Short (Like an Elf) and Sweet

This week I attended Elf Training because I'm going to be a Christmas elf in a Christmas parade. I can only imagine that this will open all kinds of doors for me and my dream of becoming a Keebler Elf will finally be realized. Maybe I'll be able to make a guest appearance on the Smurfs, too. I'd love to elaborate on my new elf role, but I have to go attend a conference. I'll post book suggestions this evening when I'm done conferencing.

Books for Friends Who Like Jodi Picoult:
The Solace of Leaving Early and/or The Used World by Haven Kimmel, author of my favorite memoir
Run and/or The Patron Saint of Liars by AnnPatchett
Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian
Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler

The Ignorant Masses

A friend at work had this exchange with a middle-aged, middle class woman who came into the library with her teenage son. The son needed a historical fiction book his class was required to read before taking a trip to D.C.

Library Patron (the parent): What’s the book Killer Angels about?

MBC’s co-worker: The Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.

Library Patron: The Civil War? What was that?

MBC’s co-worker (hesitantly): The war in the 1860s between the North and South?

Library Patron: What, like North and South Germany?

Really? Really!? Even if you didn’t study U.S. history in a town named for a Civil War officer in a high school built on a Civil War battleground, like some of us did, I think they mention the Civil War in most high schools across the country. It was kind of a big deal.

Let your head stop exploding and then consider these book recommendations.

Books for adults who love clean young adult titles and have read everything by Shannon Hale:
Keturah and Lord Death - maybe my favorite ya book of the last few years; National Book Award finalist in 2006
Mira, Mirror and The Princess and the Hound both by Mette Harrison - fairy tales
The New Policeman - British award-winning fantasy
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You - spies. great spies.
Anahita's Woven Riddle - historical fiction set in Iran
Midnighters series - by the author (Scott Westerfeld) of the more popular Uglies series; I like the overall storyline of this series better

Books for adults who love young adult titles and don't mind a little grit:
Speak - my favorite ya book of all time
This Lullaby - contemporary by Sarah Dessen; love Sarah Dessen
The Year of Secret Assignments - also love Jaclyn Moriarty; epistolary; FUNNY
Girl at Sea - I can't remember if this one has any potentially objectionable content; good; read it
True Believer - written in verse; 2001 National Book Award winner; there's this section about an abstinence program the protagonist joins that always reminds me of these billboards advertising "Abstinence for Singles" that some friends and I saw on the way to Chicago once (because Abstinence for Marrieds just wasn't taking off)

Be a Giver

This time of year I get many requests for book recommendations for Christmas gifts. I spend a lot of time ignoring family and friends to read and I spend a lot of time reading book review journals for work and I'm naturally bossy about books, so I'm happy to oblige.

Yesterday I was reading a review journal, trying to convince myself to buy our library some more business books (Dilbert is the only thing related the business world I find interesting). This is one of the titles from the journal: The Seven Keys to Effective Business-to-Business Appointment Setting. (All business books have titles that start with something like The Seven Practices or Six Powerful Steps to. It's the law.) This is an excerpt from the book's annotation: A unique compilation of tactical appointment setting techniques, this resource discusses methods to prepare for scheduling qualified appointments, leveraging voicemail and e-mail as powerful appointment-setting tools . . .

Did anybody else just pass out from boredom there? Because, personally, I started thinking about squirrels. (I’ve always thought a good modern art installation would involve a glass structure and squirrels. Think ant farm for mammals.) I automatically hate this book because it uses the term leveraging in the annotation.

Possibly someone on your Christmas list would like this book for Christmas. Someone who needs instructions on appointment setting, doesn't mind terms like leveraging, and doesn't think Dilbert cartoons are funny. Give them this book and then go make new friends.

Books for friends who like short, contemporary nonfiction and/or friends who love the McSweeney's website: (These must also be friends who either have a moderate to high threshold for strong language or know when to skip a work in an anthology that they find offensive without writing letters to request that their local library burn the book and gouge out the eyes of anyone else who read and enjoyed the book.)
The New Kings of Nonfiction - edited by NPR's Ira Glass
The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup - great short pieces on ordinary people by the author of The Orchid Thief
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 - edited by Dave Eggers who's best known for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Anything published by McSweeney's

Books for friends who liked The Da Vinci Code:
Conspiracy of Paper - my boss loves this one
Possession - probably has more appeal for women than men because of the romance; revolves around a literary mystery
Interred with Their Bones - also revolves around a literary mystery; the characters visit the Utah Shakespearean Festival and eat at the Pastry Pub, which is where I always eat in Cedar City (smart fictitious people), so the book might especially appeal to friends in Utah

I'll list more book recommendations at the bottom of my posts for a few more days, but feel free to ask for personalized recommendations.

