Change Is Hard

May 21, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

In common

What do northern pike, the electrical system of a Bunton lawnmower, Hawaiian monk seals, depression and suicide, JAVA and HTML have in common? If you think it has something to do with the library — you would be correct! These are a few of the things that patrons wanted help finding in the small town library where I worked yesterday. And you know what? We found everything except for the wiring chart for the lawn mower! We gave that patron the name and phone number of a dealer because we didn’t have any Bunton lawnmower manuals, and couldn’t find any free repair manuals online. Just about everyone left happy,even the lawnmower man, except for the woman who needed the depression and suicide information. She left looking haunted and exhausted, the same way she looked coming in. Its so hard, sometimes, not to ask, not to try to get involved. Not to step over the line of librarianship.

On a pleasant note, a young woman and a 9 or 10 year old adorable little girl were each checking out a pile of books. When I got to the youngster’s pile of books the computer pulled up a warning regarding a $10 fine attached to her card: two late fees and a damaged book to replace. The young woman looked surprised. The youngster looked down and shuffled her feet. Apparently a water damaged book had been returned and now it was time to pay the piper..er library. The young woman scrounged around in her purse and came up with $4.00; not enough to pay the fine down low enough for the youngster to be able to check out her books. Out of nowhere, and I truly mean that I never saw where this lady came from or went after, a middle aged woman offered to pay the whole fine. I gave the young woman her $4.00 back and accepted the $10 from the older woman, thinking that she must be the grandmother. Turns out neither of my patrons knew the generous stranger. It was just a random act of kindness. As I’m checking out the young girl’s books we discuss the concept of “paying it forward.” We decide that there are many things the young lady can do to repay this kindness, all that cost no money. She could draw a picture for an elderly friend or relative, write someone a nice letter, help someone in their garden, be kind to another child at school, give her Mom hugs for a month…the list goes on and on. The little girl left all smiles.

I was all smiles too.

May 18, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

7 Things

Our doggie blogger friends Josh and Jessie from New Zealand (at http://oursheltie.blogspot.com/) have challenged Katie and I to come up with 7 things that we love. There’s a really cool graphic that is supposed to go with this challenge, but I’m not computer literate enough to figure out how to get it over to our blog here. So just image something pretty, a pink and green square or such thing!

So…let us think about this. Seven things that Katie loves. This shouldn’t be so hard…the difficulty might be in limiting it to only seven!

1. First has to be us, her people parents. She always wants to be nearby, in case we need anything…or are handing out anything. Like TREATS!

2. A close second would be supper! Or anything that accidentally falls on the floor. Especially TREATS!

3. The park ranks right up there. Any park will do, but especially one which might have little kids playing softball. She likes to watch them run around. And of course there is the possibility of TREATS!

4. Froggy, her favorite toy. Good for chewing, carrying around, fetching and dropping at the feet of her people parents to get attention. Can be used to get TREATS!

5. Her frisbee. Because that means we’re going outside to RUN! And there might be TREATS!

6. Dozing in the sun, either by the front door, in order to keep track of passing traffic, or out in her pen under a tree. She uses this time to store up energy the better to pester her people later for TREATS!

7. Posing for pictures. Cause often that is accompanied by…well…TREATS!

Now we’re supposed to tag seven doggie bloggers and have them come up with their own list of seven. Hmmm…this will be hard. But perhaps

Miley

Ricky

Oreo

Layla

Red

Morgan

and Ludo will want to give it a try? I think Reilly has already been tagged, but I’m not sure. If not…well…Reilly?

katie-1564

May 17, 2009
by dawnkinster 4 Comments

Nursery gallery

Here’s a gallery of photos from the local plant nursery. I think I got it to work. Now if I could just remember how I did this… Remember to click (once, a left click) on any of the pictures and they will get bigger, then you can click (at the bottom of the bigger picture) to move to the next picture.

