Monthly Archives: September 2009

Librarianship, Storytime

surreal

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Tuesday morning I had a moment in the midst of storytime.  We were doing a lap bounce (“The Grand Old Duke of York”) and somehow I went on autopilot while leading the group and took in the scene as if I were an outsider.  A semicircle of adults around the room, singing while bouncing and lifting their children in unison, following my lead and my rhythm as I demonstrated the lap bounce with Pepper the border collie puppet in my own lap.  How frickin’ surreal.  I mean, seriously.  Five years ago I would have laughed if you had told me I’d be leading a large group in song while bouncing a dog puppet in my lap.  And here were all these sincere faces following along with me.  Not a single person on the verge of laughing.  Seriously.  Part of me wants to videotape myself leading one of these storytimes, just to see what it’s all about, really; but I know that any confidence I currently have would be totally shattered by watching a video of myself.  So I’ll leave my observations of myself to the odd surreal out-of-body moments like yesterday’s.

And then, fast forward to this evening, at my first meditation class: we had just finished a walking meditation around the room, and had eased back to our chairs.  “Stand in front of your chair,” said our instructor, “but don’t sit down yet.”  Which is what I say as a lead-in to “Handy Spandy” in the infant storytime.  It was all I could do to hold back from launching into the rhyme: “Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump IN.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all jump OUT.  Handy Spandy sugary candy, we all jump UP.  Handy Spandy, sugary candy, we all sit down.”  Thankfully, I was able to restrain myself, but how odd that my first reaction in that situation was to want to take charge and lead a sit-down action rhyme.

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[For those of you who might be wondering, I LOVE my meditation class.  LOVE IT.  A great bunch of people (we shared a huge laugh together, which is the best kind of bonding experience), and, most importantly, meditation actually seems to work for me.  Yay.]

Librarianship, Storytime

How to stay healthy?

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With all the scary talk about the H1N1 virus, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep myself healthy in the face of the onslaught of germs that comes my way, especially during storytimes. 

I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a little note to the library’s published calendar that says something like, “Please help our community – and your children’s librarian – stay healthy, and don’t come to storytimes if either you or your child are sick.”  But I can’t come up with wording that says what I want to say in a way that’s friendly and kind, not obnoxious.  So for now I’ve followed the suggestion of a library patron, and bought an enormous jug of hand sanitizer that I put outside the door to the story room.  On the way in to the story room for each storytime, I’m encouraging attendees to use the hand sanitizer if they’d like or if they think they should.

Logically, I know that hand sanitizer won’t solve the issue of germs being spread at storytimes, since I know for a fact that every time that I’ve gotten sick recently it has been from airborne germs (I never, never, never touch my eyes or mouth or nose while at work).  But hopefully the mere presence of the hand sanitizer will remind people that germs spread quickly in the confined space of the story room, and hopefully anyone who’s sick or has a sick child will choose to stay home.  Hopefully.  And maybe I’ll be able to find a gentle way to let patrons know that when the children’s librarian gets sick, everyone loses, because then there are no storytimes until she gets better.  And given her tendency to nasty bronchial infections, it could take her a long time to get better if she does get sick. 

And I’ll definitely be getting my flu shot as soon as I’m able.  Definitely.

Young adult book review

City of Bones

I’m reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, and loving it.  Though it’s similar in some ways to the Twilight series, I’m finding it much more creative and enjoyable than Stephenie Meyer’s juggernaut.  The main character, Clary, has considerably more depth and intelligence than Bella, and the concept of the Shadowhunters seems more fully developed than some key aspects of Meyer’s work.

Not that I should be falling into the trap of comparing this book to the Twilight series, but it is hard to read one without thinking of the other.  Perhaps I should just say that City of Bones is an engrossing , enjoyable, undemanding read, and a nice contrast to my other book-in-progress, Demian by Hermann Hesse.  Always good to temper an overly intelligent book with one that’s fun and action packed.  I recommend Clare’s book, and am looking forward to reading the others in the series (now that Lisa has reassured me that we’re not dealing with another Flowers in the Attic series…).

Spare time - Culture

Classes

I’ve signed up to take two adult classes this fall: “Drawing from Observation” and “Meditation for Everyone.”  With no tutoring this fall, I actually have time and energy to pursue some things that interest me, and I have high hopes for these classes.  I’m not great at drawing, but I do enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to learning a bit more about shading and shadow (my main drawing strength, if I can be said to have one, lies in contour line drawing – I stink at shading).  And meditation has got to be good for me, considering that I get migraines and generally tend to be overstressed. 