The Naming

I know several people who are currently pregnant. I help them out by suggesting baby names for their coming children, and they regularly ignore my advice. Never you mind that all my suggestions are variations of my own name. Those just happen to be the names I feel their children would like to have.

I'm entirely qualified to provide excellent baby names, because I've read Freakonomics, which includes a FASCINATING chapter on names. An excerpt of the chapter is here on Slate.

I, personally, have a very lovely name. I was not always fond of it, though. When I was about 4-years-old, I was enamored of the TV show Diff'rent Strokes and I wanted to be named Kimberly after the sister. I made my sister help me make little notes that said Call me Kimberly, and I handed them to people when they called me by name. At least, that's how I remember it. At the age of four, my social circle couldn't have been very wide, though, so I was probably just walking around my house handing the papers to my parents and siblings.

Later, in the 4th and 5th grade, I loved completely made up names with lots of ms and ls. I made lists of potential baby names and names for the characters in the many books and stories I was writing. Lovely, fancy names like Milotia Dawn. Yep, that was my favorite one. All the girls had Dawn for a middle name, because it was the name of one of the characters in the girlwithcancer books I was reading at the time. And all the girls had names that started with m. Melody if they were lucky and Milotia if they weren't. It's a good thing 5th graders rarely get to name babies.

p h o t o g r a p h s

This is the beach at Hilton Head. I was standing fairly far up the beach when I took this one, and it was low tide, so you can't see the breakers. We came to this beach after eating Thanksgiving dinner at the community feast sponsored by St. Andrew's by the Sea.



This is me heading for the Pink House in Charleston, formerly a saloon and brothel, currently an art gallery. The street is the longest remaining cobblestone street in Charleston. It was paved in 1760 with stones brought from England as ships' ballast.



This is Charleston's Circular Congregational Church built in 1886. The graves date back to 1690.


I am so in love with cemeteries. These are stones from the Congregational Church cemetery. Death heads (the second photo) are my favorite. I was a Humanities major, so I spent a lot of time learning about grave markers as the first truly Caucasian American art.





The view from the Mary Field cemetery on Daufuskie Island out to the marsh.

How to Have a Happy Thanksgiving Break

1. Fly to Atlanta. Eat fried grits for dinner. Eat biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Feel your arteries clog.

2. Drive to Hilton Head Island. Marvel at the Spanish moss. (Spanish moss is actually uniquely American. It's related to the pineapple. Recognize that you're a giant nerd for pointing this out to everyone.)

3. Walk on the beach for twelve hundred hours with your mama.

4. Drive to Charleston. Marvel at the earthquake bolts in the buildings. (Marveling is required on all trips everywhere.) Eat amazing grilled tuna over grits made with all the cream and butter in the world at 82 Queen. Feel like a gracious Southern belle. Drag your parents to every cemetery possible.

5. Take the ferry to Daufuskie Island. Daufuskie Island is best known for the Gullah population, ancestors of freed slaves from Angola. (Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, made Daufuskie Island famous with his book, The Water is Wide. Gullah culture is also the focus of Julie Dash's very interesting novel, Daughters of the Dust.)

6. Do not fix your hair one single day of your trip.

If I were not an idiot, I would have brought my camera cord with me so I could post pictures to the blog from Hilton Head. I'll post them Monday when I get back. Now I have to dash off for some crab cakes.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Vive le South

Why I dislike the Salt Lake Airport:

There are televisions blasting in every terminal. Turn on the subtitles and stop assaulting me with noise so I can read Girls of Riyadh and thank my lucky stars I'm not a woman in Saudi Arabia in peace!

Why I love the Memphis Airport:

I step off the plane and I'm greeted by the smell of BBQ. When I purchase my pork sandwich, the girl at the counter asks me if I would like coleslaw on top, because Memphis knows that this is how a proper BBQ pork sandwich is consumed.

