All that and then I forgot...

... to mention a really good interview I saw yesterday while baking and worrying about Beasty. He was permanently tuned into HBO Sports yesterday, catching up on football (and sleep). Mary Carillo did a fabulous story on Bryant Gumbel's show on Sir Ranulph Fiennes (yes, he's related), an absolutely fascinating man about whom I'd love to read more.

Short version: he is a professional explorer. The interview ranged from him taking three days to cut the tips of his fingers off because they were frozen (on an expedition), to his 7-marathons-on-6-continents-in-a-week trek (four months after heart surgery), to the death of his wife last year. The only time he got the least emotional was during the bit about his wife. What a guy. I think he's Emerson embodied.

Real Sports is a real good show. Even if you aren't into sports. What B. said about the basketball brouhaha was perfect. He's much less annoying than he used to be in the mornings.

Tuesday

Mood: Encapsulated by the phrase "I'm not sick. Yet."
Hair: Curled

The Beasty is sick. Really sick. He just called (at 11:30) having gotten his first real night's sleep since last Wednesday. He still sounds ick. Poor Beast.

Meanwhile shit is definitely hitting the fan here at work. Life goes on, mostly.

Listening to The Essential Billy Joel, backing up my life: "Captain Jack" right now:

Saturday night and you're still hangin' around
Tired of livin' in your one-horse town
Like to find a little hole in the ground
For a while
...
Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push and you'll be smilin'

[Aside: I found those lyrics on a wedding song site---uhm, NO! Seeing as how the above-quoted lyrics are about the only ones that don't refer to transvestites, suicidal fathers, nose-picking, and masturbation. Wouldn't consider any of those particularly wedding-y.]

So, I'm eating pistachios. Cataloging large print books. Being grateful for my family going home.

I commented at Lady Crumpet re families at holidays. I'll repeat it here, as it's a good summary of why holidays and families can be really annoying.

My two oldest nieces (ages 35 and 32) were at my house Weds. night thru Fri. Thursday morning, I'm running around in a state of panic, worrying about getting the house, the food, the table, myself ... ready for the rest of the guests in the afternoon. They are upstairs discussing wedding music, and showering, and God only knows what else. It's noon. Guests could start arriving any time.

They eventually get the idea that I could use some help... (ahem) ... The Lazy Niece [i.e. Katherine] volunteers to clean bathroom(s) if that would be useful. Not what I would have requested, but it frees me up to do other stuff, so yeah, go nuts--the cleaning supplies are under the sink.The next thing I hear is lots of grumbling and commentary. Now, if you volunteer to clean a bathroom, what do you expect? Wipe out the sink and call it done? Well, no, she's in there bitching about the toilet ... being dirty.

The commentary runs along these lines: "Yuck!! [long pause] Do you have gloves? [I bring her gloves] Don't know why this bothers me more than my own bathroom. Maybe cuz it's not mine. And I don't even mind picking up stuff at work barehanded. Ick." [etc. etc.--I stopped listening at this point. By the way, she's a VETERINARIAN!]

Mind you, I clean the toilets in my house at least every other week. She has 4 cats in her condo. How much worse could one toilet be than cleaning a catbox every other day?? Cripes. If you don't want to clean toilets, DON'T FUCKING VOLUNTEER TO CLEAN THE BATHROOM!

OK, so see, I love my family as long as they are on the phone, not in my house!! Shades of my sister Ellen coming down on me when I was 20 for never thanking her when I went to her house while I was in college, I need to land on Katherine for the same thing.

(Her sister, Elizabeth, told me on the phone last night that she was "grossed out" because Sparky didn't wash his hands after handling the guinea pigs, when he got out some carrots for himself to eat. OK, granted, but jeez, what is it with this family?!)

WOW, didn't even realize how cranky I was about these two people, who generally don't annoy me nearly this much. Well, Katherine does sometimes because she's just so fucking clueless about getting along with people in the real world. For someone over 30, she sure acts 16.

Back to the 50 Large Print books. And I think I even feel better for venting. Sorry about the spew.

"Movin' Out:"

You should never argue with a crazy mind
You oughta know by now
You can pay Uncle Sam with overtime
Is that all you get for your money?

It seems such a waste of time
If that's what it's all about
If that's movin' up then I'm movin' out.

Words to live by.

Sunday afternoon, killing time

Mood: Good
Hair: Blown out, uncurled, probably pretty snarled

I worked this afternoon. It was less awful than I anticipated. I hate working on Sundays, mostly because of my first job, where Sundays were truly fantabulously awful. Imagine Sartre's hell.

