Bliss

I left Cedar City yesterday morning (Go. See. Cyrano.) and caught a plane for Anaheim in the afternoon to attend the American Library Association annual conference. I was feeling a little sad to be leaving the Festival, but you know what perks a girl right up? Having her hotel room in California upgraded to the most beautiful living space you've ever seen. My co-worker and I are in a room with 3 beds, 3 TVs, and 2 bathrooms. We have a sunset view and a sitting room. AND if that doesn't do it for a girl, she can attend her conference, pick up free advanced reading copies, and enter a library state of Nirvana.

Cedar City Day 2

Some things are always the same when I come to the Utah Shakespearean Festival.


I always eat a tart ($2.00 this year. Shocking!).


I always visit Ye Olde Catholic Thrift Shoppe.


I always get a veggie sandwich with delightful French feta at The Pastry Pub.


I always force whoever I'm with to go to the audience orientations to the plays and to the Greenshow.


But I never go to the seminars. The Festival offers free seminars the morning after each play, and the audience is encouraged to ask questions and discuss the previous night's (or day's) performance with directors and actors. My family never attended the seminars when I was a child, because I was a child. And when I grew up and began attending the Festival without my family, I never attended the seminars because, apparently, I'm an idiot. My parents and I participated in two seminars this morning--a discussion of "Othello" and the actors' seminar with James Newcomb and Jonathan Peck (the actors who play Othello and Iago). Wonderful! There were a few tedious people asking questions in the audience, but overall it was really interesting. The seminars are going on the list of things I always do when I come to the Festival.

Tomorrow: Cyrano de Bergerac, Cedar City's only organic restaurant, and more hating of people who tan topless at my hotel swimming pool.

Out of Town

I'm in Cedar City with my parents.

Hotel = Functioning Air Conditioning

Life is sweet. (And will be sweeter after I get my tart before seeing "Othello" tonight.)

On the drive here, I was in charge of music. I started with a CD that my parents also own. The next CD was a music group they're unfamiliar with but has a similar feeling to some of the artists they enjoy. The NEXT CD was a music group the parents were unfamiliar with and edgier than their normal musical selections. Soon I will have them listening to thrash metal.

H V A C

It's 8:59 pm and it's 83 degrees inside my house and there's nothing I can do about it.

I have a philosophy about HVAC (I have philosophies about most things: Hummers, blogging, foods that can be mixed with pasta, etc.) and it is that the heating or air conditioning in a room should allow the inhabitants of the room to wear the clothes they would wear outside in a particular season to be comfortably worn inside in that same season. Soooo, in the winter, I want to be able to wear my sweaters in the house without burning up because the heat's cranked up so high that it feels like I'm vacationing in the Canary Islands. (A hot house in the winter just makes me cry that I'm not actually in the Canary Islands and raises my utility bill.) And in the summer, I want to be able to wear my capri pants and short-sleeved shirts indoors without digging out sweaters and slipper socks to shield myself from the air conditioning.

Because of this philosophy, I didn't mind too much when I woke up this morning and the house was 78 degrees. But then I baked a pie and it was 80 degrees inside the house. And people were convening at my house for a meeting. And it seemed unlikely that they would feel that 80 degrees was an acceptable indoor temperature. And I had started to sweat. And I was feeling like we were going to have to hold our meeting in swimsuits. So I turned on the air conditioning. And the temperature rose to 83 degrees.

It's cooling off outside now, but if I open the windows, the Box Elder beetles swarm into the house.

It's a hard knock life for me.

Mix CD

I have many good and kind friends who make me mix CDs. There's no friendship so true as breaking copyright laws for the ones you love (it also just occurred to me as we were playing Guitar Hero in the library this week that playing with a group in a public space like that most likely breaks copyright law too. Hmmm.). Annie is probably the Grand Master of the Mix CD. She makes fantastic CDs with great covers and lots of music that I end up loving (so really it benefits the artists in the long run, because then I insist that we buy their CDs for the library and other people discover them and then the CDs get stolen and my heart is full of rage and I'm happy that I have a mix CD with my favorite selections on it).

If I were to make a mix CD right now, this would be my playlist of songs that currently make me happy:

As Cool As I Am - Dar Williams
This continues to be among my top 3 favorite songs of all time. Annie introduced me to Dar when we were freshman in college. Good Annie.

Gillian - The Waifs

A Comet Appears - The Shins

Swallow - The Wailin' Jennys

Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken - Camera Obscura

Thirty One Today - Aimee Mann

Librarian - My Morning Jacket
I just discovered this song yesterday in a national library newsletter. Mostly I'm just willing to support any song/book/movie that features a librarian.

