Trying To Give A Dog A Bone...

Oh wow, so "Julia" did this fossil program yesterday and she apparently bought cheap dog bones for the children to use to make imprints into whatever dough was made. And since last night she has been trying to give the extras away. First she asked "Emily" who cooks dinner for herself and her dogs and then she asked me if Nella would like them. To which I stopped myself from telling her that Nella eats better than most humans, and definitely better than her.

So just now she walked up to the teen reading club volunteers and asked if any of them had a dog. Then proceeded to tell them that she has these cheap dog bones she is trying to get rid of. And she forced the box on one of the teens.

What is wrong with this lady?! Just throw the damn cheap dog bones away. God knows she bought them in a dollar store and they were probably made in some random country that allows weird chemicals and metals to be put into their products.

I just don't understand...

Friday's Letters...

Dear Justin: High five for dating each other for ten years!

Dear Whomever Made The Following Video: I LOVE YOU!!!!


Dear Erin: Even though Justin and I now have two copies of the rare seven inch blue vinyl of "Everlong" by Foo Fighters from the UK, the one you got for me to give him has the best story behind it ever and I love you for getting it for us. Plus it's in better condition!

Dear Library Gods: Why did you have "Julia" throw up on herself on my day off?!??!! Is it because you knew I'd be unable to control myself from pointing and laughing at her while simultaneously making snarky comments?

Dear Other Gods: Why do you hate paintball? I don't understand why you screwed up my plans to have a paintball birthday party tomorrow. All I wanted to do was shoot my friends and family!!!

Dear iPad: I've had you for less than a week and I love you... I'm glad I can finally hold you!

Dear Followers: As always, thank you for being awesome!

Join up with the Friday Letters link-up over at The Sweet Season.

Hair Dye Makes You Nauseous...

Okay, so I have off today and obviously did not go to work. But because "Julia" called in sick yesterday I told "Marie" to text me and let me know if she was sick enough not to keep her hair appointment that prompted me to write this on Wednesday.

So, I get a text from "Marie" this morning letting me know that we were right and that even though "Julia" called in sick yesterday she still kept her hair appointment and had her hair dyed, etc. I'm texting her back exclaiming my disbelief as to how her behavior is tolerated, etc. When "Marie" texts me that "Julia" is complaining about being nauseous. Not a minute later I get a text saying "She puked on herself."

I cannot believe I missed her throwing up on herself at work! I would have been making so many snarky comments like "I guess newly dyed hair makes you nauseous. Imagine what will happen when they put the electrodes on your head..." Ugh! Next time...

Crap My Coworkers Actually Said...

It's been a long time since I've heard my coworkers say something so stupid that I've found the need to write about it, but today I got to hear the mother of them all and I had to share it with all of you.

So, I just overheard "Julia" have the most ridiculous phone conversation ever. She calls her hair salon and starts off with "Uh uh hello... I have uh an appointment tomorrow to have my hair cut and dyed, but there might be a problem with that... Well, uh on Saturday I'm going to have electrodes put on my head because I have to have a sleep study done and I wanted to know if that was too soon... Too soon after having my hair dyed... Will that interfere?... Will the hair dye interfere with the electrodes... Uh oh, okay... Thank you... I'll see you tomorrow."

I could not believe what I overheard. Thankfully "Marie" was in the room with me and heard it also because it was just so ridiculous I needed to make sure someone else was hearing exactly what I heard to validate that it actually happened. It was unbelievable.

Friday's Letters...

Dear Left Index Finger: It has been over a week since my stitches have been taken out, think you could heal a bit quicker so I am able to bend you properly again? I can't stand not being able to hold on to things because you won't bend. Thanks!

This is as far as I can bend my finger currently

Dear Friends: I'm thinking about having a paintball party for my birthday, would you come if I had one?

Dear Stores That Sell Plus Size Clothing: Why don't any of you have a sexy little black dress with some sort of sleeve to cover my fat arms? I can't be the only fat chick that wants to look hot and cover my arms at the same time. Can you please talk to the designers you buy from and work on that? Thanks.

Dear Arm Fat: Please go away. That is all.

Dear People Working On The Library: Can you please get the building open ASAP? I really miss dealing with patrons and their randomness.

Dear "Julia": Can you please stop informing us that you need a "Java Jolt" every time you decide you want a cup of coffee? We don't care. Especially since you still fall asleep at your desk after having said jolt.

Dear Readers: Would it be gross if I posted pictures of the doctor stitching up my finger? Lemme know!

Join up with the Friday Letters link-up over at The Sweet Season.

Another Morning Meeting...

I spent my morning at another meeting, this one was about picture books. It wasn't my cup of tea because I hate listening to people analyze picture books, but I got to see "Emily" for the first time since before the storm so it was worth sucking it up.

I really enjoyed being able to talk to my Department Head, "Emily" and "Marie" even if it was about books (We also talked a little shit about "Julia" because she cut and dyed her hair to look like "Amy's" hair and she looks like crap more so than normal). 

