Day 5

 Elisabeth and Steph - I am SO SORRY to hear about the neighbour issues. They make whole television documentary series about bad neighbours, it has the capacity to have a much bigger impact than I think some people suspect. 

Jenny's comment that a bunch of weirdos moved in next door and we were lucky this didn't happen to us made me think this:

I think the secret to it is probably having neighbours who are the same kind of weirdos? Once I left some cake outside Yvonne's door because we had too much, and in the twenty seconds it took me to walk home I forgot about texting her to tell her it was there, and then she texted me "did you leave me this cake? I hope so because I already ate half of it". 

This is my adorable daughter last night in her student house with her adorable housemate, getting ready for their friend's birthday party where everyone went dressed like a stuffie, is that not ADORABLE?

This is my neighbour's birthday party where we were much more dignified and adult and no one definitely shouted "Siri: play Let's Get Drunk and Screw!" and no one else definitely shouted "Siri: play eighties music and don't listen to Bob anymore!" and our dogs definitely didn't judge us from the couch.

Having good friends is associated with higher activity in the tempero-parietal brain regions. I am grateful for the positive effect my friends have on my brain. For the next few weeks I should probably give a little more thought to the effect they have on my liver. 

Oh, and today I did go for a walk

Won't You Be My

 My husband spent the day cleaning up summer stuff and planting fall stuff in the back yard. I intended to spend the day walking in the sunshine and cleaning stuff in the house and baking, but all the book-moving and extra-working and parent-birthday-planning and busy-falling has caught up with me and I couldn't rouse myself to any of that. Instead I planted myself in the back-porch swinging chair with a book and a blanket. Lucy usually battles for space with the book, but today she figured out a way to co-exist with it.

We have a party to go too soon and I still feel a bit guilty (not quite the right word) for not going for a walk because we've had some truly crap weather lately and it's beautiful out today.

We have been so unutterably, unbelievably fortunate in our neighbours. When we moved in they had a little girl, and even though Angus wasn't born until a year later they had a ball together. Our second kids were daughters born seven days apart. Our dogs are sisters who come and call on each other.

I think often about what a gift this is. I've often said that if you have terrible neighbours, you should almost just move, because it's a huge impact on your quality of life. 

The morning after my 40th birthday party I woke up and couldn't find my shoes anywhere - until later in the day when I realized I'd left them on the front step next door at 4 a.m. The first sunny Saturday of the first Covid lockdown we sat in their backyard to have a glass of wine and went to bed at eight p.m. four bottles later, which was fine because it was too cold to stay outside by then. 

Happy Saturday. I promise not to drive home drunk. 

Five For Friday

 I kept seeing people doing Five For Friday posts and thinking I should do the same, for the alliteration and for the appealing randomness, but I don't often blog on Fridays. However, November! Posting on all the days! What better time?

1. I had been toying with the idea of doing some NaBloPoMo posts riffing on the style of bloggers I know and like, under the auspices of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Then I read a post by Burton Cummings this morning where he seemed really annoyed by Guess Who cover bands, calling them 'impostors'. This seemed weird to me, and I double-checked the meaning of the word 'impostor' (also spelled 'imposter', which settled another uncertainty for me); it seems to mean someone who poses as someone or something they are not for purposes of deception. Therefore a cover band is not really a good example, because they're not trying to convince anyone that they are the actual act, they're just playing the same music. 

Oh ha ha, I just looked a little further into it, and it's not just a cover band, it is former members of the band touring under the Guess Who name, never mind, nothing to see here. Sort of like when I went to see Journey and was confused as hell by Steve Perry who was apparently now wearing a tiny Filipino skin suit. Is Steve Perry mad about that? Cursory googling says no, although there is some sort of drama among other band members. Well that's bound to happen if you work together for decades, I guess. 

2. San was talking about being organized at work with Word Documents and and OneNote and maybe a spreadsheet and asked about how other people take notes at work. 

