I knew that!

I'm in the library, talking to the Aflac representative, who is here from 9-12 to talk to staff. His first question was, what did I know about Aflac? I said I knew it was insurance, but mostly for catastrophic illness or accident coverage. His eyes got wide and he lifted his hand for a High-5 as he exclaimed, "No one has ever used that word to answer me and it is absolutely correct!!" I responded, "well, I am a librarian...I do know some big words..."

(p.s. This was a synchronicity because right before this V had told me of a similar incident that had just happened to her at work)

If you were stranded on a desert island and could have only one painting....or, if you could choose from any painting to own (Impressionist, Old Master...no limits!), which would it be? This was a question posed in the book I just checked out called The Gentle Art of Domesticity: stitching, baking, nature, art & the comforts of home, by Jane Brocket (she actually phrased the question, "Which work of art would you happily steal?" but we are assuming there is a fairy god-mother involved here for our benefit...). I've been browsing the 700's off and on all day and couldn't decide--Vermeer? Wyeth? Monet? Then I saw a book of watercolors and decided my choice would have to be a watercolor, because I personally find that medium very difficult and admire those who can pull it off. I was impressed with the works of Xiaogang Zhu, and actually took a gouache class from him once here at Jubilee. Very Difficult. So I think I would like to own Zhu's Red Umbrella over Arched Bridge (above) or his Waiting for Spring. Lovely. Which would you choose?

Must be the thing to do

Reading a Communications Bulletin for Managers and Supervisors, an idea jumped out at me: celebrate mistakes. By encouraging employees to share their errors with the team, everyone would learn from the mistake, and disciplining would be unnecessary. At the same time as I was mulling the merits of this, I was listening to a book on CD: How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer, and found it sychronistic that it contained these similar messages:

• Self criticism is the secret to self-improvement; negative feedback is the best kind (Bill Robertie, backgammon master)
  
• An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in his field (Niels Bohr)
  
• Mistakes should be cultivated and carefully investigated
  
• Mistakes are the building blocks of knowledge
  
• Unless you experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong, your brain will never revise its models.
  

So, I think Celebrating Mistakes may take the place of the Kudos lists I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to encourage with staff. Now I just have to think of a mistake of my own I can publish to get the ball rolling...

Doesn't Hurt to Try

Frustration at the gas pump: I pulled in to Costco for gas behind a car and an SUV pulling a boat. (It really was the shortest line at the time). The SUV took FOREVER of course, to fill, but then, the woman pulled forward and climbed into the boat and proceeded to fill the boat's tank with gas as well. There were two women with the boat, and I wondered at the time why they didn't use the 2nd pump to fill the boat at the same time as the SUV, as they were blocking both pumps anyway. The car in front of me pulled forward then, but didn't get out and pump her gas. I got out and went to her window and asked her why she wasn't using the 2nd pump that had just been vacated, and she said she assumed it was broken because there was a safety cone in front of it, up against the curb. By that time, the attendant came over and I asked him if the pump was out of order (there was no sign on it, just the cone). He said he just arrived on duty and didn't know, but thought it was because of the cone. He looked closely at the pump display, then moved away. At that time, the boat finally (after about 15 minutes) pulled away and the car in front of me moved forward enough for me to reach the second "broken" pump. I ignored the cone, put my cards in and it was all systems "GO." "Pump seems to work just fine," I informed the woman ahead of me.

Life is full of Lemmings; sometimes you just gotta push forward into the uncertain and give things a try. Another exercise in patience.

The Emperor has no clothes?

I grew up in the 60s. I wore bell-bottoms, and tie-dyed shirts and my music was Donovan, Bob Dylan, The Beatles and the Beach Boys. And I read Richard Brautigan (In Watermelon Sugar; The Revenge of the Lawn, Trout Fishing in America). Working in the "book business" (bookstores and libraries) since I was a teen, I've come across Brautigan time and again and remembered his work as cool, and innovative and...weird. Today I just finished re-reading the above, along with The Abortion, and The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, and I have to say, I think he's just weird. I found this clip of him--brushing his teeth and reading a few excerpts from his works--and he reminded me of a young man who comes in to the library frequently: quirky and maybe not all mentally and socially "there."

