Out of retirement for a brief note:

Who knew Sherman Alexie was so humorous?



I'm sure a lot of you have already seen this clip from the Colbert Report, but I've just seen it and I wanted to share the laughter.

Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu!

So here's the scuttlebutt:

I love this blog and writing it has been an amazing experience! But as my lack of posting in the last month and a half points out, my current pursuit of other projects leaves me little time to focus on this blog. So I have decided to give it a rest for a while. I can't say whether I will come back to it at some time in the future, but I will not rule it out:)

So it's pip-pip-cheerio for now, and thank you all for reading!

baby nothin'

What a weird morning. It all started with one of the local characters (a woman whose mental health status is more to the unhealthy side of the spectrum) asking me, "How ya doin', baby?"

The only person who gets to call me "Baby" is my dad, and that's because I actually AM his baby. Or was at one point. Anyway, she said the same thing to all the employees, so at least I wasn't being singled out. I think the weirdness was magnified by the earliness of the hour and the fact that it is a Saturday.


So there are a lot of good books coming out this month!


1. My Bonny Light Horseman by L. A. Meyer

Some readers may already know that I have a love-hate relationship with L. A. Meyer's Bloody Jack Adventures series. I am wicked psyched for some more love-hate emotional roller coaster.

This book came out September 2. While I do not love this series enough to immediately go out to the bookstore and spend $20 of my kitchen renovation money on my very own copy, I have almost got my hands on a free ARC. Maybe next week I will get around to reading it!

2. The Other Queen: A Novel by Philippa Gregory


J'adore the many works of Ms. Gregory, and this one is going to be especially good because it is about Mary, Queen of Scots, an effing amazing heroine. This book comes out September 16, and I may actually buy this one. I own most of her other works, so I might as well complete the collection.






And now, a gratuitous new kitten picture:



She is all tuckerd out from reading Outlander.

books, kittens, and ghosts

Welp, its the holiday weekend and I am here at work. Two staff members took the day off to get that coveted four-day weekend, so that leaves me, two clerks, and a volunteer here. Yikes. I do get Sunday and Monday off, though. Two days off in a row! How very exciting! Unfortunately I will probably spend that time off seeing to the plethora of house problems that reared their hideous heads in the past week. Sigh.

But last week wasn't all bad. Thanks in part to the book Flabby Tabby by Penny McKinlay, about a fat cat who becomes less lazy when a new kitten is introduced to the household, I finally convinced my husband that we needed another cat to keep our cat Rousseau company. And perhaps make her get up off the couch once in a while. So we adopted a four-month-old tailless kitten on Sunday. We named her Morwen, after the witch in the Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia C. Wrede.

We have not introduced the two of them yet. Morwen is currently camped out in our tiny bathroom until they get used to each other's smells. She is not a happy camper, by any means. Being a kitten, she wants to explore and pounce on things. And she lets us know. Unfortunately all the books and websites recommend 10 -14 days of acclimation before introducing the new cat to the old cat. Which means we have at least another five days of near constant yowling to go!

And in other news...

Last summer when I was working at the Ex-Library, I had the local paranormal society come out to do a program with the teens about ghost hunting and whatnot. My bosses were not pleased, but the teens loved it. My new boss is a Halloween aficionado, and when I mentioned the program I did the previous summer, he as crazy excited about it. With his blessings, I have arranged for the paranormal society to come out and do a similar program this October. It is so nice working for rational people.

Booyah!

Take this, Mr. I-Owe-the-Library-Hundreds-of-Dollars-but-Really-Couldn't-Care-Less!

what do you mean I owe you money?

I have been spoiled.

One of the few perks of working at my Ex-Library was that I was exempt from overdue fines. This caused me to develop the exceedingly bad habit of going on sugar-fueled library material-ordering binges. Frequently. I often had upwards of 30 items checked out AND on my holds list. I, of course, am not capable of reading/watching thirty items in the allotted three weeks. However, since they did not accrue overdue fines, I would just keep them until I could get around to reading/watching them. This was especially callous of me, as some of the materials were fairly popular and had dozens of other people on the holds list. Bad librarian!

Then a few weeks ago, my library card status was changed due to my new job, and I was no longer exempt. Hey, I can accept that it just isn't offered as a perk here. The problem was, no one told me, and I got fined! Nothing serious, just a couple of dollars. But I am SO not used to it. Now I actually have to pay attention to when things are due, renew things if need be, and return some things even if I haven't read them yet!

