I’m feeling remarkably productive this morning (an oxymoronic statement for me, really). It’s not even 7:30 and I’ve got a loaf of bread on (to take to NYC as a gift), have had some tea, and feel relatively confident we could actually be out the door in an hour.

Now if I could translate this a.m. productivity to a more daily schedule, I’d be all set.

Of course, I don’t normally have the allure of an hour’s nap mid-morning to get me through the dull ache of actually being awake at this hour, either, do I?

Today is Rudi’s birthday.

I could go on and on about what a wonderul guy he is — how he cooks a delicious dinner almost every night and actually seems to enjoy it, how his enjoyment for bicycling is contagious, how I admire his ability to sit through long, boring meetings, how cute he looks in the morning on the rare occasion I rise before he does and he and the cats stay asleep curled up together, how his tongue sticks out just a tiny bit when he’s concentrating on writing something, how he knits his brow when he sings and plays the guitar, how he let a friend come live with us for a month in the Burrow because she needed a place to stay and never complained.

I could go on. But I won’t. That might induce sugar shock for the rest of you. He knows I love him dearly. And now you do, too.

We are celebrating by having a birthday picnic with some friends this evening at Malcolm X Park. Tomorrow we jet off to NYC for a 24-hour celebration marathon. Thursday, Rudi has managed to convince George Lucas to put on a little show for us at the Uptown.

Head on over to Rudi’s website and wish him a happy birthday. He is old today (he has nine whole months on me so I can say that with a straight face), but his gray streaks suit him.

Happy birthday, Rudi!

When we moved into The Burrow (a one-ish bedroom apartment) from Connecticut (where we lived in a spacious apartment that took up the entire second floor of a large house plus a small portion of the first floor), we were aghast at how little space we had. The Burrow was really only the size of our living room and kitchen combined of the old place. How would we decide what should come with us and what should stay behind in my parents’ basement?

But decide we did.

And then each time we went up to Connecticut we found a few more things we thought we could fit in — a coat rack, the butcher’s block, the bike rack. And new things seemed to find us down here, too — a mail sorting shelf we house cds in, a comfy chair from my folks’ apartment, a bike for me, the breadmaker.

The only problem with this is that we never actually went about organizing the space in the Burrow. So now it actually resembles a burrow, with stuff all around us.

Friends will tell you that our Connecticut apartment also suffered from the clutter problem. But the difference is that there we had room for clutter. There was no impetus for us to get rid of things — we just reallocated it around the apartment. But here, there is no extra room. The closets are full. The shelves are full. The floor is … ummm… do we still have a floor in here?

But luckily someone else must have had this problem before us because there exists a ritual for people just like us: spring cleaning. We dread it — much like taxes — but once it’s done, we’ll be glad we started.

So the only option left is to start the spring cleaning process and hope that it gets easier as we go along — that we find that we’re getting back a little something in the end, that even if we don’t manage to get rid of any stuff that we can at least get rid of some of the piles of paper that seem to accumulate around us. Because we may have reached the point where the Burrow can expand no more. And it would be nice to find a little breathing room. I know it’s in here someplace … probably under a pile of papers.

Photo: Stephen Dunn/Hartford Courant

I was sorry to see the Groton Naval Submarine Base on today’s list of base closures.

I went to college directly across from the sub base. I have never set foot on their base, but I did enjoy the SubFest fireworks every summer from the bank of the Thames River.

And one of the most extraordinary (and rare) sights you ever came across was when a sub came home from a long-term mission. The subs would surface in the Long Island Sound and come up the river in full sight. Every midshipman not involved in driving the sub up the river would be standing on the deck of the sub in their dress uniforms trying to be the first one to see his loved ones on shore. It was always a moving sight.

[Mum, was there a homecoming sub the day we visited Conn that first time or am I confusing that with another time?]

Because of our proximity to a high-profile nuclear target, the New London phone book did include evacuation instructions. Everyone in the service area was supposed to drive up to the East Hartford High School 50 miles away. I thought it nice they had thought out an evacuation plan, even if it was ridiculously impractical and most of us would die anyway.

Groton, known almost exclusively as the “Submarine Capital of the World,” was home to the first nuclear sub launch, in 1954, of The Nautilus, which now serves as a museum on the base.

As Jesse Hamilton of The Hartford Courant wrote earlier this week, “If this town were a person, the Navy would be its skeleton — the hard strength running through everything, keeping a subtle record of its early growth and the breaks it has suffered through the years. This skeleton might also show the town’s age, how time and pressure have painfully bowed its back.”

