Bibliomama

It's been kind of a crappy week. I'll spare you the gory details, except to say that perimenopause is not for sissies and my already-dire iron levels are in danger of plunging even further. That coupled with the suffocating, enervating heat and humidity meant Monday and Tuesday were pretty much a write-off. Which was okay, I didn't miss anything important, Lucy and I spent some quality time in my reading chair in front of a fan with some pretty good books. The problem is always re-entry. I end up feeling like Rip Van Winkle, unsure about the customs and expressions in this world that's continued to rush by as I lay fallow. I dragged myself out to book club last night with ill grace, after apologizing to my husband for snapping more than once (I know it only seems like the worse I feel the dumber his questions get). It was good. We had read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which was splendid. He does an amazing job of making centuries of human history comprehensible and

In my School Libraries course last term (the one with the instructor who annoyed me), I did a Book Talk project on five YA books that had been made into movies. I thought I did an awesome job, but of course the instructor found all kinds of nit-picky details that weren't in the assignment instructions but we somehow should have just guessed that she wanted. One of her comments was "you should be honest about whether or not you've read all the books - students will be able to tell if you haven't, and you'll lose their trust." SAY WHAT? As IF I'd do a book talk on a book I hadn't read. If I hadn't read it, I would just read it the night before. Okay fine, I can't read every single book in the library, but I can read all the books I do book talks about - are you saying you don't, Ms. Instructor, because maybe that's why I don't trust you. Hmph. So my course right now is called Genre Fiction and Readers' Advisory, and so far it

Eve and I are home from the book fair and tired. We had an interview with her teacher who I already loved. She said Eve obviously doesn't face any academic difficulties, so she thinks they should focus on preparing for middle school and high school by working on the challenges of things like group work dynamics and subjects that Eve finds less engaging, like geography (poor kid has a little dead spot in her brain just like mine, where mapping skills should be). Then she said Eve was awesome, which, duh, but always nice to hear. Then we went back to the book fair. It was crazy busy and crowded and I had to go out in the hallway every time somebody used debit or credit again and fighting through the throngs of people wearing winter coats made me claustrophobic and panicky,  but most people were awesome and we made a metric fuckton of money for the school library and by the end of the evening everything was hilarious and math stopped working in the library for a few minutes around

Have I mentioned how much I love everyone who reads and comments here, and how I would totally buy you all homes in the south of France if I could? Even though I still don't know if we should get a dog? Because I really really do, and I really really would. And we are completely maybe getting some kind of dog some day. I picked Eve up at school dismissal to whip her over to piano lessons, then whip her back to the school so I could do my interview with her teacher and then we could work the book fair for the evening, which is always nuts because all the parents come in before or after their interviews. I had my usual four-minute interview - Eve's enthusiastic, Eve's bright and interested and wonderful and when Eve and Marianna sit close together they talk too much. Check. I went back to wait with Eve for the librarian to arrive and unlock the library. She was six minutes late. There were people lined up and pounding on the library doors like they were high and the last

How do I do this again? Blog without a specific event and pictures to anchor me? It's been a while. I was feeling a touch surly last night, although mostly still shaky. I'm taking a basic Computers course in my Library Tech Diploma. Until now I've been able to muddle through all the courses even though I'm not terribly comfortable with computers and they keep changing course platforms on me; but NOW, I'm supposed to be learning about computers ON A COMPUTER. It feels somewhat akin to learning how to race cars by building my own car and then racing it - I worry there could be a catastrophic injury. So I was starting a little late because of all the World Series nuttiness, then school starting, then Matt being in Asia and Eve having the flu, then Blissdom, because I knew the first assignment wasn't due until next week. I was working through the chapter on Windows 7, clicking all the buttons and thinking this was pretty good, useful and simple even - some instr

So I had a doctor's appointment early Wednesday morning. I made it early because I knew I was going to get weighed and I wanted to go without eating. This was a stupid, stupid idea. It was stupid because I know I've lost some weight and I shouldn't have been so hell-bent on the doctor's scale showing the most possible weight lost, and it was stupid because I live in a suburb that's reasonably far from downtown, which is fine in off-hours when the traffic is normal, but during what we like to call "escape from Barrhaven" when everybody's going to work, it takes an insanely long time to get there. So I left an hour early for a drive that should take twenty to twenty-five minutes, and I was late, and stuck in traffic, and having a panic attack. I made it in around twenty minutes late, and managed not to burst into tears in the waiting room, and the doctor still saw me. And my weight loss was duly recorded and praised, but it was rather unfortunate that

There was a scheduled chat for my course on Mobile Technology for Library Technicians last night. There haven't been any chats in my last few courses. I haven't missed them, exactly, but they can be fun and productive. It's a rare chance to get a glimpse of fellow students and share ideas, when usually we're all toiling away in isolation and only seeing the odd remark on a discussion board. I tend to have a good time in chats because a) I can type really fast, so I'm always able to reply quickly and address people before ten more comments have been entered and b) I'm old now and, whereas I used to concentrate on getting the right answer the most times, now I try to get the most people to comment on how funny I am. I can't seem to stop myself from trying to get the professor to say "Allison, you're being slightly inappropriate." In the really tough course on subject analysis, wherein the Dewey Decimal System almost drove me to rack and ruin, the

Thesauruses (thesauri?) tend to make me surly. First of all, I have this irrational feeling that if I use a thesaurus, it's kind of cheating. It's not really a hundred percent my own work any more if I have to get a word consult. But more than that, doesn't it often turn out that using a thesaurus doesn't really work? I was writing an assignment and looking for a synonym for 'celebrate', as in 'celebrate diversity', but I'd already used 'celebrate', and didn't want to use it four more times. But 'beat the drum for diversity' really didn't seem appropriate. Neither did 'blow off steam' or 'carouse' or 'ceremonialize'. And 'drink to'? Yes, my marketing assignment was really going to fly with my brilliant plan to organize a book club for elementary school students wherein we all 'drink to diversity!' So yeah, this course. It's called "Library Marketing and Advocacy". Except

I was just emailing one of the commenters from yesterday's post saying that I wish people didn't have to feel like they have to say "my anxiety isn't as bad as yours" when talking about their anxiety. I really don't think I'm the Queen of Anxiety. I'm not the anxiousest in the land. But also, wtf is up with all the anxiety? Is it the genetically engineered corn? Is it a by-product of people idling their cars? Is Dr. Doofenshmirtz blasting us all with an Anxiety-inator? Everyone in the Tri-State area will henceforth weep with agonized indecision when asked 'paper or plastic?' For me right now, transitions are especially bad. I changed clothes five times trying to get out of the house to go to the school. Then I went to the portable which is Eve's classroom but the teacher wasn't there. By the time I found the correct room, I was sweaty and breathless and ready to burst into tears. But once I was in the room, I was totally fine. Of

I went to pick up Eve from school and came home with what feels like a nasty, tangled yarn-ball of upsetness in my stomach. I will herein attempt to untangle these grimy strands of emotion - lucky you. Eve has had four teachers thus far: her English homeroom teacher, who she adores; a French teacher, who she likes; a male science teacher who she triple-extra-special adores; and a music, art and dance teacher who she really likes. Today she came out of the portable looking extremely downcast and handed me a letter informing us that science and music, art and dance will now all be taught by the French teacher, due to 'increased enrollment'. 1) This sucks. She was so excited to have the science teacher, who has taught Angus and who all the kids love. He had her all fired up. About rocks. Seriously - we were walking home from my Mom and Dad's the other day and she explained the entire life cycle of a rock to me, and then said her favourite rock was obviously sedimentary bec

It was really far from the school, just like that other one - over an hour on the bus. BUT I was sitting with this really nice woman who moved here from Edmonton last year and we talked about books and teachers and working for the government and the time flew by. We were in the second seat from the front, so there was a nice breeze but not a 60mph wind whipping my hair into a Medusa-like frenzy. The weather forecast was 35 degrees with the humidex, with possible thunderstorms. BUT it didn't feel that hot or humid, and the whole place was shaded, and the weather was perfect and beautiful and it didn't rain. We were going to someplace called MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre,  which I was led to believe was a kind of conservation area, and we were told to bring bug repellent, so I was envisioning swampy ickiness swarming with frogs and mosquitoes. One woman at book club said, with great portent, "I've always managed to be unavailable for that one", and I

I was out running errands - library, grocery store to get stuff for a good field-trip lunch for tomorrow, because remember this little piece of hell manifested on earth ? I decided it wouldn't be fair not to experience the same unsanctified splendours with my younger child as well. That's not true, she actually brought the form home and begged me to sign it and send it back RIGHT AWAY because the first three Moms got to come and she was pretty sure no one else would send it back the very next day (uh, yeah, because NO ONE ELSE WANTS TO GO), so I did. Only afterwards did I realize it's an all-day deal again and it's supposed to be 35 freaking degrees out again and I have to ride on the bus. Again. Please god let the epi-pen chick not be in my group. ....and flowers for my Mom to plant in our front planter, which she does as a birthday gift for me. Of course last year she bought the flowers, which meant I appreciated the effort but hated most of the flowers. This year

Eve's class has been going to the community pool for the last three Mondays to learn 'life-saving skills'. It was great. She's been a very slow starter in swimming; she loved being in the water, but she wouldn't jump in, didn't like going under water, and needed water wings well after the other kids her age were eeling around without flotation devices. This was fine until she went to summer camp last year and couldn't pass the swimming test and ended up having to hang around in the shallow end with little boys in life jackets. So I put her in a private swimming class, and she's made enormous progress. Over March Break, my friend and I took the kids swimming and she passed the swimming test easily, even though it was a long swim in water over her head. She got a little nervous before the first Monday, but passed the test again, didn't have to wear a lifejacket, somersaulted into the water and jumped off the diving board for the first time ever. She wa

