In Which I Farm ("Farm"), Part I

I love Labor Day weekend. Both the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and the Soldier Hollow Classic (sheepdogs!) fall during Labor Day weekend, which are two of my favorite events, and THIS Labor Day weekend, I also went farming on Moo's farm. Kind of. If you call picking corn and playing Wii farming.

Moo introduced me to the Wii yesterday. We have one at the library for the teens, so it should naturally follow that, being a teen librarian, I would have had some previous experience with the Wii, but I did not. I'm not much of a video game fan, but I was extremely entertained by the Wii yesterday. There's a game that involves leaning right, left, or center to head soccer balls and avoid soccer cleats and panda heads (yeah, I don't know why it's panda heads) that are thrown at you. There's a sensor you stand on that detects the weight shift when you lean one direction or the other and moves your little avatar guy in the game. Inexplicably, I found this game HILARIOUS yesterday. I was playing, but I started laughing, causing my little video game guy to get smacked in the head with soccer cleats, which I then found even funnier, causing the game to seem more and more amusing to me and my playing to get worse and worse. I almost fell off the sensor. I did fall off the sensor when I was Wii ski jumping, so my little on-screen friend went tumbling down the ski hill. Alice showed me all the Wii sports, which I found less interesting, and Moo demonstrated Wii hula hooping, which, again, practically made me hysterical with laughter. Who knew I was so easily entertained?

Next Installment: Corn Skills and Sexy Grandma Shoes

Moving Day

I'm moved (kind of) into my new home.

I'm really hoping that nothing comes crashing down onto my head tonight.



And now I must go fashion some nightwear for myself, because I forgot to move my pajamas. They're still at the old house.

Tomorrow: The Day of Everlasting Cleaning

Sometimes I Struggle

I forgot to bring my keys to work today. I don't know how. There are many things I cannot do without my keys. Many doors I cannot open. Many assignments I cannot fulfill. Someone from Tech Services let me into the library. Someone from Circulation let me into the workroom. Someone from Facilities opened the computer lab for me. Someone in my department let me borrow her keys to open the bathrooms. I managed that way for about 3 hours until it was finally brought to my attention that I could steal the storage key and use it for the day.

I also forgot to eat breakfast this morning. I just completely forgot that I do the eating in the morning, which is bad for so many reasons, starting with the fact that I get hungry around 10 am even if I DO eat breakfast and hungry librarian + annoying library patrons = rage. Forgetting breakfast this morning was especially sad, because I was planning on a SPECIAL breakfast today. And it's not even like I was rushed this morning. No, I was just lounging on the couch reading Breaking Dawn before I left for work.

AND I left my lunch at home in my refrigerator.

Sometimes I'm a real winner.

The Annual Move

I'm moving this week (boo!), and tonight I completed phase 1 of the moving project (yay!), which was to sell my extraneous furniture. The chastity couch is no longer part of my life. Neither is the big, standing sewing machine from the 1800s. And the Couch of Excellent Sleeping is promised to a good home. Now I just have to complete moving phases 2 (packing), 3 (watching boys haul my heavy boxes in and out of trucks), 4 (cleaning), 5 (unpacking), 6 (weeping from the emotional exhaustion of big projects), and 7 (eating ice cream).

Must stop moving every blessed year.

These are My Shoes

I went to Cedar City on Saturday and saw two plays, "School for Wives" and "The Taming of the Shrew" (if you'd like to locate me, just follow my giant carbon footprints to and from the Utah Shakespearean Festival). "Taming of the Shrew" was such a FUN performance. It's really a shame that we saw it first, because "School for Wives" paled in comparison. The performance of "School for Wives" was not terribly well attended, though, so the ushers let us move into very nice seats on the main floor. Being offered better seats was a treat, especially since the ushers we encountered at the earlier show gave one of my friends stern warnings about not touching the gold leaf on the balcony (she had no intention of touching the gold leaf) and scolded another friend for coming in the wrong door, even though we were sitting exactly in the middle of a row and the only extra person my friend had to climb over to reach her seat was me. The ushers owed us a little sweetness and kindness and goodwill after all that chiding.

I wore these shoes on Saturday, because they are cute and they make me happy. I had never worn these shoes all day before. I will never wear these shoes all day again.

