Thanks for visiting my library and for marking it as "interesting." I am returning the favor by looking more closely at your library now over the next several days.

posted by roydknight at 7:49 pm (EST) on Oct 12, 2008

Yes, Detroit Nonfiction was the thread I was looking for on yestomichigan site.

Enjoyed your autobiographical coments on Detroit on one of these links.(Jasia)

dpwdpw

posted by dpwdpw at 10:17 am (EST) on Oct 2, 2008

Hi Kathi,

I'm a brand new member of LT. Doubt I'll ever catalog all. I think I have 1000's of books. I'm a mover,so I know it's A LOT of weight. Physical and psycic.

Joined Say Yes To Michigan and cannot find you or your thresd.
A little help please?

dpwdpw

posted by dpwdpw at 7:31 am (EST) on Oct 2, 2008

Thank you for your invitation to join the Detroit Nonfiction group. I'll stop by for a visit when I get a chance!

posted by Jasia at 3:02 pm (EST) on Feb 1, 2008

thanks for adding me to your interesting library list. In doing so, you inadvertently introduced me to the 75 book challenge group. I'll be moving my thread over from the 50 book one, since I opted to shoot higher this year. So thank you for that, too!

I'd peek at your library but the site is going down for technical stuff in about 2 minutes, so catch you later!

posted by cckelly at 12:57 am (EST) on Jan 14, 2008

Pleased to meet you and flattered that you find my library interesting.

posted by OldSarge at 9:51 am (EST) on Jan 4, 2008

kathi - you were my SecretSantathing person and I so want to thank you for the beautiful Creative Embellishments book. I can hardly stand it - I have two Early Reviewer books I supposed to be reading and now I want to read this one too. Darn. I'll sneak it in between the other two and I'll let you know if I try any of the projects. There are some really interesting ideas, and beautiful, too. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.

Karen (maggie1944)

posted by maggie1944 at 11:30 pm (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

Don't say I didn't warn you....

My oldest son, when he was still living at home, slept in the back corner bedroom on the second floor of our house. One set of windows looked out into the back yard, of which he had a semi-obscured view, due to way the Live Oak trees grew.

Live Oaks grow more like still-flaccid boiled spaghetti floating in a Zero Gravity environment. Sorry, that’s the best analogy I can think of. Branches of the same tree will twist around each other to fight for dominance. They behave like the Whomping Willow at Hogwart’s, but do so at the pace of Tolkien’s Ents.

My wife and I are very fond of each other. It’s a second marriage for both of us, and we have a tendency to encourage each other’s whimsy. That’s how she ended up becoming a Librarian, and why we have as many books as we do. We also happen to like the sound of wind chimes – not those high-pitched, breaking-glass-sounding ones, but the mellow-sounding, notice-every-reverberation sort. So, of course, we bought one. The longest pipe is maybe 18” of anodized aluminum, perhaps an inch or slightly more in diameter, but the sound – light, airy, resonant.

The ideal place to hang it in the back yard was about 10 feet from the house, mid-way across the back. But that’s not where the branch was, so it’s more like 10 feet off-center towards the corner where my son’s bedroom was.

The sound of the wind chimes is absolutely delightful when there’s enough of a breeze to get them going. And when there’s more than a breeze coming through, I’ll remove the wind-catchers just to keep the neighbors from complaining. They did anyway. They like to hear the wind chimes also, and they’d gauge the optimum kite-flying-ness of a day by how much noise our wind chimes would make, so they want us to keep the wind catcher ON!!!

My oldest son, on the other hand – he never complained unless the subject was brought up. By sheer coincidence (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it…), it was the day he moved out. The conversation went something along the lines of:

Note: identities are protected here – places where a specific name is supposed to be will be substituted with curly brackets enclosing a referential. The term ‘Dad’ does not apply.

“Dad, can I borrow the truck for a couple of hours?”

“Sure, {#1 Son}, no problem. What do you need it for?

-- Aside: About 20 years earlier, I made the exact same reply to my then-wife (substitute {#1 Son} with {Thorn in my Side}, though) when, after having a private discussion with her mother, and now late in the evening, she asked me for $20. The verbal lashing I got from the both of them – WOW!! I don’t remember exactly where I slept that night, but I vaguely recall the heady aroma of pine boughs and damp, loamy earth.

