All The Live Long Day

The chaos continues unabated. I should really write down the stories so they are never forgotten, but it seems almost cruel to the people who don't realize how ridiculous they are being. How anyone can be that un-self-aware is beyond me, but there you have it. I guess if you're the kind of person who needs to call someone in another department to yell at them for 5 minutes for not turning off the bathroom light, you're also not the kind of person who does a lot of thinking about good time management skills.
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There's a growing misconception that I have direct access to my boss' brain waves. I keep getting questions that start with "Is he going to___________?". I always - and I mean always - have to resist the urge to say "How the hell would I know?", because I try pretty hard not to even mildly curse at my employees. Rest assured - if I had a telepathic link into his brain, I would spend my time trying to get him to bring cheesecake to work every day. I would not be worrying about where he's thinking about placing the clock.
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The entire organization - ~75 people - had a team-building day a couple of weeks ago. One of the "games" we played was a version of bingo that's pretty popular around base. Each space on the bingo card lists something like "Born in the same month as you" or "has the same favorite color as you" or "has visited at least 3 other countries". You have to find a different person to fill in each square. So I had to find a person born in November, and a different person that likes the color blue, etc. I learned 2 things about how people think of me that day: 1) One of the squares was "Likes to cook". Now: I know I love to cook, but I didn't realize a) how many people know that, and b) how many people do NOT like to cook. I think I was the name on about half of those "likes to cook" squares. 2.) One of the squares was "has at least 1 tattoo". About 5 people - and these were people I actually spend breaks/lunches with, not people I barely acknowledge - have always assumed I had a tattoo somewhere and asked me to put my name down. At least I had the cooking thing to fall back on.

Heat

Reason 1,628 why I am glad I am working in the trailers and not in the building: This just came through email: "Group X & Group Y* are trying to determine if one or both of the boilers in Room Z* are operational and whether any heat can be generated for the main library." *Not their real names

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep me hydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

New Year

I woke up on January 1st with a head stuffed full of ickiness. No, it wasn't a hangover (at least I've never had a hangover that involved snot, but I guess there's a first time for everything). So let's hope I'm getting any and all illness for 2012 out of my system right out of the gate so that the rest of the year can be snot-free. There's a new blessing for you: "May your new year be snot free". Amen.

I got my greedy little paws on my new eReader yesterday. Charged it up, took some [expired] cold meds and then tried to transfer books from my laptop. Anyone else see a problem with that sequence of events?

So I've put the eReader away until cold meds, expired or otherwise, are no longer needed. The SyFy channel has a Star Trek marathon on, I have cold pork chops to keep mehydrated(?) and my cat is in desperate need of some snuggling on the couch after four days without me.

Happy New Year! May it be snot free!

On the radio as I drove to work this morning...

I heard this traffic update: "There's also a lot of fog rolling off the river, so be careful if you're southbound on I-65 this morning." Do they not warn the north bound drivers because they want them to just drive off the bridge? Does the fog only matter if you're driving south? Do the north bound lanes have magical fog-repelling features? If they do, wouldn't it make sense to put them on the south-bound lanes, since that's the direction of rush hour traffic? Am I the only one who thinks of these things?

Tornado Warning!

Working from trailers, there is nothing to compare to the rush of hearing the tornado sirens go off. The excitement never ends around here. PS Don't worry Mom, we went into a safe place in the building, from which I am blogging.

Incomprehensible

5:55 AM: I leave for work.

6:16 PM: I arrive home.

6:30 PM: I try to catch up on emails.

6:45 PM: Brain transmits the following: "Bleep. Blurp. Ghag. Wine?".

Bottom line: I'm glad tomorrow is a federal holiday.

