Neighbo(u)rs

Back in the spring, Steve found an old play structure for free and he and his dad picked it up and set it up in our backyard for our kids.  I was thrilled.  The kids were thrilled.  The neighbor kids, it turns out, were thrilled.

Behind us, there is a four-plex rental property.  The people who live there are nice.  Recently a man and his two daughters, a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old moved in.  The Bairn calls them "The Friends" and loves them dearly even though they're mostly feral and kind of jerkfaces.  I arbitrate at least 5 altercations between The Friends and my kids every hour that they're outside on our play structure together.  While they're over, The Friends sometimes help themselves to the strawberries in my garden before throwing sand at my kids and taunting them with promises of the various treats in the fast food meals they carry over with them.  We have a rule that The Friends can't be in our yard unless someone from our family is outside too.  I claim that this is to ensure that if anyone gets hurt, an adult will be nearby to help, but it's as much about the frequency with which I see those girls dancing on the top of their dad's car--I wouldn't like a repeat at my house.

I'd really like to be the kindly neighbor who loves all the troubled children and invites them in for cookies and long talks, but I'm actually the grouchy neighbor yelling, "Hey, you kids, get off my grass!"

Picking strawberries at a farm down the road, since the neighbors are eating all the ones we're growing.

Let's Be ANNOYED

I have grievances against the social media which must be shared so that everyone can stop misusing technology and giving me a headache on top of my existing from-a-cold headache.

Pinterest

I love Pinterest and I think it's a grand idea, but I'm tired of the same 12 recipes for chicken breasts showing up on my feed and I'm even more tired of the SUPER EXCITED!! descriptions of the MOST AMAZING recipe you will eeeeever find for chicken covered in a creamed soup!  Another pinner said that this chicken is the best chicken that anyone who has eaten chicken has ever tasted because chicken is soooo good.  It's so simple!!!!  Who knew?!

It bugs me.

Also, blogs I used to enjoy reading that now appear to be written in order for each of their posts to be pinnable.  Booo.


Facebook

Well before the election, I had to hide the feed of one of Steve's friends.  The political bashing was too much and, particularly since I disagreed with all of his links/thoughts on American politics, I was extremely agitated every time I saw a post from him.

Facebook is a bad place to discuss religion and politics.  Much as it's touted for being a great communication tool, it's a terrible tool for discussion among 300 people.  How persuasive an argument (or counter-argument) can you write in a comment?  Or in a Facebook-sized post?  Why do I want to have a discussion in public with you AND everyone you know about something I hold dear?  Many of my Facebook 'friends' are actually family friends of Steve.  I'm happy to be friends with them, because I know I'll meet them someday and they want to see pictures of our baby, but I don't care what they think about my politics.  And another segment of my 'friends' are people I don't know well--well enough to want to know when they have a child, but not well enough to chat with them about religion.

I wonder about the motives behind certain posts.  When someone posts a harsh (and biased) media statement about a politician, is that to receive validation from like-minded friends?  Or to persuade friends with opposing views to come around to a new way of thinking?  Or to encourage me to hide that feed?

I love discovering a link to an excellent article and I adore photos of new babies.  I'm glad to keep up-to-date with a wide variety of people in my life, but I'm not at all interested in the vitriolic views of mere acquaintances.

Maybe I'm just really grouchy lately.  The way Steve turned on the water in the bathroom sink almost sent me over the edge the other night, so it could be one of two things--too many people on social networks are idiots or I'm super sensitive.

Disgruntled Shopping

Every couple of years, I visit the grocery store and throw a little internal fit.

This year's fit took place last week.  I was annoyed that there was no baby/parent parking for those of us with babies in the 91st percentile for weight and that jalapenos were only available in plastic packs of assorted peppers and that the produce was all from Spain and cost a billion dollars when we live in an area that grows tons of fruit and vegetables.

