Towing, Bailing.

I blew it! I blew NaBloPoMo! Rats. I fell into (well, onto) bed right after MG's bedtime last night and that was that. I was exhausted from picking the car up at the towing place and from bailing the water out of the trampoline, which we had covered with a tarp against winter and which then proceeded to fill up with water until there was a big heavy pool in the middle and we were worried it would stretch the trampoline out of shape.

So. Tired. Blew it. Will try to post twice today.

P.S. it rained last night and there is again water in the trampoline.

Love and Work. And food.

Today someone called in sick at at Big City Library, Big Downtown Branch, so I went in and worked.

I helped kids find adventure books, mystery books, and books about Zimbabwe. I helped parents find counting books and books they could read aloud to their 5-year-olds that would not make them want to gouge their eyes out like the Rainbow Fairies (Here are a couple: Catwings; Pippi Longstocking). I more or less taught one mom all about early literacy and how to help her kindergartener get ready to read in a way that would be fun for both of them (Yes: reading together, rhyming, singing, finding books they both like, looking at signs and labels. No: memorizing vocabulary lists, formalized teaching of phonics) and she seemed to really get it and to be happy for the information. I showed a kid how to find information about prehistoric people on an online database, and how to e-mail the articles to himself to print out later, and his whole family gathered around the computer terminal to watch and encourage him.

I helped an older woman wearing a poppy find "The Story of Ferdinand" for her grandchildren. I tracked down a book about Remembrance Day at another branch for someone who wanted to read it in her class. I helped a parent find a DVD about how to talk to your kids about sex. I found a CD-ROM about dinosaurs that a kid remembered playing two or three years ago. I did not find the French Christmas books because they'd been moved, and the other librarian on duty didn't know where they were either, but the patron who was asking me eventually found them herself, and she showed me where they were. I retrieved many video game disks for kids who wanted to borrow video games. I told many, many people that the bathroom keys were right on the desk and they were welcome to use them. And right before we closed, as everyone was hurrying for the exits, I helped a woman find some books about origami and haiku.

I logged 86 questions in five hours. By the end of the afternoon I was a little twitchy. If someone-- like, say, one of my fellow librarians-- came into the corner of my field of vision, I would jump a little bit and reflexively say, "How can I help--" then laugh a little and say, "oh, hi." But it was fun. Well, mostly fun. I was doing the kind of reference I like most. It was fun to feel needed and knowledgeable and helpful.

Then I went out for an excellent dinner with friends and laughed and laughed. I'd started the day with good food and laughter too-- the Mermaid Girl woke up in fine form, wanting to cook popovers and fruit soup out of the book Pretend Soup, by Mollie Katzen, and it turned out to be a really scrumptious breakfast. The Renaissance Woman is still sick, but was well enough to sit up and eat and chat with us before I had to go to work.

I've had some tough days this week, but today was a really good day.

Surreality, 6 AM Edition

Hellooo! I am awake, o yes I am! I would be awake by now, anyway, but I was first wakened in darkness by the Mermaid Girl who came in and lay down and said, "I think my head hurts, and my stomach hurts."

"Um," I said. "Maybe that's because it's, uh, 3:30 in the morning, bunny."

"Oh!" she said. "Never mind! Okay! Go back to sleep!" And she went away and I did.

I next awoke in darkness to the sound of someone talking in the other room, and a strange vibrant clinking ringing sound, like a glass harmonica. Or maybe two glass harmonicas bumping into each other.

MG was sitting bolt upright in the middle of her room with the light blazing bright, listening to Shannon Hale's Princess Academy on CD. The weird glass harmonica sound was coming from her ceramic tea set, which she had laid out on the floor. It was 6:00 in the morning.

"Look!" she said, climbing into the laundry hamper. "Turn off the light!" I obeyed. Blurry stars shone down on me from the ceiling. (I wasn't wearing my glasses.)

"Oh, honey, that's gorgeous," I said.

"Mama gave them to me," she said. "It was from a really old sheet. She said they probably wouldn't even work any more, but they DO. And some silly putty."

"Uh...sweetie? Do you think maybe you should lie down and try to rest for a while?"

"I can't, I have to CLEAN MY ROOM," she said. "I TRIED to sleep. But I can't. So now I'm cleaning my room."

"Oh." I said. Who am I to tell a kid to stop cleaning her room? Though frankly, it looked if anything more cluttered than last time I'd been in there. "Um. Okay." Still kind of dazed, I slumped down to the floor and picked up one of the many Dear America books that her grandmother gave her a couple of years ago. "Um, maybe you could read for a little? Here, you could read this book about a factory worker."