“Well, Dad, I’m moving into a house with a few of my friends and my car won’t fit a bed or dresser in it.”

“Sure. You know where the keys are. Be careful getting it out of the garage.”

“No problemo (phonetically – prah BLAME oh), Pop! I’ll even fill up the gas tank before I bring it back.”

“Actually, son, you’re going to have to put gas in it before you get to where you’re going, because it was sucking fumes when I came home from work yesterday.”

“Thanks for letting me know. As long as I don’t have to hear those !@#$% wind chimes anymore, I’ll wash your truck with my tongue, even!”

The rest of the conversation would add little to the story, so I’ll get right to the point. My son HATES wind chimes in much the same way that fellow hates oil cans in “The Jerk”. All those years, and he never complained once – not even when we gave him the little, tiny ones from the Boy Scout shop the day he had his Eagle Court of Honor. All that time, I thought it was simply that he was overwhelmed by everything going on that day!

Well, he moved out, and a year or so later, {#2 Son} moved out, and my wife and I are just so at peace with each other, and get all marshmallowey inside whenever we hear the wind chimes… By the way, {#3 Son} was still at home…

My wife likes to shop. We go to book stores and antique shops and bead shops… She’ll shop anywhere except the grocery store – just absolutely HATES it. So, we’re at one of those you-must-have-money-bulging-out-of-you-p... stores in a town about 8 miles north of us. This is the kind of store where you find a little black velvet-lined wooden box to store a precious ring in, and the box costs more. This is the store where you find those chunks of glass illuminated from a pedestal beneath it, and you see a delicate etching of a Portuguese man-of-war in the middle of it, and you wonder how they did that. This is the kind of store that has wind chimes!

Long story short (snicker)… It was a couple of months before {holiday} and we didn’t really have any debt, other than the mortgage, and after much deliberation as to where in the yard it might go and how we’d suspend it, as an early {holiday} gift to each other, we bought another set of wind chimes. It went on my credit card, and we were instructed to drive around back to load it; and we did. Around back, a man guided me to a spot nowhere near the loading dock, handed me a pair of red, plastic flags and told me to wait right there. He checked the air pressure in my tires, added some to the rear left side , and about 5 minutes later, a fork lift came at me from behind, real fast, dropped a box across the top of the bed of the truck, and just as quickly, disappeared. The fellow said, “That box aint gonna shift none, so no need to tie it down, but you’re gonna have to attach these here flags to the sides, so you don’t get arrested.” Then he walked off, but turned around lust long enough to say, “OH! And have a nice day!”

It was slow drive home, and once we got there, I rigged some pulleys, strong ropes and a gadget called a ‘come-along’ together to get the box off the truck. We hid the wind chimes in a closet in the garage, and I got out the work lights and set them up in the back yard. {holiday} was only 2 months away, and I needed to work on the ‘placement’ aspect of our purchase.

With the work lights set up for the desired effect, our electric bill doubled while the branches of the Live Oak tree clamored their way to the 24-hour Sun I had set up. Every day, I’d go out and lop off the ‘volunteer’ branchlets, and ‘loser’ branches, and finally ended up with one that was exactly where I wanted it, and had enough girth that it could support the weight of the wind chimes suspended beneath it.

Around {fowl-featuring-holiday}, I happened to be talking to my mother on the phone, as she lives far beyond reasonable hollering-distance, and she was lamenting the fact that she had absolutely nothing planned for {holiday} – the one that comes about a month after {fowl-featuring-holiday}. I swear I don’t know how it happened, but before we hung up (30 seconds later), she had booked a flight from her State to mine, and she was going to be staying for a WEEK. For some reason, my wife didn’t think this was a bad thing, although agreed that a week was probably stretching things a bit, especially since I was on a big project at work, and wasn’t getting any time off, since {holiday} occurred on a weekend that year.

My mother arrived the {Humpday} before {holiday}, on time, and my wife and I were there, on time, to greet her. My mother also happens to read a lot, so of course, we talked about what each of us was reading. Coincidentally, my mother and I happened to be reading different books about the same subject – civility – and she then went into this discourse about how horribly rude and inconsiderate car drivers were, and people cutting in line in front of her at the supermarket, etc. And after that day, I didn’t see anything related to the subject matter we had both been reading.