May 17, 2009
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

Visiting the nursery

nursery-002

This morning I decided to stop by my local nursery. Just to purchase a few packets of seeds. I wasn’t going to look at plants. Really. Got to save some money you know. Just seed packets…and a few photos.

nursery-012 It was really difficult not to buy everything I saw. It is an amazing place that makes me realize how lucky I am to have this nursery just down the road. If I ever have a blue sort of day I can pop in there and just look around. It never fails to make me smile.

And of course I didn’t get away with only buying a few packets of seeds. But on the other hand I didn’t buy all that much. It could have been much worse! A couple of tomato plants, some herbs, can’t live without rosemary, basil, parsley, thyme! A six pack of double pink impatiens and a few pots of harmony violet new guinea impatiens for a few pots around the yard. And a splurge on some pretty forget-me-nots for a special place in the perennial bed. nursery-017 Oh, there was so much more that looked wonderful as I was ‘not’ looking. But I have enough garden to keep track of already, no need to go make it any bigger. And of course, in these economic times I’m trying to keep as small a spending footprint as I can. But it’s so tempting!

I’m trying to figure out how to put a photo gallery into the blog. I’ve done it before, but so far I’m unsuccessful at uploading photos to the gallery. If I figure it out I’ll post it!

nursery-016 Meanwhile Katie has been very patient while I planted. She even tried to help, but in the end I had to do most of the work myself. We’re off to the park. After all, I promised!

Oh yes, picked up seeds too, green beans, beets, lettuce and chard.

May 17, 2009
by dawnkinster 1 Comment

Come ON Mom!

katie-1505 I’ve been so busy coming and going from work that poor Katie hasn’t been able to go to her favorite park in awhile. Today is the first day in ten days I haven’t had to work. And lucky us, the sun is shining! So guess what? We will definitely make some time for park visiting. And she can’t wait! I can’t wait either, but I think we should at least eat breakfast first. More later.

May 14, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Nothing but grins

I don’t have anything particularly exciting to talk about. So I’m just going to post one of my favorite new photos of …well..you know who.

katie-1526

May 11, 2009
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Bits and pieces of library work

library-020 Poetry lady wanted to see work of contemporary poets…”someone who’s not dead yet!” I thought of a friend of mine who writes poetry and wished she was near. She’d be able to list off several “not dead yet” poets. Me? Not so much. So I found the lady the poetry section of our library and together we spent some fun minutes looking for authors we recognized, asking each other if we thought they were still living. We shared some smiles, a few (hushed, after all it IS the library!) laughs, and she left with a stack of books almost too big for her to handle.

Resume guy was updating his resume and couldn’t get the bullet points to line up. He had messed around so much his resume looked like a connect the dots picture in a coloring book. He came looking for help wondering if we knew anything about Word. Maybe. A couple of clicks and I had it looking worse. He said maybe it was OK the way he had it, and I said, in my most librarianish voice..”Certainly not, this is your RESUME! It has to be perfect!” And a couple more clicks and it was. He was grateful. So was I. I had no idea what I had done to correct his bullet points. I told him to hurry up and save it before we messed it up again. More hushed laughter.

Communist Manifesto girl needed a copy of it, the manifesto, for a paper. Of course our copy was checked out. Aren’t they all? When is the paper due? Oh not till “sometime this summer”, so I had time to pull another copy in from a neighboring branch. “Don’t think I’m weird” she said. “The prof just wants a paper on someone’s thought process, so I chose this.” I don’t think she’s weird, I think she’s more interesting than the average student.

A mother calls, wants a book whose title she’s unsure of. Doesn’t know the author. Might be a picture book. Maybe not. Probably about trains. Thomas the train? No, she doesn’t think so. But maybe. Daughter needs it for a presentation at a local college tomorrow. But we don’t know what the title is. Daughter apparently is too busy to make this call herself. Unsatisfied patron. Sigh. Might need some more hushed laughter now.

Do we have the local paper on microfilm? Yes we do. Can I get a copy of the February 23rd paper from 1918? Well, no. We only go back to 1931. Sigh.

