Cathy the Librarian

As I type this I am in Durham, North Carolina, in my sister’s very awesome new apartment. She is going to be starting research at the University Of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Physics Department. Since she is going to get her PhD, she also gets to be a student professor (ack). I was pretty nervous to be going south. I know, I know, I should be stereotyping people, but with all my anti-Bush stickers and all, I figured that people might not approve. So I scraped all my stickers off as soon as I could the night that we got here. Today we went out and about in Chapel Hill and to my suprise… ther were tons of John Kerry stickers on cars! Turns out, after we talked to a woman at the visitor’s bureau (who happens to be from Long Island!) that Chapel Hill is like a small haven for liberals in the south. She said that even the Mayor is gay! The area is beautiful and there are tons of shops and places to eat. It was warm, but there was a nice breeze. We didn’t get to explore the campus much, but what we did see was GORGEOUS!

Unfortunately, Sam was completely freaking out about being so far away from the rest of our family. My family is what you would call… homebodies. None of us has moved too far away. My mom and dad moved a couple of miles away from my mom’s mother, and about twenty minutes away from my dad’s (now deceased) mother. Jeff and I live ten minutes away from his parents and sister and twenty minutes away from my parents. We stay put. This is why I am SO proud of Sam for getting the courage to move and study here. She is an incredible young woman, and I am POSITIVE that she will go very far in the world.

ANYWAY, its 11 PM and I have to drive **KOFF*jeff*KOFF** early tomorrow, so I’m going to cut this short.

Very important however, is that I CAN DRIVE AGAIN!!! Double-yippee! It is very insane, and I know that everyone will think so, however the day that I learned I could drive again, I test drove a Mazda 5, and I will be picking up my new car on Tuesday. I love my Forester, but the Mazda had more seating, so I had to give in. I was tired of having three people (one of them in a car seat) squished in the back and unable to put seat belts on, Jack was completely safe and strapped in, but Jenny and I would be projected out of the car into the windshield and to our deaths.

Okay, I think that’s basically it, so I’m off to bed! Oh, I miss my son SO much, and I can’t wait to get back to Rochester so I can give him a big hug. I bet my parents can’t wait to give him up. I heard their pretty exhausted. Oh well. I am too.

GOOD NIGHT!

Nine days until I turn… 27. I know this may not seem a big deal to some people, but to me, okay so its not a big deal. But really, I’m actually pretty satisfied with my life. Okay, so I’d like it if I had more friends (that actually called me) or that it would be easier to lose weight (okay so skim Starbucks does not equal low calories) and it might be nice if work was closer/I made more money/didn’t have to break my butt working, and I wished that I’d never had a seizure, but otherwise, I’m satisfied.

Some things that make me happy right now:

1) I love love love my son. He giggle when he sees me, cries when I walk away and rests his head on my shoulder. I love when he sleeps on me, gets all sweaty and his hair gets curly. I love when I take him to choir practice and he sings with my father-in-law. I love that he has tons of toys and he would rather look at his books. I love that he sleeps all night long. I love that he makes my mom happpy.

2) I love my husband. Granted he can be a pain in the ass, but he really cares about me and that is so cool. He doesn’t try to understand everything about me, but that’s okay because I know that I’m weird. And just because he loves me, that doesn’t mean that he gives in to my every whim. Sure, I’d like it if he would let me buy every purse I want, every pair of shoes, and he wouldn’t bitch when I buy fancy Starbucks coffee, but if he did, then it wouldn’t really be who he is. Funnily enough, that doesn’t stop me from buying purses, shoes and coffee. Anyway, Jeff is funny, he has strong hands that are very assuring and protecting, he makes me aware of lots of things going on in the world and he loves: Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, George Burns, Gracie Allen and Laurel & Hardy. How many people can say that their husband does an awesome Stan Laurel impersonation?

3) I have a brand new car and house… I HAVE a BRAND NEW car and house. We drive home (since I can’t drive my nice new car right now because of the seizure) and I’m still amazed that this is my house. Its not clean very often, what with a 13 month old, and both of us working full-time (and Jeff having to pick me up), but that’s okay.

