nom nom ALL THE SMOOTHIES nom nom.

While there is not a Jamba Juice coming to town (boo), there is a hometown smoothie shop opening up a couple of blocks from my work! They are opening for staff training in a few weeks and for the first several days while smoothie training is happening, they'll be giving away the 'mistakes' for free! Yay! I might just stand there and be like, 'ALL THE SMOOTHIES. Nom. Nom. Nom.' I also have been looking on pinterest for different smoothie recipes, since I've actually had a smoothie maker for a couple of years now. My Aunt and Uncle got me a smoothie maker several Christmases ago, probably foretelling the fact that I would become a fan of smoothies some day. And that day has arrived, my friends. Plus, there are oodles of places on the web that offer knock-off Jamba Juice recipes such as this doozie:

CARIBBEAN PASSION
12 oz. Mango-passion juice
2 scoops strawberries
1 scoop peaches
2 scoops orange sherbet
1 scoop ice

Another thing coming nearby is Fazoli's, which makes my world brighter. I loooove Fazoli's. And the one in town is too far away for me to ever go to. So, I expect lots of pizza and really yummy breadsticks in my future this fall after it opens.

I decided to become a bird rescuer on Monday. I was recycling newspapers in a back room at work and walked out of the room and heard a bird hit the window and looked over and it was trapped in an underground area. It was a little chickadee and it would flap and flap against the windows and then fall to the bottom of the area and chirp chirp chirp in frustration. It breaks my heart to see that sort of thing. One of the archivists has told stories of her father's work as a conservation ranger in Michigan for much of his career, so I went to find her and ask for her if she'd inherited any of that ranger-y stuff. She thought she had, so I asked her to be a co-rescuer in my plan. It took a little wrangling of wire mesh and some temporary shifting of the security system the landscapers on campus implemented, but eventually the bird flew out and hopefully won't do that again. It made us feel like awesome humanitarians for an afternoon, at least.

I also just learned that Kentucky marriage records are online. FamilySearch.org is sort of a savior to those of us in the genealogy world. Ancestry is fine, but it's nice to have a free alternative to offer genealogists who don't necessarily have the funds to pay the Ancestry subscription fees at home. And FamilySearch just helped me possibly narrow down a search for a name of a groom in an 1820s marriage somewhere in Kentucky. Maybe I've only confused the poor genealogists even more, but at least there are a couple of new roads that they can go down in their searching. I hate to send people away empty-handed, although it can't be helped sometimes.

I watched a bit of the MLB All star game last night, but around 9:30 (I know 'cuz I checked the clock), there was a gun shot near my apartment building. It sounded like someone shot it off in the adjoining apartment or the one above the adjoining apartment. However, it could have been in the parking lot or, maybe even out on the street. Sounds play such funny tricks on you. It was just definitely just one shot, which I thought was odd, but plenty enough for my imagination to go running wild. I never heard fighting or shouting or screaming or sirens or anything, and it was just a single shot. It's amazing how quickly your imagination can run away with you, like, I quickly had decided on several possible scenarios of a single gun shot:
1) the gun accidentally went off.
2) the person hit their target with just one shot.
3) really sniper-like drive-by?

When it's dark outside and you're just chilling out in your little apartment deciding whether or not to head to sleep, the sound of a pistol does tend to jolt you into awake-ness. And then, because I was in my jammies, I was hit with the conundrum of whether to change into real clothes in case I had to talk to police. And then, I started wondering about the thickness of the walls and whether the walls would stop a bullet (doubtful). At any rate, I spent a lot of time last night in my head running through the various scenarios and whether it was okay to go to sleep or whether it would be better to stay up longer and wait to see if anything else happened and if someone was going to knock on my door. But, I decided to go read my book (more on that later) and eventually went to sleep, never awakened by police or more gunfire.

My challenge for the summer is to finally read a book that has been on my shelf for a couple of years now. The most glaringly obvious trait of the book is its length. At nearly 1400 pages long and is certainly an epic novel. But, if you're going to choose a book to spend all Summer reading, you need a big book, right? First published in the 1980s, it's called "...And Ladies of the Club". I'm around page 750, and it's mid-Summer so I figure I'm on track to finish it by Summer's end. It's a really great read. If you have some time and aren't the sort who feel like a failure if they don't finish a book really quickly, try this one on for size. Don't let the page count intimidate you...it's a wonderful story. It follows a little Ohio town from the end of the Civil War through the Great Depression. It focuses on the women of the town and a literary club that they start in the 1860s. I'm only in the late 1880s right now, but the author does a fantastic job of keeping the various families' story lines going and not mixing things up. I haven't noticed glaring mix-ups or anything. That's my continuing Summer Reading Challenge. I'm not reading anything else right now. The only downside to reading a book so big is it's not really that portable. It doesn't fit in my purse, so you really do have to carry it around. I carried it with me to a doctor's appointment to read in the waiting room and it certainly did get a lot of comments from other 'waiters'. I'm not sure if people are already losing the familiarity of seeing people with real paper books or if it's just the ginormous size of this novel that causes the commotion, but I recommend it, for realz.

Get lost in all the little things.

I've been spending a lot of time lately vacation planning. Road trip planning, really. Discovering places to see, places to stay, that sort of thing. Roadtrippers.com is a pretty cool website to help plan destinations. I've got about three different road trips somewhat-mapped out on there right now. It's been a cool site to work with for a bit. They send you e-mails about trip ideas, but usually they're focused on California or the NE, neither of which fall into the category of 'Rad Weekend Roadtrips' if you live in the middle of the country.