Today I wore these shoes to church, because they're cute and they make my feet look grown up. When I bought them, my mom commented that they're pointy enough to use to kick out a bug's eye. They are, indeed, pointy. And after several hours they feel a lot like the shoes I wore yesterday.

Which is why I put on these shoes as soon as I got home from church today. My feet need a little sweetness and kindness and goodwill, too.

Tales from My Real Life

Things to Say to Me on a First Date to Guarantee that There Will Never Be a Second Date

What's your favorite Disney movie?
Really? You're 32-years-old and this is what you want to talk about? It's a conversation I barely tolerate with Madame 5-year-old and only then because she's so cute. Also, I don't have a favorite Disney movie. I think Disney is part of the decline of Western civilization.

What do you even study in a program like that? The Dewey Decimal System? [POW]
POW is the sound that comes immediately after this question, when I take my gun out and shoot the question asker in the kneecap.

Do you want to meet my mission president tomorrow? I told him all about you.
Seriously. On our first (and last) date.

Some people's children.

Sisterly Advice

I forgot to post this on the day it was actually spoken, but it's such good advice that I can't not share it with the world.

An exact quote from my sister to me.

What you need to do is marry someone in jail.

Baby + Turban = Tears

I went to lunch with a friend and her young son at an Indian restaurant today. The staff of the restaurant are very nice and LOVE little children. Maybe too much. For the entire hour we were in the restaurant, there were three staff members giving the baby toys, pinching his cheeks, and offering him naan. At one point, I looked up and the hostess had hiked up her sari and climbed into the booth behind ours so that she could peer over my friend's head and make faces at the baby. And every time one of the staff approached the table to talk to the baby, we had to pause our conversation so my friend could instruct the baby to wave and encourage him to smile and not to cry when someone in a turban approached him, which was the baby's natural inclination. Note to self: when there's a baby in tow, eat at the Thai restaurant.

Google Recommends

So, if you use Gmail for your electronic mail needs, you will know that along the side of each email, there's a list of ads based on the content of your email message (which, by the way, I think is creepy. I realize that the ads are computer-generated based on individual word matching and no one's reading my mail, but it still seems very, very Big Brother to me and I'm sure it will one day be used for evil purposes when Google and Wal-Mart merge and take over the world.).

These are my recent email ad offerings from Gmail. They amuse.

Funny Yoga Shirts

Tandem Skydiving

Eco Engagement Rings
Loving her. Loving the environment.

Poultry Slaughterlines
Used and new poultry equipment.

Travel Jobs for RNs

Start Your Own Donut Shop

Beet Facts 101

Unique Folding Boats

Wood Mizer Sawmill Blades
Your leader in blade technology!

Why He Manipulates You
Why you're attracted to jerks and players.

That last one is my favorite.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

My Cute Single Co-Worker and I saw Fiddler on the Roof while we were in Cedar City this past weekend, and the play made me contemplate what an excellent matchmaker I have been in the past (there are some little children who owe me a thank you note for their existence) and how it's a shame that I can't get a job as a professional matchmaker and have people pay me to boss them around about their social lives. I haven't done any matchmaking recently because I know approximately 50 billion amazing single women and, like, 1 1/2 single men. And the men have cooties.

Today in a meeting, though, I made a flip remark about librarians getting asked out at work (which is an actual occupational hazard), and after the meeting, one of the young men in attendance at my meeting started chatting with me about dating and librarians.

Young Man in Attendance at My Meeting: You know, there is a really cute librarian you work with.

MBC: My Cute Single Co-Worker? The one with red hair?

YMiAaMM: How did you know that's who I meant?!

MBC (in head): Never underestimate librarians. They know all.

MBC (out loud): Because she's adorable. Everyone thinks she cute and wants to pick her up and put her in their pocket.

YMiAaMM: Well, she's probably dating someone then, huh?

MBC: She is not.

YMiAaMM: Blushing

MBC: I could ask her how she feels about being set up.

YMiAaMM (trying to suppress a grin): Well, don't pressure her.

I will not. I will just tell her (right now, because I haven't talked to her in person about this yet) that I'm about to bring love into her life. I just can't guarantee that she'll be the one feeling the love.