"No, Mommy," she said kindly. "Um, Mommy? You don't have to stay." Which is what she says when she is feeling diplomatic and wants us to GET OUT.

"Oh. Uh, okay."

"Mommy?"

"Uh huh?"

"Could you turn the light out on your way out? I'll turn it back on when I need it."

"Um, okay." And I turned out the light and stumbled back to bed, leaving her in the laundry hamper looking up at the stars on her ceiling.

So I listened to a podcast and tried to tune out the Princess Academy filtering through the heating vent, but no go. And now it is light and time for us to get up for real and go to synagogue, where we will, respectively, attend and teach religious school. Then she will go straight from there to a gymnastics birthday party all the way across town.

Anyone want to take bets on the likelihood of:

a) us making it to shul on time,
b) MG's room being cleaned for real by her deadline tonight, and/or
c) One or both of us having a total and utter meltdown by sunset ?

Let's just pretend I wrote a real post today.

Well. I must admit to feeling completely uninspired today. It is the third of three pretty crappy days, and also the day on which we ascertained that the Renaissance Woman has H1N1, which is completely upending our plans for the next week. My cold appears to be better but now I have a cough. I wish I could think of something clever or funny to write--I had lots of ideas yesterday, but they seem to have fled right out of my head, which is why one should always keep a list of blog post ideas handy.

Anyway, maybe I can interest you in this post instead? It is pretty dang funny. And also its companion following post, this one.

Okay! Enjoy! See you tomorrow!

Bah Humbug, Yet Again: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love "The Holly and the Ivy"

The annual "Bah, Humbug" post has become a holiday tradition here at the Booland, and far be it from me to mess with tradition. Tevye and I, we are ALL ABOUT teh tradition. (Here are all the old ones, if you'd like to bask in the past.)

What-- you say it's not even December yet? Tell that to all the local merchants. Because things are gearing up already.

Hence, forthwith, the FIFTH installment of our esteemed annual "Bah, Humbug" series. Said series aligning more or less-- no, wait, exactly!--with the number of years that the Mermaid Girl has been in public school in the Pacific Northwest/Western Canada/A Place Far From the Greater New York Metropolitan Area Where I Grew Up and Where School Staff Would Be Less Shocked At A Suggestion That They Teach The Flat-Earth Doctrine Than One That They Drag a Tree and Wreaths and Santa and Reindeer, Never Mind The Little Baby Jesus, Into the Public Schools In December. (At Least That's How I Remember It.)

Our story (this year) begins back in early October, when the Mermaid Girl's Special School Choir started its rehearsals. The official name of the Special School Choir is actually-- I finally learned last week when I saw the permission slip, which never made it home last year due to the mysterious paper-eating qualities of MG's backpack--"The Christmas Concert Choir."

I mean, I knew from MG's experience last year that that's what it actually is, but in my home country we don't say that. Even in Seattle they'd call it the "holiday choir" or some such.

MG was hot to be in the choir, and no way was I going to be the bad guy here. I asked her if she minded singing songs about baby Jesus, like she did last year. "No," she said, "As long as there aren't too many. And as long as I don't have to believe in him."

I asked her if she wanted me to talk to the choir teacher, as we'd talked about a little last year after the concert, and she did. What did she want me to say? She wasn't sure. Did she want me to ask if the choir could sing a couple of songs about Chanukah, or at least not about Jesus or Santa? Yes, that was what she wanted. And should I say that if they do a Chanukah song, she would rather it not be the Dreidel song? YES YES I HATE THE DREIDEL SONG MOM.

Okay! So, I went in to talk with the choir teacher. I'm always anxious about being an obnoxious demanding parent (having dealt with a few from the other side of the desk) so I practiced in the shower before I went, and even typed up talking points so that I could keep them in my pocket and refer to them if need be.

And it went...okay. I've learned from some of my previous experiences and finally understand that much as I am stunned at the Christmasmania in the public schools out here, the people running said public schools honestly don't see anything wrong with what they're doing and really aren't going to transform their December celebrations into a replica of those in public schools on the Upper West Side or Northern New Jersey just because I told them they should. "Park Slope wasn't built in a day" is my new mantra.

So I started by telling the choir teacher how much MG loves choir, which is true, and how excited she is to get to be in Special Choir, which is also true. Then I said, "Um...did you know that MG is Jewish?"

And, no, actually, the choir teacher hadn't known that!

