periodicals perplexing no more

i don't think i've ever discussed with you the black pit of despair which has been my periodicals section for the past few months. you see, we have this lovely magazine display (shown left) that holds the magazine (each shelf flips up so that older issues can be stored behind the display area). when i first got here there were neat little stickers saying which magazines went where. and of course the magazines were all over the place, with no relation what-so-ever to the helpful stickers. then i noticed about 2 years worth of back issues of each magazine being "stored" on the shelves behind the display. and this 2-year backlog was in no particular order. yay! so i attacked this immediately, throwing out all the magazines that were more than 6 months old, and putting all the issues where they belonged. it was beautiful. and i made sure my page stayed on top of it, so for a while all was good. but then we got this extra money that we were told had to be used for periodicals. this might have been good if we weren't already at capacity for the number of magazines which could neatly be kept on our magazine shelves. so i picked out a few magazines that i thought we be a nice addition to the collection. and then a few weeks later we were inundated with something like 10 new magazines in addition to the magazines we were already getting. oh, did i mention that we also get 10 different comic books as well? so all of a sudden there is just no way that it is physically possible to keep the magazines and comics in a neat and meaningfully organized fashion. so i ordered these file holders, thinking i could put all the comics in the file holders and then keep the magazines on the shelves. i also wanted to "highlight" the magazines and try to get the kids to read them instead of only reading the comics. not that there's anything wrong with comics. so after several months of waiting (why does everything take so long?) i finally got 4 of the 12 file holders i ordered. so maybe in 4 more months i will get the remaining file holders. but anyway, in the months of waiting for my file holders i would merely try to avoid eye contact with the magazine section. yup, that will make the problem go away. but now everything is peachy keen and i have my magazines beautifully displayed. and you can see at the bottom right (below the concept books, which i also hate) i have my four file holders with four different comics. and the rest of the comics are in little piles on the shelves beside them. of course these little piles get messed up instantly, but they look good when there are no children here.

the greatest BBQ i never went to

so here i am, little old me, sitting at my desk researching books about web design for kids (there aren't many, let me tell you) ... and my friend comes over and tells me that the guys outside are barbecuing. now, we have these guys who hang out nextdoor. i don't know much about them, but i've heard they are nefarious types in a "questionable" line of work. so when my friend comes to tell me that "guys" are barbecuing "outside" i mistakenly assume that she means outside as in on their own property. so i shrug this off and go back to my research (do you know the only book i could find was from 2004? i'm sure web design has changed since then) anyway, she then returns and says she is concerned that they may be barbecuing on our property. so i investigate.
there is not a shadow of doubt that they are on our property. they are standing directly in front of the floor to ceiling windows that separate the library from the courtyard where we have two trees and a small sitting area. this can only be our property. and there they are, about 7 guys with a bbq ablaze. they've set up a small folding table. they're passing around aluminum pans filled with various meats. i've never seen anything like it.

now, i am a tough cookie. and i don't mind confronting patrons when i need to. but there is no amount of money that will get me outside telling these guys that they can't bbq here. have i mentioned that my 2 supervisors are out of the building and i am in charge right now? yeah.

as i said in an earlier post the environment here has changed as of late, and i am enjoying my job much more. however, i am not willing to put myself in harm's way for my job. nuh uh.

at first i thought i would just call the police. then, i decided i would call official library security. well, they were quite impressed with this predicament! i was told that security would be coming over to alert these fine gentlemen that bbqing on our property is not allowed. you know, insurance reasons. but as for now, it is still going on. maybe you'd like to stop by. i hear they just put steaks on the grill.

our little librarian is all grown up

don't worry, this won't be some sappy post about me turning 30 at the end of the month.

this morning i went to my new corner bodega, which i don't care for and try to avoid. you see, i kinda sorta live near the projects. i wouldn't even mind going to the projects bodega and enduring the friendly cat-calls. this morning someone called me snowflake! but in a nice way. i believe he first said something like, "damned i like the look of that girl (i have on a cute dress). ooooh, snowflake ..." anyway, i would tolerate this IF the bodega was like the kurdish bodega and was filled with all sorts of goodies for me to buy. but in reality this bodega kind of sucks and they don't have much of anything. so i went in there to get a tea because i couldn't make tea at home because i ran out of soy milk. so the guy gives my tea and i get into my car and drive away, only to realize that he gave me coffee instead. yuck coffee. i DO NOT drink coffee unless it is one of those chocolately frappaccino whipped cream extravaganzas that more closely resembles a milkshake. those i will drink. gladly. anyway ... i didn't want to go back so i decided to take a sip of the dreaded coffee. i have never in my life been able to drink an entire cup of coffee as i kinda find the taste to be completely disgusting.

