Through the perilous fight

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!! The US Men's National Team has made it to the finals of the Gold Cup on Sunday! This is fantastic news because months ago I bought tickets for the final in the hopes of seeing the US play! It was a bit of a gamble, since the men have a history of floundering, but this year they've been on a tear. As it turns out, our head coach was booted out of tonight's game and therefore won't be allowed to coach on Sunday, but none of the players were kicked out, so they'll all be eligible to play!

My first international soccer game! My first tournament final of any sport! My first time at Soldier Field! GO USA SOCCER!

It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood.

Somebody sent me a link to another blog post on the generation sort of caught between the so-called Gen Xers and Millennials. To the blogger, this is the group of folks born between 1978 and 1983. Well, I am not technically in that group, which I suppose makes me a Millennial? I have no idea. But, at any rate, the sender seemingly felt that I would identify with this blogger.

I have to say that I found it more troubling than anything else. It's a well-written blog. Very poetic, in a way. Very clever. But...at the bottom of it all, I think I disagree with it. Here's a bit of it:

"I was born in the 1979-1983 generation gap—a few years short of X, a few years ahead of Millennials. We’re a generation defined by disaster: Columbine, 9/11. We came of age at the peak of the War on Terror, came into the job market just in time to lose everything in the crash.

We stayed up past our bedtimes to watch the Berlin Wall come down, and the fall of the Soviet Union. We spent elementary school learning and re-learning geography. Generation Change.

[...]

We never had air-raid drills, because we were born into a world that understood there was no real point to them. Generation Mortality.

We are not the Lost Generation. No great war stripped us of our innocence in a deafening blast; instead, it was eaten away layer by layer in a sandstorm of small atrocities that scattered us as they wore us away. Our apocalypse is one of inexorable decay, not sudden catastrophe. Generation Entropy.

[...]

We were the last generation to be told repeatedly that no one would hire us with purple hair and nose rings.

Financially, we’re closer to the Millennials than Gen X. We can’t afford to wait for glamorously nonspecific media jobs. We grew up in the shadow of the dot-com boom and bust: close enough to the eye of the storm to know that we are unlikely to have nice things.

We were the first generation in nearly a century to enter a workforce defined by underemployment and defanged unions. By and large, we don’t know what it feels like to go to work with the power of collective bargaining at our backs.

We’ve seen just enough of the other side to know what we’re missing.

Our American Dream isn’t a house in the suburbs. It’s being able to afford to go to the doctor when we get sick. It’s not getting ahead so much as finally maybe breaking even.

We’re a generation of reluctant entrepreneurs, empowered to make the leap to creative careers and self-employment largely because our “real" jobs have left us with so little to lose. We know better than to trust anyone else to provide us with stability."

How depressing is that? How very self-pitying? I sort of wanted to just respond to the person who sent this to me with a short "Shit happens, man." response. I can't argue with the truth of the blogger. I'm sure lots of people (clearly, friends of mine) agree with the writer. It makes me sort of disappointed in them, though. Maybe I'm too optimistic, or naive, or whatever. But, its too easy to be so cynical and self-pitying. What a cop out. Yes, we grew up in a time when things have been sort of rough, but (I've said this before, I think) it makes you a stronger person. All of the examples that this blogger uses seem to boil down to 'nothing stays the same' mixed with a little 'expect the worst'. It's an entire group of people just waiting for the other shoe to drop. How lame. What about a group of people who deal well with a changing world? Who learned tolerance at an early age? Who grew up watching Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street and singing along with them about the alphabet and 'won't you be my neighbor'? Who don't look twice at people of different races or hearing different languages because we've been around that our entire lives? Who see the beauty in diversity instead of feeling threatened by it? Who don't tell their kids 'you won't get a job with purple hair and a nose ring'? Who, yes, have seen evil, but who have also seen the wonder and beauty of people flying across oceans in a hot air balloon, baseball figures turning back flips in the infield (Yeah, Ozzie Smith!), grew up knowing a woman could become Secretary of State for the United States, saw the Hubble space telescope launched into space, saw Nelson Mandela finally freed after nearly three decades, saw the Million Man March, watched the world change on a personal level when our own families got computers and the amazement of having the world at our fingertips, we saw them build a road under the English Channel (I have always found this particularly fascinating...). We grew up in an amazing time, that doesn't have to be defined by school shootings, wars on terror, and doping in sports. I'm not saying ignore the rough stuff; I'm saying stop ignoring the good stuff. I don't want to be included in a group that paints itself as down-on-their-luck and to-be-pitied. And, again, I'm not technically part of this blogger's view of Generation Nothing, but I'm close enough that it bothers me that there are apparently a lot of people who do feel like they are Nothing. Can't you remember Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers? Big Bird and Mr. Rogers would be so disappointed in you right now.