Traveling AGAIN

I'm going on a trip tomorrow. (I seem to be spending a lot of my life in a car lately.) I'm attending a library conference in Cedar City for two days. I anticipate that this will be a most excellent library conference because

1. It's being held in coordination with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. We all know what that means, right? Yes, 50% off my theater ticket to tomorrow night's performance of "Fiddler on the Roof."

2. Per Diem--Love myself the per diem. Per diem means that my trips to the Pastry Pub will be funded by the city for which I work. So much better than (a) paying for my French feta salads myself or (b) killing a pigeon in the park and eating it (which is, of course, what one does when one attends a library conference in one's own city and does not have a per diem).

The Right Honorable Marmot Hasn't Been Getting Enough Face Time

The Right Honorable Marmot will be two months old tomorrow, and these are the facts:

1. It appears that he is often worried. His brow is frequently furrowed. I understand. Being number four is rough. You never know when someone's going to come along and squunch your head.

Especially when you live with this.


2. He likes singing. There's a song that used to be sung to my brother James that is just perfect for babies and lends itself very well to spontaneous verses. The chorus (as it was sung to James) is
Oh, little lazy, little lazy James,
Oh, little lazy, little lazy James.

So, when I first sang the song to the RHM, I sang it like that but with the RHM's name. Madame the Younger was INDIGNANT. Aunt! she scolded. He is NOT lazy. He just doesn't know how to do anything yet. He is just a baby. The song has since been modified, leaving out the word lazy and including the RHM's first and middle names.

This is Marmot Dad's most recent verse to the song (I might have one of the adjectives in the first line wrong):
This little boy has soft, sweet skin
Little [Marmot Babe]
That's what keeps his insides in
Little [Marmot Babe]

Proceed to chorus (which is best when belted out by enthusiastic sisters).

For Everyone Who Asked about the Olympic Celebration

I watched the Olympic opening ceremonies at Moo's house on Friday, and people have been asking which foods we ate and how it all went down, so here you go. (And if you're disappointed you missed the celebration, Moo says that the same idea works well at New Year's, eating food from different countries as it strikes midnight in different time zones.)

Before the introduction of countries, we ate dinner, which was lasagna (thank you, Italy), with chopsticks, and our drink selection was from Mexico (which Moo let us drink with dinner because she assumed we had SEEN people from Mexico that day, even if they weren't Olympic athletes. All the other foods were off limits until the countries they represented appeared on screen).

We didn't eat food from EVERY country competing in the Olympics. That would be hard. (Can you even get candy from Eritrea in Utah? Do they have candy?) And you'd have to eat FAST. And we already felt a little ill after three hours of snacking on the foods that we did eat, which were the following (in the order I can remember them, not the order we ate them):

• Turkish Delight - It's not a delight.
• Anise Candy
• Yan Yan
• Violet Crumble
• Brie
• Pineapple, Bananas, and Kiwi
• Rice Candy
• Dulce de Leche - This was the favorite.
• Nutella
• Zwieback
• Haribo Licorice
• Smarties - the kind that are popular in Canada
• some kind of chocolate from Ecuador that had a filling tasting remarkably like vaseline-textured cough syrup
• Miniature Eclairs
• Hob Nobs - I love these.
  
• Pear-Infused Lindt Chocolate
• some kind of Indian snack mix that burned our mouths
• some kind of hard, grape candy
• Fortune Cookies
  

City Girl on the Farm

This weekend I visited Moo on her family's farm.



I collected eggs for our breakfast.



Real eggs from real chickens. Some of them were still warm.



I washed our eggs. I washed and washed and washed one egg. And then I said to Moo, "Um, is it supposed to have this, uh, woodgrain pattern on it?"



NO, it was not. It was a wooden decoy egg. I. am. smart.

Moo's brother pointed out that the woodgrain pattern and the flat bottoms should have been pretty obvious signs that the decoys (there were four) were wooden, but I was very busy keeping one eye on the chickens while collecting eggs. I don't have much experience with chickens (when my family lived in the country and my brother had chickens they were eaten almost immediately by dogs or foxes, as was our rabbit and the neighbor's goat, which, I believe, was eaten by OUR dogs), but I've had enough encounters with geese and emus to know that many feathered animals are wicked creatures with desires to attack me. You gotta be on high alert around them.


