Category Archives: Etc.

Children, Etc., Librarianship

Germs

4 Comments

I’ve been taken down.  Again.

Friday night was movie night – we showed Ratatouille – and I spent the whole movie alternating between riding the volume on the remote control and ducking out of the main hall to indulge my coughing fits.  My dinner that night?  Cough drops and water (and a late bowl of soup upon arriving home).  I’m not going to even discuss Ratatouille, because I hated it, but I think I mostly hated it because I felt like crap and just wanted to be home in front of the wood stove with a cup of tea and a cat in my lap.

Lisa told me that I “have a weak constitution.”  Harumph!*  Seems to me I was barely sick at all last winter.  The real problem is that I work with kids – lots and lots of kids, of all ages – all day, every day, and my poor beleaguered system can’t get a chance to recover and become healthy.  Fifteen toddlers and their moms in a small story room on Mondays: that’s a lot of germs.  A similar number of infants and their moms on Tuesdays.  Six or so preschoolers and their parents listening to my stories on Thursdays: even more germs.  All the elementary school and middle school kids who sneak usage of my phone while I’m away from my desk: I don’t even want to think about those germs and their direct access to my immune system (and so much for training the kids to only use the phone in my office – the minute I’m away from my desk, they use my primary phone.  grrrrrrr). 

And then there are the books.  I had to go buy a new paperback copy of Magyk by Angie Sage to read for the upcoming book group meeting; the library copy that I brought home is BEYOND disgusting.  A hardcover petri dish.  Blech.

Thank goodness for this three-day weekend.  Lots of OJ and rest are on my schedule for the weekend, and nothing else.

*  and Lisa, if this doesn’t prompt you to leave a comment, I don’t know what will!  🙂

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Weekend update

2 Comments

It’s a short weekend for me this week, since my name came up in the Saturday work lottery (and I really can’t complain, when you think about how many Saturdays in a row Lisa had to work recently).  I worked at the library yesterday while Jim painted the house; he made a lot of progress, and we’re nearing the point of having two coats of finish everywhere.  Once we’ve got those two finish coats done, we’ll try to complete a third finish coat before winter sets in.

We actually dined out last night, and ate some great seafood, then rented Air Guitar Nation, an entertaining documentary about the 2003 World Air Guitar competition.  Good fun, and far more interesting than a Hollywood movie.  After watching the documentary, we went on one of our favorite weekend evening activities, a mystery ride.  This particular mystery ride turned into a drive-by revisitation of some of the houses that we had considered buying a few years ago when we were in the market.  General consensus: by sheer dumb luck we ended up owning the best house of the bunch.

Today’s plan is to drive down to Jim’s dad’s house to check out the ongoing renovations there, have lunch with Jim’s dad and stepmom, then head back up home in time for Jim to catch the Patriots game.  While Jim’s watching the game, I’ll be outside trying to move five languishing peony plants to a sunnier location.  (I’m a little intimidated by the process, but the plants aren’t blooming where they are now, so it’s gotta be done.)  Then a couple hours of study of Mother Goose on the Loose, and the weekend will be over and it will be time to gear up for another work week.

Etc., Librarianship

My cranky side

1 Comment

Here’s an example of my cranky side:

We have a large collection of Lauri puzzles at the library – great simple puzzles that are made out of foam rubber, so they’re easily cleaned and have bright colors. 

Mostly our library patrons just have fun playing with them, then put the puzzles back in the cubbies under the window seat.

But sometimes a library patron will take apart the hardest Lauri puzzle, the carousel horse, decide that it’s too difficult, and leave it in a jumble of pieces on the coloring table and strewn across the floor in front of the window.  This makes me cranky.  Very cranky.  I mean, really.  If you can’t do the puzzle, at least be gracious enough to bring it over to your lovely, very friendly children’s librarian, and say “Ooops!  Bit off more than we could chew here!  Got to run, can’t finish it!  Sorry!”  That librarian would smile and say thank you and take the opportunity to wash the puzzle pieces before reassembling it.

