I’m busy getting ready for my Sunday departure. I’m going to the California Rare Book School, held at UCLA, to take The Book in The West, a course taught by California State Librarian (and author of a fabulous Gold Rush bibliography), Gary Kurutz.
Getting ready doesn’t just mean studying the assigned reading for the class. That’s certainly part of the preparation. What getting ready really means, though, is doing lots of laundry so everyone has enough clean clothes to last the week. (Thoughtful Husband is good at a lot of household chores, but he is terrible at laundry. He never seems to understand the colorful tie-dye result that occurs when you wash white clothes with bright clothes. We have an agreement that he is not to wash any clothes unless it’s a dire emergency.) Getting ready also means that I’ve made a few dinners in advance and frozen them. Since Thoughtful Husband has to manage the kids and their schedules and his regular full-time work, I figured I’d help him out a little by leaving a few dinners. That way he can whip up something quickly after work without having to drag Tom and Huck to the grocery store.
So, since I’m busy preparing for my week off. . . Did I just say my week off? Excuse me. I meant to say my week of intensive book study taught by a true expert at a beautiful Southern California campus. With my own hotel room, all to myself. Yeah. That’s work.
Sure it is. 
It just doesn’t feel like work after I’ve done ten loads of laundry and cooked and frozen a week’s worth of dinners. I love books. I love school. I love to learn new things. This does not feel like work at all. It feels like it will be a good next step in furthering my education as a bookseller.
I’ll be back tomorrow with one more post before I go.
