JULY PHOTO CHALLENGE #24 -- UP CLOSE

I haven't done a "heard  in the  library"  post in awhile but today was just too good to not pass on.

A little  boy about 3 years old and his mother come in to take part in the summer reading program.  They sit down on the window seat and she begins reading him a book.  As they end it she leans over, gives him a kiss on the top of his head and tells him that she loves him.  He says, "You may love me, but I'm not a momma's boy."  Now where in the world did he pick that one up?  Ha, ha, ha!

The second one was phone call I got around 2:30 p.m.  The woman asks, "Are you open tomorrow?"  "No, " I replied.  "Does that mean you're closed this Saturday?"  "Yes, that's what it means." 

She continued with, "What time do you close today?"  "Five o'clock," I answered.  "I guess that you won't be open at six then."  (To myself:  Yes, lady, that's what it means. By six I hope to be home enjoying the first hour of my vacation.)

Too good.   It's just too good.

I'm very sore from the fall I took yesterday morning.  Yes, this time it was me that fell.  I was putting out the recycling for pick up.  I opened the back door and went to step down.  My bad leg went out on me and I hit the small of my back on the metal edge of the top step and then on the concrete of the next two steps ending up in my backside on the concrete patio.  I tried to grab something to break my fall, but all I could reach was the back door which swung open and just threw me on my way.  I can't see my back, but Joe tells me there's quite a bruise there.  I went to work because I figured if I was home I would sit around and get stiff.  Moving at work really did help.

Last night I made baked salmon, tater tots and roasted Brussels sprouts for dinner.  It was so good!  Don't know what to do for tonight.  We'll see.

I have to get running.  I'll do a post later tonight on the first day of Sisters Week.  But first here is yesterday's photo challenge.  The prompt is "up close".  Every morning at work we get the newspaper and I have to stamp it with the library's name before I put it out for people to read.  Just one of the many mundane but important things I do each day.  (It's amazing how things look different close up.)

I'm linking up with Kati at Kati's Little Corner of the World for this July photo challenge.

See you later.

Kathy 

BACK TO WORK

It's been interesting going back to work.  I went back on Monday feeling great.  There is so much work to catch up on having worked at the McPherson Branch and then being off for a week on vacation.  But I've been nibbling away at it and I think by the end of the week I will have caught up on everything.  Just in time to go to McPherson next week.  Then I will be behind on everything again.  *Sigh*  

I knew I was back to work when on Monday an older woman told me I was stupid because when she didn't have her library card I looked her up by her license.  Her name on her license was Elizabeth and her name on her library card was Betty.  I couldn't find her in the database.  I should have known she only used Elizabeth for legal purposes.  OK...

Then on Tuesday I waited on a guy who was so high on drugs he was manic.  He took out movies, put some back, changed them to ones I hadn't checked in yet (even though I told him they were not available), took out too many, put some back...  And then he said his name was John and he was pleased to meet me.  He asked what my name was and I said "Mrs. S...."  He said, "Aren't you going to tell me your first name?"  I said, "My first name is Mrs."  Ha, ha.  But I wasn't going to tell him my name.

Wednesday Joe had a doctor's appointment at the VA Hospital with his neurologist.  He got Carole to take him down so that I wouldn't miss any more work.  But when he got there, his blood sugar was low (even though he had eaten breakfast) and he almost passed out.  He had to have a volunteer take him to his appointment in a wheelchair.  Thank goodness Carole was with him.  She was such a big help.  The nurse there gave him some graham crackers and ginger ale and his sugar went back up.  So we will be keeping an eye on his levels more closely.  Since he lost so much weight he may be taking too much medication for his diabetes now.  I am going to get him to go to the doctor to get that checked out.

So that has been my interesting week.  Today I am going to the dentist to have the beginning of my root canal.  I still have to go to work afterwards because if I don't there won't be enough people to open the branch.  This should be fun.  NOT.

BUSY MONDAY -- AND I DO MEAN BUSY!

Mondays are always busy at the library.  Especially during the summer months when we are closed on Saturdays.  People just can't seem to live their lives without being at the library every day to check their email or get their weekend movies.  Today was especially bad because it was the first week we had been closed for the whole weekend.  To top it off we had two people off today.

We usually get about 15 phone calls a day.  Today we had 38.  Usually make 8-10 new cards.  Today 26.  Usually are asked 10 questions.  Asked 29 today.  What was with everyone?  At least there weren't any rude people.