It’s a different matter when the charming children’s librarian has to crawl on her hands and knees, sometimes while wearing a short skirt (can you say “awkward”?), to search for the puzzle pieces.  Then the puzzle goes to live in the children’s librarian’s office for a day or two.  If you can’t play nicely with the toy and put it away when you’re done, then it will be taken away for a period of time. 

I’ve become my mother, haven’t I?

Blog administration, Etc.

Snarkiness

3 Comments

Warning: the word “snarky” will be overused in this entry.  I can’t help myself: the sound of the word snarky is just too delicious. 

********

While I gain a certain amount of satisfaction from writing this blog, I do feel quite constrained by the confines of political correctness.  A lot of snarky lies within my soul – a lot of snarky - and I long to release it upon this blog, yet my role as a public figure prevents me from unleashing the snark.  Had I thought more about this back at the beginning, perhaps I would have set up this blog [actually, asked my brother to set up this blog…] as an anonymous production.  Though, of course, this is a professional development tool for me, and anonymity would remove that practical element.  Those of you have been with this blog since the beginning will note that I have deleted any specific mention of the library for which I work or the town in which it is located; the closest to anonymity that I can come, seeing as my domain name is my name.

Why anonymity?  Children’s librarians are often perceived as being sweet and non-confrontational, and snarkiness does not fall into the usual children’s librarian’s job description.  Writing as myself, I am well aware of the eyes that see this blog, and am loathe to offend those eyes or cause any sort of controversy: I feel obligated to support the image of me as sweet and kind and unexceptionable.

Yet I long to push the envelope.  On Thursday, Roger Sutton published this entry on his blog, Read Roger:

 http://www.hbook.com/blog/2007/09/kathy-griffin-isnt-only-one-to-drag.html#links   Controversial?  Yes.  Funny?  Yes.  Did it incite discussion?  Yes.  I’m not saying that I’d publish an entry along those lines, exactly, but merely that I’d love to air the snarky without worries.  Sutton’s reputation stands on firm enough ground that not only can he publish such an entry, but he can also link his blog to the website of the Horn Book Magazine.  What grand freedom.  My reputation, on the other hand, is in its infancy, and given my age upon beginning this profession, it probably won’t mature much past toddler-hood before it’s time for me to retire.  (Not that I’ll be able to retire, ever, in this financial climate…oops, was that a bit of snark creeping in???)

Pushing the envelope doesn’t always have to mean being snarky, though, I’ll admit.  On Friday, my clever brother posted this video to his blog: http://www.danielharper.org/blog/?p=1016#comment-4477   Dang!  Wicked creative.  I’d love to think that the only thing standing between me and such creativity is my lack of a video camera and video editing software and gobs of time, but truth is that Dan’s mind works on levels that I can only dream of. 

So I guess I’ll just have to continue to muddle along with non-controversial entries, while my soul longs to be snarky.  How did you like that book you just read, Abby?  Oh, my, I LOVED it [not!  can’t think of a more boring book! – says the inner snark]  How was your day at work, my dear?  Wonderful, as always!  [hmmm, well, actually, it wasn’t a banner day – I was cranky and the air conditioning gave me a stiff neck]  And that performer who came last month?  Oh, my, such a wonderful job!  [dang – I was bored to TEARS!!]

You get the idea.  You’ll just have to read between the lines.  Just remember that the snarky is there, somewhere.

Blog administration, Etc., Spare time - Culture

The continuing saga

It’s raining, so I’m working on posting back entries again.  Just a quick note about this:  it’s proving to be more tedious than I ever thought to reinstate these old entries to my blog, so I’ve made the executive decision to no longer reinstate the comments that accompanied each entry.  It’s not that I don’t love and appreciate the comments, because I do, but I just want this process to be over.

