bibliophilia

They recently changed story hour at our local library branch. Instead of being in the morning it is in the afternoon. My feeling is that it is kind of a foolish move since many kids in this age group are still napping and even if they aren't they tend to be a little out of sorts in the afternoon. So asking a bunch of small people to hang out in a large group together and sit somewhat still for stories is a tough room to work.
I can't entirely fault the librarians as the city library system has faced some pretty unpleasant budget cuts and so many places have lost hours in an attempt to keep places open. There is also the issue that the library director isn't exactly popular among many library workers for some of the decisions she has made. (that is a whole other conversation) I am sympathetic to what they are dealing with as it can be an exhausting and demoralizing situation to be in. People who work in libraries tend to be pretty passionate about their work and when you are fighting an uphill battle it can sap some of the energy and creativity in the day to day work. I feel like a bit of a twit for not being terribly impressed by the story hour program. Maybe I should shop around for different story hours. (like shopping around for church. hah) I come from the rarefied position of growing up with a fantastic city library in a small town where the story hour and children's programs were genuinely terrific. Much of that had to do with the people who worked there and the fact that the library was/is a center of the community.

I may be a wee bit biased about the library in my hometown since I spent a number of years working there. I was thinking about it today after having a conversation with a few friends about books and specific books with sex scenes and I mentioned that a number of books I read with sex scenes when I was a teenager came as suggestions from the librarians I worked with. That is right folks. Librarians are total smut-peddlers! As first jobs go it was a grand place for a teenage girl to work in. It was a prominently female work environment. A few of the pages (and volunteers) were male but all the librarians and library associates were women. The vast majority had known me since I was a little girl. It was less like working in some super serious job and more like living among a bunch of Aunties. While I have great affection for all of these women who did have influence in how I grew up, there were definite favorites. Some with whom I developed some hilarious rituals. Much of my job involved the monotonous task of shelving books and shelf-reading. (making sure the books on the shelves are in order.) I could get through carts and carts of books pretty quickly but it still bored the pants off of me at times. We had this pretty fancy-pants collection of maritime books (the town is well-known for boats and boat-building and all that stuff) and it's dewey decimal number was 623. I will never forget that. Some dewey decimal numbers haunt a person's dreams. And I would have to put away tons of these books and it was fiddly work. So if I would race through things and I wanted to avoid shelving I knew I could go to one librarian and she would find me tasks that would provide a break. Usually stuff related to mail.
Another librarian and I had this whole insane system worked out to read the latest issue of People magazine. Librarians LOVE these sorts of magazines. It is a fact. The new issue would arrive on Saturdays and I would intercept the mail and put it with my stuff. I would take it home and read it that night and then I would take it over to her house on Sunday and she would read it. Then one of us would take it work on Monday and slip it in with everything else. Yes. Librarians had to read that damn People magazine before the patrons got to it. There was a reference librarian who was kind of notorious for being stern with the pages. I would joke that you could sense her presence in the room before you even heard her speak. Still I had to respect her. She was funny at times and often had presents for us at Christmas. I definitely felt like they cared a great deal about me and I for them.

I will have to post sometime about the initial adventures of working with the public in that place.

family life

The deck guy showed up very early this morning. Right exactly on the dot when he said he would. (points for him) He looked at things. The framing is good and solid it is just the decking that needs replacing and things brought up to code. Huzzah in that respect. He took measurements and talked about a couple of different ways we could go about this. (TREK or Cedar) He said he will send me an estimate in a couple of days. He was a congenial sort and Senor Onion enjoyed talking to him. The deck guy was impressed that our lousy decking held up as well as it has considering.

I took the kids on a walk this morning in the vain vain hope that it might wear out Mr. Shortcakes. It didn't work. Oh well. At least we are getting Miss Biscuit back on the napping track. (holidays and things completely shot all of that to hell.) The upside to her napping is that it gave him and I some us time. We read stories, colored, made paper lanterns and played with his cars. We don't get a lot of that time.
I put his sister down for a nap this afternoon and he got up and was being quiet. When I came into the living room he was sitting on the rocking chair without trousers and he had a ring of chocolate around his mouth. I realized I had left a bit of chocolate on the coffee table but it was now gone. His hand was hidden and I asked to see what he had in his hand and there was a drooly piece of chocolate. He smiled and said, "please?" Hard to really know how to handle being presented with a pantless chocolate fiend.
I decided to break out the washable poster paints and told him he could paint the deck. It kept him busy for nearly three hours. He then got all Jackson Pollack about it and rode his tricycle over the painted bits. We are hoping for some major grant from the NEA so he can bother congressmen when they see his art and complain about tax dollars being wasted on such filth. Literal filth.

Now to face the baby who will not truly sleep unless she has an audience. Like living with Marie Antoinette some days...