So I talked a little about my surprise about the repertoire last year, and recounted much of my conversation with MG about it, and added my own observation that she actually seemed to be more affected by the Santa stuff than by little baby Jesus references, and the poignant (and true) detail that every year around Christmas she gets very upset and goes on and on to me about how she wishes she wasn't Jewish. And I do understand that Christmas is important to a lot of people at the school, but we are also a school and a community with a fair bit of cultural and religious diversity, did the choir teacher think she could maybe tone down the Santa and Jesus a bit? And maybe include a Chanukah song, or at least one that's not specifically about Christmas per se?

And the choir teacher was very nice and listened very well and wasn't defensive and then said, well, of course we have to do Christmas (which, why??? Everyone seems to think so, and I've finally learned not to argue, but I still don't truly understand why), and the choir does sing "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" every year because they perform at Downtown Hotel and the old people there really like to hear it, and the choir is optional and is called the Christmas Concert Choir just so there won't be any confusion, and she's had concerns before from Jehovah's Witness families.

BUT she could certainly look into including a Chanukah song, especially as she'd also had a question from another parent (the other Jewish family!) about the repertoire.

And lo and behold, afer several weeks of rehearsal MG is going around warbling about "LIGHT the candles, SPIN the dreidel," and complaining genially that most of the kids don't know how to pronounce "Nes Gadol Haya Sham." Warms the cockles of my heart, it does.

And even the Christmassy songs seem less... Christmassy this year. She's been singing Jingle Bell Rock, which isn't actually about Christmas at all if you think about it, and The Holly and the Ivy, which is so old that it's practically pagan and which actually, according to RW, references paganism.

AND the for the Big Annual Christmas Show this year, they are doing NOT some made-up Santa-extravaganza, but an adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," which at least is, hey, Dickens! And as far as I can remember has no Santa in it! (Though Scrooge does I think dress up as Father Christmas at the end.)

So: I am happy.

On the one hand: It seems like such a pathetic incremental amount of change to be happy about.

On the other: I am happy. Pretty much. And Park Slope was not, after all, built in a day.

Grumpy little post

Okay, first the bad news:

• The slight sniffle and cough I had has metamporphosed overnight into a full-fledged and nasty cold.
• Likewise, the slight lead for Yes on 1 in Maine last night has solidified into a loss for our side.
• As one Facebook friend said this morning: "[My] humanity is not up for a vote, but thanks for your opinion, Maine."
• I am running Book Club at work tonight, and so cannot call in sick.
• The book we're discussing has lots of food in it, most of it totally impractical to serve at a book club meeting, so I will be making corn muffins this morning. Between coughing bouts. And trying not to infect the sweet old ladies who will be eating them.
• There are Renovations happening at work, so the Book Club will be meeting not in our very own program room, but at the Community Centre across the way. On the second floor. Which means getting Circ to let me have a book cart (mostly requisitioned as part of the renovations) so I can cart all the Book Club stuff over.
• RW and MG also have nasty coughs. We're just generally wrecks over here.

Now the good news:

• Um...well, there's Washington State. I guess I should be happier about I-71 passing. Baby steps, right?
• I guess I could skip making corn muffins and just buy them.
• RW ordered me a new iPod last night.

Right! And you?

Requiem for Something the Size of a Quarter

I regret to announce that after first going through the washer and dryer, and then cruelly raising my hopes two or three times in the past week by acting like it was working, my iPod Shuffle is now definitively dead.

I would just order another one exactly like it, except that I can't: it's a 2nd Generation one and they don't make them any more. I don't want a Nano because it's too big and doesn't have a clip, and I don't want a new Shuffle because all the controls are on the headphones, to which I object both philosophically and logistically. I can buy a refurbished one (for almost as much as the new one cost me a year and a half ago) but not in purple.

So farewell, little purple Shuffle: You held all my podcasts, and you never complained about being hooked up to a sub-standard 1.0 USB post to be recharged and reloaded. You fit snugly in my pocket (which turned out to be a liability, come to think of it). Thanks to you, I was able to stay connected with my old radio friends Ira Glass and Peter Sagal, and to make new ones, like Eleanor Wachtel and Terry O'Reilly. You helped me get to sleep on many a night, and you kept me company while doing household chores and on otherwise-boring bus trips. There may be other iPods in my life, but you were my first, and I will always remember you fondly.

(And not to be disrespectful to the dead or anything, but the big question now is: Pink or green? (Green, I think; less chance of the Mermaid Girl coveting it.)