monday ruminations

As the lightning strikes and the thunder booms here, I’m wondering how much longer the library will have power. Our lines are notoriously fragile little creatures, but hey, at least the generator gets a regular workout…we’ve gotten more rain in the past 3 days than in the past 3 months it seems but not enough, and not soon enough, to keep the Chilton County peach harvest from sucking this year. I haven’t found even one I thought was worth buying. They’re all yucky and golf-ball sized when we’re used to at least baseball-sized peaches or larger. Maybe I should buy them anyway just to support our local farmers….oh well, maybe next grocery trip.

My first weekend school-free was fantastic! I took my stepmom out for lunch (Happy B’day!) on Saturday and had a Potter Movie Marathon the whole weekend. I got all 4 movies watched so I’m as up-to-date as it is possible to be without reading the books. Was that the collective gasp of horrified Potter-heads I heard? Sorry folks…it’s on my to-do list along with a million other pressing matters.

Ah, children are screaming downstairs, it is nice and humid up here (which will soon warrant a call to the HVAC people no doubt), and the day is way too far from over. Burnout seems imminent at this point but maybe I’ll be more myself tomorrow. WAIT JUST A MINUTE…here comes our usual HVAC guy! Can I read my own mind or what?! Hopefully this means the swampiness will soon be gone from the air. I don’t just say that for myself people, it is detrimental to the books to go through these cycles of humidity too! It is an invitation to mold, mildew and other creep crawlies (silverfish are insidious creatures!) to set up housekeeping and begin to destroy the collection.

Oh well, enough b!tching and complaining! I had a great weekend, only spazed out a little bit from phantom homework, and got geared up for OOTP!

Here’s to a gr8 week!
htw

even I sniffled at this....

when Stephen King writes a eulogy for your character, you know you've made it big...

ok, it's not exactly a eulogy, but it brings up the same somberness

Thanks for the find, Katie!

htw

arrested for GUI...grazing under the influence

I'm still giggling about this :) I don't remember the name of it, but I'm convinced I've seen this in a John Wayne movie. T, is this one of mom's movies?



htw

FINALLY ! ! !

Check out this great NYT article on my generation of librarians...reading this made me almost wish I lived in Brooklyn so I could join the Desk Set....almost :)
htw

fun stuff from D.C.

*gasp* Is that a shark in the wave behind me?! I should have run this by Jake first so he could photoshop one in :) Next year's conference is in Anaheim so they had this artificial wave set up as a free photo op. Katie and I took advantage of it but I didn't see too many others having such fun. Getting on the surfboard was the hardest part. The wave itself is made like a bouncy moonwalk that kids play in, the surfboard was velcro-ed to two metal posts in the middle. It was tough and EXTREMELY ungraceful, but I got up there. Luckily, Katie went first and that's how we discovered the velcro. She didn't notice until she stepped on the end of the board getting down and it flew up and very nearly whacked her in the back of the head. While she didn't face-plant into the trough of the wave, it was a hasty dismount complete with a few squeals. My only regret is that I didn't have my camera ready....


Katie, me, and Erica goofing off at the Google booth on the exhibit floor. I purposefully visited the booth that day because I was wearing my "Librarian: The Original Search Engine" shirt where "librarian" is written copying the Google font colors. The reps working the booth were delighted, or they acted like they were anyway :)

The Library of Congress was created by (what else?) an act of Congress in 1800. It was housed in the Capitol until 1814 when British troops (the buggers!) burned the building to the ground. This was the point at which President Thomas Jefferson, then retired, offered his personal library to help rebuild our country's national library. Congress accepted his offer in 1815, gave him $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and laid the foundation for a national library. The new Library of Congress officially opened its doors November 1, 1897.

That being said, I thought this was a pretty racy fountain to have out front of the national library of the United States of America, right across the street from the Capitol. The men sculptures were covered at the waist, but not this lass...hmmmm....tell the truth, this looks like an Herbal Essence commercial etched in stone doesn't it?

:)

htw

some fav sites from D.C.

I was pretty proud of this slightly off center photo of the Jefferson Monument (Memorial?)! I still haven't quite got the hang of my digital camera and all its bells and whistles. I really need to take a digital photography class so I can take better photos.