Earlier today I was at Barnes & Noble trying to decide whether or not to buy a book and started shelf browsing through the history area, which ended up becoming the music section and the society section, or something like that. It had memoirs of celebrities, but also it had the Postsecret books. I think I've mentioned that a personal hope of mine has been to randomly find a secret or something stuck inside a Postsecret book in a bookstore. People tend to do that with those books and so whenever I see one on a bookstore shelf, I flip through them to see if anybody left any secret or anything in the book for another stranger to find. And today, it happened! Someone left this (not so much secret as much as note of encouragement from a stranger) in one of the Postsecret books in the Columbia Barnes & Noble and now I have it, stuck to my fridge:

I was pretty excited when I found it. I love stuff like this. Back when I used to pick up stones from places and paint sayings on them and leave them in random spots all over the country, I used to hope people felt a sense of excitement when they saw one. I think they must have, because I've never seen any of my rocks again. I would go back weeks later to see if they were still where I left them and they never were. Even ones that were slightly obscure in their new locations. Whoever found them, took them someplace else. It's nice to see fun, happy-go-lucky sorts of things from strangers. It helps to make someone else's day, you know? And today's note from a stranger has made my day! I ended up not buying anything at the mall today, but came away with this note and a realization that I can now say I found something a stranger shared in a book! After I found this in one of books I had to stop myself from flipping through all the other ones on the shelf to see if I could find more. But I thought that if someone had hidden something in the others, I would leave it for another person to find in case someone else has this same hidden hope of finding something in a Postsecret book someday.

Also, earlier this week I got a free download of the new full album of Green River Ordinance. This is a band that I learned about a couple of years ago through Birchbox. They shared a free download of a GRO song in one of their monthly boxes one time and I fell in love with the songs and somehow ended up on a mailing list from the band. Earlier this week they sent out an e-mail to the list with a link to download their new album, so I did. I like them a lot. Sometimes they remind me of Jimmy Eat World, if you remember them from the last decade? That's the only band that comes to mind that they remind me of. But they also have a tiny bit of a country/folk feel to some of their songs sometimes...in an instrumental way, not vocally. Anyway, here's one of their new songs that I've gotten stuck in my head: 

Birthday wishes, screaming cats, and foreign dreams.

3/13/13 is sort of fun to write. Or, at least I had fun writing it all day long on forms and things. Another reason it's fun is because it's one of my good friends' birthday today: Happy Birthday to Megan! Many happy returns!

I'm still trying to settle into daylight savings time. It has not gone as easily as I had hoped. Struggle, struggle, struggle. An added problem has been that since Sunday night, there has been a really loud cat who has come to visit Bea each night from about 3-5:30 or so in the morning. I've decided it's her boyfriend. He's really really loud. Crazy loud. This morning around 5, after dealing with his crying for hours, I got up to see if I could scare him off. It sounded like he had gotten into the apartment somehow...like he was sitting in the living room, wailing at the top of his lungs. He did eventually go away, but not until he had seen me and cried and did that paw scratching thing on the patio door to ask to be let inside. Bea just hung back looking at him like he is some sort of crazy fool that can't take a hint and she has to get her mom out of bed to send him away. She was excited to have a friend the first night, I think she's kind of lonely being by herself a lot. She's a very social cat. Maybe she's learning 'be careful what you wish for' because by night three, she seemed to be getting kind of tired of it all. Still, it kind of breaks my heart, his meowing. He's so desperate. He seems to walk up and down this railroad tie fence, just wailing and wailing. Poor thing. I wish his owner would take better care of him, if he has an owner. He's such a recent arrival, I figure he's either gotten lost, or his owner has started letting him out at night. He's aware of the idea of being an 'inside' cat. I can't have another cat. This apartment isn't big enough, and Bea is quite enough to handle on her own most times. Maybe somebody who doesn't already have a pet will want one and can take this one in. I hope this not only for the cat's sake, but also for mine. I'd like a full night's sleep again. I don't relish the thought of tonight being the fourth installment of Beatrix's boyfriend wailing on the patio.

I can feel myself wanting an adventure again. Travel again. I always want to travel, but I can feel myself getting so restless that the need to travel is driving me crazy. Mostly because I don't have the money to travel far right now. But, even if I had the money, I don't know what I want to do yet or where I'd like to visit. I only have vague ideas of places I'd like to see... Paris? Ireland? Back to Peru? Maybe just a beach...anywhere. Florida? Pacific Northwest? South Carolina? California? Somewhere in Central America? A cruise? Hmm. Where to go? So many places to see.

Book talk! (It's been a while since I read anything super awesome):
I'm reading a really fantastic book right now that is in no way helping me to stomp down this travel bug. It's about Peru and a guy who was an adventure travel editor for years, but who never actually did any adventuring. He spent years tied to a desk while he assigned reporters to adventures all over the world and then he edited their stores and published them. How torturous, I think. It was high time he had an adventure of his own. He decided he wanted to follow the trail that Hiram Bingham III used to "discover" Machu Picchu. I find that I love reading travelogue books anyway (the movies that come from those travelogues are not always that good, which constantly surprises me...but I digress), but this is a travelogue of an adventure that I so recently took part in myself that it makes it even more fun. It's interesting to read because I struggle very much with trying to describe the experience I had in Peru last year. It's nice to have someone else write it and know exactly what scenery they are describing or how the Quechua people sound, or the ways the llamas and alpacas are taken care of, or just the way that the terraces look on the Andes. He also includes a lot of the history of Peru, the Incas, and Hiram Bingham in it, but told in a really interesting and often humorous way. I've laughed out loud a bunch, mostly with how truely I can relate to the total sense of 'lost' that an American can get in that place. I don't necessarily mean geographically lost (but that's easy, too), but out of your comfort zone. I mean 'lost' in the way that you lose yourself...lose your bearings...are so much in a world that has been based on things that are so foreign that you just have to give in to it and let yourself be taken by it. I think that's the sort of lost that can be good sometimes. It was great. I soaked up so much in Peru that I think it's impossible for me to explain what I saw and how I felt, but this book, "Turn Right at Machu Picchu" is helping me to get a better handle on it all. And making me want to go back again. As if I ever really wanted to leave in the first place?

