12.30.07

updated the fiddy.

will i get my 52nd book read before the new year? well, seeing as how i'm only 30 pages in i'd say, "doubtful!" still, i'm WAY excited that i read 50 books BEFORE december. especially since i spent most of october - december knitting a blanket and a couple of scarves. if there was a way to knit and read at the same time, believe you me, there would be no stopping me from completely wasting time. but what an efficient waste of time that would be.

something else i've been obsessed with lately is the bound excerpts of the first 30 years of the Gadsden Times. we have them at the library. they are VERY entertaining to read mostly because the way they talked and wrote back then (late 1800s) was very different than today. not only do they use MUCH bigger words (words that i'm not even sure exist) but the paper was also very, VERY snarky...yet in a polite way. for example, one of the articles was about how some people put some kind of obstuction on the train tracks. the train hit the whatever-it-was and no one was hurt. the last sentence of the article made no sense it said something like, "the people who obstructed the train should move to another climate."

wha?

i asked one of the other librarians to look at the article and she too was all, "what's with the last line?"

she asked if i thought it meant they should go up north. because this was less than 10 years after the civil war. and you know, it was probably in insult to tell someone they should move up north.

i told her it sounded more like a really polite, "go to hell" to me.

after reading some more of these articles i've stumbled onto a really neat story. in fact, if i wasn't lazy i could probably write a whole book about this lady. give me some time to type what i've found, and i think you'll see what i mean. i don't have the whole story yet because i was researching this at work and we had to close and it's a reference book and i couldn't take it. and it's crazy cos i'm at this point where i'm all, "BUT WHAT HAPPENED?! what happened to the lady?" like i say, give me a bit to type this up. it's AWESOME.

12.27.07

let me tell you this awesome thing that happened, and by awesome i mean typical jaimie mishap.

so on christmas night, the birthday of our Lord, i was at a party with my friends at my house. i invited myself. so at this party i had a half bottle of whiskey. good whiskey. it started out in my cola and then it ended up with just ice is how good this whiskey was. and like i mentioned, i killed the bottle. the next morning i had to work. no big, right? i've had to work under worse conditions before, and by conditions i mean slight hangover. so the hangover wasn't really that bad. i wasn't even nauseated. at first.

so in my haste for breakfast i saw some cake on the table and thought, "hey, that is a sweet little cake baked in a sweet little coffee cup. what a lovely present my friend liz made for me. it's a treat! and when i finish eating it i can put coffee in it! this is a fanTAStic day-after-christmas-party-hurry-to-work-with-a-hangover-breakfast-cake." so i crack into the cake with gusto! the crunchy topping was made of pecans and was very nice, then a bite of cake, and then another bite of cake. and there i am shoving cake into my cakehole and then oh god, wait. i must've been making a face because jimmy was all, "what's wrong? is the cake bad?"

"um, probably not. liz made it, i think. it's probably awesome."

"then what's the matter?" he asked as i spewed cake into the trash.

"nothing. it's great."

"yeah i can tell." a then he takes a bite of the cake, "whoa. what's in this?"

"...i'm gonna go with... rum? lots of rum. or perhaps a brandy."

"wow. that is strong."

"yes. i'm going to enjoy this at a later date."

liz, your cake was awesome! but it should come with a warning...and a proof.

you must be over 21 to eat Liz'z Fire Water Pecan Cake. i want the recipe. but only if i can borrow your still.

12.25.07

merry christmas, movie house!

i hope you guys are having an awesome christmas holiday. i'm having a great one. however, this is the first christmas i haven't got to spend with my leetle brahther. he didn't get any time off from his new job, so whole that really blows (hard).

now, onto the blog!

here's the txt msgs on my phone from the past 6 months:

"if we're gonna do the whole act i will. just let me know. - mike

"no cooks tonight. her sinuses are staging a revolt." - liz

"you're not in a ditch somewhere? cause, if so, i'll feel really bad. if not, liz says, "you suck."" - chris

"he's so cute!" - liz

"that thing you sent? i got it open" - liz

"you're a big ol' doody head." - leetle brahther

as you can see, i don't get many txt msgs, but those i do get are quality. mostly it's kelly, justin, and i sending, "your a poop head." to each other over and over. that...that's what txting is for, right?

