Yesterday was eerily balmy, and I realized this morning that the humidity and warmth we felt was the power that drove the storms to the north and east of us that clobbered Arkansas and Kentucky. Dozens of people died in the resulting tornadoes. We keep our fingers crossed that the storms don't touch down, not much point in hoping they won't arrive, this is Tornado Alley.

The programs on National Public Radio this morning have been interesting, and one of them set the stage perfectly for where I am with that course I've been talking about. One program subject started with a story about people who did everything right, but still ended up with negative outcomes. It inspires me to not be so discreet, saying nothing out the tour outcome. It was awful, from beginning to end, but it wasn't really my fault.

I did everything right in researching and planning and practicing my tour, but in the end, I ran into a situation I couldn't get past. The instructor has a strong passive/aggressive streak and neglected to tell people about my tour until the morning of - so no one turned up for the tour and it was impossible to pretend that the two people who were there (my mentor and a volunteer, who have been docents for years) were the general public and do my presentation. I instead worried that all three of the people there were (including the instructor) were barely ambulatory, one was quite deaf, and I had a route planned that covered way more territory than I was comfortable dragging this group. Who at one point spent 10 minutes stuck in a lift between the Mezzanine and the second floor (they didn't read instructions and the gallery assistant finally got them out of it after repeatedly telling them "don't touch the door, it will reset itself!") Try to pick up your train of thought after that.

I'm going to do the demonstration tour again in a couple of weeks, this time with friends I invite so I have people there who aren't in the museum all of the time, who can actually give realistic feedback to my remarks and ask good questions. I don't want anyone to give me a pass if I don't do a good job, but they'll be happy to participate and the energy makes a huge difference.

The takeaway: roll over the top of passive aggressive folks. I retired from the library three years ago because recent management changes made it an awful workplace. It was the practice to send out a note congratulating the retiree and summarizing their time in the library a couple of weeks in advance of when people retired, and I kept waiting for the dean or one of her proxies to send it for me (I sent them the information). Nothing. So the in the last week I sent an "All" message and announced that I was retiring and gave the blurb myself. When the library HR person was asked why he or one of the others didn't send something, the questioner was told "we couldn't verify everything she said she did." Huh? Many library people were there for decades and knew, I was just summarizing. So I did it myself. Now at the museum, I'll send a message and I'll announce the date once the instructor agrees to it, and take it out of her hands. I want this over with this year; I've been working on it for 11 months, and just because the instructor doesn't seem to like me I'm not going to throw in the towel. She's retiring at the end of the month, I don't plan to be her last casualty. I want witnesses.   

In the meantime, I'm playing catchup around the house. I've let that course suck away my available time (not starting on big projects that take away from research and writing tour stops). More baking today (zucchini bread), work on my holiday cards, and start wrapping gifts and finding what boxes some of them will have to ship in and send those out ASAP. Binge watching the new CSI: Vegas (I really liked the original, and they've done a nice job of picking up the story threads). Still exercising, and adding another set of stretches to my routine. I haven't lost weight, but I'm more fit now.