Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) - Movie Trailer

The road trip to Ohio was full of problems, but as the cliche expression goes, "it's not the end destination, it's the journey." But, I should probably back up and talk about some of the events of the week leading up to my departure. I spent my last week covering some kitchen shifts, packing and repacking and repacking, shipping boxes of my stuff, boxing things up which B1 & B2 will bring as far as Buffalo in December, just doing last minute things. I had asked M &N if they would mind if I invited a few people over for drinks one night (a last hurrah) on Tuesday--unbeknownst to me M & N had invited over the entire staff for dessert and drinks--SNEAKY! Anyway, that night I stopped by M & N's to grab something before dashing over to B1 & B2's; in my haste I left my car running in Neutral (it's a manual) on what I thought was a flat piece of road...apparently the road had just enough of a slope and my car had hundreds of pounds of my pos...

but Uncle Walt will have to suffice until I have more time: Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, These are the days that must happen to you: You shall not heap up what is call’d riches, You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart, You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you, What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting, You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.  -- Stanza 11, "Song of the open road," Walt Whitman

for moving day. Maybe it's because Sandburg's also from the Midwest, or maybe it's just because he promised me that everything is going to be come out alright...either way, I am moving on and this felt apropos: "Caboose Thoughts" It's going to come out all right—do you know? The sun, the birds, the grass—they know. They get along—and we’ll get along. Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting And the letter you wait for won’t come, And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray And the letter I wait for won’t come. There will be ac-ci-dents. I know ac-ci-dents are coming. Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten, Red and yellow ac-ci-dents. But somehow and somewhere the end of the run The train gets put together again And the caboose and the green tail lights Fade down the right of w...

My Farm boss FlavaFlav and I have often found ourselves talking about "examining the Farm with fresh eyes,"--this is usually a conversation that happens around holidays or board meeting weekends, when tons of non-Farmers are around. The sentiment was repeated again this week as we have begun to cook our big Thanksgiving meal, as we begin to look around us again and look for the flaws, seeking out that fresh perspective. And this is what leaving is for me, this half-existence of looking at things with a fresh perspective, not of a stranger, but rather, as a person soon to be estranged. To vacate the house and pack everything up means finding the holes in the wall where the pictures hung; seeing the uneven-ness of the paint job in certain corners; noticing how dingy things look when the room is alight with afternoon sunshine. But more importantly, it also means noticing the sharp contrast of the night sky and it's milky stars; being amazed by a cliched-ly perfect Indian s...

Rumor Has It - Adele

Adele - Someone Like You Since I shared the Glee mash-up, I MUST share these AMAZING originals!

Rumour Has It / Someone Like You (Glee Cast Version) Sometimes Glee hits the nail on the head. This was one of those times. I love this mash-up of Adele's songs "Rumor has it" and "Someone like you. Gah! This is great.

The Kooks 'Seaside' One of our German volunteers was just talking about how much they like the Kooks; having never listened to them I am giving them a whirl. This was great. P.S. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Youtube?

River (Take Me Along) - Bill Staines Remember the other day when I wrote about things that I will miss ? Well, here is another song that will always remind me of the Farm; the memory of swaying to this song as the chorus rose us around us; of smiling with satisfaction at this community that I think of as home. This was my first morning meeting song and the one I requested as my last morning meeting song when I left the Farm some years back (before I returned again). *Sigh*

I want to go on a global plane-trip (like a roadtrip?) to see all of these places! AMAZING LIBRARIES

The Beatles - I'm So Tired As the song title would suggest, I am so tired. This past week and a half has been slightly overwhelming and busy and...constant motion. All this going, going and going has left me feeling tired and made me think of this old Beatles gem from the White Album. This has been the past week and a half in a nutshell: Last Wednesday: midnight train to South Carolina, 16 hours of travel Last Thursday: 8 hour drive to Ohio to get apartment--mission accomplished  Last Friday: 8 hour drive back to South Carolina Weekend with sister A1, brother-in-law Mikey, niece S (7 yrs), nephew A (5.5 years) and Mom in South Carolina Monday: picked up Mummy Dearest and headed to North Carolina Tuesday: back to South Carolina, packed Wednesday: 1am train ride (16 hours) to Connecticut, then on to Massachusetts Thursday (yesterday): Rugbygirl and I drove to Ohio, dropped off my furniture, 8.5 hours of travel with strange mix of weather in PA: sleet, snow, hail and LI...

One of many cool tunnels through the mountains of West Virginia. Capitol building, West Virginia My apartment building. My Mom in my new Kitchen! Yay Virginia!

Wednesday morning I caught a midnight train (no, not to Georgia !) to Penn Station, NYC, then boarded my next train from NYC to Charlotte, NC (the closest major train stop to my sister and her family who live just over the line in South Carolina). You can see from my route that I spent a lot of time on trains all day; going from Connecticut, to New York City, and on through Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Fortunately I had a 4 hour stop in Washington D.C., which gave me enough time to walk past the Capitol and to the National Mall (although I didn't make it all the way down to the new Martin Luther King Jr. Monument, I did get to walk past the Library of Congress though!) Thursday morning, after not enough sleep, my Mom and I roadtriped 8 hours to OhCity, OH, home of my new library job. After looking at one apartment we headed down the street and found an apartment with soul (this was one of M's requirements for me). My apartm...

Bill Staines - Sweet Wyoming Home Monday-Friday we have a morning meeting before we head off (back) to work; we cover that day's meetings, appointments, driving and events among other things. We always end with a reading and a song. This is one of my favorites and one which we sang last week. Sitting in my sister's noisy house I am missing the silence of sunrise outside my little cabin windows; thinking about all the things I am going to miss after I move to Ohio--songs like this are one of many things.

The Gardener LXI: "Peace, My Heart" Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way. (Rabindranath Tagore) Well, looks like I will be changing my blogs' name back to: Misadventures of the Monster Librarian.  Two and a half weeks ago I slipped away--a quick weekend back to the Midwest; a weekend of spending time with my best friends in Michigan, but also time spent visiting a library in Ohio and interviewing for a Children's Librarian position. And can you believe it?? I got the job...and so I begin to say goodbye to the Farm; begin to watch sunsets and sunrises over mount...

I love NPR, here are links to some fun/interesting/awesome articles that are all about books/reading: Articles about: The history of A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor Catherine the Great Reader World's largest art museum via book "Life" Magazine at 75 For you sports' writing fans New this week in paperback And one from Harper Collins Publishing, for those of you who loved Gregory Maguire's books about Oz, here .

Photo found here About a month back, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan announced that $470,000 (from the Farmers Market Promotion Program ) would be set aside for Michigan farmers markets, affecting 9 farmers markets across the state. Good news! Full article here .

Super tired lately--s omething has taken residence in my attic/crawl space, and whatever the hell it is, it loves to RUN down the inside of the walls behind my headboard while I am trying to fall asleep. It used to scare the crap out of me...now I just get angry. I swear to God it's like it knows right when I am literally almost asleep--does that sound paranoid? I think this lack of sleep thing is making me paranoid--and then I am WIDE AWAKE all over again. Our routine is now something like this: Thing in wall: scramble scramble, *claws scratching wood sounds* Me: *pounding on wall* "HEY! Knock it off!" *more pounding Repeat this about a half dozen times before an angrier me gives up, throws blankets over my head and then passes out from lack of oxygen under my million blankets! I used to think the thing(s) was mice...then I thought--too big, must be squirrels...after watching this commercial, I am SURE it's raccoons! Allstate TV Ad: Raccoon Mayhem

10 Most amazing databases in the world 6 Novels written in under a month Library not-against-Occupy Bangor