in case you're an addict

I will be away from the works for a few days. I will be busy blogging elsewhere (http://www.learningtimes.net/acrlblog/) so you can check out those posts if you're interested. I plan to focus on food and other recreational stuff but I am sure I'll slip in some meaty conference posts while I'm at it. Have fun and don't make a mess while I'm gone!

queues

I finally finished disc 2 of season 2 of BSG. I also sent back a movie that we started to watch weeks ago but never finished. I am tired of cycling through my netflix selections so slowly. I see that I have one more BSG disc and then a bunch of movies lined up. They're pretty much all movies that friends and colleagues have suggested. While we're chatting at the desk I like to fire up netflix and add things to my queue. I also like to type queue.

weekend on the farm

Or a Saturday afternoon at least. We had some serious fun at La Finca and you should see my flickr pages for photographic evidence. The day seemed filled with sex, for some reason. The donkeys were going at it repeatedly, the dogs were trying to, and one little goat did something to himself that I'm sure every human male would give his left eye to be able to do. Wow.

Anyway, we also had some lovely wine and cheese and fruit, good conversation, and fun times feeding the hoofed ones carrots. I so enjoyed showing the PIG around one of my sacred places and spending time with good friends (both hoofed and non-hoofed).

Friday night was spent eating Afghani food, or trying to. We wanted to show off one of our favorite restaurants to our friends. The waiter wandered off and forgot to bring some of our food until we begged for it. Finally another man came out and told us that none of the real waitstaff had shown up. He was very upset and gave us a huge discount on our meal. The food itself was good and we took ourselves out to ice cream afterwards and back home for a dog love fest. Mitzi and Jeremy were all over their guests and were visibly disappointed when the evening broke up.

it's (almost) official

I will be an instructor for this program this June. Wish me luck, wrangling a bunch of 3rd-6th graders! My fabby work is giving me some leave time to do it and I will get a chance to develop a curriculum and everything. Wow, I will actually get to see the same students for longer than 50 minutes. Will wonders never cease?

modest proposal

An interesting proposal came my way today and I must admit I'm intrigued. One of the folks I volunteer with asked if I could teach a 3 week class for gifted and talented children this summer. I'm working out with my POW if I can take that time away, work part-time or get development leave for those weeks. Wish me luck!

shuffle off to buffalo

I knew that the ipod could shuffle but I'm just now trying out that feature. Many, many years ago, my friends were discussing what bands they'd play if they had their own radio stations. Now, with technological wonders like pandora and ipods, we can all have our own radio stations. How cool and individual, right? Which makes me wonder what band or song is the most commonly created on pandora or on people's ipods. Six degrees of..."Roxanne" by the Police? What would you guess?

speaking of fat

...I am so depressed. I tried on the alternative dress I'd bought for my friends' wedding last August and It Was Too Tight. Not all over, just in my problem tummy area, but still. So what did I do? Well, I went running and then I ate a gigantic bagel sandwich with cheese and a lot of egg. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but believe me, it will work. My metabolism doesn't work right if I don't feed it a lot of food. I know, I should have eaten something smaller, but I was so craving protein that I went ahead and ordered it.

no wonder i'm so fat

I usually get Wendy's broccoli & cheese baked potato on Wednesdays as a treat after serving on traffic court. No problem, because it's fairly healthy, right? My brain tells me to check my facts, so I looked it up on calorie counters. 470 calories, which isn't amazing but isn't awful. Then I looked at what I usually get at Taco Hell. For both a bean burrito and a 7-layer burrito, 890 calories. Whew! I knew I was splurging but jeez. But then, my brain pipes up, you probably burn a bunch of calories waiting in that hellacious TB line, right? Shut up, my stomach says, or I'll check the sodium counts those burritos...

incredibly awful, that is

Um, wish I had read this earlier...

from my horrorscope: "Your emotions are charged with fury today, and you might feel explosive. Make sure you find healthy outlets for this energy, and put it to good use. Direct your action outward, and notice the incredible impact that you have on others."

what to do?

What do you do when your day starts out completely poopy and then you get to work and find out that the one fun-ish thing you had on your schedule has been canceled due to jury duty? I mean, what're the odds?

So I am sitting here at 7:45 wishing that I had asked one of my colleagues to pick me up and was therefore still at home sipping coffee, feeling the oogy after-effects of yesterday's migraine, wondering when I will learn to keep my mouth shut when someone hurts my feelings but it's not a big hurt and repeating the mantra "you can be right, or you can be happy."

gangbusters

I'm getting ready to go to a conference next week (ACRL--look me up if you're going to be there!), which means figuring out which breakfast, lunch and cocktails invitations to accept. We get a barrage of them and yet when I rsvp'd for one, the company said it was already full. When did ACRL get competitive? I like smaller conferences. You get to see a bunch of folks but you don't feel like you're constantly moving in a mob. ACRL and TLA are about my limit and I can't take ALA.