"“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” --Fred Rogers

Throwback Movie Night: Grumpy Old Men

Yay! We're back with TMN!

No better way to welcome back TMN than with "Grumpy Old Men"! I love this movie, but had forgotten how much I loved it until watching it again. Made in 1993, it stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as two elderly men who grew up together in this small Minnesota town. They raised their families next-door to each other and spent most of their adult lives at each others throats. For fifty years, they have insulted each other at every turn. Now, a new neighbor, played by Ann Margaret, moves in across the street and they begin competing for her affections.


Jack Lemmon plays John Gustafson, Walter Matthau plays Max Goldman, and Ann Margaret plays Ariel Truax. Ariel moves in and sets the small town upside down. She snowmobiles at midnight, runs into the snow and flops around in broad daylight, and generally is everything that John and Max haven't seen in a long time. They both set their sights on her and their ugly relationship gets even worse.

It's a great movie because of the dialogue between Lemmon and Matthau. Lines like:

"Do me a favor. Put your lip over your head... and swallow."

"Mind your own business, will ya? Mind your own business. Why don't you tie your shoelace, you'll fall on your stupid head."


This was the 6th of a total of 10 times that the two would do a movie together. They were really great friends, but after shooting this movie in Minnesota, Matthau ended up with double pneumonia and spent a while in the hospital. They did a follow-up to this movie with a sequel in 1995.

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.

Oh my darling, housey house.

Happy Friday! I'm finally feeling a bit more like myself, health-wise. The person who developed cold medicine is great and I'm appreciative of it, but I hate cough syrup. Drinking syrup is just awful. I bought a combo pack of Nyquil/Dayquil syrup because it was cheaper than buying them separately in either pill form or syrup form. I challenge anybody to drink the adult (or child) recommended amount of that stuff without making a really awful face or gagging. I tend to sort of let out a squeal and a 'blllaarggh' after each medication dose, along with a scrunched up face and a couple of jerking hand motions. I'll be really happy when my cold is gone.

My house is getting an additional deck this week! A platform deck over where a cistern is located in the back yard. It's a long story, but suffice it to say, that there is a new outdoor area at the old house now! I'm heading back down this weekend to check it out. I hope it doesn't rain and I can sort of hang out on it for a bit. I haven't talked much about it, but I moved out of my house late last year after my dad sold his house in town and moved into mine. It was a temporary situation and next week at this time, my dad is closing on a house in New Mexico and moving his permanent residence down there. I have no intention of moving back to the town where my house is located, so my adorable old house is going to be put up for sale later this year. I'm not too sad about it. It's such a lovely house and I'm so happy to have been able to buy it when I was pretty young and enjoy living there for the time I needed it. I have zero qualms about living in old houses and I've learned to not be afraid to fix things in old houses, too. Between roofing, getting new appliances, learning cleaning tricks, staining decks, painting, putting up wall textures, and general upkeep of an old house, I've learned so much in the four years I've been owner of this awesome place. It's been a pretty cool experience and a really great transition into being a real-life adult. I remember when I first moved in, my neighbors would tell me about how I was too young to appreciate what I had bought. Even though I'm not that much older than I was then, I can understand what they meant a little bit now. I think I understood what I had bought, but I perhaps didn't understand the significance of what I had done. Being barely 25 and deciding to buy a century-old house on my own and live there alone with a blind cat and no experience in home improvements aside from a few experiments with painting seems like something sort of...naive. But, I never thought anything of it. It is a house that I would have always been angry at myself for not buying when I had the chance. I couldn't afford to buy a house now, not with student loans and car loans and things. That time of my life was unique in that I had no debt and all these incentives to buy a house for the first time in a neighborhood 'on the brink' (of being awesome) in town. Why not? It was a good idea and, despite perhaps not knowing exactly what I was doing or understanding how some people strive for home ownership all their life and don't achieve it, I was able to afford my little dream home at a young age and I've enjoyed it. I don't know if I'll ever buy another house, but I feel like if I move to some urban area and end up renting forever, I'll never wonder about home ownership because I really have had the most awesome house. Despite the love-fest here about the house, not living in it for a long while now has allowed me to distance myself from it and I'm feeling pretty good about selling it and letting another family have the awesome house. I'm not into becoming a landlord and having strangers move in and have to deal with being an absentee landlord. I care too much about the neighbors to let that happen, so I'll sell it to a new owner who can have the responsibility of its awesomeness. It will still be a couple of months before it can actually be sold because my dad is going to be slowly moving his stuff down to New Mexico, but I'm looking forward to it all! If it doesn't sell immediately, it's okay, too. I'm not sure how I feel about trying to sell a house in a down market, but you gotta give it a shot, yes? Getting this deck built was sort of the last big thing that I wanted to have done with the house. I'm hoping my dad and I can enjoy it for a short amount of time the rest of this summer. But, if in the coming months I start to gripe about more house-y things, you'll know why.

