A nice surprise

A profile of yours truly is in the latest edition of our library newsletter. Unable to resist being at least a little tongue-in-cheek, I completed the sentence "Ask me about..." with the words "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Well, the newsletter is now hot off the photocopier.

I had a thought that patrons might come to the desk to ask me about the novels rather than the television series, which would be a bad thing since I don't read the novels.

No-one has yet taken the bait, however.

One morning I walked up to my desk and there was a withdrawn Buffy novel on my chair. I asked one of the catalogers, since they are the ones who decided which books get withdrawn. Then I asked the woman who wrote up my profile. Finally I sent an email to the whole library to thank whoever it was who'd given me this present.

It was my manager. I think we'll keep him on for a while.

I'd rather be Casablanca

That's the movie which represents Make Tea Not War's love life. Why couldn't I have been that too, or at least a movie I've seen? I may have to rent this out now...

Your romance is more of a love that needs to bloom
within, just like Hedwig of Hedwig and the
Angry Inch. The film features an East German
transsexual who is seeking her "other
half" after constant betrayal. You must
love yourself before you can need another.
You're starting to realize this, along with the
fact that you don't need a significant other to
be a complete person. Your "other
half" has been inside you all along.


What Romance Movie Best Represents Your Love Life?
brought to you by Quizilla

The agony is over -Type and Type Design for masochists

My presentation was the middle one of three. The first guy did his presentation on Stinky Cheese Man, and it turned out to be a fabulous choice. Much more experienced in the ways of children's fiction than I, he'd found a book to talk about which had a great variety of typefaces and layouts, heaps of funny lines and ingenious page designs. AND he knew who did the typography, what the typefaces were and what was the ancestor of each type. I was just relieved he didn't also have a charismatic speaking style.

I was pretty damn nervous when it was my turn. To make things worse, there was something wrong with Chatterbox so the slides couldn't be presented on-line. Too late, I had realised that I could've picked an easier topic to do my assignment on. Once, I talked for a good thirty seconds before realising I had taken my finger off the CTRL key, which meant that no-one could hear me.

The guy who presented after me cheated - he picked an artist's book by a typographer whose aim was to present a variety of interesting typefaces.

I have come to this conclusion - there are many types of geeks in this world, and book-geeks are the ones who measure book type to the nearest millimetre; they are the ones who can talk for a whole fifteen minutes on how to make vellum from the skin of a newborn calf without saying "Oooh, the poor little calf"; they are the ones who prefer to describe a book's physical appearance using code rather than just taking photos.

superstitions about sneezing

I found this, which still doesn't answer my question of why we couldn't have roast duck at my mum's birthday - but it's still kinda interesting. It's a list of superstitions surrounding sneezes, from cultures around the world. Fascinating.

A Chinese custom, but not for the faint-hearted.

We all went out for Yum Char today, and towards the end of the meal one of my aunts started getting all fidgety. Before I could see it coming, she scrambled out of her chair to retrieve that piece of paper that all the waitresses put marks on - the one which is used to calculate the bill.

It was obvious there was going to be a fight over who got to pay the bill - there always is when Chinese take their friends or rellies out for a meal.

My aunt held that bit of paper tightly in her fist, and whenever I tried to take it away, the surprisingly agile seventy-something woman flicked it just out of my reach. My brother had an idea though, and this was one of those times when we were glad not everyone at the table could speak good English...

Despite that fact that we'd all stopped eating and there were plenty of leftovers, my brother announced that he wanted to get another plate of spring rolls - for his son at home, he said. We had to wait a long time for them to arrive, and in the meantime I kept trying to get my mitts on that piece of paper - unsuccessfully.

Then, the spring rolls arrived. My brother whispered in the waitress's ear that my aunt had the paper for her to mark - could she please hand it to him when she got the chance? My aunt caught on pretty quickly, but she was powerless to counter the attack. She had no choice but to give the waitress the paper, and my brother almost ripped it out of her hand in his haste. In the ensuing hilarity, somehow my mother got the credit for the ruse.

the right article at the wrong time

The evening before one is scheduled to do a presentation (worth thirty percent of the total grade for this paper), is not the best time to receive notice of what could have been an extremely useful article on presentations for librarians.

>:-{

At this stage all I have time to do is talk myself through the Power Point slides until I can speak without using so many "um"s and nervous pauses.

Chinese Superstitions

In an effort to find out why exactly it is not a good thing to eat duck at an eightieth birthday (or any birthday?), I'm looking into Google for answers. (If you know of a good book which has the answer let me know.)

This site didn't have the answer, but it did have this interesting thing to say:

"Beating a person with a broom will rain bad luck upon that person for years." Well, it'll certainly seem like bad luck on the poor person getting beaten up won't it?

