On the way out of toddler storytime, most of the grown-ups (who are mostly moms, but there are exceptions, including some nannies, so grown-ups is what I go with) will have their child attempt to say good-bye and thank you. This is fine. It garners me hugs, gives me a chance to have one-on-one time with some of the less forward kids, and shows that I know their names (or helps me learn them). And generally, we all understand each other's boundaries.
This week, though, a mom asked her child to tell me he loves me. Parents who read my blog (or if we're being frank here, parent who reads my blog): please, please don't ever try to force your child to tell the librarian, or any other provider of childcare/entertainment, 'I love you'. It's one thing when your child says it on his/her own. Kids don't know what it means, and in their innocent ways, they probably do love me, much as they love the ice cream man, Dora the Explorer, and anyone else who never tells them no. Grown-ups do know what love is. I think I can speak for the profession here when I say we do not want to sit with your child and say that while we really, really like him, and we think things are going great between us, we just don't think we're ready for love. It's not him, it's us. No, actually, it's you, weirdo mommy.
While I don't love that child in particular, I do love storytime. I love the children as a collective whole. So I'm sad that next week is our last week before storytime break. When storytime goes away, so does my job satisfaction. And it doesn't pick back up again until late January. Blech.
On a different note, you know those inflatable lawn ornaments that are lightweight fabric with a fan blowing them into the shape of a holiday symbol such as Santa or the Easter Bunny, or a Hanukkah bear? The husband and I have a theory about them. (In all honesty, it was his theory but one of the benefits of marriage is that what's his is mine, intellectual property laws be damned.) The theory is that these were cooked up by the energy companies, who realized that leaving extra lights on all night wasn't driving electricity bills up anywhere near high enough. So they found a way for people to run a small motor day in, day out, thus showing their holiday spirit while making the earth die just a little more quickly. Is that grinchy? Maybe so, but a co-worker told me that she's heard of children being traumatized when their parents turned the thing off because they think that Mommy and Daddy killed Santa (or the Easter Bunny or the Hanukkah bear). And you can't tell me that even if the energy companies didn't come up with that, their CEOs aren't at least a little bit happy that that happened. So grinch that, bitches. Also, a Hanukkah bear? What the hell, people? The husband said it's a gray area of Talmudic law, but I think it's probably pretty sacrilegious to put a yarmulke on a bear.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Dispatch from the homefront
Yesterday, an older, male member of the husband's extended family poked me in my back and asked me if I'm ticklish. What does one say when one is asked that question by a 50-something male that one is sort of related to?
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The horror! The horror!
So I was planning to write a nice post about how thankful I am for different wonderful things in my life: the husband, the dog, my family, my in-laws, my health, the fact that I have a job that let me afford my rock and roll lifestyle, etc. It was going to be happy and gooey, and I was going to get all teary-eyed while I wrote it. But then tragedy, in the form of job-related mental torture, struck.
Do you know what DDR is? Officially known as Dance Dance Revolution, it's a video game in which players dance along to horrible music (good music is available - but the kids today don't like good music) in order to earn points. For your edification, here is a link to a person in a lion suit playing DDR. Libraries use DDR and similar video games as an attempt to remain relevant in the lives of today's youth.
Apparently it works, because I spent an hour and a half yesterday with one of my fellow employees trapped in a room with 15 tweens and a few younger kids playing DDR. Our programming room does not have windows that can be opened and the kids were dressed for blustery winter weather, so within 20 minutes, the place smelled like a gym. And to be fair, they did play many songs that really aren't too bad. It's just that there are four songs that they really really like. These songs get played over and over and over and over. One of them is "Hey Mama" by the Black Eyed Peas, which I used to like, until I heard a 2-minute portion of it 20 times. There's one called "Butterfly" in which the woman sings in a very high-pitched voice, and the majority of the song is "aaahh-eee-aaahh-eee-iiiii" repeated over and over again to a techno beat.
For some reason, I am always the one to sit in on DDR. Always. Two adults have to be in the room due to village ordinance, and usually my partner in pain is a very nice woman who is in her 70s, and thus should really be exempt from this particular form of library fun. Today, it was someone close to my age, with twin toddlers at home. At one point, she turned to me and said, "I will never complain about the Wiggles again." So maybe that's how I'll tie this back into Thanksgiving: I am grateful for my lot in life. Because no matter what else happens, nothing in my home life is set to a pulsing techno beat.