Quando, quando, quando.

It's a holiday! And it's a beautiful day outside. What was left of Hurricane Isaac came through at the beginning of the weekend, but he was very welcome. The rain was wonderful. Now we're back to our sunny days, which is nice, too.

A local trade-a-book store in town is being sold. I was in on Saturday buying some books for my bare bookshelves and talked to the owner about it. I think someday I would love to run a used book store! It would be very different, but I've always enjoyed her store and her business has been there forever, it seems like. I remember going in with my mom when I was little. I hope whomever buys the business keeps it going and doesn't run it into the ground. It's tempting to buy a business like that when you know it's already got a pretty steady clientele, and a good reputation? I'm not ready to own a business. But someday? It would be nice. Maybe in a place like Loblolly-by-the-sea? (Okay, maybe that's too much like the movie "The Love Letter" with the terrible acting job by Blythe Danner.) But, still. A small down on the eastern coast should have a little used bookshop. And I might be just the gal to open one around there some day. I would definitely have a bookshop dog. Some kind of older, lazy mutt that likes to lay next to the counter or slowly wander the aisles now and again. Not one that would bolt out the door every time a customer came in, or one that liked to bark at people. Something calm. I got so into the idea on Saturday that I began a pinboard on Pinterest for it. Most of my friends on there have pinboards about their future baby or their future wedding or something. I have 'Future Bookshop'.

Not sure how great business-sensey this is, but I love it anyway.

What else? So, I returned to facebook, mostly just in name. But, a few of my co-workers told me about Words with Friends and so I promised to try that out and see how I liked it. Well, it's fun. I like Scrabble. But then I wandered a little further into the games area and came across SongPop. Good lord. Addiction central. I've been playing it a lot this weekend. I'm nearly kind of burned out. Nearly, but not quite. I really love music trivia games that include song clips. This is right up my alley! Did I mention that I won a game like this at a baby shower last weekend? I did. And I usually do okay on trivia nights when one of the rounds is a music trivia round. I really love it. I even took a class in high school where the tests were almost entirely done like this with little snippets of a song and you had to name the artist or title (and sometimes year). It was one of my favorite classes. SongPop is addicting and awesome and is bringing back memories of that class with songs by Connie Francis and Paul Anka. I'm sad to say I've missed a few that I probably knew back in high school. I really like that you can challenge random opponents. I've had opponents from all over. Some of the challenges I've played have been French Songs that I've never ever heard of. Or some guy that really loves Metal music. But, it's all very interesting and fun. One thing is for sure: It is all making me realize that maybe I don't need a tablet computer for much of anything except these cool apps that you can get on them. Sigh. Maybe for Christmas?

Also this weekend, I discovered that Jeff City is a TWO Jimmy Johns town now! (Possibly more, if there is one on the east side. I don't know.) But, there's a new one now right smack in downtown! If I were really into taking a walk one Saturday, I can walk there for lunch sometime. This makes me happy. I love JJs. 

And, lastly: My dad and I made homemade pasta yesterday. I'd never made pasta from scratch before but it turned out pretty well! It was easy to make, even without a pasta maker, and it was really really delicious. I'll eat pasta anytime and it's always pretty awesome, but I could tell that this was better than the normal store-bought packaged pasta. We made trofie, and they were slightly larger than they probably should have been, but still so good. My dad invented a pesto cream type of sauce and it was excellent with some asiago cheese bread we found at Hy-Vee. It was good *pig snorts*.

All in all, this has been a great weekend so far! I'm feeling pretty rested, too. It's nice to have an extra day to bum around the house. I actually got up and decided to see if I could jog around in a pair of sneakers that I have (since I can't afford new tennis shoes and my old ones didn't make it back from the Color Run). I went for a little walk/jog and ended up stopping and playing a couple of rounds of bocce at Washington Park this morning before continuing back to my car. It was fun, although there are some creepy parts of the trail that I went by today. There's something innately creepy about walking under overpasses, you know? Just tends to give me the creeps. I know I'm not the only one either, because when I was walking back to my car, there was a woman walking a bit in front of me and she slowed down when we were coming up to the first of several overpasses and she took off her sunglasses and looked all around before she continued under them. I felt less wussie when I did the same. It just seems like a good place for bad stuff to happen. But nothing bad happened. Probably the anxiety helped get the blood pumping even more than it was with the exercise, yes? Sure. 

Happy Labor Day!

Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.

Beatrix has been busy this evening chasing flying bugs. First there was a wasp flying around and now I think there's a smaller flying bug like a little gnat or something? She's been leaping up/off of things and clapping her paws in mid-air all evening. It's much more entertaining now that she's after something less sting-inducing than the wasp. Earlier, I was really just hoping the wasp had enough sense to stay aloft and try to ignore the leaping feline.

I saw the movie "Lars and the Real Girl" recently. I had heard from friends that it was a good movie, and I like Ryan Gosling, but I hadn't ever gotten around to seeing it. It was adorbz. Ryan Gosling is a good actor, I don't care what people say. He made me cry over a doll. The man can act.

My legs still hurt from the 5k on Saturday. Not so much as Sunday or yesterday, but still. I had such a great time this weekend! Everything was a lot of fun. This week at work has been good so far. Yesterday at work I helped completely re-shuffle one of our newspaper storage rooms. We needed a better organizational system and I think we've got it now. At least it's more efficient than it was. I'm hoping that it proves to be a bit of a time-saver. I'm also trying to stay up on a project that I'm trying to finish at work. It's a long-term project but I really want to get a large part of it done in this calendar year. It will make life so much easier at work. Tasks will take half the time, hopefully! Three cheers for efficiency!