Joyce Jue reckons that you have to serve noodles as the last dish of a birthday banquet - we didn't. I wonder if it doesn't apply to octogenarians?

Here are some I know Mum believes in:
- Don't talk about people after they are dead
- Don't give candles as a birthday present - candles are a symbol of mortality or something
- If your palms are itchy, you're coming into money
- If a stray dog wanders into your home, feed it - it's good luck
- If you sneeze a few times and you don't have a cold or hayfever or something up your nose, expect to receive mail from someone you haven't heard from in a long time
- Don't have duck on your eightieth birthday (but chicken is okay and roast pork with crackling and fish are must-haves)

I'm sure there are more than that which I've forgotten.

Fri-day and Fri-night

Field Trip
Our team had a field trip today, to another city library two hours' drive away. The van ride over was pretty bumpy, frustrating any attempts to catch up on sleep after a restless, wild-weathered night and an unfeasibly early wake-up time (6.30am).

The library building was quite impressive - it looks quite like the Wellington Central Library but bigger. The day's tour also included a rundown of their Summer Reading Programme; a walk through their impressive archives rooms and computer room; and visits to their mobile library (it has a couch at the back!) and a branch library. It was obvious that they had more money to play with than we did, even taking into account that the population of the city is more than twice that of the city our library is in.

By about 3pm, the affects of sleep deprivation started to really affect me - my eyes were just begging to be allowed to close and stay that way. I was also worrying about getting away in time so that I wouldn't be late for my mother's birthday bash. I will always be grateful that no-one tried to persuade me to do my share of the drive back - grateful for as long as I remember, anyway.


The Eightieth Birthday
It was actually a lot more fun than I'd expected. We had a booking at a small northern Chinese restaurant known to be frequented by the likes of Peter Jackson and the Chinese Ambassador - we ordered heaps of food and everyone seemed to approve of the quality of it. My little nephew made a game out of "tunneling" under everyone's chairs around the table, popping his head up to greet whoever's knees were in front of him and disappearing as soon as a digital camera came out of an aunt's bag.

It was the first time any of the aunts and uncles had met my boy, and I was pleased that they seemed to like him despite his lack of Chinese ancestry. One aunt told me he was hot stuff (though not in those words) and that our future children would be very attractive; my uncle, a smoker like the boy, bonded with him outside over a couple of cylinders of the toxic weed. My wee niece was everyone's plaything; they were all falling over themselves to give her hugs and kisses and make silly faces at her.

It was all quite cool, really.

The other big reunion

Too busy
This afternoon on the bus was a bit hairy - most of the good folks at the first old-folks home were on a Christmas outing, leaving some clueless skeleton crew (clueless in the sense that they didn't know to bring back the returned books and some afternoon tea things on a trolley). Not only did I not get tea and biscuits, but I had to haul a large crate full of hardback large-print books to the Home and bring the equivalent back again.

Then, at the second old-folks home, I had about ten elderly patrons both on and off the bus, to select and issue romances and family sagas to - all at the same time. I sure could've done with some back up. Then when it was time to pack up for the day, it took a good fifteen minutes for the laptop to log off.

And the boy is home again...
The boy arrived back in the country at noon today. No sign of the Levis or Clinique foundation I'd asked for, but I did receive two great souvenir t-shirts (one says NYPD on the chest and the other is a Yankees t-shirt, made in Taiwan).

Coming straight home to greet my long-lost love meant missing the only gym session that I could fit in this whole week, but there's no sense in being totally anal about stuff like that is there? Damn, but it's good to have him back, and not a day too soon because tonight's the night to put the rubbish out.

If only humans were always as nice to animals...

Dolphins protect a group of swimmers from a great white shark. I hope these creatures never end up in a tuna net.

Emily Strange

I came across this site and realised it was what a classmate was talking about, when she first saw my Bad Kitty t-shirt.

Initially it sounds a bit teenage, yet it reminds me of that character in the Ghost World movie - the girl who's really sarcastic and cynical and too intelligent for her own good.

I found it at Well dressed Librarian
Actually, I don't see myself as being anywhere near this fluffy. But the last two lines came true for me :-)

You Are a Lace Bra! Dreamy, romantic, and ultra-feminine You're a womanly woman who makes guys feel like men Your perfect guy is strong, determined, and handsome With a softer side that only you can draw out What Kind of Bra Are You? Take This Quiz :-)

Measure your chances of dying from a horrible disease, here

Well, your chances of succumbing to diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis and stroke anyway.

Created by the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, and sent to me by our resident archivist.

I did the diabetes test and scored above average on the likelihood of getting adult-onset diabetes - but I already knew that anyway. I didn't need any more bad news, so I haven't yet done the tests on the other conditions.

It's quite simple to do and easy to understand. Perhaps it's even over-simplistic, but hey, life is probably a lot simpler than we humans try to make it...

