Keeping up the chin

Word of the day: maudlin \MAWD-lin\, adjective:

Tearfully or excessively sentimental.

Good word for today.

Another call last night from our friends with the sociopathic child. He's progressed from assaulting his parents and the older of his siblings to trying to beat the crap out of his his four-year-old brother for getting up from the dinner table. Hopefully he can be removed from their house before the weekend.

Sparky neglected to mention an(other) assignment he was he was assigned before Spring Break. Hence, I was late(-ish) to work today because I had him skip the bus and work on it before school. Then I took him to school. And The Beast gets to do the rest of the project with him tonight.

The fortunate thing is that Sparky did this same assignment a couple of years ago, so we know what the purpose and point is: create an "artifact box" of clues about the city in which the school is and exchange it with a similar box from another school somewhere in the country. Then each group of kids tries to figure out where the boxes started. So we can redo, to a certain extent, many of the clues he created last time. Except the "leaves and a branch from a tree" which he wanted to do: d'oh, they aren't leafing out yet.

Meanwhile, here at work my cart here at work remains empty.

So, I'm spending the morning writing a "treaure hunt" for the Friends of the Library gathering at the end of the month...well, in 2 weeks, really. I need to figure out how to use the following letters for their clue: T H O R R I M N K F . I don't mind doing this kind of thing--I love puzzles--I just feel kind of guilty that I'm doing it instead of "real work." Whatever.

The other thing the boss suggested I can work on is creating several lists:

• Number of cardholders at our library by gender
• Percentage of our circulation figures sorted by gender
• What subjects are used by which gender

The very scariest thing is that...I've done it! In only about 90 minutes. Thank God for III and all its very powerful tools. I'll hate to have to migrate to Dynix, or whatever the rest of the system uses. I'm still cleaning it all up so it's actually usable, but what a great way to make points just before my annual salary review, eh?

Quote(s) of the day: Several good ones today

"Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think." --Niels Bohr (maybe this should be the tag for my blog)

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long." --Leonard Bernstein (...or this...)

"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug." --John Lithgow

Then again, I could use all three....