All the students are back on campus. Classes began yesterday and campus is buzzing with activity. I like it busy like this. I don't like it crazy-crowded, but where I'm at is less crowded than where I used to be. The sidewalks are bigger and there's much more room for people to hasten around each other without bumping or stepping on each other's heels. It's nice and relaxing to be a terminal degree-holder with a job. No exams, no assignments, no school! I'm really enjoying it all. A lot of our time at work this week has been spent directing students to the auditorium they're looking for, or trying to get them into the actual library when they stumble into our office by accident.

It's been a bit since I book-talked on here, but I've been reading an interesting book lately: The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell. It's a novel based on the history of the funeral train trip of Bobby Kennedy. His funeral train went from NYC to Washington, D. C. I didn't know he had a funeral train. I don't know too much about him, really. I'm learning a lot but it's hard to decipher fact from the fiction in historical fiction sometimes, you know? Like, for instance, was there really a train that rushed by the funeral train and ran over spectators? It seems like there could have been because it was an awkward tid-bit to throw into the plot if it wasn't true. It kind of came out of nowhere. The book itself is really well-written. It follows several different characters and their stories. The common thread is that all are somehow connected to the funeral train. Most are just going to watch it go by. One is working on the train. I just did a quick search on the subject and it seems like the bizarre twist of a train rushing past the Kennedy train is true. Two people were killed and four were seriously injured. So, that's where I'm at right now in the book. Really sad. The overall book is good, though. Rowell doesn't write about the Kennedys. They are nothing but (important) background characters for the 4 or 5 stories he's threading together. It's pretty good. I recommend it if you're interested in historical fiction.

Enough about funerals, though: on to newborns. I have a baby shower to attend this weekend and I'm a book-buyer for baby showers. Not only because I have rediscovered my own love of picture books, but because books are such a great gift for new parents. They're always getting loads of stuff that eventually they aren't going to be able to use any longer. Books are different. Books are the baby shower gift that keeps on giving...for years and years. Anyway, the mama-to-be already knows that my present will be books. I had a great time shopping for them. I bought a couple for me in the process. Books, books, books. I've been looking at a lot of children's books lately. People seem to equate the genre of Children's Books with 'simple', 'silly', or 'unsophisticated'. They aren't. Most children's books cover some pretty heavy subjects. They can try to lighten the mood with pretty illustrations and artwork, but don't ever shrug off a book as a 'kid's book' because it has pictures in it. It might be one of the most intelligent and touching books you'll ever read! Here are some quotes I've come across recently to illustrate a bit of my point:

But, reader, there is no comfort in the word “farewell,” even if you say it in French. “Farewell” is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. (from The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo)

It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.  (from The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan)

Dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born….Being part of the whole thing, that’s the blessing. (fromTuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt)

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. (from Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne)

When you have done a great many good things, you forget to speak of them….It is those who do very little who must talk of it. (from Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen)

Girl Scout Cookies every day!

I'm ready for Fall weather up in here. We finally got some rain yesterday, which was really nice, but it didn't make the temps feel that much cooler yet. I'm ready for the day the weather reporter says the high temperature is 65 degrees. Sigh. Lovely!

I need to get better at bringing my lunch to work so I'm not eating out every day. One of my co-workers and I have made a deal to go out to eat every Monday, because we're closed to the public that day so there's less stress on the research center staff when it comes to being super-careful about when everyone takes their lunch break. I think that will help make the week start out well. It already starts nicely because (since we're closed) Mondays are casual day so we can wear jeans. Adding in the eating-out to that makes it a nice beginning to the week.

Still, I need to come up with ideas for taking lunch that's not always microwaved pasta. Although it is yummy. I look around on pinterest for ideas but they all look really crazy-involved and not that likely for me to actually ever do. I'm not really that much of an organizer or a planner. That's why easy mac and those little microwaved bowls of ravioli are perfect. More thought is probably required.

Today is laundry day. I don't mind laundry that much because I can multi-task with this chore. Plus, if you get extra lazy about it and the dryer keeps buzzing, you just go and push the button for another cycle. Eventually, the clothes will come out of the dryer and be folded, you know? It's one of the few domestic tasks that I can feel like I'm still completing by just sitting on my butt while looking up books on Amazon. 

I was all over many bookstores yesterday just wandering around. So many books that look really good. I was trying to remember them all but I know I'll forget and then probably re-discover them another day. I have to keep myself under control in bookstores. I mainly try to use the library for everything, but it's easier to browse bookstores than libraries, you know? I didn't really ever look at Target for books before, but yesterday I noticed they have a good selection! I also got a cool silver and beaded ring stuck on my finger and thought I was going to have to go sheepishly go find some Target worker to help me get it off...or go to the check-out aisle and have them somehow scan my finger to buy it. It was touch and go there for a few minutes. But, twisting and cussing seemed to work its magic and I got the ring off after a bit of anxiety. I still kind of wanted to buy it. It was a neat ring...   Also neat? They had lipsmackers on clearance! I haven't had a lipsmackers lip balm since middle school. I distinctly remember having the Dr. Pepper flavor. The ones that they had on clearance were actually Girl Scout cookie flavors. They weren't selling super well, I guess, except the Thin Mint ones were all gone. I almost bought the shortbread one, but got myself under control and just bought the face sunscreen that I had intended to buy. Self-control for the win! Still...

Hmm. Mmm?

Don't you worry your pretty little mind.

This has been a long week, yo. I'm getting excited for the weekend to arrive. No big plans, just hanging out and relaxing.

Bahahaha. Beatrix recently woke up and just tried to jump up on to the table where I'm typing this and barely got 3/4 of her legs on the table. She recovered but it was a wobbly couple of seconds. My amusement was not appreciated, but it's nothing a couple of pats on the head won't fix. She's getting big. I don't remember the last time I shared a Bea pic with the blog world, but check out this girl chillaxin' on the sofa.