Why I love the Atlanta Airport:

In the shuttle on the way to the hotel, elderly Southern women talk about their Thanksgiving meals. Oh, yeah, honey. Fried turkey, baked turkey, ham, chitlins. I wanted to climb into that woman's lap and ask to go home with her. Pile on the chitlins, honey!

Vacations of Doom

Tomorrow I'm flying away to the beach to spend Thanksgiving in the surf with my parents. Glory, hallelujah! The day after Thanksgiving we're planning to visit Charleston, SC, because I haven't been there since I was about 5-years-old and I feel like taking in some Southern culture. When we were in Charleston last, we ate at a restaurant called the Atlantic House, and it was built on stilty legs out in the ocean. As you ate, you heard the water crashing around the supports. The James brother declared that he had never been so close to death. I told myself over and over again that all those servers (I probably actually thought the term waitress because it was 1983) came to work every day and they wouldn't keep returning, if they thought they were in mortal peril. Then I tried to tune out the distinct voices of the deep sea creatures (the weird kind with no eyes because they live sooo deep in the sea--cousins to cave crickets) that I heard calling, "I'm going to eat that little one when she fallllls into the ooccccean."

I frequently felt my life was in danger on family vacations. I remember sitting in the back seat of the car with my brother, splitting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as we drove up the back side of a mountain. I KNEW that would be our last meal, so I let him have the slightly bigger section of sandwich. And there were the times we hiked out into the desert to see rocks with almost no water and we, the little children, got tired and refused to carry on and my dad continued hiking and we all sat on a rock and wept because we were sure he'd never come back (and he had the car keys, which was the really important point) or the times we drove over mountain passes that dropped off into deep chasms on both sides and we knew we were doomed.

The thing is, I looked up the Atlantic House last week to see if we could eat there this week. These are the photos I found:





The second picture is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service Collection of Images. You will note that, apparently, at low tide, the restaurant is pretty much standing on dampish ground. The restaurant is FEET from the shore. If the floor broke open and you fell, you'd be most in danger of breaking a leg, not being swept out to sea. My memory of the Atlantic House may be slightly inaccurate. It's possible we didn't reach the restaurant by submarine as I had assumed. Our vacations may have been safer than I imagined. It would appear that my parents may not have been attempting to kill us on vacation all those years.

All the same, we won't be eating at the Atlantic House. It was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

This Will Probably Come Back to Bite Me

Reasons to MAYBE have a reversal of opinion about someone who’s asked you out and to MAYBE consider asking if he wants to go to dinner tomorrow:

1. While teaching a lesson on the book of James in Sunday School, said asker outer divulges that in high school he had anger issues when playing basketball, so his coach made him crochet on the bench, meaning a) he can crochet b) he doesn’t mind telling a class full of his peers that he can crochet.

2. He mentions that he currently lives with his girl cousins and that he’s never lived with girls before. He continues that, of course, he knew about girls before living with his cousins, but kind of in the same way that you know about unicorns. They may be out there, but they’re unusual and you’re not sure what to do with one when you're sitting next to it.

3. While talking about engagement, he says that he doesn’t know what a male fiancé is called. He suggests that the term should be fianco.

I Heart Kitsch

One of the best things about being a librarian is that every single thing is relevant to my job. Librarians are the people who know how to find out about anything, so the more we know, the better. Which is why it was entirely professional development when my co-worker showed me this fantastic site, Roadside America, yesterday at the reference desk and why it remained professional development when I spent the next half hour investigating two-story outhouses,


American stonehenge rip-offs,


and giant fiberglass men.


I love seeing interesting, unique attractions when I travel (although my friends and I drew the line at the Phallological Museum in Iceland and, wisely I think, chose not to go inside--DON'T look it up), but I never seem to stop at wacky roadside attractions. They're never actually near the road. They're 30 miles out of the way, and I come to the giant billboard advertisements for them after driving for 11 hours when I desperately want to find a motel for the night and would sell my family to find one.

So, I want to hear—I desperately want to hear—about interesting places you’ve been or interesting places that exist in your states. Gaudy giant squirrel monuments, cheese chalets, or classier establishments, as long as they're interesting classy establishments. Please share.

The Third Day of Thanksgiving, Part 1

Today: Gratitude for Brothers

I have two brothers: the James brother and PoliceBrother.

