arrows in outerspace

at long last, here is my earth day mobile, made out of a paper plates and strips of old fabric. man, i even amaze myself. my favorite kid made one and he colored in all the areas around the arrows black. it looked pretty sharp. so i said, "favorite kid, i like how you colored yours in black. it looks good." and then he said, "of course i made that part black. the arrows are in outerspace. and outerspace is black." he's so clever.

clean and serene

back at the 'brary on a saturday. as sad as that is there is a bit of joyfulness in knowing that i will not be working another saturday for 4 weeks! how is this possible? i don't know! and i don't care!
today the kid who hates hoboes came in. he was wearing a lanyard around his neck with a big white plastic skull hanging from it. and then next to the skull i noticed there was a tear-drop shaped leather keychain, with gold letters embossed in it. it read, "clean and serene for 2 years." obviously, the kid who hates hoboes is too young to have had a substance abuse problem and then have overcome said substance abuse problem 2+ years ago. so who is this person who gave him the clean and serene keychain? was it one of his parents? at first i thought it was innappropriate to give a child something like that. but then after i thought about it for a second, i thought maybe the kid who hates hoboes is really proud of this clean and serene person. maybe this person became clean and serene specifically for him.
and then the kid who hates hoboes told me he was really bored. and then i said that i too was bored. and then he told me that he was learning his 6 times tables in school (pause for me to rant about how he should already have learned his 6 times tables by now. he is entering 5th grade next fall!) so i quizzed him a little and found out he really hadn't retained any of his 6 times tables. so i gave him these flashcards i had made for my favorite kid, and told him that if he could learn all the 6s i would give him a prize. so he dutifully sat at a table and memorized the flashcards and a little later i quizzed him and he got them all right. and then i gave him a clown nose. these kids will do anything for cheap prizes.
and that dear blog readers was my saturday.

lonely litterbug seeks non-psycho

for earth day yesterday we made these very very cool Reduce Reuse Recycle mobiles (to be shown later) and today, as wednesday is usually craft day, my assistant and i decided we should do another earth day related craft. so i came up with this idea for a litterbug (shown at left). i brought in an egg carton and everything! i made cute little wings for it out of some colorful magazine pages and i gave it button eyes. it's so adorable and environmentally conscious. sadly, hardly any children came into the library today so my little litterbug sat alone. sigh. stupid warm weather enticing the children to be outside.
then i was sitting in the staff room catching up on last week's new yorker (will i ever be up to date?) and our "security guard" came in. she and i have this funny back-and-forth that we do where she tells me that i look so good i must have a man in my life and then i sigh in an overexaggerrated way and say "no, not me!" so we played this game for a while and then she said that she can tell that i will have a man in my life soon. very SOON. a man is on his way. now, this is the second time i've heard a comment like this, as earlier in the week my mother said the same thing. i then told the security guard how i tried to bet my mother $50 that i would in fact NOT be meeting any appropriate non-psychotic men anytime in the near future. my mother of course would not allow me to bet against myself. but the security guard was amused.
so as i was leaving the staff room the security guard reiterated that i definitely would have a man in my life oh-so-soon. so then i said to her, "well maybe i will meet this man before my birthday and then he will have to give me a birthday present." we both had a good chuckle about that.
may 31st ... mark your calendars.

passover weekend day 5: and on the fifth day god ran errands

yesterday was the last day of my little passover vacation. it was a lovely vacation and i was really sad to have to return to work. so i came back to brooklyn and had a very productive day. here's what i did:

first i checked out this coffeeshop that is in my new nabe. ooooh, this place could be my new coffeeshop. there is coffee and food and a variety of seating options and FREE wifi! so first i had coffee with my roommate and then she left so that i could sit with my laptop and research options for my upcoming birthday. ooooooh, my birthday is going to be awesome. just you wait and see.

then i went home and figured out some bills and stuff.

and then, then i did a dangerous thing ... i went to ikea. but i was SO good. i was walking around ikea with blinders on. i was a woman with a mission. i would buy a desk and filing cabinet AND ONLY a desk and filing cabinet.

i feel i must have a proper desk in order to be a proper writer. and since my novel writing class is starting up again on wednesday i must be prepared! but man, it was tough ... there are so many fabulous things to buy in ikea.

so without further ado i would like to introduce you to the newest members of my family: mikael and gustav (am i the only one who refers to their ikea furniture by their proper ikea names?) anyway, gustav (my desk) is actually a very dark brown. and my filing cabinet, mikael, is a matching dark brown with white drawers. the whole thing looks very fab together.

and it only took me FOUR HOURS to assemble it all! yay! i of course was distracted by a dvd of season 3 of 90210 (dylan and kelly are finally settled into their new romantic relationship and will be touring europe after graduation!) but eventually i got it all set up and it looks lovely (especially with my white laptop sitting on it. soon it will be covered in crap, but right now it looks all monochromatic and minimalist and nice) anyway, it took me so long to assemble it that i didn't actually get to put anything away or organize or anything. but soon ... soon things will be organized.