She's not such a kitten anymore. She's growing up and has already become more into getting her slouch on. She still plays a lot and runs and still has some of her kitten-like tendencies, but I can tell she's maturing.

I realize since I left the college-world, I haven't talked about books much. What sort of librarian/archivist would I be if I didn't mention bookish things now and again? I'm going to keep it up. I know I have my literary thingies on Sundays, but honestly, I made those like, around Thanksgiving and scheduled them all then so that doesn't really count. I feel like I've been slacking in the 'talk about books and reading and awesome bookwormy things' on here lately. So: Book-wise, I'm currently in the middle of doing something I rarely ever do: read a series book to book to book, etc. In my experience, a lot of books that are part of a series start to get really old to me by book three or so. I'm on book 5 of the Sookie Stackhouse series and I'm still in it! The stories are a little worn out, but the author keeps adding new creatures to the plot and it's helping to keep the interest level relatively high. It's not 'take this book to work to read during breaks and lunch' interesting. But it is 'make time to read this before bed' interesting. This fifth book is the first time I'm really noticing storyline gaps, though. Things that the author is saying that Sookie Stackhouse knows or has been through recently aren't always consistent with what has happened in the previous 4 books. It leaves you wondering if you missed some important scene in the last book (but you probably didn't). I'm sure it's difficult to keep it all straight and maybe some things get lost in the editing process, but the first four were nearly ironclad as far as plot gaps and jumps. This one is less so. To be fair, I'm only a few chapters in, so maybe this book's plot will be much more far-reaching than the others and the things I'm noticing are helping to shape the story for some really awesome twist ahead. Or maybe the fifth book is what is going to doom the series for me. We'll see.

My friend told me that, next month, Titanic is coming back to theaters in 3-d. Apparently it's an effort by Hollywood to cash in on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the real ship. They're hoping to try to blow our minds with an overly long nostalgic glimpse at when Leonardo DiCaprio was a heartthrob and when Kate Winslet wouldn't share her piece of flotsam with him and, instead, choose to let him die in the icy waters of the Atlantic. I don't think I can take seeing that movie again, it's so damn long. Plus, the end is pisses me off. You know the boat's going to sink; you're prepared for that. What makes me the most angry is that Jack didn't have to die that way. Memo to Rose: sharing is caring. You should have shared your piece of wreckage with Jack. It would have been like, two minutes, tops. The rescuers were rightthere. Right. There. Instead, you hog the makeshift raft and, after promising to never let go, you pry his cold dead hand off of yours, shove him into the depths of the ocean and promptly save your own ass. I mean, I'm all for being a survivor, but come on. That was harsh. In short, I probably will save my money and not torture myself through a 3-d version of this movie. Clearly, I was disappointed enough with 2-d.

I will leave you with a super deep thought courtesy of Pinterest and a very young Keanu Reeves:

(mindsplode, amiright?)

Olympic trials, here I come?!?!

My office is kind of quirky in that we have casual day on Monday instead of Friday. This is a nice way to begin the going-back-to-work grind because you can ease into it. Part of the defeat of beginning the work week is having to return to work and also having to wear work-ish clothing. So, with casual Mondays, you get to hold on to your jeans for one more day. I kind of like it more than having casual Fridays...although, I do like me some casual Fridays as well.

I want to give a shout-out for Lauren Willig's books. I'm currently reading my first novel by her, but it's the second in a series that she's written. So, I'm reading, "The Masque of the Black Tulip", and it's really interesting. If you like romance novels (check) and spy stories (check), you'd probably enjoy the Pink Carnation series that deals with the Selwick Spy School in Regency England. It's about a historian digging through some archives trying to unmask the deadly French spy known as The Black Tulip. Willig's novels are written basically as archival detective stories but with some romance thrown in. A history doctoral student digging through archives trying to discover something new for her dissertation reads old letters trying to piece together the lives of English and French spies. The Black Tulip, The Pink Carnation, The Purple Gentian and all of the spies in the Willig novels are fictional spies in the same vein as The Scarlet Pimpernel. I like this kind of thing. The Black Tulip is a French spy who is kind of causing mischief among the family and friends of the  unmasked-in-the-first-novel Purple Gentian. There are a ton of books by Willig, so I'm looking forward to reading more from her.

Did you watch the Mizzou/Kansas game over the weekend? Perhaps you watched the Superbowl and saw Madonna looking pretty fierce at 53...or Tom Brady looking good at 34, before he was crushed by defeat? Or maybe you tuned in for Downton Abbey? I saw all three. I think Downton Abbey was the best. Like millions of others, I love that show and am totally hooked on the goings-on of the Crowleys and Granthams. Two more episodes left for this season and so many plot lines to clear up. Sigh. I will miss it when it's over again until next season. As far as the MU/KU game: they are always good games, and I'm glad Mizzou won, but I found myself to be pretty bored by it all this year. Everyone was talking non-stop about KU's decision to not play MU again for a while after this year when Mizzou moves to another conference. KU is bitter about MU leaving the Big 12. If there was a national championship for whining, Kansas would win every year. You can't out-whine a Jayhawk. I'm sure when the two meet up in Kansas later this month again, it will just be a re-hash of all the complaining about the rivalry dying out all over again, and I've heard enough.

Actually, if I was looking at going to watch a sport, I'd love to go see some sort of Olympic trial this year for the London Games next summer. I'd love to actually go to the Olympics, but that's not in the budget dontcha know. Out of all the summer events at the Olympics, I probably heart swimming the most. The Missouri Grand Prix is this weekend in Columbia for swimming. Jason Lezak is the only US swimming name that I recognized on the list, but there is a healthy list of international swimmers who were medalists in Beijing who are coming as well. Apparently, the Missouri Grand Prix is one of the first steps for prepping for the Olympic trials? Who knew? Not I. So, following that lead, I eventually found my way where the 2012 Olympic trials are held for swimming and, lo and behold, it's in Omaha this year in June and July. Which is not too far from me. I might head up there. That would be fun. And I could see some of the swimming folk in person. Hmmm.

