countdown to my vacation part 3

one day and eight hours until i am in the air flying towards paradise island. not just a clever name.
this morning i met with the woman who is in charge of the library's afterschool program. we actually had a really good meeting. sometimes i can schmooze like you wouldn't believe. i charmed the pants off this woman. i showed her the newsletter we made and she was just so in awe of ME. she said it was the cutest thing she's ever seen and she is going to show it to all the activity assistants (who are her underlings) as an example of a fabulous fabulous thing to do with children. AND i convinced her give us more construction paper and more googley eyes! ( we are dangerously low on googley eyes) and she was so impressed by the work i've been doing that she said that if i ever have an idea for something that needs a little extra cash i should tell her (she said she wouldn't want me to just give up and think i couldn't do it) since i am such an innovator, she might be able to move some funds around for me. yeah, that's right. who's awesome? me. finally someone noticed.
p.s. that is a picture of me sunning myself on a diving platform ... i am not sailing the high seas on a mattress.

out of the mouthes of activities assistants

AA: now why is the manager in such a bad mood?
me: is she in a bad mood?
AA: yeah, she's all unhappy and got all sorts of attitude about everything.
me: oh, well that's kinda normal.
AA: you mean she's just like that all the time?
me: pretty much.
AA: i thought it was me. i don't know why somebody would want to act all grumpy and mean all the time. sheesh.

jew in the hood

i was speaking to my activities assistant about what sorts of holiday crafts we should do (two christmas, one kwanzaa and one hanukkah) and she admitted to me that she has no idea what a dreidel is! oy vey iz mir!

when i was a kid we used to make dreidel people out of construction paper and then make accordion arms and legs for them (long strips of construction paper folded over and over again). it was very classy looking ... if only my activities assistant hadn't used all my googley eyes.

vacation reading: an e-mail to my mother

dear mom,
could you get me any of the following books from your library:
on beauty by zadie smith
eat pray love (forgot the author)
straight man by richard russo
you may be asking yourself, "doesn't my dearest daughter work in a library? is she not a librarian?"
well, yes she does work in a library and she is a librarian, but her branch does not even OWN these books because no one reads real books at library-in-da-hood. (on beauty was withdrawn because it only got two circs! TWO CIRCS! oh, the shame of it all!)
thanks!

love,
me

countdown to my vacation part 2

you may not be able to tell, but this is a depiction of me sliding down a water slide out of a tower. and then when i land i will be landing in a pool that looks like it is full of tropical fish, but as i explained to my favorite kid ... it is not really filled with tropical fish, the tropical fish are in a separate adjacent pool.
3 days, 13 hours and fifteen minutes until my plane takes off!
i think i might speak to the good people at the atlantis and ask them if they are interested in using some of this artwork in their next brochure.

countdown to my vacation

only 4 days and 8 hours until i am on a plane to the bahamas.

here is a depiction of what it might look like when i swim with dolphins, drawn by my favorite kid.

bribing the children is good

we have this program in which kids can sign up to read in the library and get $1 off the fines they owe for every half hour they read. it is usually tedious work to get the kids to do this (even though it is a GREAT deal since many of them owe $20, $50, $100 on their card.) then there are a lot of kids who pretend to read and i have to police them and make sure they actually read. and then we get 5th graders asking if they can read dr. suess. anyway, i decided to up the ante and say that if a child wants TO ME (books chosen by me) that i will give them $2 each reading session. for some reason, they love this idea. i think it is because even though i am a mean bitchy evil librarian, they love to be near me. anyway, today i had two kids take me up on this offer. one young man who reads way below his reading level read me a book about sharks. he liked to insert his own commentary from time to time, especially when we saw a picture of scientists in scuba gear in one of those cages they lower into shark-infested waters. "now why would somebody want to do that?" he said, "you know that shark is just gonna bite right through that cage."
then a young girl who is a bit bratty decided to read, and it turns out she is actually a very good reader. she read a book on thurgood marshall, claude monet, anne frank (i try to sneak in jewish culture when i can), and gallileo gallili (which was fun to pronounce).
so both kids are excited to read with me again, AND i think they actually learned something. amazing, no?
some days its not so bad working here.