12.21.07

so yeah, nothing has been done on the car crash into the deck/fence thing. the world is too busy for little things like that. an insurance adjuster has come by and taken pictures, but i haven't heard a damn thing back... and that was two weeks ago, so, "let the record show, they were all over that." no one cares. (ani quote, laura!)

in other bilzness:

on Jan. 2, i'll have worked at the 'brary for a whole year. i know! it doesn't seem that long, and yet, it's like i've worked there forever. the bad news is, i'll never get a raise because of some evil "finance committee" (aka: douchebag, vomit-eating, horses' patoots) did some kind of wicked mojo and now they've capped salaries and cornholed poor pitiful part-time library workers. these are the worst kind of people because they have no idea what they are doing and they seem to be in charge of actual important things. oh, but they've borrowed millions of dollars for some kind of fan-dabby-dozy sports complex. nice.

municipal politics blah blah hate stupid what? no way! gah.

don't get me wrong. i love my library job. i really do like helping people find the books they need or want. they act like i'm a hero if i'm able to help them. and they act like i'm a genius for being able to find a book on a shelf. sometimes it's ridiculous.

"oh my gosh! you found it so fast!"

"yeah, well... it was just over there."

"i would have NEVER found it!"

never? really? NEVER? this happens 10 times a day. sometimes it's teenagers. most times it's adults. MOST times it's GROWN ADULT WOMEN/MOTHERS who have no clue how to use the library. they come up to the desk all accusatory, "ah cain't find this book. the computer says it's in, but it ain't." (the computer = search terminal. i do miss card catalogues. i mean, sure, they are outdated as all get out (as LBC would say) but at least the card catalogue was always there. it never "crashed" or needed to be rebooted, and they never needed to be shutdown. on the other hand, the computer catalogue lets you know not only if we have the book and where it is, it also lets you know if it is checked out and when it's due. and it takes up less space. but still! card catalogue memories! author, title, subject!)

what on earth was i talking about? OH! the people who act like we hide the books on the shelves. right, so. they come up to the desk all, "where's this book?" and these aren't new patrons, these aren't visitors who've never been in this library before. these people have been here before. they check out things all the time, but they still haven't grasped that the fiction section? IS OVER THERE. WHERE IT'S ALWAYS BEEN. and yes, THE BOOKS ARE STILL IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY THE AUTHOR'S LAST NAME. just like they've been for at least the LAST 100 YEARS OR SO.

i've had people ask, MULTIPLE people ask if the fiction books are in any particular order. hmm? order? no. we just put them up all willy-nilly. i like to put the Suzanne Brockman books by Bill O'Rielly's shitty fiction in hopes they'll fight. and at night i pretend that Ayn Rand comes out and tells Sylvia Plath to quit bitching. Willa Cather and Laura Ingles Wilder sit and have their own quilting bee... they talk about the old days and about how easy these kids have it today what with vaccinations and central heat and air. King and Koontz talk about how they've both run out of shit to write, but that that won't stop them. doesn't seem to stop Koontz anyway.

it still shocks me when people ask if the books are in order by title.

title? really? no.

"where's How to Kill a Mockingbird?"

"i...what? it's...well first-"

"i looked under the Hs but it's not there."

"right, it'll never be there. it's under the Ls...for Lee. and it's not H-"

"but why? aren't they in order by title?"

hmm, maybe if we were playing Australian Rules Library. "no. they're in order by the author's last name."

"when did you start doing that?"

"it's always been like that."

"it wasn't like that last time i was here."

i've actually had people tell me that! they insist that we move the books around. i try to assure them that we don't do that, that we're way too lazy to do that. but what can you do with the public?

12.02.07

okay. so here's where we are.

the Awesome Lady at my insurance place has taken care of the Unhelpful Liar Lady WHO, by the by, admitted to the Awesome Lady that yes, her client IS responsible for paying for the damages. isn't it interesting that when she talked to me her client was not at fault, but when she talked to Awesome Lady she sang a different tune? what gives? LYING LIARHOLE! HATE.

so now my job is getting estimates for the cost of repairing the damage. of course, the other insurance place said, "oh no, you needn't get any estimates, we'll send our own adjuster out to look at the damage." to which Awesome Lady said, "jaimie, get some estimates pronto."

i replied, "will do."

so i've called a couple of places to get estimates and... NO ONE HAS CALLED ME BACK. does this surprise me? OF COURSE NOT. NOTHING SURPRISES ME ANYMORE. IN FACT, I COULD WAKE UP TOMORROW WITH TWIN BABIES CRYING TO BE BREASTFED, A UNICORN IN THE PANTRY, AND OPRAH HOSTING A TEAPARTY IN MY LIVINGROOM, AND MY REACTION WOULD BE, "huh. must be monday."

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