Life

The stress levels have been steadily rising 'round my little slice of the Deep South these past few months, and the forecast isn't looking much rosier for the future. So instead of dwelling on Gah! LIFE! I don't want to be an adult anymore!, Let's focus on the good. Wait, first I have to say that at work we are now firmly ensconced in our trailers. And they are as trailor-ific as we can make them, which is, sad to say, not so much. On the other hand my department has the only trailer with a sink in it that is not located in a bathroom, which gives us a nice little kitchen-ette area now that we have the mini fridge, microwave and coffee pot plugged in. This is in direct contrast to another trailer, the staff of which chose to convert one of their bathrooms into a break room by covering the toilet with a table and tablecloth. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of that. So, on to being an adult: I made a doctor appointment a few weeks ago. In the whole "let's pretend I'm not an adult" phase of my life - a phase I'm being pushed out of against my will - I've never had annual blood work done. If I don't know that my cholesterol it is over 400, it doesn't count, right? Well, that was my thinking. But The Professor - who sees his doctors regularly whether he needs to or not - started insisting daily (instead of monthly) that it is necessary, and I finally caved. It had been 4 years or so since I'd seen my good ole Doc, and then it had only been to get a note to say I was fit enough to do some PT at work. It's been over seven years since I've needed to see him. Maybe he missed me? And apparently I am completely un-adept at making routine phone call's to a doctor's office. Me: Hi, I need to make an appointment with Dr S. Her: Ok, what's he seeing you for? Me: Oh, I'm fine, I need just to get some blood work done. Her: What kind of blood work? Me: Um, I don't know, cholesterol? Her: How often do you have that checked? Me: I never have, that's why I want to come in. I want to get some annual blood work done. Her: Annual... Me: Well, let's try this: I'm going to *start* getting blood drawn once a year for whatever it is adults need their blood tested for. Her: Ok...{silence}... Dr S will talk to you about it and figure it out when you get here. AND! Did you know that they force you to fast before you come in for this nonsense? Not only can you not eat breakfast, but you already know you're going to get used as a pin cushion! No wonder the receptionist was confused - she was wondering why I was volunteering to come in! Anyway - yes, I'm finally getting to the good part of the blog post - it all came back wonderful. Cholesterol, triglycerides (What the HECK are those, anyway?), iron, liver, thyroid...my blood is so healthy it could take your blood out in hand-to-hand combat. The technician actually wrote "Great!" at the bottom of the report, which kind of made me feel like I was getting a report card, but I didn't get the gold star. And just to prove I'm not really an adult yet: They had so much trouble with my veins (I got to get pricked by more than one needle. Fun!), that they had to get out the little bitty needles they use on kids and stick me on the side of my elbow, instead of in the crease like normal. And then I almost passed out. Because they probably took too damn much of my healthy blood.

Renovation Ramblings

When I started at my library a little over six years ago, there was a small buzz of excitement in the air - the plans for a long-awaited renovation had been delivered a few weeks before, and everyone was still interested in the new configuration (note that I said "interested" and not "excited" - those who had been in the government's employ for longer than 4 hours knew better). What I saw was that my department would be all over the place during the process, so I purposefully did not bring in a lot of personal items into my cubicle world; no need to decorate the place up only to have to move it all around the universe every two months, I told myself. Six years, three positions and some very full desks later, half of the reference staff has retired or moved on - and the contractors are just beginning the renovation. The hold up was your typical nightmare of problems - contract problems, spending cuts, contracts expiring, squirrels made the contracts into winter nests and had babies in them - you know, the usual excuses. And now - finally - the time is nigh. They've started Doing Things to the building. This building is something like 382 years old (or 70, whatever) and nothing in it is up to code. Nothing in it even works right - except, of course, the librarians. {cough}.

• Broken boilers? Check. We all have blankets, sweaters and fingerless gloves at our desk.
• Broken Air Conditioning? Check. We all have ceiling fans, plus at least one fan on our desk. Some of us {ahem} have two. To keep it interesting, however, the A/C also breaks in the other direction - more than one person has been using a space heater on days when the outside temp is over 100.
• Bad electrical wiring? Check. The power shuts off randomly several times a month. And then there are the days that the fire alarm claims that the building has turned into an incinerator. So far, it's never been accurate, but I'll take it, since it's best that it be wrong in the right way (Aside: "Wrong in the Right Way" is an awesome name for a rock ballad, and I should get paid for it if anyone ever uses it. I'll be sure to sue and use my blog as proof should it come to that).
• They removed the asbestos last year, though, so we're already on the road to improvement!

