Things They Don't Teach You in Library School

• You'll have to clean common work areas yourself. With supplies you bought.
• Obnoxious older men will talk to you at the reference desk, joking that you're a "cute clerk," but that your hair color [height, sex, etc.] has changed since yesterday.
• When you're buying those cleaning supplies, you should pick up hand sanitizer and tissues.
• Don't forget window cleaner as part of your supply arsenal. You can skip this item if you're OK looking at greasy headprints on the glass curtainwall directly in front of you.

In the Dark

I suppose there are some things you can do in daylight that you can't do in the dark, but lately I've crossed two things off that list: planting and weeding.

A couple of weeks ago I started planting bulbs on a Saturday afternoon, and afternoon quickly turned to night. I ended up doing 6 of them in the dark, by the light of the exterior house light.

Then last night, I arrived home at 9:30 and couldn't bear the thought of the multitude of dandelions in the yard that were all going to go to seed today. Since it's going to be several days before I can mow (and I'm the only one on the street who hasn't mowed yet), I got out my flashlight and went to town. I'm sure I hit less than 20% of the dandelions, but I felt better about things 75 minutes later. I also pulled up quite a bit of unnamed weed from a planting bed and chopped down some wild onion (which grows quite tall) . Of course, I didn't actually eliminate the dandelions, I just beheaded them. Still, not bad for a partial evening's work.

And here's the bonus--no sunburn and a nice cool breeze!

Check

Not perfect, nor even fine, but done.

Calling All My Peeps

Can you think of a good game for 4 - 11 year olds to play indoors with Matchbox cars?

Here is what I have so far:

Close Wins the Race: 3 or 4 children line up their cars (hopefully the same car or same weight car) on the starting line. Each tries to be the person to push his car closes to a taped finish line without going over the line.

Hot Wheel Hot Potato: Pass a car around a circle until the music stops.

Or, I'll take suggestions for other simple, low-prep games on the car or race theme. One I've seen is Beanbag Tire Toss, but I don't have a tire. Or beanbags.

On Being a Good Neighbor

I'll just say that it's a good idea to make friends with your neighbors. Otherwise, when you lock yourself out of the house at 9:30pm, you might have nowhere to turn.