The Big Reunion

Tonight was the first big dinner with the whole family - my mother, the aunts and uncle who'd come over from Hong Kong and Auckland, my brother, his partner and their two kiddies. I know I did a bit of a rant and rave earlier about feeling pressured into spending more of my precious non-work time with them than I wanted - but it was genuinely nice to see them. It's actually been approximately nineteen years since I last saw the "rellies".

They all looked older of course; they're in their seventies by now. They told me I looked fatter, but I'm pretty sure that was meant as a compliment.

There was a huge spread of food - soy chicken and roast pork with crackling (Cantonese style of course), little won ton-like dumplings and stir-fried capsicum with bits of chicken. I surprised myself with the relative ease with which I joked with them. I thought I'd be much more awkward; unlike my brother, I never felt that close to them. It's a bit like socialising with one's old school headmaster - you can be friendly but you can't really relax.

The atmosphere changed once my brother and his lot left to put the kids to bed. The conversation turned to my mother's difficulties with getting around and with housekeeping. I was told that in Hong Kong, it's quite acceptable for the offspring to hire a housekeeper or cleaner for their aging parents.

They had a point. Mum is getting that way and there's always a chance that Mum wouldn't want to go live with my brother. It's certainly well worth looking into.

The Other Big Reunion
The boy rang up last night, sounding a little unhappy. The ex-wife is getting him down, and he can't find another place to stay because it's coming up to Thanksgiving. So the result is that he's coming home two days early. Being purely selfish about it, I'll be bloody glad to see him.

A clever-clogs book for clever-clogs people

I've just managed to finish The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. Perhaps I should have started with the first in the series, because it took me a while to warm to the characters. Anyway, my overwhelming impression of this book is that it's very, very clever.

Fforde has incorporated tons of humorous literary references into this imaginative story of Thursday Next, literary detective, and her adventures in Book World. I can imagine that readers who are already familiar with the works of Austen, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence and so on would find it a huge chuckle. I got a chuckle here and there, but I'm certain that I missed a large number of in-jokes. My saving grace was perhaps knowing enough about computers to enjoy the software upgrade references to Book World's upcoming Book Operationg System. Despite my handicap though, I enjoyed it enough to finish the book and check out the previous one, Lost in a Good Book.

Oops

I must apologise to my boy, for accusing him of stealing my nail clippers. I looked everywhere except where they're supposed to be. I hope he forgives me. Meanwhile I must've trimmed off enough of the keratin stuff to do some scratchy damage to any unsuspecting epileptic who might have a fit on my living room rug...

Looking for love on the Trade & Exchange?

I'm going to tell you about a blind date I went on. It was years ago, well before my boy was even a newly-minted immigrant.

There was this friend-of-a-friend, quite a bit younger than me, who was keen to meet someone. I wasn't averse to meeting someone nice either, although putting an ad in the local buy'n'sell newspaper wasn't how I'd hoped to do that. She wore me down though, claiming she was far too shy to advertise alone - too shy, in fact, to even ring up and place an ad at all.

This was possibly one of those times when I could have said "No".

I agreed to put in an ad for both of us, in the Trade & Exchange. The request was for two attractive men aged between 25 and 35 to meet two attractive women in the same age group. There was other stuff of course, to suggest that we were also highly intelligent, interesting and more than slightly sexy.

My friend was hoping for replies from men in their twenties, and - despite the fact that I was about 34 - so was I (this preference comes from experience - men my age seemed to let themselves go and get boring). I was a little disappointed that all the younger men who rang to leave messages, asked for my young friend; the men who wanted to talk to me were in their forties.

Eventually I called someone back, only because he had a nice voice. I don't remember his name, so I'll call him Lonely of Featherston. I let it pass when he told me he was single because his wife of twelve years had run off with another bloke. Then a little alarm bell went off when he mentioned that he liked Celine Dion. I silently chided myself for being so shallow. We talked further - he made leather jeans for a hobby, which he sold to friends. A strange hobby, I thought, but once again I let it go.

My friend had already selected a candidate to meet with at the pub the following Friday, so I took a gamble and arranged to meet Lonely of Featherston at the same time and place. That's when he said he hoped I didn't mind all-over tattoos, and that I would be able to identify him by his shirt with the large red dragon logo on it. By this time I felt I couldn't really back out without seeming rude (now I'm older I realise it's okay to be rude if you really need to).

I met him at the pub on the Friday. He was a skinny white guy in his late thirties, wearing leather-covered jeans and a shiny shirt with the promised dragon design. I lasted five minutes before I made a really feeble excuse and left the table.

Now, if it had turned out that he looked like Samantha's boyfriend from Sex and the City, I probably would've stuck around - at least until he brought up Celine Dion again.

p.s. My friend's blind date ended up meeting and falling into unrequited love with our mutual friend.