Do you know what DDR is? Officially known as Dance Dance Revolution, it's a video game in which players dance along to horrible music (good music is available - but the kids today don't like good music) in order to earn points. For your edification, here is a link to a person in a lion suit playing DDR. Libraries use DDR and similar video games as an attempt to remain relevant in the lives of today's youth.
Apparently it works, because I spent an hour and a half yesterday with one of my fellow employees trapped in a room with 15 tweens and a few younger kids playing DDR. Our programming room does not have windows that can be opened and the kids were dressed for blustery winter weather, so within 20 minutes, the place smelled like a gym. And to be fair, they did play many songs that really aren't too bad. It's just that there are four songs that they really really like. These songs get played over and over and over and over. One of them is "Hey Mama" by the Black Eyed Peas, which I used to like, until I heard a 2-minute portion of it 20 times. There's one called "Butterfly" in which the woman sings in a very high-pitched voice, and the majority of the song is "aaahh-eee-aaahh-eee-iiiii" repeated over and over again to a techno beat.
For some reason, I am always the one to sit in on DDR. Always. Two adults have to be in the room due to village ordinance, and usually my partner in pain is a very nice woman who is in her 70s, and thus should really be exempt from this particular form of library fun. Today, it was someone close to my age, with twin toddlers at home. At one point, she turned to me and said, "I will never complain about the Wiggles again." So maybe that's how I'll tie this back into Thanksgiving: I am grateful for my lot in life. Because no matter what else happens, nothing in my home life is set to a pulsing techno beat.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Alpaca-riffic!
The husband and I travelled home this weekend to drop off the turkey for the Thanksgiving celebration with his family. While there, we also visited an alpaca farm in the general vicinity of his parents' house. We've been looking at a lot of alpaca farms online.
Do you even know what an alpaca is? I wouldn't, if I didn't knit. This is an alpaca:
Our long-term life plans at the moment revolve largely around this creature. We want to eventually move out to the country and buy alpaca (and maybe chickens and various seedlings to grow food from, but mostly alpaca). I am going to take a handspinning class, so that I can shear the alpaca and then turn their fleece into yarn. Then maybe I'll knit products out of the yarn, and then sell them for profit. Look at that sentence structure. An alpaca future turns me into a 3-year-old, syntax-wise.
I do fully realize that the husband and I are turning weird. Seriously, we don't plan to have kids anyway, but if we did, they would totally be the awkward kids who wear handmade clothes and bring their own weird lunches. ("It's a tofu sandwich. My mom made the bread and my dad made the tofu. The little chunks are spelt!") But knowing that you're weird offsets some of the weirdness, right? If the library has taught me anything, it's that people who are weird to the point of making you uncomfortable never have an inkling that they're uncomfortably weird. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to harvest the dog's hair to make my first yarn. (Not really, but I totally could.)
Do you even know what an alpaca is? I wouldn't, if I didn't knit. This is an alpaca:
Our long-term life plans at the moment revolve largely around this creature. We want to eventually move out to the country and buy alpaca (and maybe chickens and various seedlings to grow food from, but mostly alpaca). I am going to take a handspinning class, so that I can shear the alpaca and then turn their fleece into yarn. Then maybe I'll knit products out of the yarn, and then sell them for profit. Look at that sentence structure. An alpaca future turns me into a 3-year-old, syntax-wise.
I do fully realize that the husband and I are turning weird. Seriously, we don't plan to have kids anyway, but if we did, they would totally be the awkward kids who wear handmade clothes and bring their own weird lunches. ("It's a tofu sandwich. My mom made the bread and my dad made the tofu. The little chunks are spelt!") But knowing that you're weird offsets some of the weirdness, right? If the library has taught me anything, it's that people who are weird to the point of making you uncomfortable never have an inkling that they're uncomfortably weird. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to harvest the dog's hair to make my first yarn. (Not really, but I totally could.)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Regarding Book Donations
Dear potential library donor:
We at the Suburban Chicagoland Public Library would like to thank you for thinking of us as a possible recipient of your generosity. While we would highly value a financial donation that could be used to purchase items that the library may actually need, we are also very excited by the possibility of receiving our fourth donated copy of the book version of The Prince of Egypt. But before you present us with the nearly forgotten contents of your basement, we would like you to consider the following list of questions whose answers may have an impact on our ability to use (and perhaps even to touch) your donation.