I walked past the ice cream and noticed that it was on sale for $4.99.  I read ALL the grocery store fliers and write down the best deals every week, so I happened to know that that same ice cream was on sale across town for $2.99 and that it had been on sale at the store I was in the week before for $2.99.  For some reason, this irritated me a great deal.  Stinkin' grocery store calling ice cream on 'sale' for more than they charged the week before.  I wasn't even buying ice cream but I decided that the grocery store was my enemy for trying to pull a fast one on me in the freezer section.

I rolled up to the checkout and I placed my cloth bag at the front of my groceries so the checkout clerk would know I didn't want her to use plastic bags, and the checkout clerk picked that bag up and tossed it down to the end of the checkout area so I could bag my groceries myself.  She maybe didn't realize that I was pushing a ticking time bomb of a baby in the cart (t-minus 4 minutes to meltdown) and that I could either get out my money and pay for the groceries or I could bag the groceries, but if I had to do both, the baby bomb would explode IN the store rather than in the car (wailing all the way home is the new falling asleep peacefully in the soothing motor vehicle).

I need a farm.  And a co-op.  And an anger management course.

Bah Humbug

1. We took The Bairn to the after hours clinic last night for weird spots on his leg.  The Internets informed me that it could be something that leads to Meningitis.  The provincial health helpline told me nothing specific about what it could be but advised me to have him seen right away.  The doctor at the clinic didn't seem too concerned about it.  Maybe she doesn't read the Internet.
2. Amazon does not sell MP3 downloads in Canada.  Although we have been friends all these years, this makes me feel like we're going to have to break up, because they are holding my baby white noise hostage.  Don't they know I'm American?!  I should have downloaded the MP3 before we crossed the border.
3. I had to order more diaper covers and it took me FOREVER to find somewhere in Canada that sells the cheap kind.  The company didn't read my instructions and sent the package to Tennessee instead of Nova Scotia.
4. I itch.

Be Glad You're Not an Immigrant

Bah!

I have nothing to share with you except my bad, bad attitude.

If you come to visit me and you would like to complain about your job or the government or anything really (except maybe bunnies), I'd be happy to listen and validate by adding lots of comments like, "Yeah, I hate people too!  People are the worst!" and "No, that IS a horrible, bureaucratic nightmare.  You should bake yourself a pie.  And share it with me.  You deserve it."

Yesterday morning Steve and I were listening to the news while we lounged in bed.  The last several days, all the news coverage has been about the riots and looting in London and I was explaining to Steve that the UK needs to embrace rubber bullets and that if I were in London, I would be happy to shoot some looters in the eye with a rubber bullet or two.  This was before I developed my bad attitude and hatred for humanity.

We spent the day at Steve's office so I could proofread the first section of Steve's PhD and give him a scolding about the passive voice.  When we returned home, a much-anticipated piece of mail awaited us.  Tragically, it was not the identification record that we need but rather the THIRD letter explaining that the fingerprints we submitted (and which must be accepted before we can submit my immigration forms) had been rejected.  The prints I traveled to London to obtain.  On a night train, in a non-reclining seat, without a blanket, in a freezing cold carriage.  While morning sick.

I called the agency and asked them what the deal was and they said that some people just have fingers that don't fingerprint well.  I see.  I asked what I should do about that.  Here's what they said: submit some more prints.  Ah, yes, so helpful.  Because doing the same thing over and over again is bound to eventually get me a different result.

That's when the rage kicked in and I started suggesting to Steve that we go loot something.

Erglegrew (The Sound of Frustration)

I just completed my UK tax return.

Once I figured out what I was doing, it took about 10 minutes to complete, but first I had to spend way too much time on hold with the helpline and an anxiety-riddled period speaking to an advisor who put The Fear in me by making me think that I was in violation of tax law before he actually told me what to do and how to fill out my form.

Here's my big complaint.  I try to do the right thing.  I made a measly amount of money this year.  Between the two of us, Steve and I still came in well below the poverty line since neither of us was working full time and I wasn't allowed to work or couldn't find work for significant portions of this year.  In the UK, tax is automatically assessed, taken and returned (which is great), so tax returns are only necessary for exceptional circumstances.  I had income the government didn't know about so I set out to declare it and make sure I was square.  Steve warned me against it, advising me not to worry about it, because he knew I wouldn't OWE the government anything and therefore wasn't cheating anyone out of anything.  I gave him a little self-righteous speech about honesty and proceeded to enter the bureaucratic nightmare. 