Lots of new patrons signing up for cards this morning. Everyone wants a card to use the internet. Mostly to print resumes, look for work. Scary. I’m thinking we need some loud belly laughs now. All of us. Even if we ARE in a library.

May 10, 2009
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Happy Mother's Day!

Since I don’t have children I’m waiting for Katie to bring me flowers. She would, but she doesn’t have thumbs. Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there! katie-1548

May 9, 2009
by dawnkinster 2 Comments

It's Saturday…must be I'm at the library

library-022 Seems most Saturdays find me working at the library. Not that you can really consider it work, at least not compared to my previous life. Though sometimes I wish I didn’t have to go to work, most of the time I enjoy the people watching that comes with the job. For instance here’s a small smattering of things I noticed while working today:

A small boy, maybe 4 or 5 sitting in a big overstuffed chair. His feet don’t reach the floor. In fact they barely reach the edge of the chair seat. He has a big picture book in his lap and he’s studiously reading to himself. Around him is chaos, other people in the library talking loudly, joking with each other, comparing notes about movies they’ve seen. This little boy just continues to read, lost in thought. Later I was close enough to hear him read out loud and his words in no way resemble the story as it’s written. He’s making up the story as he goes, describing the pictures. He’s going to be a wonderful father someday, reading aloud to his own kids.

A young girl checks out a book about why women and girls don’t like their own bodies. I hope she picks up some pointers about learning to like herself. I wonder what made her get that book; I know there must be issues to be resolved.

A middle aged guy is writing a paper and preparing for a college group presentation on high blood pressure. He’s having trouble getting the articles he’s found on the Mayo website to print. I can’t get them to print either. It’s this kind of trouble that makes middle aged students (and I can relate to this!) think they are too old to be in school, what with all the technological changes that have occurred since we went to school the first time. But it wasn’t him, it was the website. Hopefully he gets that and doesn’t become discouraged. Sometimes it’s hard not to think you’re just too old to try something so new.

Another middle aged man is working on his resume, checking out job websites. It’s discouraging for the unemployed middle aged patron as well. A young woman plays games on the computer, killing time until she has to go see her doctor. Just a checkup she says, but you see the questions in her eyes. I wish I could make it all better for all of them.

A grandmother comes in with one of her grandchildren. She wants a book on aerobics. A book? Why not a DVD? No, just a book. I can’t find one specifically on aerobics, but I find one on walking, and one on Yoga and she seems happy. I’d think chasing after grandchildren would be aerobic enough!

Another older college student, this one needs stuff on anatomy and physiology. I’m working in a small branch today, not much on our shelves, but lots of stuff in our reference section. He’s happy with that.

And of course the movies. Movies being checked in and checked back out just as fast. Seemed like hundreds of movies, might have been. With the occassional book thrown in, just to make me happy.

Libraries. Here’s hoping we never have to live without them.

May 8, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Katie has multiple pee-mail addresses

katie-15272

Reilly the Cowspot Dog has requested that we search out and record our regular “pee-mail” locations from our walks. So Katie and I set out to her favorite park to check the mail. So to speak. We were lucky to be there on a beautiful day. The park hasn’t been mowed yet this season, so we had fields and fields of beautiful yellow dandilions! What a photo opportunity!

But wait…I digress..we were here to find all the pee-mail that had been left for Katie’s enjoyment. So we checked out her favorites:

First there is the ever popular garbage can. It’s hard to say if she was looking for messages from her doggie friends, or snacks left over from the little kids who play softball here. But it’s a must to always check out these garbage cans.

Then of course another really good place to investigate is under the bleachers. You just never know what you’ll find under there…could be a whole sandwich for heavens sake!

And of course it’s imperitive to check out all the trees. Those almost always have a message from a friendly dog or two.

And these flowers look promising…

But the most reliable for doggie pee-mail reception is this big rock that we have to stop at every trip to the park. There is ALWAYS something very important left there. A girl can’t ignore the message on this rock, it’s so very obvious!