Thursday, September 28, 2006

A Librarian's Day Off

So what does a librarian do on her day off?

She spends the afternoon at the bookstore, of course!

The funny part was when I came up the center aisle of the neighborhood Books-A-Million and who should be heading my way but my boss, also on her day off. I was doing some browsing for a book order I'm putting together for the library.

You can take the girl out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the girl.

Friday, August 11, 2006

I am not ashamed

I went to see Talladega Nights at the theater today. By myself. Why? Partly because it's 100 degrees outside, partly because I'm tired of spending all my free time in the house, and partly because I had a gift certificate to Regal Cinemas that I got last Christmas and needed to use before it expired.

So, how was the movie? Better than I expected. I think I enjoyed it on a level that its target audience would not. There weren't very many people in the theater with me (2:30 on a weekday afternoon), but those who were there were a pretty good cross-section of the county demographics here: 90% working class conservative (I'm guessing from the reactions to the male-on-male kissing scenes) and me, the liberal NPR-listening, PETA-email-list-subscriber that I am.

I think my departure from the target audience made me appreciate more of the jokes I'm sure Will Ferrell and the rest of "liberal Hollywood" threw in there for themselves. I actually recognized the jazz song that was on the jukebox in the sports bar when the gay French Formula One racer made his entrance (Charlie Parker). Also a hoot - Jean Girard's lawn party, where he's hosting Mos Def and Elvis Costello (random and very quick cameos).

Sasha Baron Cohen is fabulous as Jean Girard.

So it was a good movie. Nothing I'd pay money to see, but I'm not sorry I saw it.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The clientele, it is a changin'

I've been at this particular library for almost a year now and in that time I have had the opportunity to watch the patron base change almost completely. When I started, the branch was fairly quiet, with some (horrifyingly outdated) goth kids and a lot of seniors/snowbirds. Now we have a lot more young families, with little kids and a lot more diversity.

This is not necessarily a good thing. You see, a large part of the population here in this formerly-rural county is what you might call redneck. You know, the jacked-up full size American-made pickup truck with a NASCAR number and at least one Confederate flag decal on the back window and, more often than not, those charming metal testicles dangling from the trailer hitch (side note - a lot of times these monstrosities are color coordinated to match the paint job of the truck - which is fine except when your truck is blue. I thought I was going to drive off the road, I was laughing so hard). And now a growing part of our population, at least here in the southern part of the county, is African American or Hispanic. There has been some tension, to say the least.

Defusing a potential "racial incident" involves a great deal of tact and not a little bit of mommy-sternness. I would just prefer not to deal with it, but I seem to be the Great Equalizer of the branch - I seem to get along with all kinds of patrons.

Which is great and all, but very stressful and I'll be glad to move on.

Friday, May 26, 2006

The Mommy Files

Things I really appreciate now that I'm a mom:
  • Short story collections. I really don't have time for a big honkin' novel (although I did manage to read The Da Vinci Code in a week, but that's not really literature).
  • Public restrooms with well-maintained changing table stations that I'm not afraid to touch.
  • Bouncer seats.
  • MY mom.
  • Meals that only require one hand to eat.
  • Ceiling fans. No need to purchase pricy baby toys if you have a ceiling fan in the house!
  • Baby smiles.
Things I really appreciate about my child:
  • She's not the children I see in the library. Of course, she's only 2.5 months old, but she's still better behaved than most of the kids there.
  • She's a happy little pork chop.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Misery loves company

Alas, I have no company. I have been under voluntary house arrest for a few days now and I am bored, bored, bored. I am also huge and uncomfortable and dealing with contractions that aren't doing anything apparent to move this baby along. So pain and swelling and general misery ensues. As well as a desperate need for chocolate.

My body has some weird tendency to ALMOST have a lot of things wrong with it. Generally just enough weirdness to mandate many uncomfortable and/or time consuming tests which without fail turn out "normal". Here's the rundown so far:

Regular OB visit a month ago showed a lot of sugar in my pee cup. So they try to look up the results of the 1 hour fasting glucose test I had done at the end of December. The lab couldn't find the results, but eventually got them to my doctor's office. That test showed a high blood sugar, so in I go for the 3 hour test. (Which is NOT RECOMMENDED, by the way.) It comes back normal. So I don't in fact have gestational diabetes. While waiting for all these test results, the doctor reveals that I am measuring much bigger than my term and sends me for an EFW ultrasound. The u/s shows that kiddo is measuring at 40 weeks when I was (at the time) only 36 weeks along. Meaning big baby. BUT since the glucose test came back okay I guess my doctor is unconcerned about the fact that my baby is HUGE. Then again, he's not the one who will have to push this gargantuan child out.

So after all this BS, the doctor then becomes concerned about the swelling in my feet, ankles, and hands. My blood pressure is not measuring high according to the "official" range, but he decides to send me in for a non-stress test and an AFI/BPP ultrasound at the hospital. A very long 7 hours later, he says my blood pressure is still in the normal range and the baby's heartrate (which was kind of high) had settled down but the amniotic fluid was kind of low. So I had to collect my pee in a jug for 24 hours (hooray) and repeat the NST and the ultrasound 3 days later. Really long story short, blood pressure still fine, baby's heartrate fine, amniotic fluid still a little low but not troubling. Feet, ankles and hands still swollen like a sumbitch.

I'm going back to the doctor for my regular appt. on Friday and can't wait to see what he has in store for me next.

Friday, February 10, 2006

The Public is Annoying. Pt. 736 of 199847305

I am 8 months pregnant, which means that yes, I am visibly pregnant and may in fact look like I am going to pop at any time. I am not, in fact, going to pop at any time. Yes, I have a big round belly and yes, I'm sure there's only one baby in there and no, I'm pretty sure there's not another one hiding behind my liver.

Okay, so here's a typical day for me now. Patron walks up, asks how far along I am. When I reply, there are generally two reactions. Reaction number one (usually from women): "Wow, congratulations!" Reaction number two: "Are you sure? Because it looks like you could go at any time."

Fine. I am an easy target, since they have to interact with me anyway and I am a government employee, so I pretty much have to be civil to them (although why OTHER government departments are apparently encouraged to be surly and unhelpful is beyond me and a subject for another day).

What really cheeses me off? The ones who continue to ask questions. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" "Is this your first?" "Do you have a name picked out?" The last one is really the kicker. Because if I answer truthfully (yes, we do have a name picked out), then she (it's ALWAYS a woman who asks this question) then looks at me expectantly until I tell her the name!!! Hell, these people don't even know MY name, why are they so darned interested in the baby's name?!

I can't wait until this baby gets here, because then the patrons will forget I was ever pregnant and they can resume ignoring me outside of the time it takes for me to sign them up for a computer. Which is yet another subject for another day: why a master's degree is required to sign people up to use the Internet.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

The Eternal Librarian

Well, once again I missed my chance to say hello to the librarian at the Inglewood branch of the Nashville Public Library who was very patient with me when I was an almost-daily visitor to the library as a very small child. I want to see him to tell him that he helped instill the obsession with libraries that eventually led me to my current career. His name is Kevin. He's been there forever.

I know he was working today, because he still drives the same car he did when I was going there as a little kid, 20+ years ago (it's a vintage VW bug, beige). Why yes, I am in Nashville. My grandmother (who was the one who uncomplainingly took me to the library practically every day during summer vacations when I was little) died this week and her funeral was today. Yes, I am very sad about losing her. She was a major part of my life and I was looking forward to her meeting her namesake.
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