Anyway, now I'm waiting to pick Sparky up from youth group, from whence we will head to the pizza place for our dinner and then home to see the v.sick Beast. I haven't heard from him all afternoon--we left for church at 10:00--and I'm rather concerned, but I don't want to wake him. As if he's actually sleeping... We can only hope.

So I'm surfing. And trying to convince myself that I really am NOT getting sick. Really. I'm not. Getting sick.

I found an exhibit that will either appall you or make you laugh (I'm the latter).

I also found a site of letters of application that are amusing--I'm linking the Santa letter.

Sparky was here at work with me this afternoon, for about half the time. He spent a few minutes trying to update his blog but apparently he did something terribly illegal and he got frustrated and decided to read a book instead. He has discovered that book and two other unused Christmas presents from last year in the past 3 or 4 days. Then he asked me for the Toys R Us catalog! As if.

I must finish Christmas shopping this week and get things wrapped next weekend so they can be mailed before it gets nuts at the post office. Oh, wait, it probably already is... Oh well, I think I'm nearly done. One more quick errand here and then I'm out of here.

...post-Thanksgiving...

Mood: Good
Hair: Braid
Listening to: Youssou N'Dour "Joko"

I have exactly one "official" hour off-desk today. Poor me.

Turkey Day was great: 11 people around the table, no fighting, plenty of starchy food (although we ran out of white turkey meat, even with two vegetarians at the table!), lots and lots of dirty dishes that can't go in the dishwasher, Texas Hold 'Em poker Weds. and Thurs. nights (my nieces won, one each night)...

What I'm thankful for NOW:

• It's over--I can cook "normal" for a year now
• My nephews and brother-in-law seem amenable to getting together at Xmas. Small steps
• The inlaws, outlaws and 'vaguely related by engagement-soon-to-be-marriage' folks all got along fine
• My mother's china
• The chairs didn't break (the new ones are scheduled to arrive next week--lousy timing)
• Waldorf salad
• The Bears lost
• I only freaked out once, before most of the people arrived
• I get to take a bath tonight, because all the company will be GONE when I get home
• The Christmas lights on the Square will be officially turned on tonight, which is lovely and small-towny and makes me cry to even think about

We have good CDs at my library.

I have to get to work now.

Thankfulness

Things I'm thankful for this year:

• The Beast and Sparky
• Most of the rest of my family (of origin)
• No snow on the ground (yet)
• Old friends (Jen, J&L, and all the rest, who don't read this, so I'm not going to list them all)
• My job
  Blogger, and the friends I've discovered this year here: Jen!c@, Amy, Annie, Molly, Kristen, Robert...and the other people whose blogs I read (see left)
• My house, which I still love
• Health
• Books, to keep me sane
• Crosswords, for mindless sleep-inducing qualities at almost any high-stress time (like now)
• Guinea pigs
• Diet Dr. Pepper
• The curative actions of time
• Hilarious library patrons
• Squirrels
• Babies--Other people's

So if you are on this list, or cause some of these things to be on the list, THANKS to you. Enjoy the turkey, or whatever, tomorrow.

Time to go home

Mood: On a scale of 10, about 5
Hair: Big barrette

Partial playlist:

• Knock Three Times (Dawn)
• What’s Going on (Marvin Gaye)
• Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
• Want Ads (The Honey Cone)
• Just My Imagination (The Temptations)
• Put Your Hand in the Hand (Ocean)
• Indian Reservation (The Raiders)
• Mr. Bojangles (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
• One Toke Over the Line ( Brewer & Shipley)
• “Synkronized” CD (Jamiroquai)
• Go All the Way (The Raspberries)
• A Horse with No Name (America)
• Brandy (Looking Glass)
• Oh Girl (The Chi-Lites--not Paul Young)
• I am Woman (Helen Reddy) multiple times
• Everybody Plays the Fool (The Main Ingredient)
• Alone Again (Gilbert O’Sullivan)
• Day by Day (Godspell Cast)
• about half of “Mama Said” (Lenny Kravitz)

Total items added today: 92 actual ‘in hand,’ plus about 30’demand’ items
Total hours worked: 7, with about 2 at the Reference desk
Time spent blogging: about 45 minutes total, plus updates to Reflog as necessary
“Problem children” dealt with: 5, plus one new book with chapters 1-3 bound twice and no chapters 4-5 or notes/index (to be returned to publisher)
Time spent talking with intern who just returned from Australia last night: 30 minutes

I have to go home and take care of my sick Beast, my (healthy) niece, and Sparky. Looks like spaghetti for dinner, because it's easy and it's comfort food, and because I have crunchy garlic toasties leftover from the weekend.

