I spent the morning trying to clear up some problems. Apparently, since August an expensive set of the JPS Commentary on the Torah has been sitting around technical services without getting catalogued. As it turns out, we already have a copy on the shelves. It took me a long time to track down the original invoice--after an hour of searching around a file cabinet, I discovered that for some reason we place invoices from Midwest in their own folder. Now I just hope Midwest will bend their 90-day return rule. I also tried looking for a cheap recording of Handel's Messiah and Beethoven's complete string quartets, because the music club we use for CD purchases no longer stocks them.

Church shopping update: I received a letter from the Presby minister thanking me for my visit and informing me that the church has lots of great folk and plenty of activities. Later, the church organist at the Episcopal parish called to tell me about a big potluck being held next Sunday. But I've already made plans to attend the Methodist church as I slowly work farther down the list. Although the Prebyterian minister in A River Runs Through It dismissed Methodists as "Baptists that can read," from what I've heard the Methodist church here has a lot more moneyed professionals than the Presbyterian.

I wish I could make my blog as entertaining as another, greater, account of life at a new job: Ignatius Reilly's "The Journal of a Working Boy, or, Up From Sloth," from Toole's Confederacy of Dunces. A representative excerpt:

"If only the Smithsonian Institution, that grab-bag of our nation's refuse, could somehow vacuum-seal the Levy Pants factory and transport it to the capital of the United States of America, each worker frozen in an attitude of labor, the visitors to that questionable museum would defecate into their garish tourist outfits."

Then again, considering how quickly Ignatius got fired, I might not want to take him for a role model.