Are there pages or other parts missing that will affect other people's ability to enjoy the item? Even if you can figure out the plot of a book without those missing 20 pages, most people would prefer to read rather than infer their books. Also, if your child has torn off all the flaps in their lift-the-flap book, this will impede the other children's ability to enjoy the book.
Are there questionable stains anywhere on or in the item? While you can look at the brown smear on the cover of that well-loved copy of Hop on Pop, and remember the hilarious time that little Johnny's ice cream bar melted all over his hands and clothing, we at the library are not privy to that fond memory. In fact, we at the library are concerned that said smear is feces.
Are there bodily fluids anywhere on or in the item? Though technically speaking feces is usually not a fluid, it does count when answering this question.
Are there unusual smells emanating from the item? Actually, considering the fact that the smell of human urine is not really 'unusual', per se, we would like to restate the question to read Are there any smells emanating from the item?
Did you write the book yourself? While we are sure that your 600-page science fiction novel is a heart-breaking work of staggering genius, perhaps you should submit it to agents and publishers before attempting to take the library world by storm.
Did you pay someone else to write the book? Truly, it is wonderful that someone loves your child enough to have had a story about a woodland fairy altered to include her name on every page. But perhaps that is a treasure that will be most valued by you and yours in the years to come.
Look inside the bag or box in which you will be putting the items. Are there droppings from rodents or other animals (including humans) in said bag or box? We at the library really, really do not want to deal with feces.
Again, we are very grateful that our library is the first institution you think of as you clean your basement. We are also very grateful that we are not Goodwill, as we can only imagine the types of things that you stuff into garbage bags and leave on their doorsteps. However, it is a much more efficient use of your tax dollars for you to place these items in your own garbage rather than having a library professional do so.
Thank you for your time,
A Disgruntled Librarian
We at the Suburban Chicagoland Public Library would like to thank you for thinking of us as a possible recipient of your generosity. While we would highly value a financial donation that could be used to purchase items that the library may actually need, we are also very excited by the possibility of receiving our fourth donated copy of the book version of The Prince of Egypt. But before you present us with the nearly forgotten contents of your basement, we would like you to consider the following list of questions whose answers may have an impact on our ability to use (and perhaps even to touch) your donation.
Are there pages or other parts missing that will affect other people's ability to enjoy the item? Even if you can figure out the plot of a book without those missing 20 pages, most people would prefer to read rather than infer their books. Also, if your child has torn off all the flaps in their lift-the-flap book, this will impede the other children's ability to enjoy the book.
Are there questionable stains anywhere on or in the item? While you can look at the brown smear on the cover of that well-loved copy of Hop on Pop, and remember the hilarious time that little Johnny's ice cream bar melted all over his hands and clothing, we at the library are not privy to that fond memory. In fact, we at the library are concerned that said smear is feces.
Are there bodily fluids anywhere on or in the item? Though technically speaking feces is usually not a fluid, it does count when answering this question.
Are there unusual smells emanating from the item? Actually, considering the fact that the smell of human urine is not really 'unusual', per se, we would like to restate the question to read Are there any smells emanating from the item?
Did you write the book yourself? While we are sure that your 600-page science fiction novel is a heart-breaking work of staggering genius, perhaps you should submit it to agents and publishers before attempting to take the library world by storm.
Did you pay someone else to write the book? Truly, it is wonderful that someone loves your child enough to have had a story about a woodland fairy altered to include her name on every page. But perhaps that is a treasure that will be most valued by you and yours in the years to come.
Look inside the bag or box in which you will be putting the items. Are there droppings from rodents or other animals (including humans) in said bag or box? We at the library really, really do not want to deal with feces.
Again, we are very grateful that our library is the first institution you think of as you clean your basement. We are also very grateful that we are not Goodwill, as we can only imagine the types of things that you stuff into garbage bags and leave on their doorsteps. However, it is a much more efficient use of your tax dollars for you to place these items in your own garbage rather than having a library professional do so.
Thank you for your time,
A Disgruntled Librarian
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