Once I stopped trying to prepare wooden eggs for us, we cooked up the actual eggs produced by the actual chickens.


Delightful.

Olympics!

I love the Olympics. I love the Olympics and I celebrate the Olympics and I am friends with someone who is EXCELLENT at appreciating the Olympics in the way in which they should be appreciated, which is with food. I will now tell you about my friend Moo's truly genius Opening Ceremonies Ritual which you will all envy and want to copy.

Here's how it goes:
Prior to the opening ceremonies, collect food from the various nations participating in the Olympics. As each country is introduced, eat the food from that country, cheer, and feel a little Olympic spirit in your heart (also possibly praise/criticize the team's uniforms). Repeat.

Moo is so brilliant. Because, really, what is the only thing better than the Olympics? That's right. Olympics with European chocolate.

Dancing

I'm feeling all in love with watching dance lately.

Last week I spied Step Up (Two Dancers. Two Worlds. One Dream.) on a cart in Circulation and decided it had to come home with me, because sometimes you just need to be reassured that dancing bridges the socio-economic divide and that juvenile delinquents will find love, direction, and fulfillment through one really successful hip hop-ballet combination dance.

Then today I discovered that there are full episodes of the TV show Fame on Hulu, so Debbie Allen and I spent some quality time together over my lunch break.

And right now I'm watching a recording of an Othello performance by the San Francisco Ballet. It's excellent, and I'm having a hard time blogging and watching simultaneously, so I'm going to quit blogging now, eat some peanut butter on a spoon, and yell at the dancer playing Desdemona to keep track of that handkerchief.

I RECOMMEND

Things with which I'm currently enamored:

1. Potato Pizza - boil thinly sliced potatoes for 3-5 minutes in saltwater, layer on whole wheat pizza dough, top with olive oil and rosemary, bake until the potatoes begin to crisp - Delicious!

2. eBay - My sister has long been an eBay lover, but I just recently (last week) discovered the joy.

3. Outstanding in the Field - This is a group that stages dinners on farms and ranches, preparing meals with the foods grown where the dinners takes place and serving the food growers and other diners together to "re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it." I LOVE this idea, and I really want to participate, but it's not going to fit into the budget or the schedule this year. There's also a cookbook called Outstanding in the Field, based on the dinners, that I'm enjoying at the moment.

4. Today I looked outside and saw that my neighbors have a little goat (and chickens) in their shed. I love a little goat. I want to go set my neighbors' goat free and bring him over here to eat my grass. I would call him Pepin and we would be friends.

Goodbye, Nancy

I've been doing lots of weeding (discarding outdated, ugly, old books) in my 600s collection at work. It's one of my favorite things to do. When I first became a librarian, I felt bad for all the books that were going to be weeded and I would often find something that wasn't circulating and have a little conversation with the book about how I was going to leave it there on the shelf, but it really needed to work hard to get taken home that year. I have no such compassion for low circulating books anymore (ooh, except for my little 800s. I don't care if no one wants to read Czeslaw Milosz; we're keeping him!). I send loads of books to Technical Services to be deaccessioned.

This is one of the books I tossed recently. I realize that Nancy is an excellent seamstress and we all love her shows on PBS. I kept some of her other works. I believe this is the book that includes all the patterns for embellishing sweatshirts with patchwork, though. Also, I think Nancy looks scary in this picture.

A Good Read

Tonight the Marmots introduced me to a book I've never seen before, namely The Tale of Custard the Dragon by Ogden Nash. It's the story of a little girl named Belinda and her pets, Ink, Blink, Mustard, and Custard. Ink, Blink, and Mustard are all small animals but they're very brave. Custard is a dragon but he's a coward, at least until a pirate breaks into Belinda's house and everyone except Custard flees. Custard sticks around. And eats the pirate. And then, after Custard eats the pirate, there is this fantastic stanza (the book's written in verse):

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim.
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pirate.

I think any children's book that rhymes gyrate and pirate is a keeper.

(Tuey and I also spent some quality time reading a Barefoot Contessa cookbook together tonight. Tuey was especially fond of the kabob recipes.)