This week at the library; or, It's an Alexanderine week

Programs

• Tail Waggin' Tutors
• Toddlers 'n' Books, 2 sessions (Pattie)
• 1st grade visits, 2 sessions (link to come next week)
• Preschool Interactive
• Books 'n' Babies (Pattie)
• Mad Scientists Club: Color
• Family Game Night (Pattie)
• We Explore Fall

Random Commentary

• It could be worse, yes, but it was one of those weeks where I wished I could just stay home and read and sleep and take copious amounts of decongestant.
• Monday - still have a sinus infection, can't take pills at work (b/c I have to drive and they make me floaty) and had a dentist appointment. Confusion over concept book order, printers crashing, many annoyed patrons, did manage to get the rest of October planned. Oh, wait, that's less than two weeks. Oh well. About 3-4 families came to read to Max (not the one that had signed up, but whatever) and Max was very pleased to make new friends and smell interesting things at the library. Then I just had an evening on the desk to constantly blow my nose and try to place av orders with a splitting headache and cramps. But I only made one minor error on the orders (I hope) and I made it home alive! Ah, sweet decongestant.
• Tuesday - huge groups at toddler storytime in the morning, interspersed with discussions about furniture and I did something else but can't at the moment remember what it was. Then I had two school visits in the afternoon. Happily, my throat isn't too sore anymore and only one class came at a time, which is much easier to deal with. It was rather a scramble, as a number of things went wrong at the last minute, but we got it all taken care of and all the kids checked out books to take back to their classrooms. Then I took care of a number of minor things and around 3:30 wondered why I felt so sick, which was when I realized I hadn't eaten any lunch! I grabbed something to eat, interrupted by yet another toilet catastrophe (one I didn't deal with - I only plunge toilets I do not clean up the aftermath, or if someone has decided to...not use the toilet, ifyouknowwhatimean) and then a hasty departure of all the staff going to the state conference and I finished up a bunch of misc. stuff on my desk. Hopefully, I will not forget to feed the director's cat, or let it escape, or anything too traumatic! Took myself and my headache and congested sinuses home to wrestle with baking the rapidly expanding dough in the refrigerator.
• Wednesday was mostly really quiet, which was good, since I had a sinus headache for most of the day and the computers were behaving in a manner calculated to make a saint scream. I had a small but happy group for storytime in the morning, then dealt with a miscellany of things (happily not involving toilets) until I was on the front desk starting at 1:45. Then the printers, various computers, and finally the information desk computer itself refused to cooperate and I finally moved back to the children's desk at 3pm, where I prefer to be anyways, especially since, among other things, the front desk computer is sized weirdly and we couldn't fix it. It was a really quiet day, other than a lot of random weirdness. I did not forget to feed the World's Friendliest Cat, who was very sorry to see me leave. I did try to explain that I am allergic to cats, but he was very firm about there being Petting in addition to Food.
• Thursday was a long day - I normally don't go in to work until 9:30, since I stay late, but I had to open so I was there before 9. The information desk computer was still slow as molasses, I dealt with a number of annoying information desk questions (how do I print, make a reservation for me, where is x, etc. etc.) which I normally wouldn't mind but I was feeling so annoyed that they were annoying and by the time my desk shift was over I just wanted to scream. This is why I am the children's librarian, NOT a reference librarian! I will be very glad when everyone returns from the conference. I am also going nuts because I lost a book - I borrowed it from another library for Cybils, I know it was on my desk at work (along with 50 million other things) but I cleared everything off and I CAN'T FIND IT. I am still working on some weeding projects and...I just found a book...that was repaired...with medical tape. WHY?? And there go the toilets again. Even the prowess of the Official Toilet Plunger (me) cannot save this one and the city works department were called, much to their annoyance. Hey, if I'm annoyed, everybody's annoyed. Lots of people came to Mad Scientists Club and although several boys loudly argued that "color is not science" they enjoyed it just the same. Then I left my aide to clean up (I will owe her cookies) and came home, not forgetting to feed the cat.
• Friday! The end is in sight! I miscalculated in how much clean-up I left and several other staff had to help her out, which I will now stress over. I hate to leave a program uncleaned up, but I also hate working 10 hour days... I assured everyone that was the last paint program of the year (and I will do something different if we ever do this again) but I am going to stress about it a while longer. We had originally planned our staff development day for this Friday, so a lot of people thought we were closed, which made for a quiet day, or half-day, and only a few people came to We Explore. I just left the room open so people could drop in and make something. I will clean it up on Monday...didn't finish my shifting project, but at 1:30 I made myself leave anyways. I will go to work early Saturday to work on it.
• Saturday, the last day of the endless week. Came in to work around 8:30am and finished my shifting/collection development project. We opened at 10am and I decided to open the Storyroom up again and let people make stuff with the craft materials left out from Friday. I would really like to do this every Saturday, but haven't convinced the staff that it's a good idea yet. It's messy in there, yes, but nobody brought anything out (except their creations). I worked through stacks of new books, the detritus of my weeding project, had a discussion with my aide about shelving in the juvenile fiction (my project area) and the signage we're going to make for the children's area. Then we all stayed late because of a patron issue and I finally got home around 2:30. Phew! What a week!