My Hands are Shaking - Sondre Lerche

Inner Smile - Texas

It Rains Everywhere I Go - Lynn Morris

Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric

Song suggestions? Oh, and has anyone read Love is a Mix Tape? I have not but I'm willing to check it out with the smallest amount of encouragement.

Sometimes I'm a Bad Librarian

Today a little boy (maybe 8-years-old) came to the reference desk and asked for Star Wars Something. He had a speech impediment, so he couldn't pronounce the letter R and I could NOT understand the last word he was saying. After asking him to repeat himself a couple of times, I told him that I wasn't certain what he needed and asked him to describe it (I was hoping more words would equal more comprehension). He did not feel inclined to acquiesce to my request. He left the desk a little huffily and I heard him tell the kid he was with, YOU ask her.

This reminded me of a time when I was a very bad librarian. Very bad. A man with many disabilities came to the desk to ask about some materials. Because of his disabilities, the man was almost impossible to understand. He asked me about two books. One was a religious book and one was something that sounded to me like Happy Birthday Four. I had to ask the man to repeat himself several times before I realized what the first book was and when I found it in the catalog, the book was checked out. I offered to place a hold on the book, but the man declined my offer. Then he asked me again about Happy Birthday Four. I really had no idea what he was requesting and I didn't want to keep asking him to repeat himself, so, true confession, I told the man that we owned the book but it was checked out. I was counting on him to say that he didn't want to place a hold, because that's what he'd done with the previous book. But, no! My plan failed. He wanted to hold Happy Birthday Four. So I pretended to reserve it for him. I. Pretended. To Reserve It For Him. That's pretty bad service, my friends. EXCEPT that I spent the next half hour racking my brain for a book that might sound like Happy Birthday Four and finally came up with Harry Potter 4. And I placed the man on hold for Harry Potter 4. And I hope that's what he wanted. And if it wasn't, someone else dealt with it, because the man and I never spoke again. True Story.

Kilts

I attended a Scottish festival at Thanksgiving Point this weekend. Official Festival Motto: There's No Such Thing as Too Many Bagpipes.

In addition to 12,000 bagpipers, there are many Highland games at the Festival. I like the caber toss best. And there are many people who love dragons and fairies and swords. I'm glad they have somewhere to gather and spar and get away from the role-playing games for a few hours. And there are many, many kilts.

Some people look good in kilts.

I don't have any idea who this is, but the picture is in the public domain, so I stole it from Wikipedia.

And some people do not.

Men competing in the caber toss (and bringing shame to the tradition of the kilt) at the festival I attended this weekend.

How Bad My Lawn Is

Not to dwell on the lawn or anything, but it does look quite unfortunate and then yesterday this happened: there was a knock at the door (I know, this always seems to be a problem at my home), and I answered it to find a man I'd never seen before standing on my porch.

Stranger: Hey. How are you?
MBC: I'm fine. Thanks.
Stranger: So, I just thought I'd stop by and see how you are.
MBC (silently in head): Do you think we know one another? Because we don't. You don't look even a little bit familiar to me. And you're not selling anything, because it's Sunday and there's a baby in the stroller on the walk.
Stranger: Because I thought maybe you were an old woman living here and needed help mowing your lawn or something.

On the one hand, I'm actually pretty impressed that I have neighbor who would stop by and make sure I'm not infirm and in need of assistance (I DO need assistance with the stupid lawn!). On the other hand, my lawn is so sad that strangers come to the door to discuss it.

We Got a New One

His Excellency, the Right Honorable Marmot was born Friday night.

He came home from the hospital tonight. Madame the Elder immediately began singing "Mary's Lullaby" (over and over and over again) to him, and Madame the Younger tucked her new Ariel Barbie into his car seat for him to play with. Nothing says Welcome to the World like a pointy Barbie hand in the eye. Tuey likes to pat him. And sometimes squeeze his face.

I think that's a look of joy on his face that he has a Barbie.

I like him.

What I'm Reading

I'm reading a book that's very unhealthy for me at the moment. It's entitled Almost French and it's a memoir about a young woman who takes a leave of absence from her job to travel for a year and ends up moving to France permanently to live with her new French love. Every dozen pages or so I have to remind myself that I don't want a French lover, that I have obligations to speak at some conference deal event thing in a few months, and that as far as I can tell, it's not possible to be a freelance librarian (but that would be spectacular) so I can't go traipsing off to Europe. Yet. All of this is to say that I have to get back to my book and can't post anything more interesting, but you can read this poem that I like. I like everything that has anything to do with librarians. And the words "bookish dark."

