I love fancy fabric, but there's not much call for formal dresses in the archives, so it's been fun to actually use some... finding glitter everywhere for the next several years will be less fun. I think I may have eaten some glitter yesterday.
It's also been a nice break from my other activity: thinking about hurricanes.
My first job after grad school was at the Corning Museum of Glass, and the time I was there included the 30th anniversary of the flood of 1972 (caused by the remnants of Hurricane Agnes). The museum is right next to the Chemung River, and during the flood, the river came through the museum, filling it with muddy water more than 5 feet deep. At the time, the museum director was on his way to Turkey, and (according to the recollections of staff members), was greeted with a telegram when his plane landed: "Museum destroyed. Come home."
Thirty years later, there was still dried mud in the spines of some of the books, and the bottoms of some folders. In commemoration of the flood, they painted the flood line on all the interior walls... and I moved my favorite collections and documents to the top shelves, above the line.
I was there for a year, and for most of that year I worried about the museum flooding every time it rained. Then I'd start worrying about my bunny--who would take him somewhere safe if I was at the museum when my apartment started flooding? Where would he stay while my apartment was under water? (It was a basement apartment, just down the street from the museum, and was clearly doomed.) It seems silly, but as soon as I decided that I'd put his cage in my car, drive up one of the hills surrounding the town, then walk back down to help at the museum, I felt a million times better... and thanks to the magic powers of planning, I never needed to implement my plan.
So: plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment