Epic Conclusion (Moving Days R)

In the days since I left the "Liberry," life has proceeded as usual over in Tri-Metro. I know this because I've been back for several visits. Most of these were in the days prior to us fully vacating our house in Town C, when the wife was still living there as she wrapped up her medical residency, but I've made a few since. In fact, one such visit of mine was made specifically because of her residency.

Each year, the hospital holds a mini-graduation ceremony for all of its residents, giving out graduation certificates to each class as they either pass into a new year of their residency, or, as in the case with my wife, fully graduate and pass into the real world. Now, unlike most graduation ceremonies, which tend to be pretty boring affairs, these residency ceremonies are great because there's an open bar, massively tasty hors d'oeuvres beforehand, followed by a catered buffet dinner with dessert and then what amounts to about half an hour's worth of award-awarding, which is usually a pretty fun time because most of the people giving the awards are friends and colleagues and very funny people who know how to make such ceremonies interesting and fun. (Or, maybe I've just been to the open bar one too many times to know otherwise.) This year's ceremony promised to be very similar, only this year the wife was the major honoree when it came to graduating third year residents. Actually, she was the only graduating third year, not to mention she's also chief resident, so it was even more of a focus on her. Unfortunately, the graduation ceremony fell on June 12, a day I was already committed to being at a conference for a non-profit organization I am a member of, in another part of the state. Not only that, but this was a conference for which I did the majority of the planning and at which I was obligated to be in order to help get things set up. The date had been set in stone for literally the past year. The wife wasn't happy that I couldn't get out of it, nor was I, but she said she understood that that's the way things had rolled.

As the days went by and the conference date grew closer, it occurred to me that it would be the ultimate surprise if I was somehow able to get out of the setup portion of the conference and turn up at the wife's ceremony after all. I get so few opportunities to surprise her without her managing to spoil it in advance, so I thought this would be a great choice. I kept completely mum about it and didn't actually make the final decision on whether or not to pull it off until two days shy of the conference itself for fear of my big mouth letting something slip early. The longer I waited, though, the more I knew it would be gold. None of the wife's family was going to be able to come, so she would be there alone. I knew it had to be done. After making arrangements with a trusted colleague to take over my setup duties, and with a trusted colleague of the wife's to run interference if need be, I officially decided to slip in and surprise the wife.

On graduation day, I snuck out of Borderland and hit the road for Tri-Metro. I had to head over early, to pass some of my setup materials on to someone headed to the conference, so afterward I had a few hours to kill before the ceremony kicked in around 6. So I headed over to the "liberry." The alphabet squad was happy to see me. Mrs. A even had me go around and mark all the shitty shelf-ends with tape yet again in preparation for the delivery of the brand new non-shitty shelf ends. Mrs. J had already been given instructions not to touch the tape.

Around 5:15, the wife called me on my cell phone to ask how the conference set up was going. I told her that it was hectic but going as smooth as could be expected. She said she had just arrived at the hotel where the graduation was to be held and was about to start eating shrimp. She was real sorry I couldn't be there. I told her I wished I was, cause I could use some shrimp, too. We said lovey goodbyes and as soon as I hung up I jumped in the car and zipped over. I was already clad in my "going to graduation" finest and ready to go.

Much liken unto a ninja, I snuck into the ballroom to find the wife with her back to me as she spoke with the very colleague I'd asked to help. I slipped up behind her, then almost directly beside her and just stood there smiling, holding a bouquet of roses, waiting for my presence to be noticed. The wife followed her friend's gaze, turned, saw me, made a funny confused expression then realized what I had done and burst into laughter. She absolutely had no idea I'd been planning it and was, for once, truly surprised.

The ceremony was great, not only for the food and the open bar (which I was unable to partake of, as I had a two hour road trip ahead of me still) but because much of the night was devoted to the wife. It was fantastic to see the respect and love her colleagues and friends in the program have for her and to hear how much she had been a positive influence on the overall direction of the residency program. They even gave her an extra award she wasn't expecting for her work with the rural health system (which is part of the reason we went to Alaska last year). It was a great evening.

But I digress...

As I said, life continues on at the "liberry." Since my departure they've purchased a new photocopier to replace the devil photocopier we've had for years. They've also bought a new fax machine to replace the devil fax machine we've had for years. And they've continued sprucing up the place rather nicely, aided, I might add, by the arrival and installation of the good shelf ends, which, after a whole YEAR, the contractor finally decided to send.

My vacancy has even been filled with another guy, this time a high school student I'll just call Mr. R who belongs to one of the families of long-time beloved patrons (all together now: "Me belove you long time!") who I've known since I started working at the place in 2001. He's a great choice for the gig. And the last time I visited, a couple weeks back, I saw yet another familiar face behind the circ desk in the form of a seemingly long-lost former employee. No, not Ms. S or Miss E or Miss F, Miss Nightranger or even my prediction of Miss K. Instead, the long-lost employee is Miss Temp who left our fold for a more lucrative job in a southern state prone to hurricanes. I didn't get a chance to talk to her, so I don't know why she's back or for how long, but Mrs. A seemed very glad to have someone to plug into the job who was not only already trained but very good at it to begin with. Evidently, I've left the "liberry" in good hands.

And so we bring to a close the tale of the move to the new building. Naturally, there are other stories I could tell about the creation of the new building, being as how there was a a LOT of politics on both at state and local level that went into it, not to mention a handful of people who not only tried to stand in the way but, at one point, tried to stage an outright coup. I've decided it's probably best not to tell those stories, however. I've only been privy to peripheral details in the first place and, in the intervening months, have forgotten a lot of the solid facts I once did know. The way I see it, the "good guys" won the day, the "bad guys" had to suck it and in the end that's all that really matters.

Final Tuesday

My final Tuesday was largely uneventful, save for one curious incident.

Mid-afternoon, a fairly stunning college-aged girl approached the desk. She grinned broadly at me and said "Hi, how's it going?" in a very familiar tone. She looked familiar, too, but I couldn't place her.

The girl turned in a book, I checked it in and noted that her last name was familiar, though the first listed was actually her mother. That's when I realized that this girl was the daughter of a patron I also know from church. Ah, so that's where I knew her from, I thought. I probably recognized her from church, back when she was in high school. Now she was off to college and home for the summer. It was only later, after she came to check out that I realized the full nature of her identity. She passed me a book, then a library card. When I scanned the card, it brought up her mother's record again. The girl then mentioned that her own card was linked to her mother's if I wanted to use it instead. I switched over to the linked patrons tab and saw her first name. Then it hit me: this was no mere girl I knew from church, this was Miss K, our former newbie greenhorn, formerly high school-aged weekend warrior who had originally been hired to replace the thieving, dishonest and job-abandoning Miss E. Wow did she grow up!

I later suggested to Mrs. C that if they needed a quick replacement for me, at least for the summer, they could do far worse than to hire Miss K again. She's already partially trained, or at least far moreso than most newbie greenhorns off the street would be.

Now if only Miss E, Ms. S, Miss Temp, Miss F, Mrs. H and Miss Nightranger would come by for a visit, it'd be like old home week at the "liberry."

First Day Back

Today was my first day back in the "liberry" saddle following our two-week trip to Guatemala and El Salvador. It was largely uneventful as far as the usual "liberry" madness goes, but eventful in other respects. I popped in at 1p, laden with souvenirs for the library staff. Mrs. C and Mrs. B were the only ones in the front room, and they immediately asked how my trip went.

"Fantastic!" I said.

"I've got big news too," Mrs. C whispered.

"Yeah?"

She nodded furiously, then whispered, "I'm expecting."

This is huge news for Mrs. C. She and Mr. C have been trying to have a child for the past year and it's not been a fun time. Well, I'm sure it's been a fun time in some respects, but the results have not been what they've wanted. So congrats to Mr. and Mrs. C!

The staff, of course, had plenty of questions concerning my trip. Unfortunately, giving any kind of overview of a two-week mission trip in a short period of time is a very difficult thing to do. We had such an amazing time, saw and heard of such harrowing and heart-warming things and had so many mini-adventures in the process that you can't really Cliff's Notes it effectively. But I gave them a few highlights and lowlights. And once Mrs. A and Mrs. J came downstairs too, I gave everyone their souvenirs.

I bought five colorful pottery sun-faces at an Indian market in Antigua. They're essentially the same little ornamental sculpture, painted in different shades. Unfortunately, three of them were slightly chipped in a horribly true Continental Airlines-related incident at the Houston International Airport on the way home. (The chipping was actually getting off light in this case, as Ashley had part of a much larger pottery piece broken during the same incident.) Still, these were only chipped on the edges of a couple of the sun rays, so they’re still nice to display. I apologized for bringing them broken pottery, but gave them over anyway.

I also brought them each their own bag of fried plantain chips. These are plantains sliced lengthwise, salted and fried like potato chips. They’re just some of the most tasty fried chips you could ever want, though I doubt they are much better for you than potato chips. Sweet and salty all at once, they’re just tasty and good. Everyone broke open their bags and began sampling.

I asked what sort of incidents had occurred at the library in my absence? I fully expected them to relate something that I would fully regret having missed—like Chester and Parka having a shootout in the parking lot or something. Nope. The only notable incident they could recall was Mr. Stanky putting in an appearance yesterday and being particularly stinky even for him.

“You know,” I began, “I smelled a pretty wide array of B.O. when I was in Guatemala, but none of it came anywhere close to touching his.”

The only other possible incident was reported on our circ-desk note-pad. Our weekender, Miss K, noted that one of our long-time patrons, Mr. Crab, (who is also a long-time library donor and not afraid to let you know that should anything not go quite his way) had been in on Saturday and was completely pissed off that he couldn't use his old library card from the old nearly year-gone VTLS system. Mind you, Mr. Crab has a new library card on the new nearly year-old system, but he still carries his old card with him and is insulted that he can't use it. Miss K reported that Mr. Crab said he thought the way we had set up the new system was done in an unintelligent fashion and he insisted that we put his old barcode number from his old card in the new patron record so he could use it instead of his new card. I’m still not entirely sure what this man’s beef truly is, but even on his best days Mr. Crab could give Mr. B-Natural and Mr. Smiley a run for their Grumpiest and Second Grumpiest Old Man in all the World titles. Ms. K reported that she wasn’t sure what to do so she added the man’s old barcode to his patron record in addition to his new one just to shut him up. She indicated which barcode we should delete in case this was wrong. Mrs. A then had a note at the end of the account telling us to delete the old barcode.

I'm somehow sure this won't be the end of it.

Must be training them right

I came in a few days ago to find two huge cardboard boxes full of new books to process. I later learned from Mrs. C that this represented two completely separate book orders from weeks apart that both arrived on the same day. She had already catalogued them and Mrs. B and Miss K had already stamped them and affixed their spine-labels, but the books still had to be covered and/or have their spine labels taped (and/or/or entirely retyped, in the case of undetected half-assed typing attempts). That fell to me to do solo.

I had a surprise awaiting me on the top of the first box's pile, though. There, before my weary eyes, was a brand new hardback copy of Marvel's collected 1602 mini-series, by Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert, with it's gorgeous Scott McKowen cover staring back at me. Fantastic! Even better than it arriving, though, was the fact that I hadn't even had to bug Mrs. A and Mrs. C to order it in the first place. I later learned that Mrs. A had seen it in her Baker & Taylor catalog and ordered it on sight. (Granted, she knows I'm a Gaiman fanatic, so it was an easy bet that I'd want it for our graphic novel collection, but it's still a nice gesture that she chose it on her own.)

Incidentally, Mr. Scott McKowen is now illustrating the dust-jackets of a new series of unabridged hardback classics. We already have just such a new edition of Little Women and we're sure to snatch up other volumes ASAP.

WWWJD

Yesterday was our new "liberry" assistant Miss K’s first day on the job. (Miss K is, by the way, no relation to Kammy K: the Book Hoarding Bizatch.) She's pretty green, as this is maybe her second job ever and certainly first at a library, so there’s lots of stuff to be imparted to her. Mrs. C has mostly been training Miss K, but I've thrown in a few logs of advice here and there too.

One of my main objectives is to warn this naif employee about some of the patrons--of the regular, rogue and crazy varieties--she will likely encounter. The subject of one regular in particular came up when I noticed that Mrs. C had a new book of Hebrew essays over by her desk, ready for cataloging. Turned out it was for another area library, whose cataloging Mrs. C is assisting with. However, it struck me as just the sort of book Wal-Mart Jesus would probably enjoy.

"Do you know about Jesus?" I asked Miss K, grinning. Beyond the obvious humor at asking, it was a fair question. After all, having grown up in the area, Miss K was already familiar with the Purple Nun. She admitted, however, she was unfamiliar with Jesus. So I explained who Wal-Mart Jesus is, paying particular attention to details about how he always wears his Low-Rent Arab Sheik robe and flappy turban that appear to have been pulled off a roll in Wal-Mart's fabric department. I also mentioned how he tends to carry a black leather satchel with a large home made tree-limb cudgel to defend himself against folks who mistake him for a terrorist.

"He's a really nice guy," I said, "but he can be a handful when he wants lots of photocopies made and wants you to do it."

Miss K nodded and laughed and looked nervous about it all.

At 3 o'clock I took my break and headed down to the comic shop for this week's goody bag. (Amazing Spider-Man # 515, Tom Strong #30, Concrete: The Human Dilemma #1, Supreme Power #14, Invincible Iron Man #2 and Books of Magick: Life During Wartime #6.) When I returned, Mrs. C grinned and pointed at a familiar black satchel resting behind the counter, minus the cudgel.

"Guess who she got to meet today?" Mrs. C said.

I've learned that it is not at all uncommon for patrons to magically appear at the sound of their own name. They could be absent for months, but if I mention them in common conversation or even blog about them they magically reappear. (I'm now awaiting a new visit from the Evil FedEx Guy in exchange for all the words I lavished on him. Somewhere, I'm sure his ears are burning. I hope it hurts.)

Wal-Mart Jesus's visit was uneventful. He's almost completely given up on finding a seemingly non-existent on-line copy of a particular obscure Hebrew text and is now of a mind to contact the out-of-state university that he knows owns a copy and asking if they can photocopy bits of it for him. (This has been his ongoing project for the past several months, one which I've probably spent an hour and a half total trying to help him with. We've looked and looked and what he wants does not appear to be on-line. Further complicating matters is that I can't always help him search for it because I can't read Hebrew. Fortunately, he can, but his web skills are pretty rudimentary. We make a great pair. Also, we have tried to help him locate what he wants through more traditional library means, but there are just not a whole lot of Hebrew Universities in West Virginia. I still think there's more we can do, but I'll have to consult with someone who has skills.)

New blood

It's official. We've finally hired a new weekend "liberry" ass. to replace Miss E.

We've actually been in search mode for several weeks now, though we've been threatening such a hire since Miss E's abrupt departure. Back in late October, Mrs. A began hitting up the usual sources of past new employees, such as a valuable contact at my wife's school where hungry jobless med-student spouses are often to be found, willing to work for cheap. (Hey, that's precisely how I got the job, so I'm not knocking it.) When that didn't prove fruitful, she put up a HELP WANTED sign on the front door of the building. After a week passed with nary a response, Mrs. A turned the sign at a six degree angle so that it was crooked against the glass square it was taped to. Suddenly the resumes started pouring in.

Many of the applicants were long-time patrons who always thought it would be fun to work at the library. Several of these folks I would have been happy to work with and even went to bat on their behalf cause I think they're cool people. There were also a number of resumes from the local wingnut population too, a couple of whom we can barely tolerate as patrons.

As I said, there were many good choices among the regular population, but Mrs. A and Mrs. C decided not to go with either the regular or wingnut route. They hired Miss K, who--much like Miss E when she began in the job--is still in high school. In fact, I think she's a senior in high school, which means we'll probably only have her through the end of summer. We're hoping that, unlike Miss E--who turned vicious and deceitful on us and still has yet to actually resign despite not having shown up for work for several months--Miss K will work out much better. According to Mrs. A and C, Miss K was the shining star among those who they interviewed.

My only question to them: "You did warn her she would have to regularly deal with crazy people, right?"

They had.

Miss K apparently comes from good stock and had glowing references in addition to a pleasant personality. Upon hearing we'd hired her, one of her former supervisors at another job congratulated us and said we'd hired a good kid.

Miss K doesn't start until next week and won't be thrown onto weekends until she's trained and on her feet. In the meantime, I'll still have to fill in on weekends, such as today's largely uneventful Saturday shift. It was a very low-traffic day, until exactly three minutes until closing time, at which point two ladies felt it necessary to come in and drop off a pile of books each that I would have to shelve before leaving. One of them stuck around to search for another pile to take out, as rumor has it we're in for a blizzard tomorrow. With limited browsing time, she was really feeling the pressure and seemed to frantically scan the shelves at random. Finally, at 30 seconds `til close, she threw up her hands and said, "You help me find it. I'm looking for more books by her but I can't figure out where they're at." She pointed to one of the hardback Karen Robards books she'd returned.

"Well, you might look over there in the R's?" I suggested.