Chipmunk vs. Librarian

Yesterday there was a chipmunk running loose in the library. It came running in through an open staff door when a staff member went out to empty the book drop. The chipmunk was immediately spotted by several staff members and one patron, who tried unsuccessfully to herd it out the still-open door, at great personal risk. The wily chipmunk faked toward the door and then darted ever-deeper into the staff area.

It took four staff members about fifteen minutes to barricade the chipmunk under a desk where it found a delightful assortment of long-forgotten snack chips and crackers. The chipmunk could be heard softly crunching on the discarded snack items while the librarians quietly panicked nearby. Chipmunk - 1; Librarians - 0.

It was at this point that I remarked to a coworker, "This reminds me of the time when there was a cell phone in the toilet and no one would call a plumber," (more on that story at a later date). My coworker then called animal control. She also notified the acting supervisor of the problem. Finally.

Our acting supervisor confidently took control of the situation by putting a sign on the barricade reading CHIPMUNK UNDER BOX - DO NOT MOVE. Several of the library workers began to speculate that the chipmunk might have by this point escaped. Chipmunk - 2; Librarians - 1.

Eventually animal control dispatched two uniformed police officers, guns and all, to remove the dangerous creature from the building. Chipmunk - 0; Police - WIN.

Postscript: Later in the day I spotted the chipmunk dashing toward the sliding glass doors at the front of the library. Thankfully a chipmunk is not large enough to trigger the motion sensor that opens the door. When the chipmunk was unable to gain access to the building it jumped into the shrubbery. Will we see it again? Possibly, now that it knows we have such delicious snacks.

Disappointed, Not Surprised

Well, it looks like the library levy lid lift (say that 8 times fast - I defy you) did not pass.

I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. This means that my library system will be cutting services because we don't have the money to maintain the current service level (Thanks, housing market!). While we don't yet know what exactly will be cut or reduced, we can make some educated guesses: books and materials, hours of operation, staffing levels and pay/benefits are probably the biggies.

Hopefully my job will not be cut, and hopefully no one whose job may be cut will choose to bump me out of my position. But there's a chance. Anybody need a slightly used librarian?

Maybe I should've gone to pastry school after all.

Do Yer Part, Matey!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here at the library we're celebratin'! ARRRRRRRR!! We've got candy, pirate books, and pirate cake. This be the best part o' me job.

The library is twisting my perceptions.

So this past week was a busy one at my library. I'll skip the big patron-related news in favor of the small but weird incident that happened on Thursday.

Lady comes in, wants to get a library card and also wants to get on the internet. I hand her an application and tell her that I can get her on a computer immediately, before she gets her card. So I hop out from behind the desk, lead her over to an open computer, and... she's not there. She's still filling out an application at the desk. OK. That's fine, she can get her card first. I'm just so used to people NOT getting a card first. Whatever.

So then she comes back after getting her card, wants help getting on the internet, and then tells me she needs someone to help her cancel an email account. I tell her that I can help her sign on to the computer, help her navigate to a page, but from there she needs to do it herself, she can just follow the instructions on the website. So she sits down at the computer and I'm trying to help her sign on. I tell her to enter her card number in the little box, and she just kind of sits there, gazing up at the ceiling. Um. OK.

Long story short, this woman is just not all there. She called me over for help several times, even though simply reading the instructions on the screen would've gotten her where she needed faster. Whatever. Not everyone understands how to use the internet; the digital divide is a bitch.

So then finally it looks like she's on her way out of the library. Except that instead of walking out the front door she walks back into the staff area, with my boss running after her to stop her. And then she goes into the staff bathroom. How did she even know it was there? So finally when she comes back out my boss tells her that this is the staff area and she isn't allowed to come back there and she's not allowed to use that bathroom. Her response? "Oh, it's so nice to relieve myself." Eeeeuuugghhh!!!!

Now, I will admit that I am an elitist. The reason that I like the staff bathroom is because the patrons are *not allowed to use it!* Damn it. So I used the staff bathroom upstairs for the rest of the day. It was pretty funny, but I felt pretty protective of that staff bathroom.

So that's a new patron. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her.

And that night Nico and I went out to this little Italian place. It was... actually very nice. The people there weren't yelling or harassing anyone. None of them smelled. The food was excellent. It was almost like being out for dinner on a normal night in Tucson. That's when I realized that my entire perception of this town has shrunk down to the size of the library. My perceptions of this town's people has been twisted by the behaviors of the worst of our library patrons. There are, in fact, nice places here. There are normal people. Most of the people are probably normal, but I work in the library and I don't get out much. I'm feeling pretty stunted right about now. I wonder if I chose the right career.

Shouty Drunk Guy

Tonight there was a shouty drunk guy in the library. I was helping him and I was even doing all my Professional Librarian Reference Effectiveness Behaviors ("Is that your complete question?") when he confessed to me that he was drunk. I mean, I could smell it on him, but when you just up and confess? Come on! Only in Aberdeen would you confess your drunkenness to a public servant with the expectation that this knowledge will make them more patient and lenient and will explain away all your bad behavior. "Oh, you mean you're only shouting and repeating yourself because you're drunk? Well, that's alright then."

So as soon as he said this I turned my head to look at our cop, who was standing maybe 12 feet away. And Shouty Drunk Guy turned his head and noticed the cop too, for the first time. OOPS! I guess he didn't expect that he'd be a Shouty Drunk Guy in front of a COP! He started begging me not to do anything, but I mercilessly got the cop's attention anyway. And then the cop escorted him out. When our cop returned, he remarked, "At first I just thought he was loud and different." Indeed no.