Four loooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn... days pass; it’s {holiday} Day. {#1 Son} and {#2 Son} come for breakfast – big breakfast – lots of breakfsty type foods and gallons of coffee. They have a tight schedule. They’ve got 7 mothers to visit – the one that gave birth to them, and the moms of 6 friends of theirs that treated them more like a mom than their own (mother). And, I’m grateful to all of them. We finally get round to opening presents. In very short order, we’re down to just one, leaning against the wall. My wife and I invited the boys to open it, because we already know what it is. All 3 of them drag it to the center of the Living Room, and proceed to go at it with hammers and crow bars and cat’s paws and banding scissors, and {#1 Son} begins to feel somewhat apprehensive as they finally get the box to yield a little. My mother is quite curious at this point, edging close and closer for a look. There was a chorus of “OH NO!!!!!” from the boys as they pulled back the stuffing to reveal the pipes within. It was an unusual “oh no”, only in that it was in perfect Doric harmony, something which I could have not possibly taught them, because I am bereft of a singing voice. So I credit their mother for this phenomenon. {#1 Son} was now looking at me like I was the Devil incarnate. He looked positively nauseated. This was NOTHING like the reaction his grandmother had though.

“NO!!! DON’T TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX!!! I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!!!! I JUST… {Yours Truly} WHAT??? AND YOU, {Ms. Truly}!!! WHAT WERE YOU THING??? TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK THIS VERY INSTANT!! HOW COULD YOU, {Yours Truly}? ARE YOU INSANE?? WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO PUT THAT THING? NOWHERE, I’M TELLING YOU BECAUSE IT’S GOING BACK TIO THE STORE TODAY, AND DON’T YOU THINK DIFFERENT. WHAT ARE THE – NO! GET IT OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW. YOUR NEIGHGBORS ARE GOING TO HATE YOU AND I DON’T BLAME THEM ONE BIT! {Yours Truly}, THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE STUPIDEST THING YOU’VE EVER DONE. I DON’T BELIVE THIS!! WHAT’S THE NAME OF THE OWNER OF THE STORE? I’M GOING TO CALL HIM RIGHT NOW AND DEMAND THAT HE TAKE IT BACK IMMEDIATELY. I DON’T CARE IF YOU EVER GET YOUR MONEY BACK. GET RID OF THIS THING, NOW!!!!!!!! Or words to that effect. I mean, I don’t remember it verbatim; it was a few years ago, and the echoes aren’t nearly as strong as they were last April, even.

The thing is, she carried on like that for a good 45 minutes. I really thought she was going to pop a vein in her temple. {#1 Son} was quite disturbed by her behavior, and got a ladder out, dragged the wind chimes out to the back yard, tied a rubber mat around the tree limb, and with sheer brute strength (probably the adrenaline from my mother’s ongoing ranting), lifted the wind chimes up on to the hook, and then put the ladder away.

I attached the wind catcher, and we began to unwrap the pipes. The longest was 5 feet, and perhaps 3 and a half, maybe 4 inches in diameter, and there were 6 pipes all together. My mother was still inside, ranting, but the rest of us were outside staring in awe and amazement at the wind chimes. My wife looked at me in a way that suggested that perhaps, her mother-in-law may have a valid point!

And then it happened. A gentle breeze wafted its way through the yard and overcame the resistance of the wind catcher, and a single note played. It’s a big wind chime; it plays low notes; the kind of notes that cause screws to back out of wood all by themselves. Four minutes later, you could still hear it. {last month of the year} is not particularly windy, or cold (usually) in central {formerly largest State in Union}, so this note didn’t have much competition, save for my mother’s still-just-as-forceful ravings, alone by herself in the Living Room. The rest of us just stood around in the back yard, smiling, mesmerized by that one note. But eventually, another, stronger breeze came along, and soon there were several notes going all at once and it was truly a wonderful feeling.

Eventually, even my mother felt and heard it, inside the house, and she stopped ranting to listen. She finally opened the back door, and jus stood there for a while. Then she came and stood beside us as we just stood there and grinned at each other, not particularly caring about deadlines or schedules or empty coffee mugs. My mother leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “They sound beautiful, but your neighbors are going to ~HATE~ you forever,” and then she jabbed me in the ribs with one of those long bony fingers of hers and went back inside the house.