but what do you know? it wasn't half bad. it's not as nice as tea, but it was drinkable. so i drank most of it, but i didn't finish it because i was a little concerned i might become "hopped up" on caffeine and possibly lose control of my better judgement. luckily, i feel fine. but does this mean i am now a coffee drinker? like a real grown up?

i hear this stuff is bad for you. i don't want to get addicted. whenever i go to a doctor they're always saying not to drink too much coffee. and i always pride myself on being ahead of the game on that one. and then they say to eat healthy. check. done. and then they say to exercise regularly and get enough sleep. done and done. around this point i always wonder why the hell i have any health problems at all. i am practically vice-free.

in conclusion ... don't be surprised if you see me in your local coffeeshop hopped up on espresso acting the fool.

worth your weight in googley eyes

do you know what this is? it's a close-up of the bag of googley eyes that was delivered today! and we got all our crafts for summer reading, which include kits for making: bracelets, suncatchers, 3D fish, kaleidoscopes (can you believe the kid who hates hoboes doesn't know what a kaleidoscope is?), paddleballs, etc. AND we received our butterfly growing kit (caterpillars to be sent at a later date). oooh, it's going to be a fun summer.
today we played a rousing round of "word up," the dictionary racing game invented by yours truly. i noticed that even after our last session of word up, the kids kind of have NO CLUE how to use a dictionary. so today i did a little demonstration using guide words and a sort of alphabet time-line showing how to determine where in the alphabet a given letter would be.
man, i just don't know what these kids learn in school. i mean, nevermind that they have no concept of how to use a dictionary, but alot of them barely know alphabetical order. and i'm talking kids in 3rd and 4th grade. i asked one girl where M would be on my alphabetic time line. "would it be in the beginning, the middle, or the end?" and she just looked at me blankly like i asked her to solve some quantum physics equation. grrrrrr.

ohmygod! twilight trailer!

i had heard they were making a movie out of this book (twilight by stephanie meyer ... so awesome). i'm a little disappointed with how edward looks. i imagined him to be a tall pale slightly effeminate blonde. but whatevs. i'll still go see it when it comes out. yummmm, edward.

everyone's favorite republican

today when i went into the staff room for my break i did something which i have never done before. i turned on the very small black and white tv sitting in the corner ... and i watched it. you are probably asking yourself, "why miss dewey decimal?! why would you watch mind-numbing television?" well, it was because i had left my reading material in the car. you might be thinking to yourself that as a librarian i would have a wealth of reading material surrounding me. well, you'd be right. but i had already made it into the staff room and i didn't feel like going back into the trenches where someone might ask me a question, thus cutting into my precious lunch time. so i sat and watched me some family feud.

it turns out that watching family feud was a very very scary experience. the category was "facts about al gore." first there was the head-to-head face off. the woman who buzzed in first won with "ran for president." ahh, well spotted madam. al gore did run for president.

play was then turned over to her family, and the first player proudly proclaimed "is a republican!" as her answer. can you believe it? that wasn't on the board as a fact about AL GORE!? wtf?!

okay, now i am not always up on the latest politics. but i think that a grown person in america today should know that al gore is a democrat. i mean, c'mon! 2000 election? ran against g. w. bush? florida recount? any of these things ring a bell? it's not like we're asking for facts about aaron burr or something.

okay. fine. moving on. so then the next member of the family cleverly says "is a democrat" as her fact about al gore. phew! good save! then the family gets another strike against them when a player proclaims that al gore "is from arkansas." no, i'm sorry. that is bill clinton. yes, i know you thought they were the same person. but they are in fact two seperate men. crazy talk, i know.

the game continued with little fanfare until there was one answer left. but sadly neither team could guess the answer. i was sitting with baited breath thinking the answer would be something like "is an environmentalist." but that wasn't the right answer either. do you know what the answer was? do you? take a guess. fill in your guess here _______________________.

nope! you're wrong! the correct last fact about al gore is that he "has gained weight."
yup. america has spoken.

i can growl like a bear but i choose not to

today the wee little ones came in for a storytime. they really are cute. they're so small. we had a good storytime even though they were a bit rowdy and i felt that at any minute they could rise up and overtake me. but luckily they didn't. so it was fine.

we read the following books:

can you growl like a bear by john butler - it turns out that the kids can in fact growl like bears. they can also get out of their seats and start crawling like bears as well. just in case you were wondering.

zookeeper sue by chris demarest

brown bear brown bear what do you see by eric carle

charlie chick by nick denchfield

where's spot by eric hill

in the tall tall grass by denise fleming

all in all it was good. i feel like i need to switch things up and find some new books for next time. i'm getting sick of these books.

in other news a very strange thing has been going on at my library. at first i didn't want to mention it because i didn't want to jinx anything. but this has gone on all week and i feel i must comment. the atmosphere at my library has drastically changed this week. all of a sudden there is a friendly type environment, as opposed to everything being rife with tension. it's nice this new friendliness. it makes working here downright pleasant.

curious. very curious.