In other news, my poor husband just suffered yet another injury: while walking out the door to powerwash the house (what better time to powerwash than in the rain?), he slipped on the steps and crashed down on his back and arm.  Quite some bruises have already appeared on his forearm, and his back is definitely very painful.  But he’s still out powerwashing, bless him, since we’re running out of painting time for the exterior of the house.  Note to self: stay in this house for many years, in order to better appreciate all the hard work that we’ve poured into it.

Upcoming blog entries will discuss reuniting with my tutoring students, the after school crunch, the 5th grade book group’s opinions on The Diamond in the Window, and the fifth quarter report on how my first toddler storytime went…

Book groups, Etc.

This week

4 Comments

It’s only Monday, but it feels like Friday.  It’s just one of those weeks.  Busy today, no time to think today, first storytime tomorrow, first tutoring of the school year tomorrow, regular work on Wednesday, second storytime on Thursday, 3 Apples Storytelling Thursday night, regular work on Friday, family reunion for Jim’s family in New Hampshire on Saturday.

The book groups start next week, and I came up with a great idea today.  I always send each book group member a reminder postcard a week or so before the meeting.  Since our book groups are called “Bagels n’ Books,” I’ve created a cute postcard that I use each time that has a photo of bagels, an ampersand, and a pile of books.  Very cute, the kids love it, and it’s a good reminder.  BUT this month I did something a little different.  Since we’re discussing The Diamond in the Window, Jim and I drove to Concord yesterday and took some photos of the house.  I had planned on printing a large copy of the best photo for display on my desk, so the kids could see what the house looks like, but I had an “Ah-a!” moment this afternoon.  I took the best photo of the house and used it as the graphic for the reminder postcard, along with a caption that reads:  “The Diamond in the Window House, Concord, MA.”  On the back of the postcard I typed a note to the kids saying “I look forward to discussing one of my favorite books with you!”  I love the finished product, and am proud of myself for coming up with this idea in the midst of a crazy day.  Yay me.

Hopefully there will be other creative moments this week…

Etc.

Rudy

7 Comments

Our beloved cat Rudy died today, at the young age of eight. 

We took him from the emergency care folks over to the animal hospital for surgery this morning – didn’t say a proper goodbye, perhaps because we knew it probably might be goodbye for good – and left him there, rubbing his face against the front gate of his carrier.

At 11:30, the surgeon, Dr. Sager, called to tell me that he had bad news: Rudy’s intestine was fully cancerous, and his liver was almost completely gone (perhaps because of the peritonitis).  The humane thing to do was to put Rudy to sleep, and not try to wake him up.

And so Rudy is gone, and I miss him – a lot.  He was a great cat, and we loved him.

Etc., Summer reading

Tuesday update

– Rudy, the double-pawed big-hearted tuxedo cat, will be receiving an ultrasound this morning.  Hopefully the news will be good.

– Two new kids signed up for the summer book groups: one for the fifth grade group, one for the seventh-ninth grade group.  Something tells me that there will be even more new kids signing up over the summer, which is very exciting.

– The Ice Cream Social, the summer reading kickoff event, is only a day away.  There’s a chance that we may need to use the rain date of Thursday, but I’m really hoping that we don’t have to make that decision. 

– Last storytime of the school year is this morning.  It’ll be nice to have a break from all the planning that entails, but I’ll miss the social, fun group that comes every week (average attendance lately has been well over 30).

– Perhaps because of Rudy’s health, I’m only mildly freaking out about summer reading this year (as compared to last year).  But I still can’t wait for it to get started, to get over the hump of beginning the summer.

– And, last but not least, a funny story from yesterday:  I was buying water for the upcoming movie night and for the Ice Cream Social.  Kmart had a really great deal on individual bottles of Poland Spring water, so I piled six cases into my shopping cart, along with three of the counter-top bottles that have a pouring spout.  As I maneuvered the heavy-as-heck cart to the register, I announced to the clerk that “I clearly have a drinking problem.”  She thought that was pretty funny.