4) I love my job. Everyone’s nice, most of the regulars are nice, the kids and teens are great, and a lot of times it doesn’t feel like work. This is really important, because sometimes, when I realize how much work I really do have, it makes me faint. Don’t be fooled by the old woman with bun, thick glasses, millions of cats, likes to read stereotype librarians have. Being a librarian is a lot of work. Thank god that I love working with people and encouraging young people to read. Otherwise, I’d probably slam my head in a car door. Oh I’m positive that there are other jobs that are more stressful, more work, more of a pain-in-the-butt, but (tee-hee) it can still be overwhelming.
Librarians need to order books, plan programs, conduct tours, encourage reading, balance budgets, fix toilets (yes that’s right) perform CPR (you heard me right) make sure no one is drinking beer in the bathroom (yup) and make sure that no one gets hurt. Still, I love being a librarian.
Speaking of which, I need to get up early and go to work. Good night!

Adrienne, from WATAT sent me to this blog, and I have to admit, I’m in love. If you would like to fall in love too, go to A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette. I promise, if you like me, you will LOVE this!

I forgot to say that in January (7 – 15) we are going to be in Florida’s Disneyland! My parents and sisters and Jack and Jeff and I are all going. Its the first time we’ve all gone on a big family vacation together. Unfortunately we can’t take the cats, so hopefully Jeff’s parents will take care of them. I can’t even begin to imagine bringing a baby and two cats on a plane ride with me. Thank god the cats have to stay in a little kennel!
It should be extremely interesting to see how Jack puts up with everything. He’s very calm and curious, but I don’t know how he’ll handle being caged up in a stroller all day.
We are going right from the plane to Disney and we won’t be leaving Disney until we have to get back on the plane.

Oh and I bought some earrings at Hot Topic about a week ago and they are already breaking…. There’s actually a story benhind all this so I will elaborate on… I’M PISSED OFF later!

Nighty Night.

And I’m going to Disney World (in Florida) with my husband, parents, two sisters and my son who will be NINE MONTHS AT THE TIME. Yee gads, I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. At least I’ll be able to ride the Dumbo ride with him. I have no idea how we are going to do this. Oh well at least you will get all the sordid details at a later (we are going in January) date.

Wish me luck!

And I’m going to Disney World (in Florida) with my husband, parents, two sisters and my son who will be NINE MONTHS AT THE TIME. Yee gads, I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. At least I’ll be able to ride the Dumbo ride with him. I have no idea how we are going to do this. Oh well at least you will get all the sordid details at a later (we are going in January) date.

Wish me luck!

We are all so busy all the time. Life just seems so crazy and we get caught up in so many busy little things, that we never have time for all those things we really want to do or all the really important things that we should do. Take the time to get in touch people that you’ve lost contact with and been thinking of.
Okay, so I know that I’m rambling, but this all comes from finding out that my choir director passed away. Well, really she was my ex-choir director. She became a lay pastor and joined another church. Then quite suddenly, she found out that she had cancer. The last time I had seen her, she didn’t seem sick at all, so while I knew that she was sick, I had no idea how sick she was. I had been meaning for a while to visit her, or write her a letter, something… anything. But, then I found out that thinking and maybes are worth nothing if you don’t actually do anything about it. All my good intentions were for naught, because she passed away anyway.
I don’t really know what to say, but I guess I should say something about her. She wasn’t nearly that old. But I guess most people are ever old enough to die. She had young grandchildren who should have gotten to know her better, but they never will get to know her as well as they should have. She had so many ideas and such creativity. She was caring and wonderful. She had a story (sometimes a little too long, but no one’s perfect) to tell about everything and for every situation. She loved music and loved sharing it with everyone. I am so grateful that I have gotten to know her, but I don’t think I ever had enough time. Do we ever have enough time? Its at times like these that I think how petty everything is sometimes. We get caught up in the lives of Hollywood stars and need to have every new purse and shoe that comes out. Then something like this happens and BAM everything seems to wrong.

Here’s to you Jane. I love you.