The fun news is that the power, heat and air will grow even more unpredictable than usual over the next 18 months, since they're literally replacing everything associated with power, heat and/or air. Which doesn't make me feel very safe and secure about this building in which I've been working for 6 years, but I'm still alive so...that which does not kill me really does make me stronger. The contractors offered us some trailers to use during the Reno. This process is going about as smoothly as could be expected:

• They offered us three triple-wide trailers to be used by staff until the project is complete. They took us to view them, told us they would reconfigure the temporary walls inside to our specifications, and that we'd have them next week. That was 7 weeks ago.
• A week later, they said "Three triple-wides? No, no, no. You'll get a couple of single wides. Next week."
• "Next week" we were told "The two double wides you're getting will be here. Next week".
• Last week, the original three triple wide trailers were installed behind our building, and we were told that we'd have to deal with moving the plywood walls ourselves. We are librarians, not carpenters, people!

This week, the building started vibrating. Need I mention that buildings - especially ones anchored by the wight of over half a million books - are most assuredly not supposed to shake. I'm told it's because they are compacting the soil for the building addition, in preparation for the concrete foundation. My brain - which is rattling against my skull - is Not Happy with life and desperately wants the trailers to be ready. I'm telling myself that it's like a giant body massage, except that my brain is calling bullshit on that as it jumps around inside my skull like it's playing dodgeball with a demented orangutan. This process is bringing daily surprises to our lives, which I keep telling people keeps our brains youthful. I also keep getting dirty looks immediately after I say that. Ok, so the water main has been accidentally broken into so many times that the toilets always look like they've just been used (you are so very welcome for that visual). And yes, we've been evacuated twice because the contractors created a gas leak. But we'll have a working HVAC system sometime in the future. Optimism, people! They successfully removed the asbestos, remember? Not that I'm holding to the contractor's 18 month estimate. My current estimate is 3 years. I don't know if the Wine Cure will hold out that long - I may become immune - but it will be fun to find out! One thing that made me laugh out loud: Each triple wide trailer has two bathrooms. When we went to take a look at the trailers in the old location, there was a sign on one of the men's restrooms that read something like this:

"Gentlemen: If you need to sit down to complete your task in here, please go to Building 600".

September 11, 2001.

Being a librarian, that is a date I frequently come across - it's a subject heading, used for both books and also for articles used in the Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals (AULIMP), which my library produces. I guess, as a result of the latter, I've gotten a little immune to what it actually means.

The Professor and I talked today about what we remembered about that day. I was an undergrad - actually, I was due in one of his classes that day. I remember that I woke up and got in the car to go to class, listening to NPR and thinking that the news coverage was about the previous attack on the World Trade Center, because - surely, the US wouldn't be under attack? Surely, it was just a normal day?

After 10 minutes in the car, on my way to class, I realized (ok, belatedly, it was a long night before) that it was happening in real time; it wasn't some kind of anniversary special report. I got to the university and my class was cancelled, so I turned around and went home to the apartment.

I remember calling my mother - I knew none of my family was in New York City, or Washington DC, but I remember needing to hear her voice. I remember standing in my living room, talking to her about what was going on - not the actual words. Just that hearing her voice was all I needed then.

And then I had to work a night shift at the restaurant. It was so quiet. There were few customers, and none of them wanted to be anywhere but the bar - because that's where the TV's were.

I remember being afraid - "what if it's just the first attack? What location is next? What's the new normal?". Living in a small town, in the Deep South, I wasn't in any danger - I'm probably not living where someone would choose to hurt the US. But still, the danger was there in my mind.

I was lucky. I lost no one. But I'll never forget the fear of That Day.