I work in four school libraries. I definitely have to take notes, often while dealing with multiple students shouting questions and checking in massive piles of books without letting them avalanche all over me. My definitely-not-foolproof-system consists of jotting down a word or two to remind me about what I need to follow up on on a sticky note. When the dust clears, I look at the sticky notes and hope to hell I can decipher what I was trying to remember - put this book on hold for Abby, find this book for Mr. G, email this teacher about this student's overdue notice, and .... something about persimmons? 

At least now that I have made peace with the fact that I have no short-term memory I do commit to writing everything down, so eighty percent of what I need to remember gets remembered. For the rest? They can ask me again. There's a reason I'm a school librarian and not a brain surgeon or a lawyer. I do my very best to get everything right the first time, but if I don't the stakes are not that high (yes, I have had to break up a fist fight over the last Babysitter's Club book left on the shelf a time or two, but the stakes are not that high in real world terms.)

3. Engie's comment about pear-flavoured Jelly Belly jellybeans being gross. This is hilarious - I love Engie, and we are SO different. One of my first comments when I saw the jellybeans was "ooh, are there pear ones, those are my favourite". And there were none on the legend for this bag, so the gross ones were definitely not pear. But in bulk candy places my friend Collette and I will buy an entire bag of pear jellybeans. What's your favourite one, Engie? Is it cotton candy? Because I hate that one, lol.

4. I go to trivia nights hoping that there will be one question that I can answer that no one else can. On the other hand, when that question IS about pop culture, I find it kind of embarrassing. One year I got three answers no one else knew. Were they about important world events or esoteric works of art? Nope. Two of them were about actors named Simon. Not even really good actors. Sigh.

5. Getting back into the school routine after being away for the summer is difficult for the students AND the staff. One day during the first week of school, I had a class come in for the first time. Near the end of the period, the teacher told the class to go line up at the door. The first boy took a running start and did a cartwheel to end up at the head of the line. The teacher said "uh, try that again". For a second I thought she meant he should redo the cartwheel because it was sloppy, and when he went back and walked normally I almost told him not to give up. Like I said, not a brain surgeon. Also, sometimes the vice principal (I almost always say or type "vice president" first, which got embarrassing when I filled in in the office) sends out an email about various sports equipment that has been collected in the yard after recess, which means there's an email in the school conference titled simply "Balls". That's enjoyable.

Irrelevancies and Nonessentials

Friday night (my second night out of the three in a row last week) was World Trivia Night. My first World Trivia Night was in November 2009 and it was the first time I met someone I knew from blogging in real life. I thought Lynn was jokingly inviting me to trivia night at her house and it turned out she was legitimately inviting me to World Trivia Night at Lansdowne Park with a thousand other people. I didn't give myself too much time to think about it because I was all about trying new things! Not just doing things involving my children! Assuring my husband I definitely probably wouldn't end up dead in an alley because Lynn was absolutely maybe not a serial killer bent on luring stay-at-home-moms to their gruesome deaths.

We haven't missed a year since then except for Covid, and even then it happened remotely. This year was tough - one of our heavy hitters went down with Covid and our team was small. It turned out not to be our worst showing anyway, and it's always a blast, partly because some of us only see each other once a year, partly because it's amusing seeing what we know and don't know, partly because we sneak in an ass-ton of Halloween candy and alternately moan about how we can't eat any more and dare each other to try some of the weirder stuff. This year it was Jelly Belly jellybeans - Lynn tried a green one early on that she declared tasted like rancid grass, but there were at least five different flavours that were green, so we kept trying to find the bad one and then figure out what it was supposed to be - margarita? kiwi? green apple? People kept declaring they were done with the jellybeans and then inexplicably trying one more. 

The game is ten groups of ten questions each, each category has a title and a theme, sometimes explicit and sometimes becoming clear as the questions progress. The tenth category is always the hardest. This year WTN was before Halloween, when it's usually in early November, so all the categories were Halloween-related: Mummies, Frank & Stein, Werewolves etc.