passover weekend day 4: the cleansing of the hands and the cleaning of the car

there are certain parts of the seder we skip every year. we like to have a thorough, but compact seder. no need to waste time with an inefficient seder. so one thing we never do is the cleansing of the hands. and since we've never done it i can't even tell you what it's all about. but you're supposed to wash your hands.
the night of my mom's seder i stayed over my brother and sister-in-law's house and my brother informed me that in the morning he would be washing his car. this sounded awesome and i asked if i could wash the fancy mobile. so in the morning i went out to the driveway and i was just blown away by all the fabulous gadgets and accessories that my brother owns for the purposes of washing cars. first he has this high-pressure hose that runs on what appears to be a lawnmower engine. you get to hold this gun type thing, it's almost like an uzi of cleanliness. so i take it, very excited to be using such high tech tools, and he warns me to be careful. man, that thing has some kickback. you really have to hold onto it. so i am power blasting the fancy mobile and i am suddenly realizing that my car is filthy, you have no idea, she's hardly fancy at all. even with the uzi of cleanliness there are still several layers of dirt on that thing. then i vacuumed it using a shop vac (who owns a shop vac? crazy!) and now the fancy mobile is all shiny and sparkly and looks like a new car. it looks nothing like my car at all.
oh yeah and then later i went to another seder, with REAL haggadahs.

passover weekend day 3: the case of the missing haggadahs

the day of my mother's seder i drive over to my brother's house to pick up our seder plate and our set of haggadahs. we have these really nice haggadahs with pretty watercolor illustrations and excerpts from anne frank's diary and blurbs about civil rights and justice and all this other good stuff. i love our haggadahs. so it was very upsetting when i went to my brother's house and he confessed that he had searched far and wide and could not find our haggadahs. then, like a super sleauth, i tried to figure out where the haggadahs might be. were they still at my mom's ex-boyfriend's house, never to be seen again? did we leave them at my mom's cousin's house after last year's seder? at this point i realized i had completely forgotten all the details of last year's passover celebration. so after several phone calls, a few family interrogations, and many vain attempts to retrace my steps, i realized that there was no way we were getting our haggadahs any time soon.

at this time my mother informed me that if i went to king kullen they have these "free" haggadahs from maxwell house. so i went to king kullen and indeed there was a display of haggadahs put out by maxwell house. in reality they were more like pamphlets than haggadahs. and they were not free, you were supposed to buy coffee and then take ONE complimentary haggadah. i bought no coffee, and took 5 haggadahs. here is how i rationalize that one:
stealing = sin
reading from the haggadah = mitzvah

sin + mitzvah = okay

ahhhh, reformed judaism ... how i love your ethical relativism!

so i went back to my mother's house with my stolen maxwell house haggadahs, and finally the seder could begin.

turns out, maxwell house haggadahs suck. none of the stuff we usually talk about was in there. so we were all shouting out stuff that we were supposed to have discussed, asking things like "mom, what about the part with the egg?" or "mom don't we need to bless the wine?"

the whole thing was kind of a mess. but it was kind of funny. and the food was awesome (i made this excellent cauliflower leek casserole). so in the end, i think everything was fine. but damned, we really need our old haggadahs for next year.

5 day passover weekend: day 2

that's right ... i made myself a FIVE day passover weekend! and where am i spending it? tropical lawn guyland. yesterday i spent the day sipping tea in the park with my bff, catching up on the state of the world. then i drove out to long island where i sat in a record breaking THREE HOURS of traffic. yay! but i made it here.

this morning i woke up ridiculously early for no reason whatsoever. i read books about iceland. did you know that they are unable to grow fruits and vegetables in iceland? true story.

every year my mother and i spend hours upon hours in the kitchen getting ready for passover. it is one of my favorite things ever. there is much joking around and many jewish hijinks ensue.

first, we always consult our special passover cookbook. this happens to be the smallest passover cookbook in the world. we bought this cookbook together about 20 years ago when i was "refurbishing" my dollhouse. we found all these little jewish dollhouse accesories: passover cookbook, menorah, etc. but the best part of this cookbook is that there are REAL recipes inside. so every year my mom will turn to me and say, "can you read me the harosset recipe?" and i will dutifully turn to this miniscule book and find the recipe. ahhhhh, passover hijinks.



then i decided it would be best to take some pics of my mom for her match.com profile. we took some pictures of her with a kugel, but they didn't turn out so great. but i like this picture i took of her holding a defective box of matzoh. this box actually came as part of a 6 pack, and although it is completely sealed it is EMPTY! there is NO matzoh in there! wtf?! somewhere i heard that streit's is leaving nyc. well, good riddance! your empty matzoh boxes aren't welcome here!

but anyway, for some reason the pictures of my mom holding a basketball are always the most flattering. i don't know if it's because of her prowess on the basketball court that just puts her at ease or what. but you don't want to play a round of horse with her. she will kick your ass.