I took about 10 pictures of the Washington Monument and the National Mall. This was my favorite view since it also had the Capitol building in the photo. I hated the inside of the Capitol building because I hate crowds and detest standing in line for 3 hours just to get patted down by a disinterested security guard, but the outside is grand!

Another of my favorites, the Vietnam Memorial. This was the statue dedicated to the men. The women's statue is further down. I especially enjoyed my visit here until the group of teenagers arrived and spoiled the view by posing in inappropriate (relative to the subject matter) ways with the statues. Nothing too off-the-wall or that I hadn't seen (and probably did in my own adolescence) but disrespectful of the tone of the place I thought.

There is a shallow gutter just at the bottom of the Wall and people leave flowers, notes (as pictured above), and other mementos in honor of those listed. I felt a little voyeuristic intruding on someone's private note but I took the photo anyway. Perhaps that makes me no better than the teens I mentioned earlier posing with the statues, but it was a powerful reminder of how this war (or whatever the politically correct term is these days) impacted the country and its citizens and continues to impact them today. There were Vietnam vets interspersed in the crowd, finding names and getting photographs, many with tears their eyes and some acting as docents to the monument. It was powerful to see in person what I've only experienced through books, television, and the internet.

What a moving image! There was more to the statue than this, but it was getting dark and this was the only one of the photos that turned out. My grandmother was a nurse all her life and my aunt still is. I guess Granny was too old and Aunt C was too young to have taken part, or it didn't happen for any number of reasons. I'm glad about that in some way. Everything I've read and seen about the conflict over there is so horrific.

Have I mentioned before that I love Abraham Lincoln? I often wonder to myself how things might have been different had John Wilkes Booth not reached his target. I've seen this monument all my life on the back of the penny, but that statue is 19 feet tall in real life, the grandeur impossible to convey by words alone. The interior walls of the monument are decorated with quotes from his most memorable speeches and they are carved into the walls. I took too many pictures that looked the same and couldn't make myself delete some of them so the best I could do was put just one here :)

p.s. I told E that if I'd been of his time, I would have given Mary Todd a run for her money. I mean, really....tall, dark, handsome, ambitious, idealistic, decent moral character (if history is to be believed)...what's not to like?

ooooooooooo

aaaaahhhhhhh

this was one proud photographer, let me tell you

How would you like this view from your back porch? This is the view George Washington enjoyed from the porch of his and Martha's home, Mt. Vernon. This provides only a small view of what you could see. Our tour guide (SHE ROCKED!!!) said that at some point, a law was passed (sorry, I can't remember the concrete details about this) that prohibited the development of any land that can be seen from this porch! Any little sliver at all. That encompasses about 4000 acres according to the informative lady! I could have sat there for the rest of the day and most of the next :)

Those were the REALLY great things I saw in D.C. I especially enjoyed Mt. Vernon and the history of it. It was chilling (in a good way) to be inside the house where he once walked, the dining room where he and Martha entertained guests who would go on to officially create this country. Wow!

htw

the ill-styled librarian, as promised :)

Notice, if you will, the man rings, red carnation (with stem) fastened to the Napoleon Dynamite-esque black t-shirt, stylish spectacles, and mullet. No wonder we librarians suffer from frumpy stereotypes with this kind of example running around!
htw

fun AND educational!

I'm thinking about doing my own Sorted Book Project contest and posting photos. This is a very clever idea and I've already got some titles in mind to start with, namely Pip Granger's Not All Tarts are Apple.
:-)
htw

spiffy new quiz

I got the link to this off my friend Erica's brand-spanking-new blog, Book Diva! I'm comfortable being the centaur :)

You Are a Centaur

In general, you are a very cautious and reserved person. However, you are also warm hearted, and you enjoy helping others in practical ways. You are a great teacher, and you are really good at helping people get their lives in order. You are very intuitive, and you go with your gut. You make good decisions easily.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

oh what a beautiful morrrrrning.........

I cruised in to work today, sipping my coffee, munching on my Nutri-grain waffle PB sandwich, tapping my fingers and nodding my head to the oh-so gentle notes of Rammstein issuing from my car speakers, thinking

there's no school today...................

.................or tomorrow

.........................................or next week

.......................................or next month

;D

htw