...And then I went and looked at ticket prices and my eyes bugged out a little. But still... I might do it. Because the initial sticker shock wears off after you realize that the price is for four days of events. Not bad at all, actually when you think about it. Hmm. How often do you get to see Olympians competing for a spot on the national team in person? In an event you would watch in the Olympics anyway? Well, I never have. Maybe 2012 is the year I do. Yes. Maybe so. I love the Olympics. And having a summer full of it sounds good to me.

Mumbling in the late hours of the day.

I'm sleepy but also not quite ready to go to sleep yet. The internet is not that interesting. The book I'm supposed to be reading for the Missouri State Book Review Board can't even hold my interest enough to get through the first five pages...and I have to finish it and write a review for it. Not a good sign that I can't even get through the first chapter.

I messed my whole schedule up for the next three weeks. I don't really know what I was thinking. Maybe it will work out better this way, though. I got the days I'm supposed to work/work/practicum mixed up because someone had a conflict and needed me to alter my schedule. I screwed up the whole week's schedule by telling them I normally work that job on Tuesdays, which is completely wrong. I don't really even know what's going on around me. I'm a bit like a robot just making my commute, parking in the garage, walking to a building, working, walking to lunch, walking to another building, working, walking to the other side of the same building, working, walking back to the garage, driving the return commute, eat dinner, read books, go to sleep, replay. I have such a set schedule and no time for anything but that schedule that I don't even think about it any longer. But when someone needs me to change something, I actually don't have a true idea of what it is I'm doing on any given day any more. I'm just on autopilot. And when forced to come out of autopilot today, my entire system failed and I have managed to screw up the schedule for a few weeks. But maybe that's okay. Next week was going to be messed up anyhow, so a little more screwing with it isn't really going to make it worse.

Iris is cuddly tonight. There were a few claps of thunder earlier and some decent bolts of lightning and she started roaming around the living room doing her high pitched crying like she was worried. So she was pulled up on the couch and is in a little ball sleeping next to me now. The rain is gone, though. But she's definitely a cuddler.

I kind of want things to go by faster. I'm ready for school to be done, but the year's been going by so fast anyway, that I'm also kind of wishing it would slow down a little too. Maybe I would get a handle on things better. Life isn't really boring right now, but it kind of is what with being really busy but busy doing the same things over and over and over every week. No real variety right now. Halloween is in a couple of weeks though. I can't decide whether to buy candy for trick or treaters or not. The doorbell scares the hell out of Iris and it's not really worth the hour and a half of trying to pull the cat from her hiding place to calm her down for just a handful of trick or treaters. Also, I don't get the cute little kids who go as little ninjas or princesses. I get the hoardes of teenage boys that just wear a Star Wars shirt and call it a costume. Lame and unimaginative. I'll keep the sour patch kids candy to myself, thankyouverymuch.

The Cards are in the World Series. Last night was a crazy homerun fest. I don't have anything against Milwaukee. I've been to see them play in Wisconsin before. It wasn't very exciting. Milwaukee as a town wasn't all that impressive. Kind of grungy and sad, actually. St. Louis definitely has the upper hand in the cool town category. Somebody's gotta lose. Brewers fans have less to complain about than Phillies fans, in my opinion. And everyone should be happier than Braves fans. Cardinals fans can be kind of brutal to other teams. Generally they will pick on a player who makes the mistake of opening their mouth to a journalist and letting something stupid come out and it goes through the web like a virus and Redbird Nation gets all up in arms about what some young kid you'd never pay any attention to otherwise said about Albert Pujols or the Cardinals in general. The players and the fans are very loyal and very protective about the Cardinals. I am, too. I have a hard time imagining myself rooting for anybody but the Cards. Still, I don't get into the boo-ing of other teams. I did enjoy when Yadier Molina stood up to Brandon Phillips last season, but that got totally out of hand and we ended up the real losers in the whole mix after our back-up catcher's career was ended in the brawl. It's important to learn from things like that. That stuff can get out of hand really quickly and it's detrimental to your own team. This is all to say that I hope both teams and fans are respectful in the World Series and we don't have any players who start to make stupid remarks to create drama. It will be a tense enough situation without booing or fighting or name-calling. Let's play ball (starting Wednesday)!

It's actually raining outside.

Oh, group projects, you are a frustration beyond all frustrations. The problem is that I'm having to wait on others before I can act. I'm not a patient person. I'm not overly impatient, but when I'm ready to move forward with something, I'm ready to go. And I'll wait for a bit (like, a tiny bit), but then I'll get frustrated and just go on alone. I don't have any problem going on alone, but I sometimes think after the fact that perhaps I could have waited a little longer for another person to make up their mind. This is why group projects are a pain. There are a lot of group projects in my life right now. 


Interesting horoscope today:

Worrying won't help you get closer to a solution. Think of pleasant things.

[Thanks heaps, Yahoo. I'll try to keep that in mind.]

I got a really fantastic piece of information yesterday from the museum. They'd like to make my graduate assistantship a permanent assistantship for a Library Science student. This is really cool because they don't have a librarian on-staff and I had to beg my way into an assistantship with them because they generally only hire students from within their own department. So, after nearly 18 months, they've seen the awesomeness of having a library student in their midst! I'm pretty proud of that. It makes me feel like I have actually affected something (in a good way) while I've been there. Sometimes I wasn't sure whether I really fit in there or not, but this semester it's been much friendlier than the previous two were. Maybe it was just sort of a long get-to-know-you phase? Regardless: Go, museum! Good for you! I just hope that someone from LIS takes the position in January. It would be too easy for the museum to want to hold an assistantship for an LIS student and then have nobody want it (or be able to take it mid-year) and then the museum just lets go of the idea and never gets another library student again until one comes and begs them for another job. LIS has no real coursework or practicum or GRA positions available to students who are interested in museum work, but there are a couple of others that I've had classes with who are/have been wanting to go into museums with their MLS degree. So, I hope that it all works out and someone can pick up where I'll be leaving off.