PoliceBrother is seven years older than I am. When I was about 10-years-old we were in Florida visiting our grandma for Christmas. My brother was going through a torn jeans and leather jacket look at the time, which I thought was very mature looking. He took me to the mall with him and I hoped that people would think I was his girlfriend. I felt extremely old and honored to be out with my 17-year-old brother. Especially when he asked my opinion of some black biker boots. I, of course, thought they were divine.

PoliceBrother is a protective kind of brother. When he hears that I've been sad or upset, he offers to come into town and break someone's knees for me. I, of course, never take him up on this offer or want anyone's knees to be broken, but it's still nice to know that someone would at least OFFER to inflict physical damage on my behalf. He'd probably hammer a telecommunications company for me.

My brother and his wife are both very generous. They sent boxes and boxes of clothes their twins had outgrown when my sister's kids were born. When you go to their house, they start rummaging through the refrigerator, looking for something they can feed you. People who are feeders of other people are the BEST. It shows they're the nice, nurturing kind of people, not the living in fortresses made of smuggled rubies and running over puppies with their recreational vehicles kind of people.

AND my brother is a good storyteller. There's a story about the prisoners and the chocolate cake. I never tell it to people, because I can't do it justice. You have to hear my brother tell it. So. Funny.

The Third Day of Thanksgiving, Part 2

And now the James brother.

James has always been very good to me, starting when I was a baby and he sang me songs in the car to keep me from squawking. When I was a little girl and scared to go upstairs by myself (terrible creatures lived in my bedroom when no one was up there, even during the day, waiting to attack and drag me away), my brother armed me with blocks to defend myself. Apparently terrible creatures are no match for small, red, wooden blocks.

One day in high school, my brother came upon me walking down the hall between classes. He threw his arm around me and started singing a song that he made up on the spot. I don't remember the whole thing, but this is the end:

This is my sister and she wears glasses
So don't you boys be makin' passes
'Cause I'm her brother and I'm real big
And I'll hunt you down like a stinkin' pig.

Catchy, yes? My brother is FUNNY.

There's a post card on my refrigerator that my brother sent me YEARS ago. Partly it's on my refrigerator because it's a print of a cool pen and ink drawing of "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" from the 1600s, and partly it's on the refrigerator because my brother sent it to me when I was having a terrible year, and it reminds me that I have a really excellent family that takes care of me and sends me post cards when I'm feeling blue.

James and my sister-in-law are both super nice. If they lived in Utah, my position as favored aunt would be in serious jeopardy. The main things I have going for me now are proximity and the fact that my sister's kids can't differentiate between a present I give them myself and a present I deliver from my mom. At family gatherings, my brother and sister-in-law are still having sincere conversations with marmots and playing games long after I've tucked myself away in a corner with a book. Because they're nice.

So, I'm grateful for my whole family. And I'm feeling better today, so I'll save the rest of my thanksgiving for the actual holiday.

The Second Day of Thanksgiving

So, I was saying how my family is nice. So, nice siblings.

I wanted to BE my sister when I was a little girl. I thought she was all things that were good and right with the world, because she took me on picnics and made me hammocks out of bath towels and gave me her chocolate Easter bunny when it was discovered that the ears on mine had snapped off in the box. She gave me her BUNNY. I had never seen such sacrifice.

When I was older, I sometimes stayed with her wherever she was living at the time. She taught me how to crash campus events where food was being served when I stayed with her at BYU. At Penn State, she made me a little bowl of broccoli that she put near my bed so that I wouldn't come home malnourished. In Saint Louis we visited the pot-bellied pigs at that one place that I can't remember the name of. (Did I mention how I'm sick and slow?)

And now, she and Marmot Dad regularly feed me and listen to my stories and take me places. Even when I'm ill and tell them I'm not coming over, they invite me to dinner and suggest that some soup and cake at their house would make me feel better, instead of saying, Yes, please keep your germ-ridden scourge of a self away from our delicate babies, which is what I would say to me.

In fact, I think on Sunday it was Marmot Dad who offered the extra invitation, which is saying something, because I'm sure it's not always the best time for him when my sister and I are together. Once, before Marmot Dad and my sister were married, we were all waiting at the airport for my mom. My sister and I were doing an our-mom-is-coming-to-see-us-and-she's-almost-here-hurray! dance in the terminal. Marmot Dad was not accustomed to such celebrations and told a little boy standing near him, "I'm so embarrassed for us." But he still invites me over and asks me questions about the kings and queens of Britain (King James had an enlarged tongue that caused him to drool), despite the possibility that dancing might break out.

