Sunrise, sunset...

Where I live, we have water.  We also have massive oak trees, and colorful skies in the morning and evening.  See for yourself - pictures taken at the beginning and end of today.

Things like this remind me why I love where I live, and love my life.  Today wasn't the best of days (though not the worst either).  Crappy enough to be of note, however.

This morning, it seemed like nearly every library patron was cranky.  Not all of them - the homeless guy greeted me right away and told me he saw something he hadn't seen in eight years - a pheasant!  I saw one not long ago near the library, so it was probably the same cantankerous fellow.  Bird sightings are always good!  After that it all went south for a while.  Nothing was quite right for some of the patrons, and for one of our regulars it was yet another day of bitch bitch bitch.  This would be the patron who's mission in life seems to be pointing out every possible flaw the library has, milking every possible free tidbit from the library (WHY AM I BEING CHARGED FOR MY PRINTING?!!! THERE IS AN INCONSISTENCY  THAT ME AND ONLY I HAVE NOTICED ON YOUR WEBSITE AND YOU'RE CHARGING ME FOR PRINTING!!! WHY CAN'T I CONNECT TO WIFI WITH MY KINDLE?!!"

{insert horrific emphysema cough noise here}

Welcome to just one aspect of my morning today.

Did I mention this is the same woman who proudly announced that she had voted no on the library levy?  Yes.  Charming.  My drive to help her is bordering on non-existent.  But I will anyhow.

Things did get better though.  The meeting room snafu will work out fine.  And an 8th grader that sat through my database presentations recently called today for follow-up help.That was the one big thing that really made my day!

And the sky.  And the hummingbird visiting our feeder that we put up a couple of days ago.  The good far outweighs the bad, always.

Not to mention donuts "comin" to town!

Saturday Morning at the Library

The movie you requested, and in fact several of your movie requests have been REJECTED. That's the way it goes, toots.

Printer error message - turn off, turn on. And yes, your print job will come out.

Coworker found some blank "Diplomas" in the donations, and wondered if we'd like them to give to people who take our Book-a-Librarian classes.

Helped patron make reservation for a 2-hour computer, required some rigamaroling.

Helped regular patron look for speech pathologist programs - Eastern Washington University offers an undergraduate program. It was not pleasant when she emphyzema coughed in my ear.

Checked hold queue position for a man who wanted to know if he'd have time to take two other books to read before they came in. Yes (unless he reads REALLY slow).

Speech pathology patron came back - needed help setting up to write reviews through our catalog (new feature with the new system). The book she was going to review: Whites, blacks and racist Democrats : the untold history of race & politics within the Democratic Party from 1792-2009 by Wayne Perryman. Can't wait to read what she's written! (I should also mention that this woman uses the Answers in Genesis website).

Two little boys came to get their "free italian soda" cards stamped. The younger asked if only one person would win the cookie as big as your head. I told him yes, one kid from each library. He made a very strange face, than told me he knew somebody that got their italian soda already. "It was a girl." Then he ran off.

Headphones checkout

Another check for hold queue positions.

"Can you tell if this DVD is in Korean or another language?"

Nook eReaders - showed where to access ebooks on our website

Passive aggressive lady needs help getting photos onto Craigslist. Other staff member accidentally called me Jane when he pointed her in my direction. She actually said, "my heart fell, because Jane is the only one I don't like." WOW. Thanks for sharing that bit of information...

Same patron couldn't log into the computer - somebody else had it booked but fortunately they didn't show up and she was able to log in. She said she booked it by phone this morning, for 11:40 (but my records showed somebody totally different had it booked...). I'm glad it worked out because she can get REALLY pissy.

"Can I use this computer over here to check email?"

Time to help upload photos. This woman is maddening! Wrote down steps for her to save to flashdrive from email, then upload to craigslist. Her friend (the speech pathology woman) had printed out information for her that suggested uploading photos to flickr or picassa first, then using the html. WAY TOO COMPLICATED for this woman! She says "that's a cute skirt" [DON'T TOUCH ME!!! Gah!]

"I can't get this map to print, it's too big." (I had to do it from my computer, where I can be more tricksy with jpg images)

[Why am I still on the routing list for Billboard magazine? I thought I changed that months ago - it's not about music, it's about the industry sucking the musicians dry. I hate it! And man, that sub sure has a cackle laugh]

My favorite genealogy patron needed help with the new Yahoo email interface.

Time to actually upload the photos to Craigslist- I ended up doing it for her. Typical.

Afternoon librarian is stuck in construction traffic and will be late.

Favorite genealogy patron tells me about the "badger game" which is somethng criminals did to extort money from people

Phone call - need email for the KOMO 4 consumer reporter.

Summer Reading finisher

Afternoon librarian made it on time!

Lunchtime!!!

Yay!

Yay! Yay! Yay!

I'm not sure why I'm shouting "yay" at the moment - it must have been for a good reason.

Perhaps I'm sugarly gleeful for summer reading at the library! YES!!!! That's it!

Okay. I'll be honest - it isn't all bad, but sometimes the crowds drive me a bit batty. Today wasn't too bad, and I had a pretty good experience. A large group of kids came down from the Navy Youth Center, and about 8 boys (age 9-11) decided they needed stamps for as many as possible optional activities as they could muster. They told me jokes.