One of the funniest moments for me was in the Zombies category, which was an audio round - a short piece of a song that came out posthumously was played. The third one was Piece of My Heart, so I whispered "Janis Joplin" and started to write it down. Lynn looked at me like I was insane and said "What?" I said "Janis Joplin?" and she said "WHAT?" and I was like Jesus, Lynn, I'm pretty sure it's JANIS JOPLIN. When I first started going I wouldn't volunteer answers even when I was dead certain because I'd be so scared to be wrong, so now I was seriously worried that I'd heard it wrong or something. The round moved on and after it ended in the break I was like Lynn, what the hell? And she burst out laughing and said "sorry, for some reason I couldn't stop thinking Carrie Underwood. She's not even dead, is she?" 

The other funny part was in the Cereal Killers category, which was all about cereal commercials and references. The last one was about the cereal in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, which one guy was certain was Cheerios, but the questions was phrased "a phenomenon named after this cereal would have had the kids repelling each other as they floated in it", and I was extremely confused about what that meant. No one else seemed bothered by it, and I was willing to believe Peter was right, but I was bewildered. I went to the washroom during the break thinking "Vector? No. There's no cereal named Magnet, right?" When they gave the answers, Cheerios was right, but it didn't become clear until I got home and Googled and found out - in fluid mechanics, there is a thing called the freaking Cheerios effect. 

I am not good at general trivia. I don't understand how people are good at general trivia. I am pretty good with pop culture stuff and literature. I am absolute shite at geography, history, cars, sports and science. I often hear or read things and think "I should remember that, it would be a good trivia answer". Three days later I frequently think "what was that thing I was going to remember?" and I have not, in fact, remembered it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, one of the questions in the last category was 'what Russian writer penned The Gambler specifically to pay off his own gambling debts?' Someone guessed Dostoevsky because he was the only Russian writer they knew. It seemed a little too obvious to me, so I guessed Bulgakov. 

It was Dostoevsky. Note to self: it's nearly always a mistake to overthink and/or change your answer. I would say it's a lesson I only need to learn once, but that would be ignoring the lamentable Bronte Incident from Trivia Night at Stoneface Dolly's. It's a wonder anyone still lets me show up, honestly.

How Mo Can You Blo?

 So I did NaBloPoMo for the first time in November 2009, the first year I was blogging, when it was connected to BlogHer. Once BlogHer wasn't really a thing anymore I kept doing it, because it seemed like a good way to exercise the blogging muscles that had a lamentable tendency to be getting downright noodly by the end of October.

I was starting to feel like I was blogging in a relative vacuum (not that big a deal, I was fine doing it for myself and a couple of friends), and then a couple of years ago I stumbled into a nice old-fashioned blogging community all over again, and apparently NaBloPoMo is still an organized thing with them.

In a way, yay! A team. In another way, yikes! I suck at team sports. What if I'm laughably bad at it in comparison? What if they're not into just posting a drunken picture of their feet halfway through the month when topics are thin on the ground? What if this is another cool kid thing I'm not cool enough for? 

I think I'm too old to still freak out over stuff like that. I think. Or old enough to pretend about it better.

So, my third night out last week was our annual Halloween party at our friends Janet and Dave's house. I was exhausted and completely bereft of costume ideas. On the years I don't plan and make one (I usually can't bring myself to buy one, and then frequently regret this) I am usually pretty good at pulling something together at the last minute. I couldn't see that happening this year - I was having trouble even visualizing putting on regular clothes and leaving the house.

It was finally sunny after days and days of rain, so I forced myself out for a walk. I always feel dumb taking leaf pictures because there are always so many leaf pictures and I am not a gifted photographer so my photos are generally quite disappointing. But I took a couple anyway.

I found a little path behind some houses that was quite short but still gave me that "walking in the forest" feeling for a little bit.

I got home and sent a message to our group WhatsApp telling everyone I was tired and fragile and would probably be costumeless and not up for the requisite mocking, and everyone was very gracious. I went outside to tell Matt, and admired the garage he was cleaning out so I could park in it when it snows.

This is what a really good husband looks like:

Then I turned around to go back in the house and found a pamphlet in the mailbox. I whipped it out and showed it to Matt and we laughed a little. And then I looked at it, and thought "hey, I can work with this."