So, I'm about halfway through the semester and I realize I haven't shared much in the way of books on here. I use goodreads, like any good library student does, and have kept track of all the children's lit materials on there. I've had literally no time to read any other books but childrens and young adult books for about six weeks. But here are two books that I've read that I absolutely recommend to everyone. (I'm thinking about asking for Elephant and Piggie for Christmas, personally. Happy Master's Degree Graduation, here's a picture book?):

I tend to like books about time travel. I'm quite the nerd for time travel, actually. If you are, too: this is a really interesting book. It's classified as a young adult book, but I had actually put this on my Goodreads 'to read' list long ago. I think it's YA mainly because the main character is a girl in middle school. The story is very intriguing and has a really impressive and surprising ending (I thought). It's a little mysterious, a little sad, and a little wonderful. And if you liked "A Wrinkle in Time", you'll probably feel a kinship toward the characters in this book. That was not a spoiler, just a fact. It's a good read.

I would challenge anyone to read this book (or really, any by Mo Willems) and not crack a smile. I did more than crack a smile reading this particular Elephant and Piggie book. I was guffawing all over myself on the couch. I'd heard Mo Willems talked about at librarian meet-ups in rather hushed kind of idolized-tones, but I'd never read anything by him. It's sometimes tough to get your hands on a copy of some of the books; they're checked out so often. He is a master at telling a story for children, but making adults fall in love with the book as well. In this book, it's all about the facial expressions on the elephant's face. It's a super simple concept, but done so well. READ THIS BOOK.




That's all for now. The Cardinals are up by a run in the sixth inning of game 3 against the Brewers. I'm hoping they can hang on and win the game. Hope, hope, hope. Don't choke, guys. [Also, it's totally raining outside. It hasn't rained here in weeks.]

Books as gifts and as art. (And kind, thoughtful teachers.)

Tonight is multi-tasking night, like whoa. Keeping an eye on the Cardinals game (already up 5-0 in the first inning! Hopefully this will bode well for the Cards and they won't fall apart. If they win tonight and the Braves lose, lo and behold, we're in the playoffs!), managed to check off some errands this evening to hopefully make this weekend less hectic, am chowing down on sour patch kids candy that I picked up while on an errand, and am trying to decide whether to listen to music or watch a Doris Day movie I have from the library. Chances are slim that I'll watch all the movies I have from the library right now, although I did finish "Miss Potter" today. Good movie. Made me like Beatrix even more. As fate would have it, her book is one that is an option to read for my children's lit class for next week. But, for some reason, my local library only has one copy of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", but one of the other smaller branches has three. What's up with that?



Sometimes you just have a moment where you are blown away by the thoughtfulness and kindness of someone else. Especially when it's a person that you haven't known for very long. I had a moment like that last night in my class. My teacher is cool and I would have liked her if she hadn't done what she did last night, but now she's probably my favorite teacher of all my grad school experiences. Last night, she GAVE me her copy of my favorite children's book, "The Jolly Postman". She had brought it in last week when we were discussing pop-up books and unusual children's books and she discussed it because it has letters that you pull out of it and read. Well, we had gone around the table discussing books that had an impact on our lives as children and I LOVED that book. I actually have the second Jolly Postman book still, I saved it from my shelves when I moved from home, but I don't know what happened to the original Jolly Postman. Anyway, I couldn't believe she had brought it in last week and I must have looked completely overjoyed or something because this week she brought it back and at the end of class last night she told me to keep it. I was all like, 'Whaaa?? You're giving me "The Jolly Postman"?! THANK YOU!!! You just became my favorite teacher EVER." I still find it hard to believe that she gave it to me. But she said that she can teach the class next year without it and that I had looked so happy to see it that she wanted me to have it. How nice is that? I can't believe how nice people are sometimes. And that she would have even remembered it and brought it back the next week to give to me. It's just amazing and sweet and I was really touched. As soon as I got home, I put the book on the shelf next to it's sequel. They look really happy to be together. I just love that book.  Sigh.

Speaking of books that I love, a few months ago, I began tearing pages out of books that I love (and own, that's an important tidbit of information to include here) and doing redactions to try to create an interesting wall art piece. I think it would be nice to have a page from my favorite books hanging on the walls where I can see it more often instead of sitting and gathering dust on a shelf. I mean, they go back on the shelf after I tear out a page, but only I know (well, now you do too) that some of the books on my shelves aren't whole any longer. I've gotten about 5 or 6 redactions that I'm prepping for framing right now. Anyhow, I was considering doing this for other people as gifts? Framing them up and giving them to people? I can make the page say nearly anything, and it will probably always be unique seeing as how there are hundreds of words per page and you can probably make it say a hundred different things to fit a hundred different occasions. I would just attempt to find out a favorite book of the person and find a cheap copy of it somewhere. One tough thing that I've discovered while doing this is that it is important to find an edition that lists the title on the top of every page or every other page, so that when you do the redaction, you'll easily be able to tell what book it is from. This is more difficult than I thought since it seems that many publishers are moving away from that sort of printing template. But if you stick with classics, you're bound to find one edition that is printed this way. Anyway, I thought I'd share one that I'm in the process of framing and putting up in my own home. It's my favorite one that I've done for myself so far. It's from "Madonnas of Leningrad", which is a sad book, but one that I recommend if you enjoy museums or Russian history. Here it is:

"She was quietly defiant and unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage."