And then about 10 or 15 minutes later Shouty Drunk Guy came back inside. This time V. kept him at bay while the rest of us went looking for the cop, who again escorted him outside and again 'supervised' him for a little while. Then by all reports, Shouty Drunk Guy got on his bicycle and rode away. And for a minute there I thought I was back in Tucson.


So. Some of you may heave heard about OUR BIG FUCKING STORM. Yes. It was a wind-storm. The weird weather started Sat. Dec. 1st, when there was SNOW. And snow by itself isn't all that weird this time of year in WA, and it had been pretty cold recently. Nico even bought us some ice scrapers. I haven't owned an ice scraper since I was 20.

And then on Sunday the wind storm started. At first it wasn't much different from any other windy-type storm that we get here, but then it escalated. We were having sustained winds of up to 70 mph, with gusts over 100 mph. The power went off on Sunday night.

On Monday morning I got a call that the library would be closed because the power was out. There was still hot water for showers, and Nico didn't have to work that day. The wind was still blowing; it was only the middle of the storm. Nico and I went driving around to see if anyone had power, but it didn't look like it. There were trees down (big ones) everywhere. We have a gas fireplace and gas stove top, so we were alright on heat and food. We took naps. In the afternoon I got another call saying that the library would be closed the next day too. And then I lost reception. We were effectively cut off, so we didn't know how bad it was.

The next day Nico went to work, where he heard about the flooding, the road closures, and the governor declaring a state of emergency. But I still didn't know how bad it was. The weather had calmed down and still no one had power, so I thought I'd just drive in to Olympia, buy some supplies, eat at a restaurant. But I couldn't get out of town, because the highway was closed. Would probably be closed, I was informed by a worker, for a couple of days. I was trapped! I couldn't leave. The stress began to get worse.

Well, we finally got our power back on Wednesday evening. The library was open on Wed. as well. We weathered the storm; the worst one this area's seen since the 60's. All in all we were pretty lucky. No trees fell on us. We had heat and food. Our power's back on. Our drinking water wasn't contaminated. Nico didn't have to miss any work, and I'm still paid for the days the library was closed.

Welcome to the Harbor, suckers!

It's Pumpkininny!

Yarn I want to eat:



This is one skein of Pumpkin Pie sock yarn from Hand Spun and Dyed Too, which has a shop on eBay as well as etsy. I bought this yarn on etsy just last month in a fit of pumpkin-lust. I will have pumpkin pie socks! I will. This yarn looks like it should both smell and taste of pumpkin pie. But do not be fooled; it is just wool.

Library Adventurama~
My favorite reference question of the day came from a patron who had joined a Double Day book club and wanted me to tell her when her first batch of books would arrive in the mail. Did she want the email address I found as the only way of contacting this alleged book club? No, she did not. She simply wanted me to tell her when her books would arrive. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a computer, not a crystal ball.

I have begun to notice an unpleasant side effect of doing reference work, and it is that as soon as I leave the library I hate, just hate, being asked questions. While I am in the library I am paid to answer (or at least, try to answer) as many random-ass questions as the public can throw at me. I am paid to find things for them and to fetch books, various media, and sundry information. And because of this I now feel like I'm being taken advantage of whenever a stranger stops me on the sidewalk to ask me for the time, a cigarette, or directions to the post office. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. In fact I'm willing to bet that this feeling is so widespread that if might qualify as a syndrome. Now. What shall we call our hating-work-like tasks-when-one-is-off-the-clock syndrome? Suggestions welcome.

Ew, it's all sticky!

Yes, so I missed a day with the whole yarn-of-the-day idea. Oh well.



Today's yarn is three hanks of Sheep Shop Yarn in the G148 colorway. Pretty exciting, huh? I got this last weekend when Nico and I went and spent a day in Portland. We wandered up and down Alberta St. and of course I discovered Close Knit. I think Nico got a little bored waiting for me to finish drooling over all the yarn. Eventually, though, I did decide on these three skeins plus a fourth skein of the same stuff but in bright orange. The plan is to use this yarn to make myself a nice, big, warm scratchy wool scarf. With an autumn leaves theme. t first I thought the brown would be like branches and the orange I would knit and felt in leaves, which I would then stitch to the scarf. I'm not so sure now.

At the yarn shop I also bought three little plastic buttons that are shaped and painted like gophers in mid-dash. I've never seen dashing-gopher-buttons before. I love them. And I bought a little Lantern Moon sweater keychain as an extra for an upcoming yarn swap.

At this point I'm sure you're asking yourself, what's all sticky?

OK. Yesterday at the library a patron came up holding one of the plastic magazine binders (with a fresh copy of Redbook inside), and complained that it "had something on it." Not only did it have something on it, but it was also kind of wet. Why was it wet? It wasn't raining outside, and even if it was that magazine shouldn't have left the building. So why was it wet? It is a mystery.

Now, a quick note about the difference between being a librarian and working at a used book store, ahem, Bookman's. At Bookman's if a customer had come up to us with a sticky book or magazine, we would have shrugged, grimaced, and thrown it away. At the library, we actually have to clean the damn thing off. So I took it in the back and tried 409'ing it. That didn't work, becase yes, it was sticky. So I rubbed some Goo Gone on it, and then 409'ed it again for goot measure.

They don't tell you about this shit in library school. And why would they? "There's something sticky... @ the library!" doesn't sound too appealing.