Brautigan committed suicide in 1984, but he still has a following: a website of devotees, and from his Wikipedia entry, 

• "But when his novel Trout Fishing in America was published in 1967, Brautigan was catapulted to international fame and labeled by literary critics as the writer most representative of the emerging countercultural youth-movement of the late 1960s")
  
• Also in a 1980 letter to Brautigan from W. P. Kinsella, Kinsella states that Brautigan is his greatest influence for writing and his favorite book is In Watermelon Sugar.
  
• In March 1994, a teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from Carpinteria, California legally changed his name to "Trout Fishing in America", and now teaches English in Japan. ^[9] At around the same time, National Public Radio reported on a young couple who had named their baby "Trout Fishing in America".
  
• There is a folk rock band called Trout Fishing in America.^[10], and another called Watermelon Sugar^[11], which quotes the opening paragraph of that book on their home page. The industrial rock band Machines of Loving Grace took their name from one of Brautigan's best-known poems.
• In the UK The Library of Unwritten Books is a project in which ideas for novels are collected and stored. The venture is inspired by Brautigan's novel The Abortion.
  
• The library for unpublished works envisioned by Brautigan in his novel The Abortion now exists as The Brautigan Library in Burlington, Vermont.^[12]
  
• There are two stores named "In Watermelon Sugar" after Brautigan's novella, one in Baltimore, Maryland and one in Traverse City, Michigan.
  

I don't get it. But this time around, I did enjoy reading The Abortion, working in a library as I do. I just hope Brandolyn & Golden don't get any ideas about naming my next grandchild from any Richard Brautigan novel...

Where's my car??

I called Rich at 5:15 to see if he'd be ready to go home at 5:30. Yep. So at 5:28 I start packing up my stuff and can't find my keys...I even look in the Library lost and found, then panic that maybe I dropped them on the way in. I rush outside and...MY CAR IS GONE! I must have lost the keys, someone found them, and drove my car away!!! What will I tell Rich?? Wait..did I get dropped off this morning?... I remember now that Rich had a Dr. appointment...ah...HE has the car today! Phew!
He was 5 minutes late picking me up because he was standing outside the Service Center waiting for ME to pick HIM up. Then he noticed the car in the lot and wondered why I parked there instead of driving up to the curb to wait as usual...then he remembered that HE had the car...and got out his keys.

What are we going to do?? Both of us are losing our minds at the same time!! Synchronized Alzheimer's.

My Fives

So, Carolyn tagged me a couple months ago, but it's taken me awhile to think of all these things. I'm not a big planner--I tend to take things as they come. Here goes...







Five years ago I was:

1. Planning for a family reunion at a California beach house
2. Thinking about selling my "dream home" in Dryden
3. Worrying about what to do with Vanessa for her senior year of high school
4. Working on finishing my MLIS degree at Syracuse University
5. Enjoying a 25 hr/week job as Director of the Southworth Library

Five things on my To-Do list today:

1. Eat healthy and exercise
2. Watch "Libraries and Autism" training video
3. Take a motorcycle ride with Rich
4. Check periodically with Vanessa to be sure she is still breathing and hasn't gone into anaphylactic shock
5. Get milk

5 things I'd do with 1 Million Dollars:

1. Become the financial backer for Golden's fly rod company
2. Buy homes for Vanessa, Dustin and Rachel & Jay (and pay off Fillmore's mortgage)
3. Hmmm. That might be all I could do. One million doesn't go as far these days...if there was any left, I'd bank it for a
4. mission
5. retirement

5 Places I've lived:

1. Massachusetts (5 different addresses)
2. Texas
3. Europe (2 places: Belgium & Germany)
4. California
5. Virginia

5 Jobs I've held:

1. Quality Control at Ore-Ida Potato Factory in Burley, ID
2. Custodian/Bookstore clerk (at BYU--did the bookstore thing again in MA)
3. Machine operator in a plastics factory (Massachusetts)
4. Administrative Assistant to a Vice Principal, Madison High School
5. Computer Lab Aide at Redland Oaks Elementary School

5 years from now I will be:

1. Getting ready to attend Quincy Fillmore's baptism
2. Planning a trip to Disneyland (or similar destination) with 5 year old "baby" Fillmore
3. Playing Five for Fighting's "100 years" flawlessly on the piano
4. Traveling
5. Running marathons
   

Thanks for the opportunity to do this, Carolyn! I don't know 5 other people who blog who haven't already done this to pass it on...

1. Maybe Joella, I don't see that she's done it yet, and
2. Veronica; and
3. Annie and
4. Kelly and
5. Brandolyn could just send me an email with their Fives Lists