The importance of reading (also, forewarning of kiddo book reviews in the coming months)

I'm in a children's literature class this semester and have decided that I will use this blog as a little tiny place to help me remember what I read for that course. I have to read children's books. A certain number each week from a certain genre. I need some place to list/remember/review what I've read for my own use and also, I figured, what's the harm in sharing? Maybe you'll have read them too, maybe not. I have a feeling that I'm really going to enjoy reading picture books again. In class we were discussing how many children learn to read in school and then lose interest at about the second grade. And we were trying to figure out why that is. I don't know much of anything about school libraries or the current trends in teaching reading to kids. I know that reading aloud to is helpful in their reading and writing skills and the more a child is read to in their early years, the more likely they are to succeed at reading and writing at a higher level once they enter the school system. But apparently there is something called "Accelerated Reader", which is a vendor who has decided to infiltrate the school districts. Districts purchase this program, test their students' reading levels, and then require kids to read only at the level that they test at in order to get satisfactory marks on their report cards. Not above that level, and not lower than that level. Only at their level. This is incredibly stifling. This means that school librarians, teachers, and parents will become even worse about the really awful habit they have of telling kids, "No, that book is too hard for you, go find a different one." or "Not another picture book. You should be reading chapter books." This is a terrible thing that's happened for a long time. People have their egos attached to the size of a book sometimes. If the book is thin, they don't think it's challenging enough. If a kid is 8 years old and still wants to read a picture book, suddenly the adults around that child are embarrassed that this child is still reading thin books when s/he could be trying to read chapter books.

Important to remember: A child will enjoy reading if they can choose what they read. If you force a kid into reading chapter books (because it makes you feel better) when they really enjoy the artwork and visual storytelling of picture books; you might find that they don't want to read anything at all any more. Aside from that, picture books are not little toddler stories. Some of them are beautifully illustrated works of literature. Think of "The Polar Express": a good story, but the illustrations are what put it on a different level from other books. Is that a toddler story, or a toddler book? No. It's a good story and a good book, despite being thin. And the visual storytelling within the pages are what make it outstanding.

One of my classmates had found this blog post and shared it. It's from January of this year, but seems to be making its way through the tunnels of the interwebs now. It's funny and I like it and the guy is a really fantastic writer, I think. It is long and I think perhaps the page break is not a coincidence. I assume he did that on purpose because perhaps those who aren't that into reading aren't going to go on to the second page? Clever, fella. Clever. You need to go to the actual blog post to read the whole thing, because I edited it quite a bit to try to get the gist without copy/pasting the entire post. It's still long, but hey, you're a reader!:

"Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. [...] Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice. [...] Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. [...] Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. [...] Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. [...] Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. [...] Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived. [...] Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. [...] But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness. [...] The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you."

Oh, good. More books!

It's misting outside! Not quite rain, but the closest thing we've had for a while. It's also really sunny and still hot, but a little thunder and some mist are enough to bring hope. I hope my lawn drinks up.

I'm trying to get through my final research paper for my summer class. It's due tomorrow and I present on it Monday evening. It took me a really long time to get a topic chosen. Like, I finally picked one yesterday. So, I'm cutting it a little close, but I think it's still do-able. I'm doing it, anyway.

I finally got my Spotify invite last week. I had to wait until I could get my own computer to an internet hotspot to download the application, but I have it and I like it. I was one of the millions of people who LOVED LaLa and still miss that website a lot. After Apple bought it out and shut it down, I had nothing to really find new music with, but Spotify has the good parts of LaLa built into it. I really like it. I'm still trying to figure out how to bookmark songs without downloading them and stuff. I think you can do it, but I'm still learning. I dig it. To my mind, LaLa was almost perfect in the ways that it allowed you to search for music. I know a lot of people really like ITunes. I'm not one of them. ITunes has never really figured out how to handle the new music and music discovery the way that LaLa and, from what I've seen, Spotify do. I just never have been able to completely get on the Apple bandwagon for a lot of reasons, and one of the big ones is that the few Apple products that I have experience with, I haven't enjoyed using the software or products. I find other things work better for me and I prefer them. However, Apple has come along and bought up a lot of the other things that I enjoy better, which also doesn't help their image to my way of thinking. If they bought out their competitors and then used the technology of the competitors to build a better product, maybe I would come around. But they don't.

I finished another book last night. I have to recommend Karen White's novels. She does a great job of doing historic research and then building a story around it, also using letters and manuscripts around it. A history/librarian's dream, I tell ya. I need to check out more on her books and see if she's written any others, or if she's in the process of writing more. Goodreads.com comes in handy with this type of stuff. For example, a quick search tells me that there are BUNCHES more books of hers that I can read. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Sweet.

Awesome little gadget for booklovers and bookgivers alike.

I don't know how many people tend to purchase books as gifts. I do...a lot. But I tend to run with a crowd that enjoys books.

If you also tend to run with a similar crowd and tend to use the book as a great gift idea, but are tired of giving someone different versions of the same book (book on travel, cookbook, history book, etc.), your savior has arrived: Chronicle Books has an awesome little Gift Finder on their website: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/

They have really awesome and unique books. You will no longer be known as the person who gives an Italian cookbook to the same person every single year or a Eastern European travel guide to the person has always wanted to go but still hasn't actually done anything about it yet, or being stuck buying someone a sweater because you couldn't find them a book that screamed, 'THIS IS THE PERFECT BOOK FOR THAT PERSON!1!!1!' You can still give them a cookbook or a travel guide (or a sweater), but instead of Rachel Ray or Frommer's (or Old Navy), you can give them:
Top Chef Quickfire Challenge Game: $19.95 : Chronicle Books
Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air $14.95 : Chronicle Books
The Moustache Grower's Guide: $9.95 : Chronicle Books

Pretty awesome and handy. I've found about 10 things I want for myself just in the last 15 minutes of looking around the site.