I hate feeling punished for trying to comply with government regulations.  We're doing the same thing with our immigration and I can't help but notice that all the questions seem designed for people who are planning to cheat the system.  There are pages of questions simply verifying that our marriage is legitimate and not a ploy to gain access to a foreign country.  I'm tired of working with systems designed around the premise that I'm dishonest.  And, really, meaning no offence to Steve's country, if I were going to scam my way into permanent residency, I'd chose a country with a warmer climate and a better pronunciation of the word pajamas.

I Don't Like These Numbers

3 : Number of lights out at the top of the stair tower (ALL of them).
16 : Number of days the lights have been out.
5 : Number of phone calls made to the factor about the lights.
5 : Number of promises extracted from the factor that the lights would be fixed.
0 : Number of times the factor's promises have been fulfilled.
384 : Number of £ we pay the factor for this service each year.

Why You Gotta Be That Way?

Mom and I went wedding dress shopping today. We visited a major player in the wedding dress chain store business, erroneously thinking that since the store serves so many brides, the company would cater to many tastes. Not so. I told my special bridal friend (I believe she's called a "consultant" and I know this because I watch Say Yes to the Dress) what I wanted and she told me that they do not carry ANY wedding dresses with sleeves. None. They have little bolero jackets to put over any of their 5 kabillion strapless gowns, but they have zero dresses with any kind of sleeve. I tried a few dresses on anyway, but standing in a giant, mirrored room with borrowed underwear under a gown I do not want to purchase with a special bridal friend does not please me.

Oooh, It's a Big, Long Rant

I've recently developed a laissez faire attitude at work. Circulation staff still unclear on magazine procedures? Oh, well. Events staff still ignore the lovely pictures I draw them to illustrate meeting room set ups? Doesn't matter. Guy who wears the bike helmet still sings Celine Dion songs and discourses on the future of hover boards? I just let it be. It's the unfortunate side effect of having less than six weeks left as an employee. I discovered today, though, that there's one thing I cannot let be. I can never let it be. I will fight it to the end of time. Censorial patrons will never be okay with me.

I got a materials complaint this week from a parent who picked up a book her daughter checked out of the teen collection. The mother skimmed part of the book and discovered a chapter in which teens engage in underage drinking and strip poker. She would like us to throw away the book because the "whole thing is trash." Yeah, I saw that and I wanted to punch something. Possibly someone.

I read part of the book today and it's pretty mild. There's no profanity and no sex and no violence and no adult themes. It's pretty much a fluffy, plotless book that in no way glorifies either of the behaviors the mother objects to. If this is the kind of book she wants us to throw away, she needs to step away from my teen collection right. now. because if she doesn't she's going to find far more scandalous content than underage drinking and her head will explode and the number of complaints she'll have to file will deforest the entire northern hemisphere.

I don't endorse underage drinking or teens playing strip poker, but it's ridiculous to expect a library to be a collection of completely sanitized reads, and underage drinking just strikes me as one of the least offensive scenarios to encounter in teen fiction. Does this mother send her child to public school? Because if that child's school was anything like mine, she can watch some real live underage drinking in the girls' bathroom any old time she wants. And then inhale some second-hand pot and hear about the cheerleaders' sexual exploits from the previous weekend.

If I were a parent, there are things in literature that I would want to steer my children away from at certain ages (or at least be sure to talk to them about), but I hate the attitude that I don't agree with something I read so the book in which I read it has no value for me OR FOR ANYONE ELSE.

Allowing someone to read about an objectionable behavior is not the same as encouraging it. In fact the opposite is often true. Literature is a safe place for teens to experiment with risky behavior and its consequences. I loved teen pregnancy books as a middle schooler and all these years later, still no illegitimate children.

A Hard Knock Day

Oh, it was a trying day.