Nine tenths of the law

The boy has taken to using my face moisturiser. I wasn't all that happy about it, because I was the one buying it and it was thirty bucks a bottle (admittedly less than half as costly as that nice but criminally expensive Lancome product). On one of his pre-New York shopping trips (the staff at the Calvin Klein counter really love him), he actually took a detour to the cosmetic counter and bought a bottle of moisturiser to take away with him. Well that was gratifying.

But he didn't buy his own manicure set to take away; he's surreptitiously packed mine. This wouldn't be a big deal, but I'm an occassional eczema-sufferer who must always have trim nails. Removing an eczema-sufferer's nail clippers is like distributing thumb-tacks on the floor of an un-medicated epileptic. If I'm all scratched up and blotchy when he gets back it's his own damn fault.

Still miss him though.

All work and no play is making my eyes go all funny

Panic set in towards the end of last week when it really hit me that I have only a week and a half of non-working/sleeping/gyming/family hostessing/mother's taxi-driving time, in which to research, write up and present my assignment. I've responded to this by checking out, oh, a dozen very large books on typefaces, typography and book printing so I can bulk up my work with details.

I've only been staring at those books for two hours and already my neck is cracking like - I dunno, those scenes in the movies where the hero cracks his neck a lot before beating someone up...

I don't know which is more appropriate - valium to calm myself down, or mega-caffeine pills to speed up on the speed-studying.

All those times when Buffy's pals spent all night at the books looking for demon-identification tips - you'd think their eyes would go all funny too. But they were always bright-eyed and ready for demon-hunting action in the morning. Not I.

Happy Anniversary to this blog

This blog had it's first birthday on Monday. I'm not throwing it a party, and won't be giving it any presents. But thanks for hanging out with me :-)

Quiz Night

Since I don't have anyone to come home to for the next week and a bit, I decided to join our library team for the LIANZA quiz night. We didn't dress up, though a couple of other teams did, but we did come up with a prize-winning team name. Boguns' Heroes. (For my own personal definition of the word "bogun", see this post.

My best effort was in correctly matching four of Zeus' offspring with their respective mother's (or, in Athene's case, the oriface from which the offspring was born i.e. Zeus' forehead). My worst was telling the team scribe that Eurydice was the girl who had to spend every winter in Hades - it shoulda been Persephone.

Our team came sixth out of nine - nothing amazing but we beat the other two teams which were from public libraries. So you could say we won our category.

Anyway, I'm all tired because my boy woke me up at 3am with his phone call from New York, and I haven't done any study tonight because of the Quiz Night. That's why I'm blogging instead.

Oh yeah - no sign of The Little Shit this afternoon. I was almost sorry because I had a large black umbrella ready to fend him off, and one of the sterner librarians had come along for support.

A tissue (gezundtheit)

Today, I inexplicably succumbed to hay fever. Inexplicable because I normally get it all-year round anyway and have the nasal spray to deal with it. I had the morning off (went for a walk, ended up in town, bought stuff), and when I got to work that familiar annoying tickle in my nostrils showed up. It's not a good look to be constantly pushing and pulling at one's nose, though it didn't seem to put off the kids signing up for the Summer Reading Programme. I had to keep swerving off to the Information Desk because I know there's a box of tissues there - possibly the only tissue supply in the whole library.

Use of public money to fund personal stomach-stapling is bad
I'm so glad that ACT is allowed to fire Donna Awatere-Huata. Knowing that she was still on her fat MP salary even after being found guilty of misappriating charity money, really appalled me. Now I can say nah nah nah nah nah...

Tonight's my second night on my lonesome. I've joked about having wild parties while the boy is away but I've become so accustomed to not having wild parties (and so much older and less able to stay up past 11pm) that I know it ain't gonna happen. It'll be early nights with one of my books, hours at the computer either researching or reading blogs and really crappy cooking (my own). Without my regular dose of loving neck- and back-rubs, I'm afraid I'll be rather Quasimodo-like by the time he gets back...

The reluctant hostess

The aunts and uncles from Hong Kong will be arriving on Monday. My brother has already sent me a schedule for the next two weeks, and it looks quite a lot like a tour schedule. We're at the the morning market so it must be Sunday - that kind of thing.

I suggested that, since they are here to see mum, not the country, we should give them heaps of time for lounging around. Perhaps let them have their mornings and only take them out some afternoons and evenings. They're seventy-somethings after all, and some of them aren't terribly mobile.

I'm planning on fighting familial pressure to spend all my non-working (and some of what should be my working-) time being a gracious hostess, by pointing out that:
(i) I have no paid leave left this year, and
(ii) I still have to study (including an assignment - already - due right in the middle of their second week in town.