So we’ll see.  With any luck, eight weeks from now I’m be calm, centered, relaxed, and turning out great works of art in charcoal and pencil… Ok, at least maybe I’ll meet some new people.

Book groups, Spare time - Culture

Bookstore, Abby’s version

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Recently, my brother wrote this great post on his blog about a visit he made to a bookstore.  I went to my favorite used book store on Saturday, and had adventures of my own that are worth relating:

As I walked in the door of the Barrow Bookstore, there was an intense young man talking to the staff person on duty – talking and talking and talking.  He was the kind of young man in his early twenties who thinks he’s really intelligent, but isn’t, and he kept going on about a friend of his [insert friend’s name here, for name-dropping purposes] who would really like to attend the author festival that had left its brochures at the bookstore and could he take a few brochures for his friend?  He was also filling out a request form for some Ezra Pound book that he was looking for, and took forever at the task, all the while expounding on Pound.

I might not have noticed him so much, but I had gone into the store with the express purpose of finding a copy of the Images of America book on Carlisle (Jim is leading a tour of Carlisle on Wednesday, and needed to do some research).  Because of the talkative young man, I had to hang out and wait, and of course I went over to the children’s section, something I was trying to avoid, and of course I immediately found two books I could not possibly live without.  Hoping to avoid further financial damage, I willed the young man to shut up and go away; it took a while for him to respond to my telepathic proddings, but eventually he went off to browse and I got to ask my Carlisle book question.

The store didn’t have the Carlisle book I was looking for, so the staff person (we’ll call her Adele) and I headed over to ring up the two books I had found.  I told Adele I was so very glad to find a copy of The Diamond in the Window, since it’s out of print and it’s a book that I like to use with my book groups, and then we chatted pleasantly about libraries until she saw my second book, Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel, and we bonded on our love for Kenneth Oppel’s work.

“You know,” said Adele, “We get a lot of review copies of children’s books here, and a whole bunch just came in – they’re on that cart over there…”  So of course I went over to look, and found two more books I just couldn’t live without, and as Adele was ringing those in the young man came over to make his exit.  He blabbered and blabbered and blabbered, and Adele gave me the look of a long-suffering shop clerk who just wants to get rid of an annoying customer and move on with her day.

“Do you have any business cards? Because I’d love to give a card to my friend X…” started the young man.  While he was still blathering, Adele handed him a stack of the store’s bookmarks, almost shutting him up.  But then he started going on about how he’d definitely be back, what a great store, he’d probably come back for those books in a few days, maybe on Tuesday, but he’d definitely be back, that book on Pound was terrific, what a great store…

Adele interrupted him with a pleasant smile as she nodded her head towards me and said, “She’s been shopping here for years.”  Another pleasant smile.  And the young man finally left, thank goodness, as another man came in to the store.

The second man, a pretentious snot in his early fifties, looked at Adele and said, “Oh, you’re still here?”  Adele looked confused, long-suffering, and surprised at the same time, as the pretentious man continued, “Last time I was here you sounded like you were ready to pack up and move on.”

“Oh, must have been having a bad d…” started Adele, but she couldn’t even finish her thought, because the man broke in.

“Guess whose birthday is today?  And no, it’s not mine!” he said.  “Sophia Peabody.  They’re having quite the big to-do up in Salem today.”

“Mmmmm…” Adele and I both started to comment on that, but the pretentious man talked over us.

“Though why anyone would celebrate her birthday is beyond me,” he said.  “What the heck did she ever do?”

“She married that gorgeous man…” said Adele.

“And she made him happy.”  I added.

“Exactly!!” said Adele, as the obnoxious man snorted in derision.  “Exactly!!!  Those two had a wonderfully happy marriage, even though they were very poor for most of it.”

And Adele and I shared a look that spoke volumes about women in our society, about fame, about what’s important in life, as the twitty old snot made some sort of scornful comment in the background.

And then I left, and drove to Fern’s Country Store in Carlisle, where I found the book that Jim needed; and then I went home to my terrific husband, who had spent his day digging four foot holes and mixing cement for the footers for our new front steps.

Children

Neighbors

On my way back from Idylwilde today, I passed our neighbors’ house and said hi to the kids. 