We had a teen event today and the food was all being donated from local pizza places. Except that when I called to confirm with the restaurant managers this morning (and I HATE using the phone and I HATE negotiating donations), one of the restaurants backed out. The person who had promised the pizza (last week) no longer works there and the restaurant refused to honor the promise. I was so indignant. They PROMISED. We were counting on their donation. And it was only one pizza. They couldn't manage one pizza that they'd already agreed to donate? Very poor customer relations. They were one of my favorite pizza places in town. They're independent, so you'd think they'd be a friend to the people (and the library. and the poor starving teens at our programs). And I just told my sister a few days ago that she should try their deep dish bbq chicken pizza, but now she should NOT, because we are boycotting them for at least 6 months, which is how long it will take me to stop being angry at them. Unless they also refuse to donate to the Summer Reading Program and then, of course, we can never eat there again. And we might have to fire-bomb their establishment.

THEN I received an email from the literacy coordinator at a local high school asking me if I wanted her to meet me at the entrance of school before I addressed the 95 faculty members at 1:15 tomorrow. Except I didn't know I was speaking at that school tomorrow. The literacy coordinator accidentally gave me the wrong date for my presentation, so while I was planning for the 22nd, she was planning for the 15th. Oops.

And then there were library patrons at every place I had to run errands, which requires so much eye averting and slinking undetected through aisles.

And so on.

Fingers crossed for a better day tomorrow.

Even at My Favorite Grocery Store

I LOVE the grocery store. I love all that food stacked up together. I love that I can choose anything I want and take it home with me. I love knowing that the food I select will become soup or pie or a soothing, just-got-home-from-work-and-I'm-exhausted toast snack.

However, I have distinct preferences in grocery stores. There is my preferred grocery store and my unpreferred grocery store in town. One of the reasons I dislike The Bad Store is because the employees force shoppers to use the self-check units. I don't want to check out my own groceries! You'd think I would, because I also don't want to talk to anyone in the store ("yep, I'm having a super day" "they're parsnips" "no, I understand that the plastic bag is free, but I don't want it"), but I'd rather talk to grocery store employees than do my own checking out. I always think, "Why am I checking out my own groceries without getting a discount when the store is PAYING that guy in the apron to check out groceries in the manned line?" I spent the good part of one summer when I was living with my parents trying to convince my mother that the self check unit was not her friend. She was resistant to my teaching.

At The Good Store, there are no self check units. And the customer service is way better*. And they have paper bags. And they have plastic bag recycling. And their chocolate-covered cinnamon bears cost considerably less than they do at The Bad Store. And they contribute to the Summer Reading Program. I like all these things.

*The customer service was way better, until my experience shopping last week. I couldn't find polenta. I asked two people shelving grocery items for help, and they each sent me to a different aisle. I did not find polenta in either suggested location. I went to checkout and the cashier asked me (as I knew she would), Did you find everything okay? And I said NO. Because I assumed, you know, that they ask because they care and have some sort of special customer care procedure that would involve retrieving the item for me or checking to see if they carry the item or giving me the number for a local support group of other people who can't locate grocery store items. Something helpful.

Cashier: What were you looking for?
MBC: Polenta.
Cashier: Huh. I've never even heard of that.
MBC: It's a lot like cornmeal. It usually comes in a round plastic container. Sometimes it's shelved near pre-cooked, packaged polenta.
Cashier: Have you found it here before?
MBC: Yes, but I can't remember where I found it.
Cashier: Huh. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before.

And that was it. That was my experience at The Good Store. I can only imagine that at The Bad Store I would have had the same conversation and then the cashier would have licked my fruit , kicked me in the shin, and sent me off to check out my own groceries.

Gross Incompetence

I'm in charge of the Library's periodicals collection. Sometimes this is a good thing, because I get to decide that we need to start subscribing to Every Day with Rachael Ray and Cooking for 2. And I discover important things like my great love for the magazine Dwell. And I know exactly when new magazines are available to check out before the masses take them home and cut out all the articles I want to read. Because magazine readers are stealers. Especially the readers of Mother Earth News. You'd think people who care about the earth would also care about public libraries, but they don't. How am I supposed to build a corncob house powered entirely by the sun and invite Barbara Kingsolver to my home to raise turkeys and garden, if patrons keep destroying our copies of Mother Earth News?