Of course there is always the strange phone call.
Woman:  Hello, I checked my account on-line.  It says I owe money.  I know I returned my video.  Why do I owe $1?
Me:  Let me look up your account.  May I have your library card number?
Woman:  G-- d---, I knew you were going to ask that.  Now I have to find my card.
(If you knew I was going to ask that, why didn't you have your card there?)
Woman:  (after a pause gives me her number)  I don't owe no G-- d--- f---ing money.
Me:  You returned your video one day late.
Woman:  But I renewed it.
Me:  Yes, you renewed it until June 4th.  You returned it June 5th.
Woman:  (curses profusely)  I can't believe this ************ (fill in the blank if you dare).
Then she says calmly and nicely:  Thank you so much for your time.  Sorry to have bothered you.  Have a nice day.

Huh???  They're out there folks.  It's scary.  Really, really scary.

Splatter Paint

We had a really nice activity for the kids in our after school program today.  All week they have been learning about the artist Jackson Pollock.  Today they created a Jackson Pollock type painting.

 

Miss Joan, the leader, laid a large sheet of plastic on the floor and then put down a strip of brown craft paper.

 

 She gave each kid a squeeze bottle with a different colored paint in it.  Then the kids squirted the paint onto the paper in random squiggly patterns.

Miss Joan sort of directed them, making sure all of the paper was covered, but the kids basically did it themselves.

Surprisingly they didn't get any paint on themselves.  They were very neat about it.  And they all loved doing the painting.

And here is the finished painting.  It is laid out on a table to dry right now, but next week it will be hung on the side of Miss Sheila's desk to display it.  This was a really fun project.

A BUSY DAY

Being short-handed at the library stinks.  It is so hard to do the work of 4 people with 2 1/2 (no, not a half a person, a part-timer).  We just do not have the time to do what needs to be done.  We all try our best, but at this point Diane and I are just plain burnt out.  By the end of the day we just don't care if we get things done or not.  All of us end up counting down the last hour of work.

To top this off we have been having lots of phone calls.  Not just plain calls you understand, but the kind I've spoken of before.  For instance there was one I had today from a woman who wanted to know what our hours were.  I said that we closed at 5 p.m. today.  She said, "I don't care what time you close, what time did you open?"  I told her 10 a.m. although by this time it was 2 p.m. so I really didn't see what difference it made.  OK.

The best call though was from a teenaged boy who asked if we had the book The Color of Clear Waters.  I said, "You mean The Color of Water?"  "Yeah," he said.  "That one."  I told him we had three copies of it.  He said thanks and hung up.  A few minutes later he called back and asked if we had The Lost Boy.  I told him yes we had that one too.  Then he asked if he gave me his library card number if I could check them out to him and deliver them to his house.  Uh, sure.  Be right there.  Where do these people come from?  It sure makes my job interesting.

DONNA'S RETIREMENT

Today is my supervisor Donna's next to last day of work.  We got together at the branch and gave her a goodbye party.  It was an "aloha" themed barbeque.  A lot of work went into it.  Jerry made hamburgers/cheeseburgers, barbecued chicken and hot dogs.  I made potato salad.  Diane made tuna macaroni salad that was so good and a wonderful green salad.  Marquita made the punch out of fruit punch, pineapple juice and ginger ale.  It was delicious.  Donna was so pleased.  There was so much food.  There is so much that we are having another barbeque for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow is her last day.  I will miss her terribly.  We are going out to dinner after work.  It will be fun, but sad.

Such a pretty cake.  Joe picked it out when we went shopping last night.  Leave it to a baker to choose a nice cake.

 This is Marquita (our part-timer) with Cindy from the Rodriguez Branch Library.  Marquita, my boss Jerry, and I were the committee to pull all of this together.

And here is Donna -- the lady of the hour.  She has been at the library for 24 years.  She will be missed by many people.

After we cleaned up, I took a last few pictures at the front desk.  Here is Donna and Diane.

And here I am with Donna.

 

Donna with our guard Rob.

Jerry, however, is glad to be getting rid of Donna.  "Good riddance!" he says.  Just kidding.  Jerry did a lot of work on the party and he will miss her too.

FRIDAY VIEWS

 

We could have used Snoopy today.  When I got to work this morning a bird had gotten into the library.  The poor thing was scared and flying all around the building trying to get out.  It kept going to the windows because it could see the sky and trees outside.  After about an hour the open door beckoned and the confused little bird found its way out.  But not before I got some pictures.  Most of them were so far away they are hard to see.  And the bird flew so fast I couldn't get an action shot.  But these two are pretty good.