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

-Mark Strand

This is My Job

Not to brag or anything, but this is what I did at work today. Or at least, this is what the teens at our first teen summer reading party did today while I chatted with a co-worker, listened to the soundtrack from Some Kind of Wonderful, and occasionally warned the teens that they only had ___ minutes remaining to make the tallest sculpture they could out of tootsie rolls, Hershey bars, marshmallows, toothpicks, pretzels, frosting, Hershey kisses, and truffles.

There were several structurally unsound chocolate creations that, sadly, collapsed. Here are some of my favorite uncollapsed projects.

Sometimes being a librarian is rock star awesome.

This is a bird sculpted from tootsie rolls. I'm kind of impressed. And kind of sickened.

ANOTHER Birthday

Madame the Younger turned 4 today.

We ate fish sticks by Madame's command.

Tuey LOVED the balloons.

Mom made the cake but the girls decorated it.

And the pinata was beaten to death with a broom.

Bathing Lessons

I love bath bombs. I only pull mine out for very special occasions. They are a balm to my wounded, Summer Reading Program-afflicted soul. Which is why it was so, so sad that this weekend I chose to combine the supreme calm of the bath bomb bath with shaving my legs. I thought I'd save water by combining the two activities.

I assumed it would play out like this:
1. Shave legs
2. Luxuriate in fizzy, British bath

It actually went like this:
1. Shave legs
2. Drop delightful bath bomb into bath tub
3. Yell at the burning pain that is the combination of fizzy soaps and freshly-shaved legs
4. Endure (because a bath bomb is a special treat and there's no way I was getting out of that tub until the pain was beyond endurance)

I won't even go into the part where I was attempting to listen to a book on CD while I bathed but started the CD at the wrong point in the story and set the volume too loud but was then too paranoid about electrocuting myself to try and fix it.

So many lessons in bathing.

I need to move to a country where the women don't shave their legs.

The Birthday

Today was my birthday. Many good meals were eaten. Many birthday songs were sung. Many lovely presents were opened. Among the presents were a number of offerings from Madame 3-yr-old. She loves birthdays. She sat on my lap in a princess dress while I opened all the presents she wrapped up for me, including a Bic ballpoint pen, a rock shaped like a heart, a pink plastic clip, a pair of scissors, and Marmot Dad's comb.

Another joy this year was a fantastic birthday card a friend sent to me. I tried to take a picture of it, but I'm completely inept at using my camera, and the camera ran out of battery power before I could get a decent shot of the card. I did get an okay picture of the card she sent me on an earlier birthday, featuring the same character--Paco. I think you will love Paco as much as I do. Maybe on your next birthday, you'll get a Paco card too. Or the gift of someone else's comb.

A Tiny Bit of Complaining

In preparation for a teen program, I made this at work today


with a heat gun (which sounds wicked cool, but actually functions a lot like a hair dryer).

I wish I had a real gun, because Summer Reading is upon us and the library is a zoo. When my mom or sister ask me about work during Summer Reading, I end up yelling, because there is no other way to express the tension headache that is my job in June. Good thing I have vinyl record crafts to soothe me and no ready access to firearms.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not entirely convinced that I feel good about turning 30.

Rage Runs in the Family

My dad would not last long in the library world. He and my mom are visiting for the entire month of June, and they were in the library this morning. Early in the day. When it's still quiet. Before all the screaming children and the raspy, grabby parents arrive. Before the teenagers wake up and haul their skateboards inside. Before the worst of the noise and disrespect and craziness take over the library. As they were leaving, my dad saw a little boy trying to break our tension barriers (and possibly doing other loud kid stuff). A kid I hadn't even noticed.

"Can I punch that kid?" Dad asked.

I told him there was no punching in the library, but by the end of the day I wanted to punch a few people myself.

Must take a vacation.

Tuey and the Lunch Box and the Donkey

Little kids are gross.

Tonight Tuey was trying to destroy things inside the house while Marmot Dad was trying to clean up the kitchen, so Tuey was banished to the front porch with the women folk. Tuey did not feel that his actions justified his expulsion, so he stood at the front door and cried to be let back in to complete his manly destruction inside the house. Being a kind and a sweet aunt, I looked around for something to distract him and saw a Curious George lunch box lying on the cement.

MBC (reaching for the box): Tuey. What's over here? What's in this lunch box?

Sister: Oooh, you don't want to know what's in there.

MBC: What's in it?

Sister: Vomit. (pause) Or maybe just soggy shredded wheat. It's hard to tell. Either way . . .

So, I found some plastic animals instead and we quizzed Tuey on his animal sounds. He recently met a donkey in the neighborhood and does a really amusing donkey bray. He calls the donkey a honkey.