There's no point in saying I want time to myself, since that isn't a particularly valid option in my family.

Have you had your chuckle yet today?

Mak's account of beyond-the-envelope family discussions nearly made me wet myself.

He's so lovely...

The boy left for New York this afternoon. We talked briefly on the phone at midday, but I won't hear from him again probably until tomorrow sometime. What a pleasant surprise to find, on coming home, that he had already put out the rubbish and recycling before he left. He's so lovely (sigh).

Meanwhile, The Little Shit Incident continues to haunt me as my manager asks whether it's okay for him to bring it up at the Council-wide meeting tomorrow. Apparently this kind of thing has never happened here before (though it's a different story at the Winz offices where the benefits get handed out - or not). My manager wants to be sure to confirm what one is supposed to do in such a situation. For example, if I had retaliated by throwing a heavy book in The Little Shit's face, would I have gotten into trouble? How much force is an employee allowed to use to protect herself when threatened by violence, or attacked? How does one call on the Library Avenger for help - by taping an "A" to one's window at night?

I knew it!

A flirt and a charmer I may be, but beauty-obssesed I definitely am not...
Thanks, Meme Freak.

You are 67% Libra

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

Do I see what you see?

Geez - all this time I thought that I didn't have a bruise on my cheek, but at least three people at work today told me they could make out some faint blueness. I can't make it out at all. I had my eyes lasered about four years ago, and my vision has gone back to shortsighted - though to a much lesser extent. So it's possible that I just don't see it because my eyesight's not as good as theirs. It kinda makes me wonder what other unsightly bits people see when they look at me. Perhaps all those pimples, moles, warts, birthmarks and freckles aren't being disguised by the application of foundation after all (don't be scared, I'm just exaggerating for effect here).

It takes me back to my teens, when I was already really shortsighted but just didn't realise how bad it was. I'd look in the mirror and be totally content with the soft-focus glow of my reflection. Regularly wearing the corrective spectacles plunged me into bouts of the blues; it was then that I noticed I wasn't as easy on the eye as I'd thought.

It gives deeper meaning to the saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", doesn't it?

He's leaving.....on a jet plane

My boy's leaving me - just for a week and a half, mind. He's off to New York to visit his wee daughter, whom he hasn't seen for maybe two years. He's looking forward to seeing her, but apparently not so looking forward to seeing her mum (and I should bloody hope not!). I'll miss him, sure, but the silver lining is that I'll be able to spend more time studying (or watching Star Trek episodes) without worrying that I'm neglecting him. I should give him my shopping list before he goes, too - some Clinique foundation, some Levis jeans...

Retail therapy as treatment for post-bashing trauma

I've been very surprised indeed that my face hasn't come up bruised from Friday's unpleasant incident. I've always bruised easily, (which is one thing I envy Buffy, apart from the fact that she's gorgeous, has truly legendary friends and can stake a vampire with a flick of her wrist) and was expecting tell-tale yellow and purple patches by now. So, no visit from the local police photographer.

I also went shopping; that always helps. My spoils include:

1. One interview-friendly jacket (y'know, just in case), just right for summer interrogations (are you sure that library book already had a tear on page 55?...)
2. Two Angel DVDs; now I'm only one away from a full Season One collection
3. One Emily Strange t-shirt - it's not as cool and alternative as the Bad Kitty t-shirt but it's a close second.

I've almost forgotten it happened.

She's a boy!

Bloody hell. On the front page of the Dominion Post today was an article uncovering the real bizgirl.

That is, Natalie is a bloke.

It's news because the blog won the Netguide Best Personal Blog award at an award ceremony last night. The audience was expecting it to be collected by a girl in a slinky dress (she does after all call herself "international librarian of mystery") and was more than a little surprised when a very male-looking person claimed it.

I always thought it was suspicious that someone on a mere librarian salary could afford to dress herself in World.

The Little Shit

One of the library bus stops is in a relatively rough part of town. It’s not like there are drug deals going on outside the shops, or prostitutes at every corner – it’s just a bit more low-income, with a bigger share of recent immigrants than the rest of the city. It’s the stop where gloomy-faced B. nearly always shows up to collect her senior fiction and browse the Woman’s Weeklys. It’s where the bald English playwright comes to borrow from the Talking Book collection. It’s also where I got punched in the face this afternoon.

The kid, whom I’ll refer to as The Little Shit, is a skinny African kid who looks maybe twelve years old. He was hanging around the bus, but not coming in. Finally he did come on board the bus. The Little Shit asked to look at the soccer book which I had only just this minute checked in and shelved; I gave it to him. Then the other two people on the bus left. It was a couple of minutes before I had to leave this stop and drive the bus back to the main library. Then The Little Shit, who’d been polite though slightly strange, asked me about the CDs, etc. – normal stuff that kids on the bus always ask. Anyway, it turned out he didn’t have his library card and I couldn't wait for his sister to show up with it ‘cos it was already time to go.

