Snow peas I planted in March are ripe!

Circle Heart

For the last 4 or 6 weeks, I've been working on spending a nice chunk of money from the Friends of the Library to redecorate my Teen section. These green circle curtains (fabric scraps, above) were on sale -- but needed hemming. Sewing, I find, is mostly prep work and relatively little actual stitching. I put them up, pinned them up in place on the window (just out of view, sadly, in that shot below, which is all I have handy), took them down, measured and pinned and fussed, pressed, eyeball measured, pressed under the raw edge -- then sewed. They turned out more even than most things I hem!

Hemming isn't creative, but I feel like decorating is. My rockin' predecessor covered and hung those fabric bulletin boards and acquired the blue and orange little bookshelves at left. I picked up on and expanded the pallet and worked with blues, greens, gray, and orange. The circle decals came from Walls Need Love and arrived with alarming directions in a tiny font. Luckily, the circles weren't the kind that needed ultra-careful handling: I worked out air bubbles easily and lifted and repositioned them readily. I think they look swell. I had just calmed down from being pleased with myself over the circles when our fancy beanbag chairs arrived! The orange and gray (the footstool thing at left, by the bulletin board) match just fine and finish branding the area as for teens. 

The kid who was in an armchair in Teen yesterday when the beanbags arrived has been camping out with us for 3 or more weeks, having been thrown out of school. "Want to be first to try out our cool new beanbags?!" I gushed. He looked at me with more than usual disdain, turned his back and continued dozing. I sat on one beanbag, decided it worked, and left the second one in the middle of the space. Much later on (after dinner and a turn at the Children's desk), I found him showing off for a noisy threesome splayed all over the beanbag chairs. Once they left, two high schoolers (their junk, pictured) took over. I declare the beanbags a success! 

Very Late Heart

Snuck out onto the loading dock on a work break with Principles of Information Systems (Stair & Reynolds, 6th edition) for this one.

What??

Did that caller just say, "Hang on, I'm in class," when I asked for her library card number to place a hold?! You know what: probably. I read to Horoscope Man earlier so I know the full moon is nearly upon us.

Bellwood Flea = broken heart.

Well, it wasn't that bad, but we didn't find the amazing random thing for the garden that we might have. I am in danger of whining about how much better thrifting and flea markets were back in the day, here. Here's an upbeat way of looking at it: Cool things I remember getting at Bellwood include my ICE sign, a book by Richmond author Mary Johnston, and the black spikey lamp with a ball (that I painted aqua) in the middle.

 This week's Mulch Heart goes out to all the folks who helped us bring Mulch Mountain down to size!

25/52

Over dinner last night, I explained to Phil why the last hour at work on Saturdays feels so hectic: that's when (at our location) the extra staff person has gone home, and that's when three or more of these things happen:

• a fellow or two with greasy hands come in needing a Chilton's to finish that repair job
• a parent comes in dragging a kid by the ear: kid needs 3 book sources about an obscure animal for a report
• a returning-to-school student tries to begin college-level research not at a college library, but here
• the copier breaks
• a couple comes in with shrieking kids to check out DVDs
• 56 people materialize out of thin air, needing our approximately 30 public computers. Having successfully logged on, two stomp back demanding to know why they have only 44 minutes on the timer, not their full two hours! ("Because it's counting down til closing time.")

But, surprise! A not-yet-grease man has already been in looking for a Chilton's! Does that mean the day will end easier for my colleagues? (I opened; I get to leave first, today.)

Full Ref Grunt-ing:

• Chilton's for 1991 Toyota Truck
• forms for a personal budget (MS Word as a pretty good one as a template)
• Yeah, when I say "type in your whole library card number," I mean all of the digits; you can't leave off the last four.
• Printing
• Architecture and decorating books for a man who says he's teaching a class and ran out of questions for the quiz with the books he has at home. We agree that Richmond's Main has the deeper collection of art and architecture books, but he finds things he can use.
• Clancy
• At about 11:10 a woman arrives looking for a meeting that's scheduled for Tuckahoe. Scheduled from 9 - noon. She leaves us to drive over.
• Add a woman to long waiting lists for literary fiction
• Color printing
• Find basketball and wrestling books for a boy of 11 or 12.
• Self-check machine
• Mouse and keyboard are sticky; I clean them for her.

Azalea Heart

Reading

I met author Candace Fleming at a Virginia Library Association conference a few yers back. I hadn't read her books, yet (my lib classifies them as JUV). She was receiving a prize and gave a wonderfully funny history-nerd speech. I bought two books, and when she signed them I told her "you're a kids' book-writing Sarah Vowell!" And I meant it.

At my old branch I helped people of all ages, all day, so knowing good JUV authors is helpful; sadly the county doesn't get many of Fleming's books, and most are at the big libraries. Now I work at a big library, and when I spotted Amelia Lost on the children's librarian's desk and went "ooh," she let me have it first. It took awhile to pick it up: "I know how it ends," I whined to myself. "It'll be sad."

Well, it is sad, but, wow what a good read! I love how Fleming builds excitement by weaving in one-page (usually) descriptions of the day the plane lost contact and all the people who thought they picked up distress signals from Earhart. Fleming even takes time to explain radio technology and culture of the time so that makes sense. The book is illustrated with period documents, ephemera, and photos. A great, suspenseful tragic read that I'll recommend to kids in grades 4 to 8. (Or, really, older. Even a high schooler who can hack an adult bio would enjoy this; it doesn't present little kiddish.)

P.S. I don't often blog about books anymore, but I want to turn in this book before the weekend. I like to make notes before returning so I'll know if there's swearing or sex or whatever before suggesting a book to a kid. But I couldn't make notes today because Shelfari is down, and has been since about 3:00. Shelfari -- now a subsidiary of Amazon (more rightly named than we knew? A giant monopoly in the making?) -- to add insult to injury, is suggesting I amuse myself by downloading something for my Kindle while I wait! Some damn nerve.

Oak Tree Bloomed!