Make way for Miss Watery Eyes.

I have a burst of energy, blogging-wise. I'm still fighting off a cold. I think I'm losing as I have spent much of today sneezing and my eyes are watery and I generally feel sort of off as far as my alertness goes. I'm just running on auto-pilot, pretty much.

I was really excited last night because MeTV (probably my second favorite tv channel after PBS) started showing "Rhoda" last night! I'd never actually seen "Rhoda", but I always liked Rhoda better than Mary on the Mary Tyler Moore Show (I do like Mary Tyler Moore, too. But, identity-wise, I sort of feel more like a Rhoda than a Mary...) I don't think "Rhoda" is going to disappoint me. I saw the pilot last night and it was great. Love it! Plan to watch it most nights, I think.

My lunch today cost a total of $2.02, which is really why I think I love the Bread Basket Cafe! It's practically unheard of to be a grown-up and have a sit-down meal for less than $5.00 and, routinely, I get a great lunch for under $5 at that place. They make the best grilled cheese sandwiches in town. They also make the best snickerdoodles. And the place is always clean, and they have an outdoor patio, too. Plus, they are always part of the weekly Add Sheet, which allows me to get a dollar off my grilled cheese sandwich. It's a match made in heaven. In my cold-induced haze of happiness at paying barely over two bucks, I decided that I would go there every single day and that way, I could eat out every day for lunch and still not spend more than $15.00 all week on meals! But, on the walk back to work I decided a big flaw in that plan would be that I really only eat that one awesome sandwich there, and while it is AWESOME, would I really want it every single day? Probably not. And, I'd have to always print out the Add Sheet coupon every single day and that would end up amounting to a lot of trees dying for a daily $1.00 off my grilled cheese. So...I don't know. I was/am still happy about $2.02 for a great, filling lunch, though. Good day, Tuesday!

The Gold Cup has started! USA plays Belize tonight in their first game. They did really well in their pre-Gold Cup friendly match. Landon Donovan, who made the squad after coming out of retirement earlier this year and working his way back into shape, made two goals. I'm still hoping to see the US in the final in a couple of weeks. I know it's early, but I'm hoping that Donovan knows he has to prove to the US men's coach that he's fit enough to play at the international level again. He really wants to be on the World Cup team and play in Brazil, but I admire the coach's stance and making him earn his spot on it. Plus, this way, there's a slight chance I will get to see Donovan play in person! Plus, Mexico has already lost their first game, and they are historically one of the top teams in the tournament. That doesn't necessarily make USA's road to the finals any easier, because the men can always screw it up, but it makes it all the more interesting. After Belize, they play Cuba and then Costa Rica before hoping going into the next round.

My eyes are really getting agitated. Being sick is such a bummer.

Cough, cough. moan.

I'm fighting off an illness this weekend, which leaves me with lots of time to sit around and moan. Or, blog/mess about on the interwebs (while I have internet, which is spotty at best).

Yahoo is reporting that Kaley Cuoco from The Big Bang Theory is dating the newest Superman actor, Henry Cavill. I find this funny in a life-imitates-art sort of way.

I had a wonderful time at my conference in Chicago. It was super cool and I wrote a lot about it on my actual travel blog: GadaboutGetaways.wordpress.com. I decided to move to another blog site for the travel stuff because I might share that more than I want to share this with some folks.

Returning to work yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was really really quiet, except for a woman from the "God, Please Don't Ever Let Me Be Like This" file:  a woman (probably in her mid-to-late 30s) came in and threw a temper tantrum that would have made any teenager envious. She was upset about our 'no bags or purses in the research center' policy. She had told me when she signed in that she'd been here before and she flashed a patron card at me, which means she signed a sheet saying she'd read and agreed to our policies. I always try not to laugh at people when they throw tantrums, because it seems like it would only make things worse. But, God, it's hard to hide my amusement sometimes. Especially when it's something so petty as the fact that she had to put her purse in a locker. She stomped out of the research center and down the hall about halfway, before stomping back in and dramatically scratching her name off the sign-in sheet at the front desk and then stomping back down the hall and then doing her best to slam the swinging door to leave. It was all hilarious. I figured she'd be back though, because people who come to us usually need us for some reason. The things we have, other places don't. You can't just leave and go to another library to get it. Sure enough, about five minutes later she slinks back in (without her purse) and uses the computer for a while and then leaves, without throwing another tantrum. We were all laughing about it later. I think I generally have a higher tolerance for people younger than me throwing tantrums about stuff. But, when you're older than me, I find you really ridiculous, but also really amusing. Especially ones like this woman, who become so dramatic, you want to rush after them with an Oscar for their performance.