Shout

...out to the Family Reunion Lady, who damn well better comment once in awhie (when I say something incredibly, non-library-relatedly profound!). ;-)

Congrats on all that work last weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fun with blog design -- and stuff

Not actually design per se. Just some tweaking. Maybe that will encourage me to write more here, as I've gotten discouraged. {shrug} We'll see. It could just be that time of the year.

I have decided that I'm going to start my Reflog up again. I seem to be on service desks a lot more again lately at work, and this will serve the dual purpose of tracking the wackoids as well as proof that I really am "on the desk" more.

Besides, I'm afraid to use my PC to do anything weird at work now, having done something so incredibly bad it now looks as if the whole hard drive will have to be wiped and reloaded. What a freakin' pain.

Sparky is on a field trip today to the Lyric Opera and the Art Institute. Kind of cool, just one of the perks of living (vaguely) near a big city.

I'm feeling very immature about him today, better than last night, but still pretty irked at something The Beast came across in Sparky's room while searching for his fanny-pack. The good news is that he found Sparky's Bible; part of the bad news is that it has apparently been left outside in the rain at some point. Just from the book-damage issue itself we are both annoyed at him, but to leave his 4th grade gift Bible to get this messed-up, and not tell us is really frustrating. And that's just the intro to why I'm irked. Kids are...challenging. sigh

No advice solicited, just blowing steam.

All right, I need to go make The Beast his birthday cake (actually Amish Bread is the order of the day) before we go pick Sparky up and go to dinner.

By this time on Sunday, I should have a bunch of scrapbooks done. In any case, I'll have had a great couple of days to get away from "reality" before getting down to business about Thanksgiving planning.

A-ha!

Mood: OK
Hair: Blown-out, a little string-y

I have it on authority now: The first chapter is entitled "Woo-Woo" Is Where It's At.

Heh.

Foggy day

Mood: OK
Hair: Big barrette

I'm wearing jeans and a turtleneck and sitting at the Ref desk. Had my mid-year review this morning...obviously I wasn't fired, in spite of my clothing issues.

Yesterday was dispiriting: I broke my PC. Broke-broke it. Had to call Sleek in special, and even he was appalled at my destruction. He spent 3 hours on it yesterday getting it to reboot properly (and he nicely saved my Favorites folder before deleting every-damn thing). But I'm still dealing with random Explorer windows opening, even when I'm not 'exploring' anything. He's working on it again today.

So I'm deskless today. It's somewhat freeing, and I've been forced to work on non-cataloging stuff, which is good in some ways. On the other hand, there's a bunch of stuff waiting for my attention, and I've only got one more day this week to do it.

I'm going north this weekend, scrapbooking with my best friend and her in-utero baby (and 300-plus of our closest acquaintances) for the whole weekend. Hopefully, I will get my England pix in an album (or two--if I can get Sparky's organized). Beyond that, it would be nice to get the pictures taken other times over the last year figured out. [insert laughter here]

So that's my life. Not great, but not awful. I'm refusing to go through the litany of physical complaints, and trying to keep the mental monsters at bay. Friday's post is going to be a downer, so I'm determined to keep all the downer stuff in one day this week. Because, except for the fog, it's a great day!

...uhm...interesting day

from LibraryStuff:

Charlene Li has listed a sample corporate Blogging policy

1) Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog are yours alone and do not necessarily represent the views of your employer.

2) Respect the company's confidentiality and proprietary information.

3) Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog.

4) Be respectful to the company, employees, customers, partners, and competitors.

5) Understand when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons.

6) Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments.

Home for the week

Mood: Great
Hair: Same as this morning, and no hairspray used


I'm leaving. Perhaps I'll write while I'm gone. Perhaps I won't. We'll see.

All I know is that I won't be at the library for the next week.

And that is a good feeling, actually.

Enjoy mid-November.

Ta-ra.

First in the library line, not to mention language

This is so rare I have to point it out: I did this before these three bloggers. See sidebar.

Heh. And this just cracks me up, because I'm one of the ranters madly wreaking havoc on the language.

I can die happy now...another intersection of language and fun.

Etiquette question

Mood: OK
Hair: Big barette
Snappy Comeback NOT to be used today: Do I look like a people person?

