Saturday, August 30, 2008

ARE there any new ice cream toppings?

One of the most interesting things I have found out about being a librarian is that you really do have to know a little bit about a lot of things. Astronomy, religion, mysteries, cars, financial matters. People come up to ask me about different things every day. Some times people need something really specific; a book about hunger in Southern Africa or a sound recording of a popular fantasy book. These are the easy questions. Either I can find what they are looking for in our collection or I can’t but I can get it for them through Inter Library Loan.
It’s the questions like “Are there any new ice cream toppings?” that really throw me for a loop. Yes, this was a real question I got today. Really, where am I even going to start looking for that kind of thing?
Well, I started by asking if there was any particular ice cream topping she needed to know about. Nope, just wanted to know if there was anything new out there.
Really? What am I supposed to do in this situation?
I referred her to grocery stores and really that’s about all I CAN do.


In other news, J and I are leaving today for our trip to Duluth. YEAH a vacation!
We're leaving here at 6 tonight and driving straight up there. All seven and a half hours of it. Hopefully we'll get there before its too late (like before 3am!).
Then tomorrow we're getting up early and driving to Canada! YEAH Canada!
I'm sure there will be plenty to write about when we get home and plenty of pictures from my new camera (remind me to tell you about that too!)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Tom


After a not so long battle with throat cancer, my parents put Tom our cat down today.
He was a very Very good cat. I know a lot of people say that about their pets, but for Tom it was true. He didn't bite, scratch or pee everywhere like some cats. He was always loving and wonderful.
My dad found a cold grey kitty in the condenser shed behind our store (the shed that houses all of the machines that make our freezers cold) in December of 1992. He took him to the vet just to check things out and brought him home for a nice bath. At this point both the vet and my parents didn't think he was going to live through the week. After the bath we found he was not a grey kitty but a black and white one. He was obviously too young to have left his mother at this time, so he lived the first few weeks of his life in a box by our front door.
Well he lived through that uncertain time and he became a big part of our family life.
He was there through a lot of my childhood memories and all of my littlest brother's.
There was only one time when we thought we lost him. He was never one to run away or even to be far from our house. So when he disappeared in early February one year we were very worried. My parents put up posters all over town and we had everyone we knew looking for him. But after a few weeks we really thought he was gone. It was horrible. As young children it really hit us hard.
So we come home from our grandparent's house on Easter night and guess who was waiting for us on our front step! It was an Easter miracle and we still call it that.

Tom was always a happy cat and a good friend.
We'll really miss you, Tom.

Here we go......yet again

Is it a full moon this week?
No?
Are you sure?
It really seems like it is.
It seems as though one thing after another just keeps going wrong. From me getting sick, to the apartment complex "forgetting" (again) to clean our carpets, to scheduling craziness at work. It just seems like things aren't going Micki's way.
Well they better get back on track here pretty soon.
While watching the Olympics with J and our friend Drew the night before last I noticed I had a little scratchy throat thing going on. So, I went to bed early hoping to head off any impending cold. But no. When I woke up in the morning it was full on sore throat, stuffy nose, red eyed hell.
Then I had to go to work.
I'll be starting school this weekend and I have yet to even start my homework. Well...scratch that..I've printed off articles and checked out magazines to do my homework. But I haven't put pen to paper on anything. Is this how it's going to be all semester? Probably.
At least my week has not been as bad as this young woman's,
Really, Grafton Wisconsin Public Library?
I hope that I look that happy if I ever have to have a mug shot.
My only saving grace today are these wonderful young boys that come into the library pretty regularly. Brothers, they have to be between 5 and 7. But they have the cutest LOW baritone voices. Like they're 60 year old men. Someday I'll record their voices for posterity.
In knitting land:
I am desperately needing a new knitting project. A sweater. I need yarn though.
How to get yarn? hmm....maybe robbing a bank. Or begging J until he's so totally sick of me :)
If I had yarn though there would be the problem of actually picking out a pattern. I want something with a little pizzaz. Hopefully the fall edition of www.knitty.com will come out and have a wonderful pattern. Can I wait that long?