We can all stop wondering now.

Okay, maybe you weren’t spending hours of your life wondering whether Kathryn Erbe and Terry Kinney had in fact gotten divorced, but some of us were.  Especially those of us who a) Love Kathryn Erbe b) Love Criminal Intent and c) Have no life.   There were interviews where she mentioned being a single mom (in the like 3 interviews a year she does), and a suspiciously timed change in her biography at nbc.com, but no one had anything concrete one way or the other.

Well, now its official.  They are listed as “divorced” on imdb.com.  Which is really too bad, because they’d been together for like 10 years and had two kids and it looked like they might actually make it.  Oh well.  C’est la vie. 

Adrienne tagged me for 5 Non-Kid Lit blogs you read.  Most of the blogs I read are in fact library-related, but lets try this:

 #1- Postsecret.  Everyone reads Postsecret.
#2- What Adrienne Thinks About That. Because I want to know What Adrienne Thinks About That.
#3- sarcastic_foil, the Kathryn Erbe LJ community, in the vain hope that someone will have posted more lovely pictures of her.
#4- Mariska Hargitay’s Official Website, which is not entirely a blog, but has a blog on it, so I say it counts. Let’s be honest: Who doesn’t love Detective Benson?
#5- The Honorable Mention. Since Jessica doesn’t send out honors program memos anymore, I have to go to the blog to make sure I’m up to date on all pertinent information.

I don’t think anyone reads this blog except Adrienne, and Aimee doesn’t have a blog anymore really, so I don’t know who to tag.  But that was fun, thanks, A :-)

I nervously approached our new library director Friday morning to ask her if I could take some teen books from the libraries I work at to the Teen Book Festival I’m attending in a couple weekends to get them signed by the authors who will be there.  I didn’t think it would be too scary of a meeting, but it’s the first really adult pitch I’ve had to make to a boss.  I was pleasantly surprised.  After being grilled on my name/age/year/title/job description and how much longer I planned on being with the library (next two years), she not only told me that I could take the books from the library to get them signed, she gave me a $120 budget to buy books at the Festival (titles at my discretion) for the libraries and get them signed.

 Wow!!!!!

So now I have my first real, solo, on-my-own librarian job at my library.  YA is new territory, something my boss isn’t really into, and I’m doing this all by myself.  Let’s hope I pass!!!!

My lovely CNN homepage (which I have discussed before) has just informed me via “breaking news headline” that a man with a name I am not even going to attempt to spell or pronounce has announced claim for the 9/11 attacks “as well as others” today.  This man was apparently a resident of yours and my favorite detention center, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, called “Gitmo” by those who are important or think they are. 

Before everyone does what my friend Aimee likes to call a “squee dance” and starts planning the execution date, I would like draw attention to some of the shadier aspects of this article.  For example.  If this man is so damn proud of the 43412341297012 or so bombings he has supposedly been in charge of or attempted or whatever, then why did he wait so long to confess?  Aren’t people like that usually up on YouTube the day after a major bombing going “I did it!!! Ha ha ha!! You will never find me amidst all this sand!!”  Furthermore, we’re talking about GUANTANAMO.  The biggest, bad-assest dentention center of them all.  We’ve all seen what happened at Abu-Ghraib.  I am not convinced that this statement was not made under duress and as a method to stop whatever hardship he was incurring from continuing.  Like I said, Gitmo isn’t Disneyland.  They don’t give you snickers bars and chicken wings three times a day there.  And let’s not overlooked the fact that all of the information we are getting is from an “EDITED TRANSCRIPT” of a U.S. Military hearing at Guantanamo where no press were allowed inside. 

I’m sorry.  That doesn’t scream “trustworthy” to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to know who was behind all this just as much as the next guy, and I don’t know a whole lot about politics.  But if the mastermind behind 9/11 has been at Guantanamo for god knows how long and Saddam Hussein is dead (he is dead, right?  Wasn’t there a little fiasco about that a while back?) then why the hell are we still fighting a war in the Middle East?

In other news, it was really really really foggy today.  I can’t remember the last time it was that foggy.  I felt like I was in England. 

“…I would have gone to class.”

That was an answer one of my co-panelists gave at a seminar for local high school guidance counselors at St. John Fisher College this past week.  Two students from SJFC and two from my school sat on a panel together (in very fancy looking cushy chairs, I might add), talking about such things as academics (where my opening quote came from), dorm life, social expectations, and the move away from home.  SJFC was a wonderful host, and the other panelists were really cool and I was glad to meet them.  Another wonderful opportunity I’ve gotten to have because of my work in the Admissions office :-)

This past week I received a call from my boss/mentor/favorite person at my library, asking me:
1) Do you have class next Friday morning? (No, I’m on spring break)
2) Do you have any programs scheduled for next Friday morning? (No)
3) Can you cover my 10:30 and 11:30 storytimes next Friday?

 Uhhhhhh….. Sure!

This is quite possibly the greatest honor ever bestowed upon me in my increasingly-less-young life. It had been established that I would be Lucy’s (my mentor) backup over the summer in the event that one of her parents became ill and she had to be out for a while, in addition to doing my own PJ storytimes and YA programming (eep! Another bold new frontier!) Lucy chose me for this assignment over several other far-more qualified staff members, picking the girl with two programs a month who isn’t even in library school yet. Furthermore, we just got a brand new director, so everyone is on their best behavior trying to make sure that in a library where we have no money for anything, they don’t get the ax. If Lucy’s gonna put me in as a sub for her well established 40-some kid once a week storytime right in front of a new director, she obviously thinks I can do it. And that is quite possibly the most faith anyone has ever showed in me.
This is also quite scary, because I’m used to working with a max of 15 kids per storytime, and there will be at least twice that many kids at these storytimes. This will also be at a library that I don’t normally do programs at, even though I work circ desk. These kids won’t know me from Adam (well, Eve.) What if I can’t handle a big group! What if they all scream and cry and go “I WANT MISS LUCY!!!!!”?

So, I’m unbelievably excited and I can’t wait, but I’m still super scared. Wish me luck!

That reminds, I should make some final plans for my YA summer programs so I can impress the new director…. :-)

And heeeeeere’s the lineup for Monday:

Theme- Animals

Books:
Pet Wash, by Dayle Ann Dodds
Fire Fighter Piggly Wiggly, Christyan and Diane Fox
Boo to a Goose, Mem Fox

Songs:
Jumping and Counting (Jim Gill)
The Hoppity Song (Johnny Ondarazik)
AND!!!!
The debut (okay, the official debut) of I’m in the Mood For (Raffi)*

Activites:
I usually decide that right before I start. Since the theme is animals, I might do the itsy bitsy spider. And I usually do sticky sticky bubblegum, because they love that one. Like I said, I’m very last-minute about these

Craft:
This is the dicey part. My storytime is supposed to be ages 2-5, roughly, but I usually end up with ages 18mos-7. It’s quite hard to find an activity that an 18 month-old and a 7-year-old can both do and enjoy. For this reason I usually end up with the good old-fashioned crayon-and-coloring sheet solution. But this month I think I might add in a simple animal-themed maze for the older kids who might come. While coloring is a universal activity, I want them to be challenged to.

I just thought if I blogged about my storytime, it would persuade me to actually get ready for it. Not sure what the turnout is going to look like tomorrow (it’s at my smaller library), so we’ll see what happens.

*The official debut of “I’m in the Mood For” is strongly dependent on whether or not Miss Sarah practices her guitar today and whether or not, when she gets to the library tomorrow night, she has the gumption to do it.