Can you see it on top of Humpty Dumpty's head?

"Let me out!" cried the bird.

What a Day!

This has been a day and a half!  I had to stop this morning and get a birthday cake for our guard whose birthday it was today.  I offered to get a cake once and it has now become my job to get everyone's cake.  I think when it comes to my birthday Jerry will say to me, "Want to pick up your own cake tomorrow on your way in?"  Ha, ha!

So I got in late (an excused lateness) and that was the last calm moment I had.  So much shelving to do.  I got done mine and all of Diane's who is on vacation this week.  Then entered some books.  OK.  I can handle this.  

Then the doors opened and the public came rushing in.  "Do you have this book?"  "How do I get a card?"  "How do I get on the internet?"  "Is your photocopy machine working?"  (This is a question we get asked almost every day because no one can figure out how to turn on the machine.)  

Because there were only two of us, Donna and I had to be on the desk every other hour.  That is hard because you don't have time to do anything in your off hour that takes any amount of time.  And with two trying to do the work of three it's really tough.

The topper though came during my hour at 3:00 p.m.  For an unknown reason all the computers in the building stopped working.  Jerry was out today, so Peggy called downtown and told the Information Technology Department what was going on.  They tried to fix it remotely, but it was beyond them, so they called Verizon.

Meantime people still wanted to return books and check them out so we had do "hand charge" them.  This is where we write down all the card numbers and the book numbers to charge to the card.  We just put the returns in a tote.  Tomorrow when the computers go back on we will have to put all this information in by hand.  I actually stamped cards which I haven't done in years to put in the backs of the books.  One man told me it was a "blast from the past."

On top of everything, my knee slipped out of place and swelled up to over twice its size and I could hardly stand or walk.  I have kept off of it since I got home at 5:30 p.m., elevated it, and took some aspirin.  The swelling has gone down a lot so I hope I am OK to go to work tomorrow.

WEEKEND

The weekend is finally here!  I am so happy to have a day off tomorrow.  I worked today, but it was so much calmer than yesterday.

I began the day by getting up early and putting together a stew in my crockpot.  That way when I got home tonight dinner was ready.  I used the things I got at the farm last week.  It turned out really good.  There's not much left.  Joe loves stew, so I think the leftovers are for him.

When I work on Saturdays I stop at The Pretzel Factory on my way in and bring soft pretzels and mustard in to work for everyone to share.  I get the mini pretzels because they are 10 for $3.  There are usually a couple left and I bring them home for Joe.  But today they were completely gone.  Oh well, he got the stew!  Ha, ha!

I got to work early (for a change).  As I was parking, Marquita drove up and parked behind me.  We went over to the building and saw the gate was still locked, so we were the first ones there.  It was VERY COLD.  About 23 degrees this morning.  I had trouble getting my key into the padlock on the gate and then had trouble turning it, but finally did.  Unfortunately, I then couldn't get the key out.  I tried.  Marquita tried.  Our hands turned red and then blue and we still couldn't get it to open.  I finally took the key off of the keychain, left it in the lock and Marquita and I went back to my car, turned on the heat and sat there until Peggy showed up.  She was able to get the key out and open the door for us.  What a time!  But that was the highlight of the day.  The rest of the day was very peaceful and quiet.

I'm still looking forward to having tomorrow off, though.

CRAZINESS

Hello fellow bloggers.  I didn't mean to ignore you, but there really hasn't been much to report.  Nothing has been going on and I guess that is a good thing.  Until yesterday, that is.

Yesterday was not a good day at work.  We had a woman come in during the morning hours.  She was angry when she was asked to go through the security gates when leaving.  She screamed at the top of her lungs at us, cursed us all out and threw things around.  I thought she was going to come back with a gun and take us all out.  That's how angry she was.

Around 6 p.m. there was a woman with a little girl about 8 years old in there.  When the mother said it was time to leave, the girl started screaming "I don't want to leave."  She RAN around the building with her mother chasing her.  She jumped, stomped her feet, threw chairs, overturned tables, threw books, all the time running and screaming  "I AM NOT LEAVING!!!  The mother was finally able to get her out of the building, and we could still hear the child screaming when they were a block away.


I have been a nervous wreck working there.  I know I end up taking it out on Joe and he doesn't deserve it.  But there you go.