“How’s the yard sale going?”  I asked the three boys.

“Great!”  then, “Hey, Abby!  I can tie my shoes!!!!”

“That’s awesome!” I said, then their mom and I talked about their new cat for a minute before I went my way.

I’ve been thinking about these kids lately, and how they are raised the way I was raised:  they play outside a lot, often with other neighborhood kids; they aren’t scheduled for a million lessons, but rather have a lot of free play time; and their parents don’t treat them as though they’re little gods.  These kids have boundaries, and they know when they’ve crossed the line.

The result is that these kids are well-behaved, friendly, and know how to entertain themselves simply by riding their bikes or picking beans and tomatoes out of their garden.  They’re also interested in other people: they’ve brought us a plate of homemade brownies, and they always come running over to greet Jim when he grills, asking him, “Hey, Jim!  Whatcha doin’???  Are you going to play guitar??  Whatcha cookin’???”

It’s really refreshing to see a family that’s raising such sweet, fun, un-selfcentered boys, especially in this age of over-scheduled children and helicopter parents.  It seems like every time I turn on the Today Show there’s a piece on how parents overindulge their children these days, and how current parenting practices aren’t ideal, that maybe we’ve swung too far away from how parents raised children in the fifties, that parenting needs to swing back to a more moderate point somewhere between where we are now and where we were in the fifties.  I suspect that the economic downturn will actually encourage more parenting like I see next door, as more families can’t afford to pay for classes and lessons for their children, and as more families want to raise kids who will be able to take the blows that society is bound to deal them in the coming years. Things have changed a lot in the last year, and our kids need to be equipped for what looks to be a hard-scrabble future.

And now Jim and I should head over and meet that new cat…

Spare time - Culture

Vacation

After a little glitch that delayed my entry, I’m finally back (my car battery died on Tuesday morning, and the trips to and from the shop, and needing to bum rides to and from work from ever patient Jim, meant that there was no time to write an entry till today).

One of my coworkers asked me today how my vacation was, to which I replied “Fabulous!”  She then asked me if it’s true that taking two weeks off is far better than  taking just one week.  She’s read that one only truly begins to relax after the first week of vacation, which is why two weeks of vacation leaves a person so much more relaxed and happy.  I would totally agree.  TOTALLY.  By the ninth or tenth day of my vacation, I started to feel like myself again.  I had energy, I was happy, and great ideas for new programs at the library kept popping into my head.  (More about those ideas in the future, when I’m a little closer to launching them.)

And the best part was that I mostly stayed at home for vacation.  We spent three nights at Jim’s father’s Cape house with all of Jim’s siblings, but other than that we were at home.  The house was clean, the laundry was always done, and we got to explore local attractions that we don’t normally visit.  Jim and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum and the Salem Willows; we went to the awesome Clinton movie theater that serves dinner and beer; we had dinner at the restaurant where we held our wedding reception; we hung out at the Cape, including a lot of time spent on the beach; and we worked on building our snazzy new back steps.  And then I had a week of vacation after Jim went back to work, and I used that week to go to the Concord Museum and DeCordova Museum; I took several walks at the Old North Bridge, with stops in the Old Manse and the Buttrick Mansion; I window-shopped in Concord and had a long chat with my old boss; and I bought my art supplies for my upcoming drawing class.  Best of all, I got to share the trip to DeCordova with my dad, and on a day with absolutely perfect weather, so that we could see Wachusett Mountain from the rooftop observation deck on top of the museum.

So yes, I would say that two weeks of vacation is the way to go.  Rested, rejuvenated, relaxed – I’m a different person than I was at the end of summer reading.  I’ve even determined that I’ll not get upset by little things at work, and that I’ll always be positive and happy at work, avoiding stress and crankiness at all costs.  Of course, the universe decided to test my resolve right off the bat, as I bounced out the door on Tuesday morning in my new red shoes all ready to go back to work…got into my car…turned the key in the ignition…and only got a “click-click-click” and some warning lights in response.  But I’m happy to say that I survived that test pretty well.  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep Happy Abby around for a long while.

Blog administration

I’m still here

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Yes, I am still here – and thoroughly enjoying my vacation. 

I have five more days to rest, renew, and rejuvenate, and then it’s back to work and back to blog postings.  Look for me here starting on Tuesday, September 8!

Until then, I’ve got some serious reading and relaxing to do.  Cheers!