Three loooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn... days later, it was {Humpday] morning, and my mother had to catch her plane home. I secretly wondered why hadn’t just saved the airfare, and do the commute by broom. There were other, not as outrageous, but even more upsetting episodes during those days, but they’re a story for another time, maybe. Stephen King has been bugging me for them.

As I said before, {last month of the year} is not particularly windy, or cold (usually) in central {formerly largest State in Union}, so I felt it was worth repeating here, because what it ~IS~ particular with is: fog. Go figure! Pea soup has less viscosity. We left early. The airport my mother had arrived at closed (forever) while she was visiting, and the new airport was in business for only about 4 days. It was further away, and I had never been there before. We traveled at (for the conditions) a dangerous 15 mph all the way to the new airport. It was along drive, but not so much that I would exaggerate the word ‘long’. For some reason, my wife wasn’t ready in time to see my mother off, so she had to stay behind on this trip.

We talked about fog. We talked about previous occasions of having either driven in fog, or a third-hand story of someone else’s experience of having driven in fog. If the talk varied even one iota from the topic (fog, just in case you hadn’t picked up on that...), the variance was interrupted and returned to: fog.

I left my mother and her bag at the curb in front of the terminal, and drove off. And that is why my mother is never coming to visit us again – because I didn’t kiss her goodbye.

posted by WholeHouseLibrary at 10:19 pm (EST) on Oct 7, 2007

Hi Kathi, Thanks for adding me to your interesting library list. I didn't know what that was until someone told me. I see we share 184 books. As soon as I figure out how to add you to my interesting library, I'll do it. In case you haven't guess it, I am to computers as Shakespeare is to welders.
bob

posted by bjbookman at 3:09 pm (EST) on Sep 22, 2007

Hi Kathi,

So sorry it took me so long to respond to your post...I don't look at my profile page often, and didn't see it until today.

It's so interesting that you lived on Garland, and that your grandparents did too! Wow! My own interest stems from the fact that my own grandfather was also a doctor, around the same age as Ossian Sweet, and he and my grandmother bought their first home on Audubon in Detroit right around the same time as the Sweets. What was so poignant to me, however, was how different my grandfather's life was compared with Dr. Sweet's, simply because of the color of his skin. As I was reading about the life of Dr. Sweet and his family, it was hard not to compare what was happening at approximately the same time to my grandfather and his family - the unfairness came through for me on every page.

Aside from my personal interest, I thought the story was incredible. I couldn't believe that the Ku Klux Klan was ever a part of Detroit, and that it existed during the lifetime of my family members. It was such a great history lesson for me.

Thanks again for writing -- let's hope we meet again in some other great book!

Peggy

posted by peggybr at 8:08 pm (EST) on Sep 18, 2007

Dear Kathi;

Oh, okay. This is what I try to do:
I organize my book by the first 2-3 letters of the Library of Congress system. To do so I have downloaded the LoC classification system outline.

My tags for a book are created, in order by the following steps:
1. the major LoC catagory name, then sub catagory, and then third catagory.
2. the catalog subjects printed in the book
3. more subjects from going down the table of contents of the book
4. for fiction: then I make tags on the books setting (location), issues and topics.
5. other key words I need or want (cause I know that is what I will look for it with).
6. anything else.

----kurt

posted by michtelassn at 9:51 pm (EST) on Aug 11, 2007

Thank you for adding me to your libraries of interest. It it is Michigan books you are after use tag "*MI" to subset those books.

posted by michtelassn at 5:33 pm (EST) on Aug 11, 2007

Hello,
I see that you have added me to your ' Interesting Libraries' list. Many thanks for your interest.I see by the way that we share 415 books overall.That can't be bad either.
All the best.

posted by devenish at 12:48 pm (EST) on Aug 10, 2007

Hi Kathi,

The Detroit books are from living in Ann Arbor for 8 years. The public library book sale there was responsible for the vast majority of our stuff. We've got quite a bit more on Michigan history I haven't gotten cataloged yet. We grew to like Detroit quite a bit and explored it a lot. Nice to meet another former Michigander!