Bender, Jane Breitkruz October 1, 2005. She is survived by her husband, Richard A. Bender; daughter, Catherine (Gregory) Zalewski; sister, Martha (Al) Durrell; grandchildren, Alexander, Lukas Zalewski. Friends may call Wednesday 2-3 PM at the Union Presbyterian Church, 1 Browns Ave., Scottsville, 14546. A Funeral Service will be immediately following at 3 pm. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to Grace Urban Ministries, 860 Dewey Ave., Rochester 14613. Anthony Funeral & Cremation Chapels 2305 Monroe Ave., 244-0770

Today started banned books week, and I thought that each day, I would talk about a different banned book that I have read… I just came up with that a second ago and I love it! I had some of the pages and one of the clerks go through the list of banned books from 2004 and find the ones that we had in the library for a display I wanted to put up. My director and I decided that we would put all the books in some sort of cage or chain them up somehow. We wouldn’t let anyone check them out, to give them a small taste of what it would be like to be told you couldn’t read certain books. Unfortunately, while we were looking for the books we couldn’t find quite a few. They were supposed to to be there but no one could find them. People looked about five times, but no one found them. Personally, I think it was because people didn’t want us to find the books, which included: Doing It, It’s Perfectly Normal, and Holly’s Secret. SEX, SEX, SEX. People want to “protect” their children from everything. Teenage sex, their own sexual organs and homosexual sex. Anything to do with sex is out of bounds for these teens, and their parents are going to make sure that no one else gets to see them either. Or else its just some crazy teens who were too embarrassed or wanted to keep the books for their own collections. Needless to say, I’m pretty ticked off. I thought I would go back through the list of banned books and make a list of all the books that are “supposed” to be their, but aren’t. I thought it would be a good way to show everyone that a few people had to ruin everything for everyone else and now no one can read it. BTW, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m pretty ticked off. I am all about parents monitoring what their kids read, and if they don’t think its appropriate, not letting their kids read certain books. However I am NOT for a small group of people deciding what everyone reads. That’s why when I purchase books for the library, I buy christian fiction, science fiction, mysteries, war fiction, romances and lots of other kinds of books. I try to take into account that there are lots of different people with lots of different tastes and I need to respect everyone’s opinions. Whew! Now that I’ve got that off my back, I can go on with my life!

We spent most of the day today at the Riverside Convention Center watching Battlebots! My tushy hurt after a while, because the seats were REALLY uncomfortable, but the robots were pretty awesome. There were a few good fights, but quite a few fights ended really quickly. At about 1 pm we took a lunch break and went to Bennigan’s Restaurant. Our food arrived, and after the waitress put my salad on the table, Jeff’s hamburger somehow flipped over off the tray and fell on my jeans and my nice new soft sweater. The rest of the day I walked around with hamburger greasy clothes. Yuck. They didn’t even give us a discount or free desert or anything. It took us almost an hour and a half to get out of the restaurant. Beh. Oh well. Jeff and I had a lot of fun watching robots kill each other. Oh and one of the teens from my library was there too, so we got to chat for a little while too. Fun, fun!

The wedding was great! It was so much fun. They had it on the beach at the ocean, and there were dolphins and starfish and lots of sand. At one point after the wedding a vente mint mocha chip frappuccino sized group (mmm… coffee, with lots of calories! eek!) went out to the beach and one of them (not from our party) was baptized.
It was fun and casual, two of my favorite things! One of the friends of the bride, who on a normal day is an airline pilot, instantly became an ordained minister online so that he could marry Robin and Aaron. I don’t know which online church he became a minister of, but it seems you can do this through many websites. As a practicing Presbryterian, I SHOULD probably be offended by how easy people make it to become a minister, but I thought it was really sweet.
Disneyland and California Adventure isn’t nearly as nice as Disneyworld, but we still had fun. Disneyland is smaller, older and not as capable of the large crowds that Disneyworld can handle.
I also went through the bride’s (Robin) bookshelves and found out that she might like Charles de Lint even more than I do. (and I love him!) Once a librarian, always a librarian I guess!

I’m in California! Yippy! Today my husband and I are going to Disneyland, tomorrow California Adventure, Saturday we’re going to a wedding, Sunday we’re going to hang out with my husband’s famous cousin and late Sunday night we’re leaving to go back to Rochester.
I miss my little guy so much, but I’m having fun, although Jeff can’t pass up any excuse to argue with people and its only 9:25 AM California time and he’s already started an arguement with the guy that we’re staying with (and going to his wedding on Saturday).