I shouldn't have promised a funny story, when really it's funny in a very particular, some might say slightly pathetic, kind of way. So I'm working away at my library technician diploma , one course at a time, right? And a lot of these courses are about stuff that I've had little or no exposure to , and the learning curve can be steep. But I'm fairly intelligent (shut up, I am so) and I work through them and it eventually comes clear and I generally get between 93 and 97 percent on a course because I am and always have been a keen, anxious, overly perfectionist student. A couple of times I've emailed in assignments and felt like I hadn't done terribly well, either because the assignment was, in fact, difficult and I wasn't sure of my answers, or because it seemed too easy and I worried that I'd missed something (I tend to overthink things, in case you hadn't noticed). Every time this happened and I talked about it, I felt sort of embarrassed

Then BRING ON THE DECAY, I say. I don't do well with change (I may have mentioned this before). It doesn't matter if the change is mighty or miniscule, positive or pissy, it stresses me the fuck out. Not intellectually - I look forward to the changing of the seasons; I like the freedom that summer holidays bring; I also like getting back into the routine of school, piano lessons, me and the kids reading in my room at night before bed. I like the satisfaction of finishing one course and the challenge of starting a new one. But something in my body there is that does not love change (I was trying to do a takeoff on that line of poetry about something in nature not loving a wall , but I just ended up sounding like Yoda. Fuck.) The kids get out of school and I'm a panicky ball of angst. The kids go back to school and I'm a weepy mess. I got new glasses a couple of years ago and I actually wrote in my diary "I hate how they feel when I'm washing them. The

Oops, I took a week off. Not that I was on vacation or anything. Actually, the lead-up to summer vacation for the kids leads to a lot of hard work on my part. First I had to finish Eve's giraffe project, then I had to help Angus make up a disco dance to Stayin' Alive - will somebody tell me why we're still in school? The report card marks are all in, it's a million degrees in the shade, and the teachers are assigning silly make-work stuff that I end up doing most of because, in addition to everything else, the weeks of rain at the beginning of the spring baseball season mean that baseball is STILL GOING, which is okay for Angus since he'd sleep in his hat and glove if I let him, but Eve and I are SO DONE. Partly because we keep losing - she's in rookie, which means it's coach pitch, and our coaches can't. Which is not their fault, they're volunteers and it's a hard job, but there it is. She's usually a really good hitter, and this year

Mostly it was awesome because, you know why? Because I wasn't on a FUCKING FIELD TRIP, that's why. Not that this wasn't fun: Okay, actually it wasn't that fun. It was fun going with the kindergarten class. OH MY GOD, A COW. OH MY GOD, A HORSE. OH MY GOD, A TRACTOR. Seven and eight year olds are just too freaking jaded. I found it mildly amusing when our guide told them to try not to freak out and laugh and shriek when the animals, ahem, relieved themselves, because it was upsetting and unsettling for the animals. I wanted to pat the woman on the shoulder and console her for having just uttered possibly the most useless statement anyone has spoken, ever. I was soundly vindicated some moments later. OH MY GOD, IT'S PEEING!!!!!!!! The only fun part was when I found my friend Collette who was there with her daughter's class and we sat on a bench watching the kids play on the play structure and talking about how badly we would suck as teachers: Me: "Yeah

And the universe is just fucking with me now. I volunteered for Eve's class's field trip this week, because I'd gone on Angus's and I didn't think fast enough to book a colonoscopy or have a crippling accident that would have convinced Eve I couldn't go on hers. And the teacher sent a note saying thanks for offering but we already have enough volunteers. YAY. Full credit for good intentions (which I did not have, my intentions were distinctly grudging and ungracious) and no requirement for arduous follow-through. Then she came out when I went to pick up Eve this afternoon and said she'd had two last-minute cancellations so they could really use my help after all. SONOFABITCH. Should have maimed myself when I had the chance. I get to drive by myself this time. It'll be fine. Nan from Wrath of Mom was talking about movies she hasn't seen and movies she loved but couldn't watch now, which reminded me of A Room With a View , which I adored and

Never mind hauling them off to the Hague. Just send them on a fifth grade field trip that takes place an hour away from the school. And make them ride the school bus. Three classes. Twenty-five kids each. Three kids to a seat, when they're mostly too big to fit three to a seat, so they squirm and elbow each other and spill into the aisles and drop their water bottles, which roll under the seats, and then they try to climb under the seats to get them. A daytime high of forty-one degrees Celsius with the humidex. A bus with a non-existent suspension so your forty-year-old tailbone meets the seat with punishing force over and over and over. Five girls shrieking Justin Bieber songs directly behind your head. And that one kid whose face is somehow just really annoying. It was Hell, manifested on earth. The field trip itself wasn't bad, although I invariably volunteer for field trips, hope desperately not to be picked, get picked and wonder why the hell I keep volunteering fo