People interested in astrology are also stealers. I was helping two people look for astrology books the other day. Not surprisingly, every single one of our astrology books was either checked out or missing. Mostly missing. I was explaining that those books frequently go missing, and the patrons gave me a look that might have been an expression of their disbelief at the inconsideration of other people, but I think was actually an expression of remorse that they weren't going to get the chance to steal from us themselves that day.

Anyway, periodicals. The BAD part about handling periodicals is that my main job function in relation to periodicals at the moment is to call the distributor of the two major Utah newspapers EVERY DAY and complain that we haven't received our papers. We've only received our newspapers (our DAILY newspapers) 3 days this month. THREE DAYS. And two of those days, we received the wrong number of newspapers. Are you kidding me?! If your job is to deliver newspapers and you only deliver them 3 times in a month, why aren't you fired? How much worse at your job do you have to be?

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.

Rageaholicism

Tomorrow my sister and I are having a Grand Day Out (marmot-free), so there will be no posting. Today you get two posts to compensate.

The last week I've had several run-ins with library patrons. Wicked library patrons. Patrons who stand next to No Cell Phone Use signs and argue with me about the rule and patrons who tell me, after I spend fifteen minutes helping them use their email, that they're disappointed because I wasn't really helpful because after I left they couldn't figure out how to hit send. (Nevermind that she didn't ask me for additional help and that if a person can't read the word send and think to click that button if one would like to SEND something, maybe email shouldn't be one's chosen form of communication!) Which is why I feel a certain kinship with the woman in this news article. Not that I condone violence, but sometimes you just want to hammer something. And in my experience with telecommunication companies, they could all do with a little hammering. Also, the title, Woman fined for hammering Comcast office, strikes me as very funny.

P.S. This other article about the hammerer is by Neely Tucker at the Washington Post. Tucker is the author of Love in the Driest Season, a memoir about adoption, that you should read.

If I Were Profane, There'd Be Profanity Here

Disclaimer: This is my personal blog. I maintain as much anonymity for myself here as possible, and I do not want to identify any of the people or even the city discussed below. My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my family, friends, or employer. I never vote straight party line and I dislike ugliness and confrontation in politics. I generally avoid writing anything online that involves politics at all, but today I’m breaking that rule. Okay?

P.S. Disclaimer: And anything that sounds like a death threat is, of course, not. And the amusing parts of this post are toward the bottom.

My sister and I attended an open political forum this week to hear our city candidates discuss the issues before the upcoming election. Our candidates are mostly conservative and pro giving-all-our-tax-money-to-businesses-and-development, which probably lines up with the views and desires of a lot of the city’s residents. The moderator asked questions about air quality, recycling, energy conservation, and sustainable development, though. The candidates were mostly non-committal in their responses. One candidate, though. The Candidate Who Is Going Down. He completely dismissed the questions and spoke about the issues as if they had no importance and would not be addressed by him at all, which is SO short-sighted for two main reasons.

Reason 1—Environmental and sustainable development issues have a lasting impact on the overall health of the city and if they aren’t addressed now, they will have to be addressed in different forms at a later date. Probably at a greater cost to the city (and he was quite clear that he cares about money). AND those issues are important to a lot the country (oh, and the world! Why did Gore just win the Nobel Prize!?). To completely disregard those issues assumes a lot about the concerns of the country and the community.

Reason 2—Environmentalism matters to some of the population of the city, and those people need a voice, too. If a candidate is so dismissive of issues (so dismissive that the candidate doesn’t even acknowledge the issues), he’s going to lose voters. And make enemies. As my sister was leaving she told me, “Now I’m not just NOT going to vote for him, I’m going to assassinate him.”