I won't have a Throwback Movie Night review to share tonight, but while in Chicago, I caught the middle of the movie "Marilyn and Me" with Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe. The little bit I saw wasn't awful. It did make me want to see the real Marilyn Monroe in a movie, so I'm going to add that to the list of possible upcoming TMNs.

I think I'm going to go back to sleep and see if I can get over this cold or whatever it is. I hate being sick, but especially when it's really nice weather outside.

What I learned at my first ALA conference...

Things I learned at my first American Library Association conference:

•  Being part of a conference attended by 28,000 other people means things will get overwhelming. Just find a spot out of the way to look over the giant conference manual and drink your Jamba Juice. (I never had Jamba Juice until this conference and I'm totally hooked now. It's way better than Starbuck's sad attempts at smoothies.)
• Fight the instinct to take reading material along. You won't need it, and you'll get oodles of free books in the exhibit hall from publishers and authors alike. 
• Use the post-office in the convention center. You can mail the boxes of books to your home or office via media rate, which saves you money and there's the added bonus of not pulling a muscle trying to shove the books into your suitcase and/or lug the books onto the plane, train, automobile, mule, camel, bicycle, pedicab, etc. on your way home.
• Be a little outgoing. This is tricky for me because I tend to like to sit back and just observe. Forcing myself to start conversations with strangers was daunting, but totally worth it. Literary professionals are awesome people. The hotel shuttles to and from the convention center are the perfect time to strike up conversations with fellow riders.
• No line is too long to stand in when you're going to meet Lois Lowry!
• When attempting to go through the exhibits hall, do it in stages. Plan it out. Remember that you are an information professional and use the information available to you to not get killed by the annual "Running of the Librarians" for free books on the first night. Avoid the big publishing houses (Scholastic, HarperCollins, Random House, etc.) on the first night, unless you are 100% committed to wall-to-wall people in a book-grabbing frenzy. If you are someone who really enjoys a "Black Friday" atmosphere, then take on the publishing booths that first night. Otherwise, avoid it at all costs. Vendors will do giveaways on the first night to try to lure you in, but a lot of the giveaways continue through the rest of the conference. Don't get trampled for an ipad giveaway that lasts all week by a 5,000+ crowd rushing for a one-night-only pie giveaway at a nearby booth. Do your research pre-exhibit hall opening and you will be a happier person.
• Wear comfy shoes. I saw so many women wearing sky-high heels. Why, why, why would you do that to yourself? Sessions are miles apart and you have to walk so far every day. Be kind to your piggies. Those super-cute heels aren't giving the intended impression that you are stylish or professional, they give the impression that you are an idiot to bring those to a conference this size.
• On the topic of wardrobe: a lot of people pack cute dresses and wear those the entire time. Others wear jeans. I went with brightly colored pants and bright tops. Wear clothing that you are comfortable wearing as you walk around in a busy city. Breezes happen...keep that in mind when you pack those dresses, ladies. Librarians are a group that tend to keep their cardigans close. You can always wrap the cardi around your waist to keep the mooning to a minimum, if it gets that bad.
• Do bring a cardigan or shawl or jacket because it is chilly in the sessions. It was actually kind of chilly in Chicago one day with the wind whipping off the lake. 
• When a session you wanted to be a part of is standing-room only, don't be afraid to find out what's happening next door or two doors down and sitting in on those, instead. I found a really awesome graphic novel discussion going on in a nearby room when the session I wanted to see was too full to get a seat.
• You can bring your family and friends to ALA! I didn't realize this. People brought siblings, spouses, friends, children, parents, everybody with them to the conference. I would say half the people in the lines for the author signings, 1/4 of the people in the auditoriums for the speakers, and most of the people in the film screenings are friends and family members of a librarian at the conference. There were so many children at the conference that ALA actually provides day care for when the parent(s) are busy with sessions.
• Have fun! It is a professional conference and it's easy to get conference fatigue, but remember that these ALA conferences are unique opportunities to talk over ideas, problems, and issues that you have at your library with like-minded people from all over the world. I met librarians from China, Guatemala, Denmark, Nigeria, and Chile. Not to mention the librarians that work in the US, but are from other countries, like my seat-mate on the train back to St. Louis, who was from Bulgaria. Several years ago, she won a green card through the USA's immigration lotto (Yes, there is such a thing! I had no idea...) and so she came to live and work here. I went to Chicago excited to be attending the conference, but left ALA even more amped about my profession as a whole and the awesome people that have decided to work in this field.