Nice.

I'm getting to the brothers. Just you wait.

The First Day of Thanksgiving

I've been sick for almost a week, which makes me a little slow in the head. For example, Thursday I went to the Ceramic Genius' house to watch The Office. I came in, looked around, and demanded, "Why do all your clocks say that it's almost 8:15?"

Ceramic Genius: Um, because it is?

Ohhhh. See? Slow.

It's hard to blog when brain function is low. It's especially hard to blog and be amusing or clever. I think I can blog and be sincere even while sick and slow, though. Soooo, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm expounding on some of my blessings. Being sick is a good reason to do it early. So is the fact that on Thanksgiving I'll be on the beach eating hush puppies.

Okay, let's be grateful!

My family is really nice. Every member of my family. Nice.

My parents are two of the most service-oriented people I know. I was really devastated in my late teens/early twenties when I realized that I wasn't automatically going to become as good at nurturing other people as my mom is. You have to work hard to care for people that well. When I was growing up, there were always neighbor babies in our house and it seemed like we were always taking other people's children to church with us or that I was being taken along to visit someone who was sick or alone. In college, I would call my parents on Sundays and ask what they'd been doing and they would have just gotten back from visiting people in the hospital or taking meals to widows. Literally. Visiting the sick and widows. Both of my parents take their responsibilities to other people very seriously, and I admire that.

My parents are also fun. My mom got in trouble at a water park when I was about 10-years-old. She had taken me and my best friend there, and she would wait at the bottom of the slides and pop out and scare us. We thought it was hilarious. The lifeguards did not.

There's a famous story in my family about me and my dad. We were playing charades one night when I was a little girl. My dad was pretending to be a gorilla, and, apparently, he made quite a realistic one, because it scared me and I called out, "Be a butterfly, Daddy! Be a butterfly!" I would really love to see my dad's impression of a butterfly. Maybe we'll play that game at the beach.

So, I'm grateful for my parents.

Tomorrow, I'll be grateful for my siblings.

The Good and The Bad

This weekend I ate at One World Everybody Eats, a hippie/local/organic restaurant and a nonprofit organization. At One World there's no set menu, everyone pays whatever they feel their meal is worth, and there's always a complimentary staple dish for people who can't afford to pay. One of One World's goals is to eliminate food waste, so you choose how much of each dish you want, starting with smaller portions and going back for more if you like it. I LOVE the concept of this restaurant AND my pumpkin-crust quiche and sqash-tofu something or other were both delicious (I also had kale with vinaigrette and wasabi noodles, which were good). I don't know if my friends enjoyed it as much as I did (or at all), but it reminded me of the local restaurants I loved in Bloomington.

Later that evening, it was decided that pie was the necessary end to the night. It took quite a bit of work, but we eventually located and were seated at a Marie Callender's. I'm, admittedly, not a huge fan of Marie Callender's--the pies can be sickeningly sweet and no restaurant pie crust is ever as good as homemade--but I never think pie is a bad idea. A slice of pie cost $4 and a whole pie cost $10, so we decided to buy three pies and share them. They wouldn't let us. Whole pies can only be purchased TO GO. What kind of ridiculous trying-to-gouge-the-customer policy is that!? Is that really what Marie would want?

So, we ordered three pies to go and took them across the street to the grocery store, where we purchased plastic forks and ate at the tables in the store's deli.

Marie and I probably won't cross paths in the future.

The Month of BALANCE

I celebrate each month with a theme. It started in graduate school because of some dumb boy and then ended and then resumed two years ago and now can't be stopped because too many people know about it and depend upon it and ask about it. This past year, I've chosen all the month themes. The Ceramic Genius chose the theme one month, and it went terribly, which is how we discovered that choosing the months is my special calling in life.

These have been my favorite themes:

Train Safety Month - Emily adapted a song to the theme and if you caught her in the right mood, she would sing it.

Fire Safety Month - Get up in the morning. Stop. Drop. Roll. (We were very safety conscious in Indiana.)

The Month of True Confessions - Found out all kinds of FASCINATING things about people. It's remarkable what people will tell you, if you let them know that it's a necessary part of your monthly celebration for them to divulge their secrets. People are so obliging sometimes.