He doesn’t have to raise orphaned endangered animals in his back yard or even promise that the city will move to solar power, but a candidate for a public position should AT LEAST acknowledge that there are issues that may not personally interest him that still concern potential constituents.

He seems like a pleasant enough guy except for owning a share in my neighbor’s slave ship (which is all I can assume after hearing his comments), but he’d better watch out if he gets elected. At my sister’s house, the My Little Ponies pack heat.

My Worst Job

I usually really love my job, although I sometimes experience cell phone induced rage. The other day I had to ask five people in two hours to take their cell phones out of our quiet area (preferably to the trash compactor). Everyone I talked to was shocked and indignant that I would request that they to take their loud, cell phone using selves somewhere else to discuss their hot tubbing adventures. I was shocked and indignant that library patrons (library patrons) can't read signs that say No Cell Phone Use Allowed. I could really use a taser at work. Or muzzles. Or voodoo dolls. And, yes, I have a cell phone, but I use it VERY courteously.

So, I'm saying that my job is good (you maybe couldn't tell that that was the point for a minute), but I have had a couple of terrible jobs. The worst was a temporary job. I accepted it before the temp agency told me exactly where I'd be and what I'd be doing. I was directing phone calls. At a used Mack truck dealership.

Every day I worked there, I perched at my desk between fake plants, watching daytime talk shows on a teeny, tiny TV. Every hour or so a salesman would come lean on my desk and tell me dumb and/or sexist jokes. My supervisor was a woman named Tammy with long, bright red fingernails. She met me my first day and told me all about how she had a degree in fashion but had accepted her current position right after graduation and had been there for twenty years. Having just finished graduate school, this made me want to shave my head and enter a state of eternal mourning. I could see my future and it wore acrylic nails.

I stuck it out for as long as I could, which I believe was five days. Then I called the temp agency to tell them I couldn't work there anymore, called my friends in Indiana to say I was on my way to visit them, and left the state (just for a few days of Turkish food and thrift store shopping with the friends fortunate enough to still be IN grad school). And that is how I came to apply for my current job. I had a job that made me realize there were much worse things than ending up back in Utah. The end. Moral taught.*

Worst job experiences?

*In case you didn't catch that moral, it's that if your mother suggests you apply for jobs in Utah to, among other things, assist your pregnant sister and you resist, you will be punished by working in a used Mack truck dealership. Or at a Hummer dealership if there's not a Mack truck dealership handy.

Chatting with the Police

So, here's a fun conversation to have with the authorities.

MBC (On the phone): Hi. So, um, I'm planning, with a group, to build catapults to use with our leftover Halloween pumpkins in November, and, well, um, are we going to get in trouble for that?

Officer: You . . . ? Wait, what do you want to do with your pumpkins?

MBC: Launch them. As far as possible.

We're probably not going to do that now, though, because it's "technically illegal." It's considered LAUNCHING A MISSILE! Snowball fights are actually a legal infraction, too. A snowball fight is just a big, organized missile launch. Oddly enough, I think dodgeball is still allowed.

Read What I Tell You to Read

I keep a list of almost everything I read each year. I do this partly because I like to make lists and it's nice to go back and remember what I read, and I do it partly because my job includes Readers Advisory service, which means recommending books to patrons.

Before I was a librarian, I never really thought about "objectionable content" in books. Even after I started working in libraries, I was working in a jail library, and inmates NEVER fussed at me for giving them books that they couldn't read aloud to groups of preschoolers and nuns.* (In fact, inmates gave me a lot less grief in most areas of my job than the general public does now.) I tend to forget anything objectionable in the books I read. I come by this honestly. When I was about 10-years-old, my mom gave me a Dean Koontz book to read. She told me it was great. I read it all. It was far too old for me. I was scandalized. (I was also scandalized when, at about that same age, I saw my first performance of Romeo and Juliet and I understood all the double entendres and told my mom, shocked, "This is PG-13!") When I reminded my mom of some scenes in the book, she said, "Hmmm. I don't remember that. But didn't you love the dog? I just loved that dog!"