Closing the base will devastate the Groton and surrounding environs’ economy. It is likely that Electric Boat, which builds high-powered subs just down the river from the base, will, at the very least, have to cut back its employment. Civilians who work on the base will lose their jobs. And the struggling merchant base will lose much-needed customers.

These were things I didn’t think about when I was younger. I didn’t understand how interconnected and fragile everything was, at least in that regard. I will be paying attention to see how Groton — and other communities in similar straits — will cope with these losses.

Time for Three Beautiful Things Thursday…

1. So many people these days plant beautiful, long-lasting, fragrance-free roses, it is absolutely delightful to pause at the house a block and a half up from us where the roses run wild in their tiny yard. I admit I stop each and every time I walk past and stick my nose in their flowers. They must think me quite fresh.

2. One of the best things about my office is that we frequently have lunch meetings (one of the best things about my job is that I generally do not need to go to those meetings). After the attendees eat, the food is offered up to the rest of us. Today’s lunch was a vegetarian sandwich, cheese and crackers, Caesar salad, soda, and chocolate chip cookie.

3. On the iPod this morning, I got Vance Gilbert’s anguished “Takin’ It All to Tennessee,” where he completely captures the horribly selfish, yet completely devastated feeling you have when your friends are leaving you to move elsewhere: “Don’t you love me?” I also had Pink Martini’s “Una Notte a Napoli,” a Latin love song perfect for dancing from the Metro to the office. Add to that Tracy Grammer’s heartbroken delivery of her most recent songs, penned after the death of her beloved Dave Carter, and the ability of music to unite us becomes obvious.

Dear Karen,

I have an exciting idea: Let’s buy a children’s book house!

You see, in my trawling of blogs, I found this exciting piece of news: “The Chrysalis Group has announced its intention to dispose of its children’s and promotional books businesses.”

I have to admit, I’ve always thought the idea of owning or running a bookstore would suit me well. This seems to go just one step beyond that.

Just picture it. Day after day of just reading fun YA books. Or leafing through picture books. Or learning about dinosaurs or history or science. We wouldn’t have to go into the office. We could just take the books home with us once a week and do our work from our respective reading nooks! And then get together over tea and discuss what we thought of them and which new authors we should sign. We could go to the beach and still be working!

To be frank, I probably can’t afford to buy a publishing house on my own. I looked through my wallet this morning and I think the guy busking at the top of the Metro escalator had more spare change than I do right now. But a mutual love of kids’ books has long been a theme of our friendship. And I also like spending time with you, and we don’t get to do nearly enough of that these days since I moved. So I was thinking this would be a nice remedy to that problem.

Just so you don’t think I’m being rash about this idea, I thought I’d better share with you a few drawbacks I’ve thought of:

1. We’d have to convince them to split up the promotional book business and the children’s book business, because I don’t want the promotional half. According to Chrysalis’ web site, the promotional books are remainders. You and I both already have enough remainders in our collections. Warehouses full of them just don’t appeal.
2. Chrysalis’ book selection sucks. I would definitely keep the classics line (I mean, you’ll never run out of new readers for Kipling, Alcott, Stevenson, or Barrie). Their “Leap through Time” books also look interesting. But I could happily ditch books that come with stickers in them. And some of their titles just seem like they were created by people who talk baby-talk to five-year-olds — or to their yappy dogs. We could definitely find better writers than that.
3. Neither of us has any experience running a business, and I, at least, am very lazy. I do not like to work hard. I want to be paid to read books, and I’m guessing there will be more to the job than doing that. I don’t mind going to bookseller and library conferences. And I could probably learn to steel myself enough to talk to prospective writers. And we’re both good editors. But maybe buying a publishing house means it comes with employees already who would do the rest of the work — especially the bill paying part?
4. Chrysalis is located in London. The cats would have to go into quarantine. You’d have to sell or sublet the condo. I’d have to pack all my boxes up again — this time without the kindness of old friends and my folks — and convince Rudi that he wants to give up his seat on the DCDSC. But, on the other hand, to quote Joey from Friends, “It’s London, baby!”

So, let me know what you think. In the meantime, I’ll start looking in the chair cushions for quarters and will trade in some unused Metro cards. You start going through your winter coat pockets to look for forgotten $10 bills.

Talk to you soon!

love,
soe