How I Pass the Time

One of my favorite parts of working at the reference desk is perusing the new books, all of which parade past the desk on a bookcart before going to their new home in the stacks. I always feel a thrill when I arrive at the desk and see a new cart has arrived.

Investigating the new book cart is a great way to add to my "books to read" list, even though I don't need help finding titles. Here's one I added last night:



And the best fun of all is rearranging the cart's contents in call number order. It makes me feel so happy and peaceful to impose perfect order on one small part of my world.



Now if only those new books weren't so naked...

My Body is in TN...

but my mind is in Washington, along with my friends and all the other librarians at the American Library Association conference. I can so see myself there--riding the Metro, going to the Library of Congress Reading Room open house, attending the World Premiere of The Hollywood Librarian: Librarians in Cinema and Society, listening to Nancy Pearl, walking around the National World War II Memorial...

sniff, sniff

It's Official

Some of you may know that I am teaching Sunday School (Gospel Doctrine course) for three weeks until they have a permanent instructor.

Well, guess who the permanent instructor will be?

Yup--you got it. I can't say I'm surprised. But I see all the Primary children in the halls and it makes me homesick for Primary.

In other Sunday news, I got to Church today and found I had only one organ shoe with me (the left). Oops! Things went ok with only one, but the closing hymn was a bit rough. For some reason, without a shoe on my foot suddenly couldn't figure out where it was and where it was supposed to be.

Thanks, Dad

It doesn’t make any difference how much money a father earns, his name is always Dad-Can-I.... Like all other children, my five have one great talent: they are gifted beggars. Not one of them ever ran into the room, looked up at me, and said, “I’m really happy that you’re my father, and as a tangible token of my appreciation, here’s a dollar.”

-Bill Cosby, Fatherhood

The Columbia World of Quotations. (1996). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from http://www.bartleby.com/66/7/15107.html

Forget the Boombox, Just Bring Back Justin

I love reading the crime briefs in smaller-circulation papers, and always kept up with the Police Beat in the Daily Universe when I was at BYU. Now, I keep up with the Police Reports in the Daily News Journal. Here's one of my recent favorite:

May 23, 2007 Police Reports, Daily News Journal

Incidents/offense: Bombed portable bathroom. When: Noon - 8 a.m., May 18 - 21. Where: Charleston Avenue and Scarlett Drive. Complaint: A Port-A-Potty was blown up behind a house under construction. Residue scattered about 50 feet from the mobile toilet. A fire marshal was called to investigate the stinky situation. Officer: Timothy Meeks, Murfreesboro Police Department

Or, there's this from today's Sidelines:

Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to the arrest of the person or persons who unlawfully entered and took a boom-box CD player containing a Justin Timberlake CD from Room 326G of the Keathley University Center. This felony was committed sometime between 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29 and 8 a.m. the next day.

Oops

I don't feel perfectly ok about blogging at the reference desk, but I'm obviously doing it anyway. That's probably why I was distracted and published a post on my professional blog instead of here on its intended forum, my personal blog.

Now, I don't advertise my professional blog much because it's young and suffers from boith stunted growth and maternal neglect. But, I'm too tired to bother transferring the post (and its darling photo). So, if you're interested, click on over. At least the post is loosely library-related, so it isn't completely out of place on the other site.

What I'm Reading

More Appropriate Post Title: What I Would Be Reading if I Had the Time


The Rap Sheet - a blog about crime fiction. Yum! One brief comment: I noticed in a June 7 post that the Crime Writers of Canada recently named their picks for the best Canadian crime writing of 2006. Kathy Reichs' Break No Bones was a candidate for best novel. Now, I like Reichs just fine, but her writing is fairly formulaic, and I wouldn't put her in any of my "best" lists. The Christian Science Monitor's list of best mysteries and thrillers of 2006 is more to my liking. It includes Summer Snow by Rebecca Pawel, a young historical crime writer, and The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard. Both unique, thoughtful mysteries with sound plotting and great writing.

barbara fister's place - a blog by an instruction librarian who reads and writes crime fiction. I frequently see Fister's comments on the listervs I read, and I agree with her student-centered, practical opinions about many issues. Her blog is a nice mix of library-related stories, fun Web finds, and of course, crime fiction. It's perhaps what my professional blog might be like if I were more dedicated and creative. Alas...

(yes the lack of a link to my professional blog is a deliberate omission)

photo credit: Eisters, Gerhard. (ca. 1910-1016). Photograph of Clara Louise Thompson. In Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Retrieved June 11, 2007, from American Memory.

Culinary Successes

I finally managed to make real food in my new kitchen--english muffin batter bread and cream of broccoli soup.

Both turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. The bread has a few cosmetic problems, but it tastes fine and makes for a fine piece of toast when topped with the strawberry freezer jam I made last week. You can see a picture of the bread, and a short description of the bread itself, at the Bakingsheet blog (now known as Baking Bites). *

The soup recipe comes from Julia Child's The Way to Cook, and uses a base of pureed rice and onions, rather than the traditional roux, to achieve the cream part of the soup. More work, but hopefully less fat.



*More info for those interested: I used the original King Arthur Flour recipe that is in turn adapted in Bakingsheet. The only thing I can see that she adapted is to change one cup of milk for one cup of water. She also says to heat the liquid to 110 degrees. I thought that wasn't warm enough if you had mixed the yeast into the rest of the dry ingredients before adding any liquid. Anyway, I followed the original recipe and was perfectly happy.

They Don't Make Junk Like They Used To

I bought a $20 bookshelf at Target this weekend. Unfortunately, it made hardly a dent in the piles of unshelved books at home. I must comment, however, on the utterly abysmal quality of said $20 bookshelf. I have two others from Target, several years old, and while they were also only $20, they at least didn't have chips or torn (plastic) veneer when I opened them up to put them together. Not so with the new shelves. But, I was too tired and lazy to do anything about it, so the new shelves are in the living room with their slightly more reputable looking cousins.

How long until a Container Store shelving sale?