So. Backstory:

Sunday we were at a silent auction, a fundraiser for disaster relief. We knew most of the people there, and vice versa (or "vicey versey" as I said as a child). We bid on four or five things, but I don't think I bid more than $10 on any single item.

We got a call in the afternoon that we "won" two things--the teddy bear and the CD rack--and needed to pick them up Monday with a check for $20. Odd, but ok....I didn't remember bidding on the bear.

Went to pick them up yesterday and...well, I didn't bid on the bear. The bear had Sparky's name on it. But not written by Sparky, written by an adult. I think I recognize the writing; it's someone who thinks Sparky is a "cool kid."

Anyway, I wrote the check (good cause and all that, and the bear IS cute), and quizzed Sparky after school. He disavowed any knowledge of it: never asked anyone to write his name down, never said he wanted it, never did more than touch it as he walked by on Sunday.

I'm really annoyed. The person I think did this is on my Difficult to Deal With List for other reasons. I called the auction coordinator and asked her if she thought I was making a big deal out of it (assuring her that the money isn't the issue)--her answer was no! Very tacky to write down other's names; next year they'll do it differently, etc. etc.

Question: Do I confront the person I suspect? Can I do it tactfully somehow? I don't want to lie and say Sparky got in trouble because he didn't really, but how do I approach this? Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

I really want to punch her out. Guess that ultimately would be counterproductive. And I don't KNOW for sure that she did it, but between her handwriting and the fact that her child was the previous bidder, there is some circumstantial evidence.

Kicker: I have a meeting with her tonight, of the committee that is a large source of my previous "Breathe, Just Breathe; Don't React" issues with her.

Now I really need to get some work done, because today is the ONLY DAY THIS WEEK I WILL BE HERE. Yee-haw!

More (heh heh)

From Michael Moore re the election.

I'm trying to stop with this, ok?

We drove to the Nearest Big City to the West last night, where I usually go to library consortia meetings or to shop.

We were shopping this trip...for dining room chairs. And we found some. Which is good, no, actually great!

But, on the trip over and back (about an hour each way), I began compiling a Pet Peeves list:

1. People who through cigarette butts out of car windows. [not to mention those people who leave them, squashed or not, on the ground] All I can say is stay the hell out of the West in the summer.

2. People who drive 54 in 55-mph zones.

3. People who drive 80 in 55-mph zones....or want to. They always end up behind me, doing the tailpipe crawl.

4. People with Bush/Cheney bumper stickers.

5. People in crowded restaurants who don't understand that the sooner they move aside and let YOU OUT, the sooner they will get seated and EAT.

4a. People in crowded restaurants who assume that the sea of people should divide in front of them and let them through, because after all, THEY ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE REST OF US.

5. People who don't slow down for pedestrians in parking lots.

6. People who assume that because their relative has similar medical problems to yours, the "no-it's-NOT-herbal" (but it really is) crap that worked for them will work for you instead of actual doctor-assisted treatment. [ok, so this was earlier in the day]

Notice those all start with "people who..."

So, in the spirit of fairness, anti-peeves or peeve cures:

1. Colorance.

2. Being treated respectfully by a doctor, her nurse and the entire staff. This is unusual enough to be noticeable, especially the staff (Bitch Receptionist wasn't there).

3. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.

4. "Big Money"

5. Nice people at the furniture store who were helpful, chatty, and stayed after closing to get us set up with chairs.

5a. Their sweet pups, with whom Sparky bonded immediately.

6. Good, spicy chicken wraps.

7. That point in the day about 5 minutes before the sun disappears when you can still see your surroundings: it's starting to get murky but isn't inky quite yet and you can see (around here) for miles IN THE DARK.

8. My house.

Here I am

Mood: OK
Hair: Pony

Yesterday would have been my dad's 85th birthday. It's also Tammy O.'s 41st. {{wave}}

Weird Medical Site of the Day: Amazing what beauty the body creates, albeit painfully. From Uncle Jazz.

Sparky and The Beast (NOT to be confused with Pinky and the Brain) are in a People-to-People meeting here right now, while I "work." The first of many. There are 28 kids, so they will be combining with another group to bring the number up closer to 40.

I'm wondering if I have it in me to be a chaperone for one of these trips...

I've been reading lots this week (escapism is good, eh?) and I will eventually get around to putting them all in the other blog. But it's been an interesting mix: old Egyptian papyrus, the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo in general, bear attacks, and a guy being killed with a cannonball out of his collection of life-size medieval war machines.

Fittingly enough, I'm cataloging a book about Kafka, which seems to match my mood and the mood of the world (or at least North America) right now....