And that’s when he socked me on the cheek with a strong right hook.

He scooted out the door before I could grab a dictionary and hurl it at him, and I’m embarrassed to say that I immediately lost my temper and called him a “little fucking bastard”. More than once, and really quite loudly the second time.

I was sooo angry. So angry that I did what I often do when I’m really angry. I cried (and that’s even more embarrassing – why couldn’t I express anger by simply beating him up?)

Back at the library, I told my boss, who really looked after me. She went with me to the police station where I gave a statement (and realised just how un-prose-like my speaking style really is), offered to do my Saturday shift tomorrow (of course I said yes, I’m a big softie but I’m not soft in the head) and made me promise to ring her tomorrow and assure her I’m okay. (She’s usually way too motherly for my liking, but this time I really appreciated it.) The rest of the library staff were really supportive too – I got lots of concerned murmurs and a second offer to do my Saturday shift tomorrow.

I came straight home instead of going to the pool – I needed to tell my boy about it and hear him offer to “kick the shit out of him” and indeed that made me feel a lot better.

dry with a capital "D"

Considering how appealing The Art of the Book sounded in the prospectus, and how engaging the first class was, the readings we have to do are as dry as dust. Surely even a scholar should be able to write interestingly about a subject as fascinating as books-as-objects. Or maybe there's a job for the Carl Sagan of bibliography, if there is one.

Actually, that's something I'd really like to do - rewrite dry-as-dust texts to make them readable, understandable and fun. Unfortunately this would require in-depth knowledge of these texts in their original, dense form. Life is too short.

ugly bridesmaid's dresses

No Milk has been to a wedding in San Francisco, and one of his post-post links is this one about ugly bridesmaid's dresses.

I've never been a bridesmaid, so I've been spared the potential horror of wearing something embarrassingly unflattering in public, captured forever in the wedding photos. Maybe Kiwi brides are classier (or kinder); in the last few weddings I've either attended or seen photos of, the bridesmaids wore elegant, understated gowns which wouldn't have looked out of place at the Oscars.

car trouble

Yesterday morning I was on a mission to get into town for a quick (and secret) appointment and then go on to work, hopefully not getting in too late and thereby attracting concerned looks and questions from my boss. Speed was of the essence.

Rushing about so much that I forgot to take my gym gear for later, I was shocked and stunned (a cliche, but perfectly accurate in this case) to see that some idiot had parked across my driveway. Normally when this happens, nothing makes me jump with glee more than getting the Parkwise guys over and watching the offending vehicle be towed away. But this morning I had no time for such fun. Fortunately I was pretty sure the person who'd parked there would be found in the double-storey house opposite. And she was.

As if that wasn't bad enough (I was almost late for my appointment), I had a problem when I was ready to leave town and go to work...

My car was parked in a car parking building, and at the time there were no other vehicles there. When I returned an hour later, my car was flanked by fat four-wheel drives (or four-by-fours or SUV, depending on where you're living). I couldn't get my car out.

Actually I could get my car out, but only with the help of the parking attendant who directed my eight-point turn. It was not a good day to have forgotten to wear anti-perspirant.

I was half an hour late to work. Just as well my boss didn't show up till midday.

vampire watermelons and spider phobias

The boy sent me this Wikipedia article about vampire watermelons. I was very skeptical, and there's always a chance that upon revisiting the site I'll find it's been 'corrected'. But if it's true, then isn't it fascinating! According to the article, it's an old Romanian thing which also applies to pumpkins and anything else left outside after around Halloween. Halloween pumpkins would certainly make more sense, knowing this. But watermelons? Apparently they aren't too scary to Romanian folk because watermelons don't have teeth.

One of my co-workers has a spider phobia - this explained why she sent a library patron to me, to colour photocopy some pictures of spiders. But the amusing thing was that she felt compelled to wash her hands after having to handle some books on the subject. (We all know books are great germ-carriers anyway, so it wasn't wasted effort.)

local hero...kind of

I don't actually know Sandro Kopp, but I feel as though I do in an acquaintance-y kind of way. He's a painter of nudes whom I came across in a prospectus for an art school, way back when I was considering going there. I really like his nudes - they remind me a little of Lucien Freud - and now I find that not only was he an elf extra in The Lord of the Rings, but he's also going to play a centaur in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He doesn't look beefy enough to me, to play a centaur, but he certainly could pass for an elf.

The Grudge (the original one)

We saw this last night on DVD. You can tell it's by the same guy who made Ring, because some of the same motifs are used - the loud ringing phone, the distorted photographs, the blurring of the border between tv/video-land and real life, the dead who come back...