The Month of Living in the Moment - Actually, this one was really hard. My roommates and I lived in a house with a giant wipe board that year, though, and every night we listed the things from the day that had made us happy or that we appreciated from the day. Cheesy but nice. Also, the board fascinated and entertained guests, and we do try to accommodate the needs of guests.

This month it took forever (until today) for the theme to come to me. November is the month of BALANCE. Take that as you will. If you've been checking websites to recognize the symptoms of an aneurysm because you're not entirely convinced you're not going to end up in the hospital from one because you're feeling AWFULLY stressed this month even if your sister doesn't believe you, you should maybe take a day off and treat yourself to some relaxing spa services. If you are my friend and you recently found out that someone stupid you were dating just got engaged to someone he was dating when he was only supposed to be dating you, you should maybe balance out the bad news with some good news. Like, good news! I just bought myself a sheep dog! Or you could decide to eat more balanced meals. Or spend more time on part of your life that usually gets neglected. Or you could take up tightrope walking or other activities that require balance. (Does the trapeze require balance, Amy?) Or you could go visit my friend Chou's blog, which is titled Balance. Or you could ignore the month completely, which I sometimes do even though I'm the one who names them.

Vocabulary=Rice

A friend sent me a link to this site, Free Rice, a sister site to poverty.com, yesterday. It's a vocabulary game that donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Hunger Program for every vocabulary word you properly identify. (The money for the rice comes from corporate sponsors whose names appear at the bottom of the game.) I think it's admirable that Free Rice has provided a really easy way for people to contribute to the World Hunger Program and to feel empowered to help even if they don't have money or resources to contribute.

I also think it's really weird.

I read the online information about the goals of Free Rice. They are to

1) Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2) Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Um, are people wondering where they can get their English vocabulary words for free? Because I can tell them where to find them. In the dictionary.

It IS an addictive game (which is probably the point) and it DOES serve a good cause, so check it out.

AND, while you're thinking about food and scarcity and plenty, go find the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. It's a collection of photographs showing families from twenty-four countries (including the US) with all the food they eat in a week. VERY interesting.

Sisters

So, I was shootin' the breeze with Madame 3-yr-old the other day and we had this conversation:

Madame: Who's your mommy, Aunt?

MBC: Grandma is my mommy.

Madame: Oh, Aunt! That's Mommy's mommy!

Sister: That's because Aunt and I are sisters. Did you know that?

Now, this may seem like an ordinary exchange with a 3-year-old, but I was a little shocked that Madame didn't already know about this whole sister thing. My sister started indoctrinating Madame 4-yr-old with Sisters LOVE one another and are always good and kind to one another like Aunt and I are kind to one another because we're SISTERS so STOP POUNDING THAT BABY almost as soon as Madame 3-yr-old came home from the hospital and got her first smack to the head from her waiting sister.

It was not uncommon for me to have this conversation with Madame 4-yr-old and my sister in the early days of Madame 3-yr-old's existence.

Sister: Madame, ask Aunt if I was ever mean to her and took her toys.

Madame (sweetly and sincerely): Did Mommy take your toys?

MBC: She never did. She was only nice to me. She always shared with me. Because we're SISTERS.

Of course, actually, she never took my toys because she didn't want them. There's a great big age gap between the two of us and when I was playing with My Little Ponies, my sister was studying calculus. She's proven to be a most satisfactory sister over the years, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she wouldn't have been a toy-stealer or a pounder-of-the-younger-sibling, if we'd been closer in age. I'm nice like that.

My Morning: A Tale of Woe

The true events of my morning

• Wake up and think about how much I dislike winter.
• Hurry like a banshee (they're fast) with all the morning routines to get out the door early.
• Drive to my polling place.
• Vote.
• Hop in car to zip to work.
• Turn key.
• Watch car not start.
• Turn key again.
• Watch car not start.
• Turn key (hope is a virtue).
• Watch car not start.
  
• Stare at cell phone and consider who one calls at 7:50 in the morning when one's car won't start and one needs to get to work and one shouldn't be having bad luck on a morning when one is just trying to do one's civic duty. Possibly one's mom. Even if she's in another state.

I called AAA. Fortunately, when my car started falling apart in September, I updated my membership. So a very nice man named Perry drove out and towed my car to the shop. Perry thinks my starter's dead.