(no shade to religious people, just obnoxious proselytizers)

The party was fun. Some eating, some drinking, some laughing, some haranguing people about their musical tastes:

One family passes the same hot dog costume around from year to year, which I respect.

Eve texted me goodnight after her Halloween party at two a.m. I texted her goodnight at 2:30 a.m. after mine. This makes me feel like she's doing university right and I'm... maybe doing adulthood wrong?

Okay. Now I just have to do this twenty-nine more times. It's like pushups, it gets easier as you go, right? Oh shit, wait...

Week. Weak? Weeeek.

Last week was banana-pants crazy. Well ha ha no it wasn't, but as I said to Angus when he texted asking me how I was I texted back "This week I am out three nights in a row, which I am too old for, and also running one library and working in three others, which I am too lazy for". 

The previous week-end we took my parents to Prince Edward County and met my sister and her husband to celebrate my mom and dad's eightieth and eighty-third birthdays. The weekend was glorious - rained on the drive there and the drive home, but we did a super-fun wine tour with a fabulous limo driver/ guide on Saturday and the weather stayed nice and it was SO much fun (pictures to follow). 

So the week-end was lovely but not restful (wine. Also gin. Some rum. I stole a few chairs). Monday I got to my library and all the shelves were moved around. This is secondary to them being moved around the PREVIOUS Monday in a completely unworkable fashion for sightlines and student safety. So now they were in a better configuration, but none of the sections were together anymore. You know how this is for children to find books? It is NOT GREAT. Why did it happen? Because the projector had to be moved, which meant the tables had to be oriented differently. The new projector was purchased last year, so could this maybe have been done a few weeks earlier when no circulation was happening yet because the other librarian is on leave and we were still figuring out how Library Time was going to work? NOBODY KNOWS. Well, someone probably does, but why would that be me, I'm just the FREAKING LIBRARIAN.

*deep breath*. So now pretty much every book in the library has to be moved. And I'm only there one day a week. 

The office administrator has been outstandingly helpful (and comforting, because I think I keep walking around with crazy eyes trying to process all of this), and there's a parent volunteer who comes in to help shelve - she came in and got a lot of the non-fiction section moved. In between my dozen classes, I moved a bunch of the other books. I was not properly dressed or adequately stressed for heavy manual labour, and it was... I don't even know what it was, it all went by in a blur.

The rest of the week was other school libraries, and Thursday I had book club and Friday I had World Trivia Night and Saturday I had a Halloween party and Sunday I had a hangover (I have no plans to imbibe this Saturday or Sunday, lest you all gain the impression I am a Weekend Lush). 

Every day I had to go out in the evening I came home and whined and flopped around and complained that I had to go out again, and every evening I went out I had an amazing time (try not to roll your eyes too hard, I don't want anyone to endanger their vision). 

I sometimes find this kind of thing completely overwhelming, but I felt like I was doing pretty well. I complained and made whale noises (Eve's technique when she doesn't feel like doing something, it's surprisingly satisfying) but I didn't melt down or collapse or withdraw from the world. Win! Except last night I went into the kitchen to empty out my glass of water and put it in the dishwasher. I dumped it and then looked down and Matt turned around from the kitchen and said "what? Did you...just dump your water in the garbage can instead of the sink?" And I said "yes, yes I did." Less win! Maybe let's have a calmer week! 

Two days until NaBloPoMo. Ha ha, I'm like a couch potato who signs up to run a marathon. In two days. 

Mildly Surly Thursday

 I'm not really surly. This week has been pretty good, after last week's intense-fest (Eve being home, Matt being sick with Covid, me trying to work and feed and nurse everyone). 

I love my job. I get to work with books, I get to see kids, many of whom love coming to the library, and I get to do it part-time so it doesn't burn out my body and brain. I was having a major back issue that was really distressing, and I finally figured out that it was the crappy chairs, not the being on my feet. I started bringing a cushion and it has nearly resolved, which is a massive relief.