This year I'm an official blogger and I plan to blog social activities as well as programs. Hey, it's all about the networking, right? I will keep my camera close in case there's a chance for a photo op with John Waters. Li-berry bigwigs I'm not terribly interested in, but iconic filmmakers watch out!

monday funny

If you're a fan of Mimi Smartypants, then you've already seen this. If not, please read it immediately, but you might want to close your door first as it is likely to send you into fits of laughter.

what a weekend

I had a long weekend and I made a huge list of chores. I even got a lot of them done.

Finished:
weed
mow (front and back!)
make cheesecake and strawberry topping
buy baby clothes for friends
exercise (well, kinda)
laundry
plant some seeds

Still undone:
weed garden
pick up leaves from deck
dust
mail baby clothes to friend

Not bad! During the same 3 day period, I had lunch with the PIG on Friday, watched a movie, finished 3 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, saw three groups of friends for various activities, made friends with a baby, went to the dog park, read a bit of my book, cleaned up the kitchen (oops, dirty again) and a bunch of other stuff. I'm glad to be back to work so I can relax a bit...

killah bees

Listening to the Wu Tang Clan is certainly not going to help me curtail my use of the "n" word. However, it is fun to listen to them while doing mundane li-berry work. Right now I'm working on a packet to send out to local schools. Better scan it for the bad word before it goes out!

mixing it up

Trainers and other crazy exercise people often extoll the virtues of changing your exercise routine. Now, my routine consists of trotting around the park for a while and/or doing some situps, pushups, etc. Sometimes I run around in the opposite direction but that's pretty much all of the variety I need. Since it's rained so much the past few days I knew the low part of the park would be completely flooded, I decided to hit the trail that runs a few miles through a fun part of town. Fun, as in "antique shops, drug deals and a gravel path, oh my!" thinking the water on it would have drained away. Well, it mostly had, but because the sprinklers were on in a few spots, there were still floody bits. It was energizing to take a different route, to see different people and to run on gravel rather than concrete. The sad part was that these people don't say hello. I don't know their dogs so I don't stop to pet them. They are mostly crazy runner types rather than "maybe I should work on this spare tire" types like me. So, while it's nice to change it up a bit, I think I'll continue to hit the park more often than not.

slightly tired

It's a sad day when you go to the GDGS (that's grocery store for you uninformed) to escape what my friend calls "neighbor noise". That's exactly what I did last night. My neighbors appeared to be tailgating in their driveway, which was puzzling enough, but I was hard pressed to figure out why they'd be so loud so late on a Tuesday night. Not even the thunder or the PIG's snoring completely drowned them out.

Speaking of thunder, kitty cat is ready for this series of storms to pass on by. She feels compelled to hide and cower and even growl when it gets bad.

furry beasts

On the bottom left, Jeremy. On the top right, Mitzy. When I got out my camera and asked them if they wanted to be stars, this is the pose Jeremy gave me. Mitzy, however, hates the paparazzi and told me to get lost. Only with perseverence did I get this shot of her, practically begging me to stop making that flash go off in her face. Despite appearances to the contrary, Mitzy is a happy dog. She follows me around and licks the air around my face (air kisses, dahling) and climbs onto my lap. Jeremy, on the other hand, follows the PIG around and frequently tries to push in between us if we're sitting on the couch. At the park, Mitzy is a trooper and wants to scout out the entire place, while Jeremy succombs to the urge to poop every 10 feet. One of my favorite sights is both of them jumping into the air like circus dogs when the word "walk" is mentioned and the leashes come out. I've tried to catch them mid-air, but I haven't quite got the timing down. Doggeties!

grand lux

Saturday found us scouting around for a new breakfast place. Hopping onto the internets, PIG discovered a restaurant that offers "late breakfast" (not brunch, mind you, but "late breakfast"). We settled into the plush booth, after pounding on the door to be let in. "Late" apparently translates into "you may not enter our hallowed halls until 11am sharp". Many cups of coffee, an omelet made the way I like, which is to encase the filling inside of the egg fold, rather than incorporating the filling into the egg itself, and a lot of jokes and bantering followed. We ended by ordering and devouring an order of banana chocolate chip bread pudding. It was moist and flavorful, just like a fresh from the oven, 2 banana loaf of banana chocolate chip bread. So, brekkie at the Grand Lux, two thumbs up. Even our waitress was fabby. The place quickly filled up, so I recommend getting there when the doors open.

pre-meeting quickie

I haven't had any coffee yet today and my is starting to feel shinkwrapped. I hope to rectify this as soon as aforesaid meeting has concluded. That is all.

