind it, but then the rust will not have gone too deep.

There are also different finishes of book paper…very open pored paper responds easily but late 19th c. very smooth surface is more delicate (it depends on how much cloth is in the paper) something with a cardstock back and a printed paper surface is much more delicate as the printed paper is thin and you can’t apply the coarse inkredible for more than a few swipes before you have to switch to fine.

I did get a couple of things done this weekend…I finally cleaned and lubed my bike in case I feel the urge to work off the winter weight which I am still hauling around, and I completed the inventory of my Helen Gibson archive.

There’s a reason that project got bumped to the top of the pile,  as I look around the joint and imagine myself  lying in a heap, I can also see my brother leaping over my eyeless corpse in his haste to call in the junkman.   Ergo the 3 or 4 things I actually give a shit about need to be taken care of.  The Gibson archive is basically a lot of old movie stills and a bunch of research material. When I go  I’d like it to go to the National Cowboy Museum’s reference library.  But they wanted to see an inventory before they’d say yay or nay.  I’d send it now, but I like to keep playing with it a while.  Everyone needs a research project in their back pocket. Something to pull out and work on when there are OTHER less interesting things you are trying to avoid.

The other stuff I am responsible for are the 20 or 30 books on bookbinding and restoration, yeah I still got them, regardless of whom I owe money to, those will remain – till death do us part.  I still dip into them from time to time when I am trying to work out a specific problem.   I say I am responsible for them, not that I OWN them…personally I think there are a finite number of decent research books in the universe and when you reach out and buy one and bring it into your home, it is with the understanding that you are only its caretaker for as long as you have it in your possession.  When you are dead or done you or your heirs have to released it back into the stream of ‘good’ books floating around the universe.

I have asked around to different booksellers, what’s gonna happen to your stuff when you die?  Most of them have a roommate who has either good judgement or specific instructions.  I’m gonna be one of those folks no one hears from for a fortnight, then just calls in the house cleaners. I have post it notes on the valuable stuff with the names of booksellers to call in case of inertia.

Schadenfreude moment:  I was reading the new book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things and I can tell you for sure and certain I am not one of THEM.  Not that I couldn’t be, don’t get me wrong, I love stuff.  And the acquisition of stuff makes me happy.   But decades of deliberate effort has left me with only small clusters of clutter left in my life or at least in my house. Deacquisition also makes me happy on occasion ….I still haven’t reached the point where I toss things into the dumpster just to hear the thud, but who knows one day I might.

For you the census is over…well for me it is and all those hundreds of thousands hired by the government 6 weeks ago. We are all now officially out on our ass…for me it got really funny…through a constant process of attrition there were only 4 people left in my crew and my crew leaders crew leader told him to fire two of us and he did….dickless called me on the phone and said ‘you’re being fired for inaccurate data.’ that’s when i knew something was fishy…inaccurate data? me? hardly…you can fire me for lots of reasons..i’m a pain in the ass in so many ways..but bad data? yeah right, pull the other one..that’s when i called one of my many spies and found out that the trigger was pulled from a great height. Easy come easy go, what a country.

Just as well, I’m too busy with all my non paying jobs to worry about the one that has been paying the bills.   Don’t get me wrong from time to time someone actually BUYS something from Sicpress.com…shockingly someone even bought a BOOK recently…but this is getting ridiculous, i need to find  way to keep the wolf from the door permanently….perhaps i should invest in a sign that says “Pets or Meat.”

And in keeping with the way the universe organizes my life for me, a bunch of crap all comes to a head at exactly same time.  I finally have time to get out in the sanctuary and my camera decides i need a new one. It’s like going to yard sale with no pocket money. Harumph.
It shoots when it wants to, so, I get a few shots then a lot of nothing.  I got one mildly good check coming from uncle sam’s bastard children, the question is Camera or utility bill?  yeah right  - Camera.

In case you are wondering ….no George the most awesome cat in the world has not returned…neither has my other cat Tobey,   a cat who hardly ever left the porch stairs, disappeared one day without a trace.   Last time I heard – at least 5 other cats were missing from my neighborhood, but I can’t get anyone to give a shit.  We have no Animal Control officer anymore  and the real police were down right abusive to me…well the recent layoffs may have left them a bit surly.  The only cat I let go out now is Moby…let is a little figurative…he comes and goes as he pleases..you can’t really tell a 25 lb cat no…he just laughs  and shows you his ass.

I learned my lesson about waiting for ‘time’ to use my boat. I avoided a couple of good days this week because the lying bastards we call forecasters said it would rain….however that turned out to be sun showers toward the end of the day, wasting what would have been delightful mornings. In the end I just thew her in Sunday morning at 5AM ish. It did indeed end up raining all day, but if I hadn’t gone out I would have missed finding the otter dens on the river bank. These days I keep my camera in the décolletage conveniently created by the flotation vest. This is the best shot of the adult otter I could get…because as my luck runs…the zoom has gone from my camera damn it.

The Spicket river basically exists these days to control the spillage from a dammed up water body called Arlington Pond. During the summer, the rich white folks keep all the water to themselves for their various and sundry purposes, so the Spicket runs so low you can walk across it or in my case..nearly get stuck on it. I figured i’d have a hard time getting around inside the sanctuary and I was right, I tossed her in at the northern most point of the river in the state and after about a mile i nearly bottomed out. so no decent views of the Great Blue Heron rookery.

It was a tad problematic getting on and off the river with the waterline so low, in the end I ended up crawling up a muddy bank in a spectacularly inelegant manner; wearing all my equipment, and clutching the bowline in my teeth. But the low water gave me awesome images of the otter dens in the river bank; normally these would be underwater. Yeah..it was worth it.

The Census job seems to be spiraling down, which is breaking my heart…i got so used to actually PAYING bills when i got them instead of deciding which to pay. There has been a slight uptake in orders for erasers which put me in a tight spot since i quickly ran out and had to place a reorder. Summer time is usually when i start sliding backwards…. orders are nearly non existent and when they do start coming in again in August I have no stock to speak of. I try to keep busy with stuff like the rowing and the cycling..not to mention all the bloody volunteerism…because if i actually THOUGHT about the shambles of my life, I’d spend most of it with the covers over my head.

My brother and his missus have decided to force the sale of my home as soon as the economy allows. Whereas selling off a big old manse of leaks and apartments may seem like good bidness to them, I have been here 32 years straight and it’s a little unnerving. I have lived here longer than anywhere else. Regardless of the profit, I won’t be able to afford to buy another home in this city and will have to find somewhere else to be. See what I said about bed covers?