Last year at my Thursday school the grade sevens and eights coming in at recess were loud and disruptive and stressing me out. I don't like shushing, and I try really hard not to think of any student as "bad", and I felt ineffective and started to dread Thursdays. Then one of my friends (HI KERRY) said "okay, but you know how some adults are just assholes? Some kids are also just assholes" and it was a huge lightbulb moment. Some kids are just assholes! It doesn't mean they're evil, or irredeemable, but it does mean it's not fun to have them around right now, and THAT'S OKAY. Plus I found out they weren't actually allowed to come in the library at recess and were counting on me not knowing that, so it all got better.

Last week on Thursday there was a class in and when the teacher told them (several times) to line up because they were leaving, some boys in the back corner in the comfy chairs ignored her (or didn't hear her because they were being loud). I went back finally and said they'd been asked multiple times to leave and ignoring their teacher was disrespectful and rude. One boy said "wait, are we getting kicked out or is it our time to leave?" and I said "a little of both!" which he took with great equanimity. And I felt kind of like a tv show school librarian who is strict AND funny.

It is really kind of cool being able to wandering around schools and experience everything without having to be an actual teacher (because lord, I could never). On my way into one school on Wednesday I held the door for two little boys, one of whom had a spider in his hands that they had found in the classroom and were releasing outside (I mean COME ON). Then today two little girls started to hold the door for me and then changed their minds and ran away laughing. In the library on Thursdays the kids have cards to check their own books out, and one little girl called out "Madame Allison, something went wrong!" and I knew that I would know how to fix it, which is kind of a cool feeling that I almost never have anywhere else.

So it's a constant sort of thing that in a school library you're always trying to get books checked in as quickly as possible, because most of the main librarians don't allow students to check out books if they still have books. But if there are piles of books waiting to be checked in, I can't tell who has returned their books and who hasn't. So when I come in and there are bins of books, I have to figure out which books belong to the classes I'm about to see. Does that makes sense?

It's the best when teachers send down their books at the start of the day, but I completely understand why sometimes they can't, or forget. Sometimes there is a pile of books and I start checking them in and they belong to a class I'm not even going to see that day, in which case I get undeservedly kind of ticked off, like what's even the point of getting these checked in now? This is dumb - it's always better to get them checked in and back on the shelves, but that is my first cranky impulse, because I frequently forget that I don't actually have to rush because I am The Librarian and nothing happens until I say it can happen, so just sit your little butts down and wait until I finish scanning these, and DON'T TOUCH THAT YET.

Both Eve and I had long days after nights with almost no sleep yesterday, so when we texted at the end of the day we were both eager to tell each other something funny. Even funnier was that we wanted to tell each other the same thing and weren't sure if the other one knew it already. Eve's BFF Marianna has a Coton de Tulear dog named Piper, who is a bolter, unlike Lucy who sometimes goes out when we're unloading groceries and gets accidentally left outside, and barks on the step to come back in. Piper got out yesterday while workers were in the house, which I saw when the mom (who is a friend) posted in the Lost Pets neighbourhood group on Facebook, so I texted her. I knew she was afraid to tell Marianna who is many provinces away and would totally freak out. A few hours later I saw on the Facebook post that Piper had been found and was at the Humane Society....

...in doggy jail

I texted Di and told her she had to use that picture for their Christmas card. I texted Eve and she texted back "STOP I was going to tell you! Piper behind bars!"

On my way home from work today I stopped at the grocery store. As I was driving into the parking lot I saw an elderly woman get out of her car and just stand there. I parked and was walking to the store and saw her still standing there, which seemed concerning, so I caught her eye and smiled. She said "could I please take your arm?" and I said sure. She was quite wobbly, and I asked if she was there alone. She said her cat was out of food and that was the only reason she was there. As we walked into the store, a really on-the-ball very young staff member asked if we needed a cart and passed it to her. I asked if she wanted me to go with her and walk her back to her car after but she said she'd just use the cart to lean on. I thought afterwards that I should have given her my number and just told her to call me if she ran out of cat food again and I would drop it off, but I couldn't find her. 

So obviously any residual surliness evaporated, because how crummy that she had no one to call, and thinking about how she must have felt standing there, unsure if she could make it across the parking lot, kind of makes me feel like crying. But I got to literally help a little old lady across the street.