Update: I am now in possession of coffee. Clearly I should have had it first because not only did I hit my knee loudly on the desk, I made an obnoxious sound at my colleague during the presentation part of the proceedings. Um, yeah, sorry about that folks.

waking up

I've been having a lot of problems with my right arm, shoulder and that side of my neck. Problems, as in, it hurts like h*ll. Last night, the PIG came over with ben gay, making me feel about 100 years old, but it seems to have done the trick. The funny part was that I was lying back, experiencing the oh-so-weird cooling effect, and the next thing I knew I was waking up. I looked up to see that my feet were resting on his chest. Oh, I am a lucky girl.

what a difference a day (where books are free) makes

More thoughts on the De Lange conference...

Brewster Kahle monetized the process of digitizing all books and the cost was surprisingly low. Provided that will eventually happen and that the results with be open to all (ha, right?), that leaves the next decade or less for us to figure out how to turn around the publishing process. I was having fun figuring out what my li-berry could do with its book budget if we never, ever, had to buy books again. First, we could purchase some of those nifty print-on-demand machines. Next, we could spend time building portals and other means of guiding our users to good resources, all of which they could then access immediately. Finally, we could spend the majority of our time getting users up to speed on how to locate, access, evaluate and use the materials they find. What a novel concept, eh? Pun absolutely intended.

you must be this tall if you're a monkey

There was a great Curious George on this morning. George couldn't ride on a roller coaster because he wasn't tall enough, so he spent most of the episode trying to grow. At the end, he realized that his measuring stick had grown shorter, but he hadn't grown taller. The carnival man, seeing his disappointment, turned around the "You Must Be This Tall To Ride This Ride" sign to reveal a shorter outline of a monkey on the reverse.

Clear example of how "one size fits all" policies don't work and why boss types have the power to bend rules. There is always a small bit of joy when I get to give out an exception to someone who A. isn't asking for it and B. isn't being served by the rule. There are times when we need to see and be seen as individuals. I think, unfortunately, that our current state of being, at least here in the U.S., is that rules don't apply to us or that there should always be an exception made for us. The way people drive is a constant example of that. This idea requires that people be able to see beyond themselves, recognize that they are individuals surrounded by other individuals, creating a mass that must work together, because if we do that, the majority of people benefit.

I have another example of when this breaks down. I spent most of this week at the De Lange Conference on Emerging Libraries this week. During Brewster Kahle's talk, my friend and I were using the Way Back Machine to look up various websites, including the li-berry where I am currently employed. Much to my disappointment, I found that we have blocked the Machine's spiders, essentially dooming ourselves to the termites and book lice of the cyberworld. Perhaps not tragic, but certainly shortsighted.

checking in

This has been a week of checking up on old pals, by email and by virtually spying on those who no longer want to have me in their lives. I admit I feel weird doing that, but just because they've cut me out (or vice versa, in one case), I still care about them. Sometimes I even check up on my college boyfriend, with whom I haven't spoken since, oh, 1995 or so. I just like to know he's still doing well and kicking butt in the land of politics. It's hard for me to stop caring about anyone, even when s/he cuts me to the quick.

In more mundane news, I'm at work for another 2 hours. I'll be at a conference for half of the week and I am not overly enthusiastic about it. I am feeling persnickety, as I told one of my colleagues earlier, which doesn't bode well for long periods of enforced sitting and listening. Perhaps I should not have cut off my hair so I could surreptitiously listen to my ipod. What I really want to be doing is what I did between brunch and work: nap and read on my deck.

since it's been stuck in my head

If the Pussy Cat Dolls read John Howard Griffin...

"Don't you wish your girlfriend were black like me?"

(sorry if you saw that original post!)

bits and spits

Apparently my crazy, public-library-going persona likes to stare at people and talk into her bag. Also, now that she has acquired an ipod, she likes to wear the earbuds alone, bopping along to the music in her head.

Currently listening to Morcheeba (thanks again, PIG).

Another oddity: my student worker and I are so much alike that we decided she is my long-lost child. After some discussion we realized her father would have to be either Dikembe Mutombo or Shaq.

a for effort

When is an outreach program not an outreach program? When it turns into watching America's Next Top Model with your student worker, her roommates and the RA who organized the program. To my credit, I did set up my laptop & projector, give out handouts, and quiz the girls during commercial breaks, but I can't really blame busy college students for not showing up for an evening of fun with the librarian since they don't know how much fun I truly am. Side note: can you believe that Renee chick?