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?" HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY GUTS! hahahahahahaaaa

They also said hello in a variety of foreign languages, told me what countries they'd like to visit, and what recipes they've tried - lots of SHUSHI. And they drew maps.

And then one boy said, "You're a REALLY NICE librarian! You're the nicest librarian I've ever known!"

Made my day. And I'm going to keep working on being that nice librarian every day of my life. It's not a competition, but damn. If a handful of kids can come to the library and feel like somebody is paying attention to them, then let me do this day after day, after day after day.

Friday - ahhhhhhhhhhhh...

I'm glad it's almost the weekend. Should be an interesting one, to say the least. I do love my job, so going to work isn't a drag. But I am always happy to have time off, too.

Yesterday at work I spent over two hours putting together a display in the lobby display case. It turned out very good! I'll be taking some pictures today. The display is for Teen Read Month, the theme of which is Books With Bite. That could mean a lot of things, but of course I had to go with a spooky vampire/zombie/werewolf kind of thing. It was a lot of fun putting it together. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but of course I really had no idea how it would all turn out. Pictures soon!

Well shoot. Time to get ready for work. Oh well...

Working with teens and the full moon...

Today was another of my regular Monday afternoon programs with the teens. This week, the plan was to make Gocks - goth sock puppets.

But when you get a group of mostly teen boys together, you never know what the outcome might be. For whatever reason, my usual group on Monday afternoon is boys. At this point some of them just show up, no matter what we're doing. Today it was a crafty theme that might have been more appealing to girls. But since there weren't any there (aside from myself, and the one that wandered through for about five minutes), I believe the boys felt more comfortable being creative and just jumping in to the activity.

Their reaction at first was a little cool, but I started making one. As you might imagine, they like to visit, so before they knew it they were sifting through the various things I had available and putting together sock puppets too. A couple of the boys just hung out and talked with each other (major topic - video games), but several got into the creative groove.

They didn't stop at the sock puppets - once the creative dam broke they just sort of went with the flow and made whatever they felt like. I had quite a lot of donated/miscellaneous fabric, yarn, pipe cleaners, etc. for the kids to make use of. They came up with all sorts of interesting things. The funniest by far though, had to be the two boys who made capes. At one point I felt like a dressmaker, as I helped them staple things on to the fabric to make clasps for the capes.

I love the combination of "little kid" and teenager that surfaces in 6th graders. They still haven't quite given up all the things they did when they were little, but they like to act more grown up as well.

Two of the older boys are in the process of making a skeleton out of neon pipe cleaners. It isn't quite finished, but it is more than amazing! I'll have photos for sure when it is finished...

-------------------------------------------------

Working with teens is incredibly rewarding. When I started library school, I thought I wanted to be a children's librarian. It didn't take long for me to decide that was the LAST thing I wanted to do - I can't imagine having to think like a toddler or preschooler for the next however many years. And frankly, there are plenty of people that want to work with the little kids - but teens? You have to really WANT to be doing what you're doing. They are such a vibrant part of society - yet most people think of them only as troublemakers or worse, don't think of them at all. And really, all they need is validation - somebody to listen to them, and provide a safe place where they can be themselves without judgement.

Well - some of them are a little weird, or maybe a lot weird - but that's okay. They can come to my programs any time.

Of course, the full moon is brining out the, um... different people this week.

Working at the library is NEVER dull!


Looking forward to Halloween as well! I have a group of girls that are helping plan an after hours party - it's going to be fun! I think we'll have a pretty good group showing up. Lots of fun!

The madness...

I love working at the library, I really do. But tonight was a little bit challenging - because of dealing with a particular patron.

I knew when I called her that it could turn into a very long drawn out conversation if she answered the phone.

She answered.

It did.

I really do feel for her, because she suffers from some sort of disability and her life cannot be easy. She calls us frequently for health related information - our branch is the health reference center. But we suspect that she is a full-blown, real-deal hypochondriac. She has a ton of information already, but is always looking for strange connections to link to her health issues. Anyways, tonight I had to call her to relay some information, and it turned into a 30 minute phone call explaining her current situation. She finds it necessary to give scads of background information before getting around to her actual question (if there is one). It is almost impossible to get a word in edgewise to direct the conversation towards a question.

Later, I was talking with one of my coworkers, and he shared with me an observation he had made about people like her that talk endlessly. Most people, when speaking at length, take a breath at the end of a sentence. It is relatively easy to get a word in when they take a breath. But some people breathe in the middle of a sentence, and when they come to the end of a sentence they just bore ahead - and it is almost impossible to stop them.

AHA.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

And now, for a somewhat related picture that still has absolutely nothing to do with what I've already written...

I'm just in the mood to share this. This book has been floating around the library system for a couple of years, at least. I haven't seen it for a few months, but I crack up every time I do. I cannot believe that nobody has removed it for "maintenance" or that nobody had complained! I think whoever put the barcode on it was feeling a little rebellious that day. Ha. Understatement.

I mean really - this is just so wrong in so many ways...

But all it gets from me is a big guffaw - and I just let it go...

Librarians are much more snarky than you might imagine.

With that my friends, have a lovely day, or evening, or afternoon - whatever it may be when you read this.

Life is good - make sure to enjoy it today!