When I finally got to work, a co-worker very kindly told me that it's actually pretty good that my car got to as many miles as it did before needing this much work and that a starter is an easy thing to fix. Very nice of her. The actual correct thing to say to me, though, would have been, Here's a brownie. You're nice.

Marmots at Work

This is Madame 3-yr-old and Tuey playing in the sandbox outside Madame 4-yr-old's preschool last week. It was raining when we left the car, so Madame insisted that I put those purple and pink velour pants on her OVER the jeans she was already wearing. It's a shame you can't really see the whole outfit. It's a stunner. Madame felt very strongly that her job was to load up molds and strainers with sand. Tuey felt that his job was to scoop sand onto Madame's head, which is why there's sand on her hood. She didn't notice. She works very intently.


Tuey's hair is looking a little mullety here. He'd never had a haircut before, because you can't cut a baby's hair before he turns a year old. (You maybe didn't know this if you weren't raised by my mother.) I don't recall what terrible fate befalls a baby whose hair is cut before that time, though (Mom?). Anyway, Tuey did finally have a haircut this weekend. I wasn't present, but Marmot Dad was planning to do the cutting for the little man child. And then I assume Marmot Dad taught Tuey about small engine repair and spitting. Just to round out the whole father-son bonding experience.

Please Advise

I've decided it's time to buy an MP3 player.

I'm planning to get one before I go to London so I can

A) bring enough Ella Fitzgerald with me to ensure that I feel like a movie character with an appropriate girlinthecity soundtrack while traveling

B) avoid lugging giant books on CD with me, taking up precious space that should be reserved for returning with bath bombs from Lush and digestive biscuits.

Being a librarian, I have done my Consumer Reports research, but I'm not very good at buying things other than plane tickets and food. If you have an MP3 player, please share any words of wisdom you might have--features you're really glad you have, features you don't have but covet, etc. If you don't have an MP3 player, just assure me that it's a good idea to buy one even though I just paid for two fairly large trips.

(You can praise iPods if you feel like it, but I don't want one because they aren't compatible with NetLibrary, the e-audiobook service that Utah libraries subscribe to.)

Wherever you go, you hear the wisdom of women -Sarah Ellis

I was rummaging through my files this morning and found a handout from a women's studies class I took when I was a student at BYU. At the time, BYU's German Department had just begun working on Sophie: A Digital Library and Resource Center for Early German-Speaking Women's Works 1740-1923 and the handout is an explanation of the project and an example of the content that includes a profile and quote, which I share with you now, from one of the women in the database.

It is true that life is miserable enough, and that the majority of people never amount to much! But when I hear a young, gifted man say, 'I have never felt enthusiasm for human innovations, for so-called progress, because the herd always remains just as wretched, no matter how high the heel one gives them'--I always want to say: but for once look away from the majority, toward the good and meaningful people who also exist, and who prove what is possible. But in any case, even if all of them were demons, and one felt in herself the power of what is good, and a striving for the ideal, one would have to have the courage to be the only angel among devils.

-Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903)

I agree.

Now I must go heed the call of the chocolates on the Interlibrary Loan desk.

In Case You Were Also Wondering

Guy I Know: So, you read a lot. You know a lot of things, right?

MBC: Yeah.

Guy I Know: So, have you ever read about, or do you know, the best way to ask out a librarian?

MBC (Silently in head): There is no appropriate response.


I've thought about it, though, and here it is (librarians, feel free to add your own best practices):

1. Be British, if possible. If that's not possible, try at least to have visited Britain. Using a fake British accent to cover up the fact that you're not British does not count. You think I'm kidding, but I once went out with someone who knew I had a thing for the British boys and, consequently, spoke in a Scottish accent for about half the evening. Points bestowed for attempting to indulge my neuroses. Points deducted for, um, well, speaking in a fake Scottish accent all night.

2. Say Do you like Greek food? You do? Excellent. Would you like to go sailing in the Mediterranean next weekend? We'll stop for some gyros while we're there.

3. Present the librarian with a small token of affection--the newest Haven Kimmel book, a puppy (I'm not home much, so my puppy would have to be accompanied by a fully-staffed farm), the Hope Diamond. Whatever the librarian in question might take as a goodwill gesture.

There are other acceptable ways to ask out a librarian, but that is the best way to ask out a librarian.