Some [non political] things

Listening to: AEIOU (And Sometimes Y), Safety Dance, Too Shy, Rock Me Amadeus

"TOTO? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."

1. My son is trying out for the 6th grade play. He wants to be Toto, the Scarecrow, or Captain Simian. I think this is version of The Wizard of Oz the world may not be ready for!

2. He had a girl over last night after church. OK, yeah, so I invited her. But yeah, a girl. He even talked to her, watched TV with her in the basement.

3. My brother is coming to visit next weekend. I guess that's my birthday present(s) for the past (and future) 5 or 10 years. He sounds kind of down when we talked on the phone. Life is very complicated.

4. Sometimes you just need some stupid 80s music to get through the day.

Suggested reading

Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America by Morris Fiorina

Looks like calm, deep breathing exercises for us all.

This book just crossed my desk for cataloging, following George Carlin's new book and one hysterically funny book of "new lyrics" for Xmas carols called The Dysfunctional Family Christmas Songbook, which I suspect I will be buying for folks this year. And a second copy of America.

So, provided we can still laugh, there is still hope. Actually, we'll have to laugh, or we'll cry.

Thursday

Mood: OK
Hair: Blown out
Snappy Comeback NOT to be used today: Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial. [Unless you voted for Bush.]

From Library Stuff yesterday.

I expected church last night to be....difficult. It was strangely subdued and even somewhat mournful, although very little was said overtly about the election except in quiet one-on-one convos. There were little sparks of "oh shit" level comments from people I believed were party-line Republicans. I left feeling somewhat buoyed.

Not all Christians are psycho Bush cranks. In fact, I'd even say that most of the mainline Protestant church members are a lot more reasonable (in my opinion) in this election than the majority of non-denominational folks. I said to one Demmy friend last night, "How can we get that fact out into the public sector? That you can be a Christian and a Democrat, gasp!" Then I remembered that in the 60s/70s that wasn't unusual at all--manymany of the civil rights church groups were on the social action/Democrat tickets. What the hell happened...? Don't answer that, I know: Jerry Falwell, The (IM-)Moral (MINO-)Majority, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson and Operation Rescue happened.

But. We shall overcome.

ENOUGH

Mood: Feisty
Hair: Barette

I'm going home tonight, after church, and having a bottle of wine (whine?).

Then tomorrow, assuming I can function with alcohol in my system, I'm going to DO SOMETHING.

No more feeling sad and sorry and panicky. That's silly--Bush only barely won this election, the Senate majority is only 55 (they need 60 to break a filibuster folks), the House is made up of monkeys most of the time anyway...we'll get through this.

It is probably not going to be pretty. Or fun. Or particularly friendly. But I'll be damned--quite literally, damned to hell--if I allow my nephew and, potentially, my son to be drafted off to fight a stupid war without laying myself out first. And I'll be damned if the scenarios of the doom-and-gloom crowd (you know who you are!) come to pass without one hell of a fight, from us, the 55,832,479-plus Americans who voted for Anyone-But-Bush.

Come on people: we survived Reagan, possibly the worst excuse for a leader in the past 25 years. We can make it four more years in Bushland. But it will take vigilance and a serious willingness to stand in the way when people start farting around with the Constitution. And they will. So we know and can fight back, remembering Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me. (1945)

Time to speak up, step up and for God's sake stop whinging and DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE/PROACTIVE/POSITIVE.

Now. Where's my wine?

Post-election funk

Well, shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

The ultimate outcome of this is that I probably will be doing a lot more active campaigning, marching, what-have-you in 2006 and 2008.

At least Obama won. The only African-American in the Senate--mortifying eh? Maybe his wife should run too: her speech was as good as his, and shorter. And the longest-in-office Congressman has been replaced...by a woman! Wooo
__________________

To top it off, not only am I supposed to do Shut-in delivery today, I'm scheduled to work at the Reference Desk at the same time. Stupid Schedule-Nazi.

Grumble, grumble.

VOTE!

Mood: Good
Hair: Blown out
Snappy Comeback TO BE USED OFTEN today: VOTE, DAMMIT!!

I'm excited: I voted.

My cut-up hand isn't unusable--I can type and pick things up without opening up the cuts.

And OCLC's internal weblog is now EXternal!

So does that make me terminally geeky?

Oh, who cares...

VOTE, DAMMIT!!

Items added

October=699 (182 compact discs, not all settlement ones, but a lot more than usual! 'Usual' averages about 30 per month.)

September=986
August = 589
July = 501
June = 571
May = 635
April = 845