You set the alarm clock last night, for 7:30 a.m. Your spousal equivalent suggested that it be set for 8:30 a.m., but you did some quick mental calculations and determined that, seeing as you needed to leave here at 9:30 a.m., that getting going at 8:00 a.m. would give you just an hour’s time. You needed two hours, one hour for tending to the animals and one hour for eating breakfast and getting ready to go.

7:30 a.m. It is now dark out, so it seems really early. You now, morning and night, have to clean the enclosure while wearing a headlight. Now that there’s snow on the ground, the poop is easier to see. Prior to the snow’s being on the ground, it was difficult to see.

Pete and Micha at the college

You went to the Meeting House, minutes before Pete. There you got boxes and books to be shredded ready to go the recycling center. You also moved the cookbooks off the shelf in the library so that you’d have access to them on Monday. They’re then going into the new bookcase at Vagabond Blues.

You also put the rest of the Christmas books by the door – their final destination is U-Haul, where the other Christmas books are now in storage.

Pete arrived and you assisted him in loading up boxes and Christmas books. Then it was on to VCRS.

There, you both met up with Bill Schmidtkunz, who was already salvaging books. The haul was minimal.

You dug through a Gaylord and found a lot of good fiction. It was, you all finally decided, a small but worthy haul.

Onward, you and spousal equivalent, to the Mat-Su College library, where you went through the discarded book shelving. You put some of these books on your library cart, the one that you had previously housed at the local senior center. Pete, at the same time, filled boxes. You also both filled a box with poetry books – you’ll take them to a local poetry reading on December 3rd.

Pete was extremely judicious in going through the discards – he looked at, and considered every single book, at times asking you what should be done with a particular book. You were less judicious – you took in the big picture, and selected those

Then it was back to U-Haul, where you dropped off the Christmas books and a few of the Mat-Su College library book boxes. Your last stop was the place where you began, the Meeting House. You and Pete put the remaining books in the library room.

Once again, you have an abundance of books to deal with. But as is always the case, you’ll part with the majority of these books by next Saturday.

With time, you have come up with a routine, and a good one at that.

Next: 319. 11/20/22: Loss