It'll give you the heebie-jeebies too (full marks for creepiness), but the story doesn't make as much sense as the plot of Ring did (and Ring's plot didn't give much closure either). It'll be interesting to see how the American version works out, whether it tries to spell out an understandable story line for Western viewers.

bonus!

Due to a major balls-up in the roster, I'm working half an hour less than I should. It's only half an hour earlier than normal, but - due to the fact that I had rostered time off this morning to make up for working this coming Saturday - my total work time for Monday is...four and a half hours. Woo hoo!

(small pleasures...)

There's money in them thar first editions

I was finishing up on the reading I've had to do for the first module of my course 'The Art of the Book', and there was one thing left to do before the class tonight. I was to pick a favourite book, and search online for all the various editions it's been publshed as, including finding the market value for first editions and so on.

My favourite book is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy.

I wasn't expecting to be able to find much, and sure enough I didn't. As far as I could tell, there has only ever been one edition (2003), and it's not worth any more now than it was when it was first published.

So, racking my brains for a more likely candidate, I though of The Golden Bough. It's a book I haven't even seen a copy of yet, much less read. But it is a book I've been looking for on and off for the last year, ever since a similarly mythologically-inclined library patron recommended it to me. It turned out to be a fairly good choice, because there are lots of editions of this book, most of them being variations of the 1922 abridged edition. There are several editions before that, too.

It's left me wondering why the 1890 first edition was just two volumes while the 1906 edition was twelve, for one thing. I do know that someone is selling their third edition copy for one thousand dollars US.

good food, bad food

What a small world...
On Friday night we went out for curry 'n' fireworks with some friends (it was Guy Fawkes night). I'd arranged to meet one of my friends at a local Irish pub; spotting him, I went over and found him sitting next to a guy he'd just met - who turned out to be an old tramping buddy from my university days. I then found out that his girlfriend at the time, whom I also knew, used to go to school with my friend! We missed half of the fireworks on the harbour, but what we saw of them was great. I just love fireworks.

Family blahs...
Yesterday was the kind of day that makes me fantasise about leaving the country, freeing myself from daughterly duties forever. My main worry is that I'm going to just as much of a pain in the arse when I get to my mother's age; if my boy leaves me by then I won't be able to hold it against him. According to his partner, my brother has apparently been showing signs pain-in-the-arseness too. It's a kind of fixatedness they have, which results in major tantrums if they don't get the half-price bargain they really really want right now. I think that my brother's partner and my nephew are the two sanest people in my family right now.

Dicing with porcelain-hugging...
Then there was a house-leaving barbeque last night; a past brush with the deadly cryptosporidium has left the boy extremely wary of barbeque food. I bought a couple of pork steaks so that at least I would have something to eat. It was very ironic when the boy caved in to temptation but chose to eat a sausage instead of one of the steaks (hello...it was the sausage that did you in two Christmases ago...).

Relatives en masse

I found out a couple of weeks ago that a bunch of relatives are coming over from Hong Kong for a visit - my uncle (my mum's brother), his wife and my aunt (my mum's sister) have taken advantage of some cheap airfares to come to New Zealand. So they're stopping off in Auckland to visit another aunt and the four of them are coming to my hometown to visit my mother.

It's going to be a houseful of seventy-somethings.

My brother was complaining that they could've chosen a more convenient time to make the journey; he's an architect and in the middle of the busiest time of his working year. For me of course, there are only two three-week periods of the year in which I'm not juggling full-time work with part-time study; this is not one of those times. Still, it would be nice to see them, and we'd be bad hosts if we didn't at least try to spend as much time as possible showing them around the place. For two of them it will be their first time ever in this country.

It was a revelation to realise that they are all here to celebrate my mum's eightieth birthday, something which the birthday girl herself denied wanting to doing anything about.

My brother has arranged a late lunch meeting at my mum's house today, to work out among the three of us how we are going to keep everyone entertained. Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I interpret it as a meeting to bully me into doing the bulk of the driving. I should have told him that the two of them could just work it out themselves and let me know later - that's what they usually do anyway.

Unfortunately, the boy isn't going to be around much of the time - he's going overseas for ten days to visit his wee daughter. So not only will I miss his support, but the rellies aren't going to get to meet him.

email fiends, unnecessary lists and the challenge of making church history look interesting

For the second time in as many months, the Information Management department at the university has succumbed to some sort of e-mail virus. My in-box keeps filling up with multiple copies of some meaningless piece of mail, sent from the university; I can't delete it all in one go without also deleting the stuff I want to keep.

Plus, I think I've joined a couple of Book History-related dscussions lists too soon. So far I've received about ten e-mails about the history of Jane Austen's Emma.

