Odds & Ends & Blog Housekeeping

Today was my day off, because I'm working on Saturday. I had a doctor's appointment on the Upper East Side, but it was midday, and I didn't get out early enough to go to the gym beforehand, and I was worried I'd get out too late to go after, and was right, of course. I was sitting in that little room waiting for the doctor for 50 minutes. I think I nodded off a few times. And all I was there for was a follow-up blood test for my thryoid.

I'd been in that neighborhood last week and was kicking myself for not having my camera so I brought it with me today and it was so nice out and there were construction sites everywhere, like they sprang up overnight. Street repairs. Building repairs. It's hard enough taking pictures on busy Manhattan streets what with trucks and buses blocking the view and not being able to get a good distance from what I'm shooting or being at a bad angle, but today, I had to shoot around scaffolding and orange cones and large pieces of equipment and gray and orange mesh. Sheesh. I got a lot of decent shots, though, I hope. I'll know as soon as I upload from the camera to the PC.

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Saw a couple of books listed in Publishers' Weekly that are must-haves:

• Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s by James Likeks (Crown, Oct.)
• Small Steps by Louis Sachar, a sequel to his wonderful children's book, Holes (the movie was excellent, too). There's no date for it yet.

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This blog is more sociable than I am. I applied for it to join another blog ring: Blogging Fools. I'm not sure how much traffic blogrings generate, but they can't hurt, I guess. With the referral thing, it seems I'm getting more hits here from BlogExplosion and some blogs that link to me. Even Blogger's Recently Updated Blogs list has generated more traffic than the rings, I think.

And I added a "how many visitors now" thing. I've been seeing them on other blogs and thought I'd try one out. I might take it off if it just keeps showing only one visitor at a time. One reason I haven't added a tagboard is my fear no one would use it. I get few comments as it is, which is okay, but to have an empty tagboard would be just too depressing, I think. I know I don't comment there on other people's blogs. It might be a generational thing.

And I'm also thinking of posting some old entries from the AOL Cyber Chocolate (now Cyber Chocolate, Jr.) here, just to have them all in one place. It's hard to find older entries there, so I'll have to look through them all and see if there are any I want easier access to.