I currently have my home collection of library books weeded down to 12 items, but my holds list is still hovering around thirty. This might take some practice!

Hold the Presses

Big news, everyone. Big. News.

I was recently informed that both The Big D and the E.D. from my Ex-Library had been laid off. That's right. They are both out of the picture, and the running of the library is now in the hands of the Children's Librarian, who will continue to perform her youth services duties as well. I think she will do an excellent job, although it sounds like it will be pretty hectic.

When it gets down to it, being laid off is a sucky thing, and I don't think I would wish it on anyone short of Ratko Mladic. I genuinely hope that my former bosses have good luck in their future endeavors.

But enough of that.

Last weekend was the end-of-summer reading party! As I came to this Branch with Summer Reading already in full swing, I didn't actually do much. But for the party I held Bug Olympics, and it was actually quite fun. There were five events:

1. Flea Jump (High Jump)
2. Fly Flap (flapping arms for 10 seconds, dividing number of flaps by 10 to get the number of flaps per second).
3. Cockroach Dash (10-yard dash)
4. Pollination Relay (Moving a spoonful of "pollen" (birdseed) from "flowers" (paper cups decorated as flowers) to the "beehive" (fishbowl cleverly disguised as a beehive)
5. Grasshopper Hop (Long Jump)

There was also ice cream, free books, and leftover summer reading prizes for all participants! Only three kids came on purpose and about twelve more came after being shooed in that general direction by my coworkers. Purposeful participants or not, much fun was had by all. And the ice cream was delish.

back from the beach

Whew, it has been a while since I posted.
Vacation was a raving success. I saw ponies, went to the beach, got magnificently sunburned, and read 3.1 books. The books I actually read, in order, were:

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Holes by Louis Sachar
and part of Rebekah by Orson Scott Card

Nick and Norah has been getting a lot of hype, so I thought it would be a prudent read. It centers a lot around underground music culture, which is not something I can relate to very well. Also, they used the F-word about three times every page. I am not exaggerating. In my wild and reckless youth, I was known to throw the F-bomb around willy nilly. In fact, I still do upon occasion. But there is something about having to read the word ad nauseum that is very distracting from the story. In my opinion, of course. Even though I didn't personally enjoy the book, I can understand why teens like it so much.

In other news, some of the Library Kids from my ex-Library just moved into New Library Neighborhood! And not just any old Library Kids, THE Library Kids (a passel of about nine kids who came to the ex-Library every blessed day after school, and several times a day in the summertime). They stopped in yesterday to check out the new library, and I was really happy to see their little faces!

vacation reads

I have just finished picking out the books I plan to read on my fab vacation!

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by e. l. konigsburg
Holes by Louis Sachar
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Tyrell by Coe Booth
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism by Kamran Nazeer

I think it's a nice mix, don't you? Something for my every mood.

going going gone

Last night I had a dream about MT Anderson's book The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I. I read this book last year, and honestly had not thought of it since. How weird is that? The librarian's subconscious works in mysterious ways. After some post-dream research I found out that Volume II is coming out in October. Yippee?

In other news, this Friday I am leaving for a week-long vacation!

First to my husband's hometown for a wedding. Woot! I have been to a total of three weddings in my life. One of them was my sister's (in which I was forced to play the violin, even though I hadn't played in literally YEARS), one was my ex-friend's (in which I was forced to be one of eight bridesmaids and wear a horrible fuchsia-colored dress), and one of them was mine (in which I got married. And as nice as marriage is, the actual wedding was kind of stressful). For this, my fourth wedding, I shall be merely a spectator. I am really looking forward to it!

The off the Chincoteague Island! That's right, of Misty of Chincoteague fame! We will be staying at an adorable bed & breakfast on the bay, with a good view of the nature and whatnot. After a couple of days there we are going to mosey up to Ocean City, Maryland to stay in an ocean-front hotel. Even though I get horribly sea sick (which I found out during a romantic sunset cruise on my honeymoon), I do love the ocean. And the sun. And making sandcastles. As long as I am on the beach or swimming and not on some ocean-going vessel, I am fine.

Do you know what is in Ocean City? A Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum! I am going out of my mind with anticipation. I wonder if Dean Cain will be there?