I've got two displays to put up next week, one for an Anglican church and the other for a Catholic rest home. The use of fake religious relics would be tacky. White is a nice, Christian colour - but not terribly interesting (unless I add gold, then it might become tacky). At least they aren't going to incite any religious warfare, I suppose.

no accounting for taste

I don't understand it, and I probably never will. Why oh why oh why does the boy insist on buying DVDs of movies which even he admits are rubbish?

He came home with Van Helsing last night; apparently he just couldn't help it - he had to get it. And yet we both went to see it in town a while ago and I'm sure he was just a scathing of it as I was. Well, maybe slightly less. He certainly didn't rave about it.

The boy just has a habit of wanting to see films even if everybody he knows has derided it. I only narrowly missed being pressured into seeing the second Tomb Raider movie (the first one was one of the suckiest action movies I've ever seen).

If I'd just met the guy, and he revealed his taste for awful movies, I woulda dumped him then and there - so it's just as well for him I already fell for him by then, eh?

More Tim Tams for me.

Usually when I do the bus on Wednesday afternoons I'm accompanied by another library assistant, because there are heaps of oldies to help up and down the steps on this particular run.

My usual accomplice has been bitching for ages about the waste of resource in sending her with me; last Friday she got her wish - I was to do the run alone in future.

So today was my first Wednesday afternoon bus run on my own; obviously, this coincided with a busier-than-usual afternoon. The most worrisome thing was that I would have to reverse the bus for about ten metres without anyone to watch and ensure that I didn't run over an old biddy and her walking frame.

The most rewarding thing was that the nice people at one of the nursing homes brought out Tim Tams and tea to the bus, and the ex-accomplice loves Tim Tams (cookies with multiple layers of chocolate in various textures, for you North Americans).

Questions, questions

Yesterday's difficult request from a customer:

"I want to see a map of Poland as it was before World War II, showing all the towns. But I can't remember the name of the town I'm interested in."
(Not in the two books of Polish history, nor in the world history atlases).

Today's unusual phone request from a customer:

"I've got dog hair all over the flooring in my car, and using the vacuum cleaner hasn't helped get it off. Can you tell me how to get the dog hair out?"
(A quick answer, found on the Internet, was to rub it with your rubber-gloved hand or roll some sellotape over it). My boss overheard me and told me I should've just told him to come to the library for the house-cleaning books.

I think it might finally be summer. In my lunch break I went outside to read, and had to return indoors after a while because my black hair soaked up too much heat and cooked my brain (that's my excuse anyway).

The original celluloid blood-sucker

We watched Nosferatu on DVD last night. It was genuinely creepy; Count Orloff is damned ugly and not at all seductive like, say, Dracula; his shadow is even creepier than his person.

I did find the soundtrack a little distracting; it's a load of avant-garde music which is alternately spooky and simply peculiar. Also, knowing how old the film is was a distraction too. Every time I saw a scene of waves crashing I'd think "Those are waves crashing eighty-odd years ago...". I'd see young Ellen, the heroine, and think "She's no doubt dead and rotting in her grave by now...".

We saw Shadow of the Vampire quite a while ago - I think I should watch it again so I'll get the jokes.

October

Thanks, Pickwick.
Lots of this applies to me, but I certainly do care what others think (though I wish I didn't). Also, I only love children when they aren't being bratty, noisy and messy. Not sure about the outer beauty either. You'd have to ask someone else.

OCTOBER:
Loves to chat. Loves those who loves them. Loves to
takes things at
the center. Inner and physical beauty. Lies but
doesn't
pretend. Gets angry often. Treats friends
importantly. Always making friends.
Easily hurt but recovers easily. Daydreamer.
Opinionated. Does not care of
what others think. Emotional. Decisive. Strong
clairvoyance. Loves to
travel, the arts and literature. Touchy and easily
jealous. Concerned. Loves outdoors. Just and
fair.
Spendthrift. Easily influenced. Easily loses
confidence. Loves children.


What does your birth month say about you?
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The study break that wasn't

My current study break is three weeks long - that is, there are three weeks between the last class in trimester two and the first class of trimester three. But it's really so much less than that; the first week of the study break was spent finishing an assignment, and the last week will be spent doing the required reading in preparation of the next class which is next Monday. So, in all, I had a break of a week in which I could read purely for pleasure, research only the subjects I'm interested in and write for fun instead of for credit.

And the next super-sucky thing is that, over Christmas, I get a mere one and a half weeks off school.

One of those big questionsI wonder why, when I forget the key to the branch library, I don't remember I need it until I've already driven the fifteen minutes through the suburbs to get there from the main library?

Making Murphy's Law work for me
Considering how I've often been passionately interested in something right up until I commit to it by spending up on materials, classes, outfits or whatever...I should commit myself to being a library assistant at my library for forever - thereby ensuring an offer to work for big bucks at an art school library doing whatever the hell I like...