So, now that I work in a public library, I scribble little notes next to the titles of books I read. Notes like language, edgy, never recommend to anyone, and try to convince everyone in the world to read. Because now I know that when a patron asks for a "good" book that doesn't necessarily mean an interesting, well-written book. Depending on the patron, it might mean a terribly-written, didactic, and completely unoriginal book that can be mangled for use as a bad analogy in a Sunday School class at a later date. These patrons generally come to the reference desk and gush about a certain local author who I cannot stand and then ask me if I've read said author and if I don't find her books so fantastic. Librarians have a set response for these women. "Oh, no, I never have, but she's very popular with a lot of our patrons." Tactful, see?

And I never go on to give these patrons that little speech that's raging in the back of my brain that even if you are after uplifting books, there is a world of wonderful literature full of human experience that sheds light on all of the major issues in life--love, betrayal, redemption, fear, faith, family, so many things!--that are not set in a religious community and are not written exclusively by authors from one faith (or of any faith at all). There's a reason that there's a Nobel Prize for literature. Literature is so powerful, but readers will never find the books with the most influence if they never leave the LDS fiction list or even the bestseller list.**

So, I'll just hop down from my soapbox now and you and the rest of the choir can go home, and tomorrow I'll give you my list of favorite books I read this year.

*Just so we're clear, I don't object to readers who want clean books to read. I'm just objecting to a certain kind of poorly-written literature.

**And I recognize the hypocrisy of this post, considering how much time I spend with educators and administrators advocating certain ya books because I can get boys in juvenile detention centers to read those books and those books often speak to the incarcerated boy experience. The same argument could be turned around and used for LDS fiction readers, but I refuse to do it, because Monster by Walter Dean Myers is actually well-written.

The Car is Not My Friend

I got a traffic ticket Saturday. I know! I'm shocked, too. In the many years I've been driving I've NEVER had a ticket for anything. I haven't deserved one, what with being such a cautious, courteous, vocally self-righteous driver. Apparently, I ran a stop sign. The thing is, though, that I'm not sure I did. I mean, I didn't see a stop sign and think, "Hmm, no, I don't think I'll stop at this one." I just can't remember what happened, though. I chose not to share that information with the officer writing up my ticket. It seemed like admitting that I couldn't remember what I'd done 30 seconds previously would be just as alarming to the Law as running a stop sign. Did I really run a stop sign, Officer? How peculiar. I don't recall that at all. Nope, the last 2 minutes are a complete blank. So I have to call the court and find out what I have to do. And then I have to find an AC/DC shirt at D.I. and figure out how to spike my hair up into a mohawk. If I'm going to traffic school, I'm goin' in style.

p.s. Read Kabul Beauty School

The Bad Morning

I’ve been reading The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide, published by DK, makers of the most beautiful nonfiction books. It has instructions on how to make cheese and raise goats and all kinds of things that I’m interested in even though I live in a rental house in an incorporated city and live the dependent-on-corporate-America life (although I do plan to make my own cheese this year as soon as I get my hands on some rennet).

Today I had the Bad Morning, though, and my plans have changed. Now I’m going to move to Norway and marry Jaran Knive, one of the sheepdog handlers from the championships, and be his wife and he will be a vet (fortunately, that’s what he already does) and I will make cheese and leave my stress-filled, modern existence behind. (Now I just hope that Jaran doesn’t have a wife or an aversion to strangers who want to marry him just because they like his dog, want to go to Norway, and dislike car repairs.)

So, the Bad Morning started because I had to run my car in for an oil change, and the coolant light was on, so I needed a little antifreeze, too. What I thought would cost me an hour of free time and $25.00 turned into THREE AND A HALF hours in two different car repair waiting rooms and over $400.00. In fact, my car’s still across town. I’m going to have to spend my lunch hour walking back to pick it up, at which point the mechanics will probably tell me that I also need a flux capacitator that costs another $50.00, and I won’t even be able to complain, because I know nothing about cars.

So clearly the only option is to sell the car and move to Norway. And don’t start telling me about how they have cars in Norway, too! I’ve had a bad day.