posted by BellyandKill at 10:23 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

Well, I'm 48, and I hope I never grow up either.
I must have missed those socks. I'll have to go back and look.
:o)

posted by clamairy at 9:59 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

I am not singing in a group at the moment. I sang in the Orange County Classic Choral Society when I lived in Montgomery, New York a couple of years ago, but had to give it up. We got a place in Florida, and go there in early December, and come back in may, so the concert season is messed up. Also, the rehearsals are at night, and we have given up driving at night due to Cataracts that haven't been operated on yet. Aging is yucky and the voice is the first to go. I do still like to follow scores when I listen. Regards, Miriam

posted by almigwin at 1:59 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

Thanks for finding my library interesting. What were the books that you were interested in? I peeked at your Bach collection of vocal scores. WOW! I'm green. Now that I have all of them on CD from the Daedalus box, i would love to have the scores. Where did you find them? Did it cost a fortune? Are you an oratorio singer or just an aficionado?

posted by almigwin at 12:12 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2007

Hi!

I wanted to thank you for your comment on my profile - I added the pictures you asked about (the cats).

posted by timepiece at 12:33 pm (EST) on Aug 4, 2007

Dear Kathi,
Petru Dumitriu escaped to France or Germany from Romania about 1964 or 5, I forget some of the details. He had been famous for novels he wrote before his defection and I have read one or two of them but they're the most awuful tripe because he had to toe the party line. Of course that's why he escaped, I suppose. Incognito is about a man who's part of an aristocratic family and takes place pretty much between the First and Second World Wars and Romania's absorption into the Soviet Bloc. The main character, Sebastian, is not a favored son of his powerful and well-connected family. He's a soldier in the first war and is swept up in the communist fervor as were so many idealistic and/or disillusioned young people. It is his experience, growth and conflicts that make the book so compelling. The author himself was an enigmatic person. He died three years or so ago. The book's very well written. Although I don't know you, I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by this book, though there are parts of it that are dismaying. I'd love to hear back what you think of it. Thanks for writing,
Dene

posted by Dene at 11:02 pm (EST) on Jul 29, 2007

Kathi--

No, I haven't heard of CYBERGRACE but it's worth looking for. Your collection is intriguing. I'm a liberal Old Catholic and a computer guy, which is good, because Old Catholics are too few and far between to amount to much (or even know of one another's existence ) without computers. One good rec deserves another: I powerfully recommend The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott. Good luck and thanks for writing.

--73--

--Jeff Duntemann
Colorado Springs, Colorado

posted by Jeff_Duntemann at 10:56 pm (EST) on Jan 26, 2007

Kathi, I love all the books you have and the best part of this is seeing all the books I would like to read and now can get them. I do not want to miss one. You have a great collection and some I want to read myself and will eventually get to. I have not gotten all my books on here but will be working on it. This is such a cool place and thank you for telling me about it. We can have some good chats about this and our books. I am glad you found me here. Marge

posted by faithworks58 at 4:03 pm (EST) on Jan 24, 2007

kathi, thanks for the email and, yes, my wife is an RN, certified in oncology for many years. Her BSN was from Davenport and I am a pharmacist. We both have worked a few, and in my case, several hospitals in the Detroit area, she and I mostly at Sinai, now buldozed and turned into a detroit high school. I am still finding books in boxes and I haven't even begun to organize my wife's cookbooks and art books. Let us know if anyone is in detroit you would like us to contact for you.
bob

posted by rdevore34 at 11:24 pm (EST) on Jan 14, 2007

kathi, I can only imagine why someone would have a book about Wayne State who lives outside of Michigan. I graduated from WSU in 1976 and came across this book at a garage sale this past summer. It brought back many old memories. Hope your copy is in as good a shape as mine.
Bob

posted by rdevore34 at 12:17 am (EST) on Jan 9, 2007

Hi Kathi! I just catalogued a new book I got for Christmas, Courage After Fire, and saw you are the only other person on LT who has it so thought I would drop you a hello. I am guessing that you also have experienced a deployment since you have that book. My husband is currently in Iraq. If you do have someone deployed, I wish them a safe and speedy return home again. Merry Christmas!

Stacie

posted by Litfan at 1:23 pm (EST) on Dec 25, 2006