Today was my day off since I work tomorrow.  Even though I did a lot of work around the house, it was very peaceful.  I can't wait till I can retire.  I know this post isn't very cheerful.  I will try to do better tomorrow.

YET ONE MORE STORY

This is the last one for awhile, I promise.  Yesterday a man was on the second level of the library, overlooking the checkout area and speaking loudly on his cell phone.  Rhonda, the guard, walked up to him and asked him to get off of his cell phone.  He put his finger in his free ear and continued to talk.  She said again, "Sir, cell phones are not permitted in the library.  You will have to hang up or leave the building."  He told the person on the phone to hang on, turned to Rhonda and said, "Do you mind?  You're making so much noise I can't hear on the phone!"  Yes, these people really exist.  And I love each and every one of them.

ONE MORE LIBRARY STORY

I wasn't going to post again, but this story is good.

A man comes in and wants to use a public computer.  It is very busy in here today and he has to wait 15 minutes for one of them to free up.  He approaches the Children's Librarian and asks her if she can't do something to speed things up.  "I only want it for a few minutes," he explains.  "I just need to know how long cocaine stays in the body."  At the look on Peggy's face he says, "Oh, it's not for me.  I need to know for my girlfriend."

Ah, life in the big city.  I would miss it living someplace else.

WHICH IS WORSE A PHONE CALL OR IN PERSON?

Here's my library story for the day.
The phone rings.  I answer it, "Richmond Library."
Person:  Is this the library?
Me:  Yes.
Person:  Are you open today?  Or are you just picking up the phone?

Yeah, I always hang around closed libraries just to answer the phone.  (I thought it but I didn't say it.)

==============================================================
Lady comes in line to check out some books.
Lady:  Is this the latest Danielle Steele book or has she written another one recently?
Me:  I'm really not sure.  I've been out for a couple of months and she writes books so quickly I don't know what the latest one is.  The librarian can probably help you.
Lady:  Why were you out?  Were you sick?
Me:  Yes.
Lady:  What were you sick with?
Me:  I had surgery.
Lady:  Exactly what kind of surgery?
Me:  I really don't want to answer that.  Here are your books.
Lady:  Oh.  It must have been female problems then.  Anything else you would be talking about.

Oh brother!  I love the library.  I love the library.  And I love my job.

A Not Very Good Day

Ever have one of those days?  I was doing good even though I overslept and was running a little late.  We didn't have enough staff to open this morning, but my boss came in sick so we opened an hour late.  Then we got a delivery of books.  So I was helping to move big totes of books around and pulled a muscle in my back.

I got home and Joe said, "You just missed a phone call you didn't want to have."  It seems the Open MRI place I was going to tomorrow morning is refusing to do the MRI of my liver because the blood tests did not come back good.  They said my creatinine level is low.  I looked it up and Wikipedia says it is low if I am malnourished or have lost a lot of weight.  Well, duh.  I had to call the closed MRI imaging place and they said if I was so claustrophobic I would have to be sedated and they would be using an iodine based dye.  I told them I am the only driver in the household and I would have to go to work following the test so I needed to be alert.  And I am allergic to iodine.  The girl told me it doesn't matter, they have to use the iodine.  So now I have to call the surgeon tomorrow morning and tell her about this and see if there is some other test I can take.  Or if it can just be skipped.  Why can't life be easy?  But I know there is some purpose in this.

Well, now for the phone call of the day:
(phone rings)
Me:  Good afternoon, Richmond Library.
Woman:  Is this the Free Library?
Me:  Yes.
Woman:  The one in Port Richmond?
Me:  Yes.
Woman:  What time are you open till today?
Me:  5 p.m.
Woman:  No you're not.  You are open late on Mondays.
Me:  That has changed.  We are now open late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  We are open until 8 p.m. on those days.
Woman:  Well I was there last week and you were open at 7 p.m.
Me:  That's impossible, ma'am.  We closed at 5 p.m. last Monday.
Woman:  Where are you located?
Me:  On the corner of Almond Street and Indiana Avenue.
Woman (now screaming):  NO YOU'RE NOT!!!  THERE IS NO LIBRARY ON ALMOND STREET!!!!
Me:  I'm sorry, ma'am, but our address is Almond and Indiana.
Woman:  YOU'RE A LIAR!!!  IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO ANSWER ME, JUST FORGET IT!!
JUST FORGET IT!!!!
She then proceeds to slam the phone down. 

I love my job.  I love my job.  I love my job.

21 days to surgery