After the meeting was done I was trying to get the ladies (Minus "Julia" of course) to go out to lunch with me but they all had things to do. We all are attending another meeting on Wednesday morning so we all might go out for lunch then. I hope we do, it would be nice.

Meetings & Being Ignored In Queens...

Yesterday I went to another meeting for work and I had the pleasure of listening to JP Porcaro the President of ALA's Games and Gaming Round Table speak about gaming and comics in libraries. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed listening to him because he was funny as hell (Which I told him after he finished speaking), passionate about gaming and comic, etc. I had a great time listening to what he had to say about the topic.

Before JP started talking the president of the division holding the meeting was talking about having people join the executive board and how she knew there were individuals that weren't already involved that would be amazing assests to the board and she says "I'm talking about you   Insert My Full Name Here  " All of my coworkers that were at the meeting look at me in awe that I got called out for being awesome in front of all of these other librarians in the county. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome especially since "Julia" was at the meeting and I'm sure it killed her to hear me being sought out.

After the meeting was over I drove over to Erin's and we headed out to Queens because our friend was off. When we got there we were surprised to see that her daughter was home, apparently she had a half day because of parent-teacher conferences that day (We thought we were going to have child-free time for at least an hour or two). So the four of us had lunch and then we were ignored for a good chunk of the afternoon because there was homework to be done, phone calls and the actual attendance of a parent-teacher conference (Which caused us to have to babysit).

When she got back we ordered dinner from a local pizza place (Which took forever and they put chicken on our pasta. Why does Queens want me to eat chicken so badly?!?!!!) and we got suckered into putting together her daughters trundle bed. When we were do building and eating we busted out the wine ice cream and made adult floats. Shortly after finishing those we headed back home because someone was tired and wanted to go to bed. 

It wasn't the most exciting trip to Queens, but whatever. I still had a decent day.

Friday's Letters...

Dear Thai Food: Why did I not know how amazing you were until last weekend?! I hope to have a life long relationship with you from now on.

Dear Mary Sanderson: Can you please tell me why you chose to have such a difficult hair style? It was a pain trying to make my hair look kinda like yours. It was amazing when it was done, but difficult to get.

Dear Patrons From Yesterdays Craft Program: You suck. That is all.

Dear Nicole: Why must you always plan events on Sundays when I have to work. I want the world to know that I love you enough to switch Sundays and spend four hours alone with "Julia" instead of the person I was supposed to work with in order to come out for you! That is love baby because I hate that woman.

Dear Hurricane Sandy: If you're gonna hit Long Island please do so after Saturday and before Wednesday because I have plans for those days and I don't need you messing them up.

Dear Justin: Thank you for surprising me at work with cold brew coffee made the way I like it!

Dear Local Bar: Thank you for having a Halloween event for tomorrow night!

Dear Followers: I want you all to know how much I appreciate all of you and how happy I am to have you around!

The Sick Day Theory...

So I have this theory, whenever I call in sick at some point within the same week "Julia" will also call in sick. My Department Head refuses to believe this, even though it happens every time, and the other ladies in my department quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

"Julia" has proven this theory right once again this week. On Monday I called in sick and surprise surprise, she calls in sick today. This cannot be some reoccurring coincident! I swear this woman has some sort of issue! I just can't figure out what it is. Thoughts?

Life At The Library...

Some of you might be wondering why I haven't written anything about work lately, well it's simply because life has been extremely boring at work and nothing particularly exciting has happened. We haven't had any blog post worthy issues with patrons and "Julia" hasn't done anything really really stupid lately.

Here are some little incidents and random things that have happened...

♦ "Julia" is convinced that the legal drinking age is eighteen-years-old. I wasn't around for the incident but apparently she was talking to "Mini Page" and "Amy" about something where the legal drinking age came up and she kept trying to tell them it was eighteen and it used to be twenty-one when she was younger. "Mini Page" and "Amy" both told her it was twenty-one but she didn't believe them, even after they pulled it up on a website.

Um, the legal drinking age in New York hasn't been eighteen since before the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed on July, 17th 1984. And seeing as "Julia" is the same age my mother she was twenty-four in 1984 making her legal either way. So I don't know where she got any of her statement from. She is just bizarre.

♦ The other day we almost had a fight between two mother because one was telling the other how to take care of her child and the one being criticized wasn't taking it well.

♦ We got a new Assistant Director.

Nothing else has really happened. Boring, I know.

Since When Do The Freaks Come Out During The Day...

There isn't going to be a full moon until next Wednesday but it sure feels like there is gonna be one tonight. I've dealt with so much weird crap today it isn't funny. I wasn't even in for five minutes this morning when a mother rolled in with her five kids, one of them being a toddler who was wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper. I flipped when I saw this little boy running around the department with no pants on. I immediately ran to a phone to call my Director to see if I had the right to say anything to this mother. Unfortunately he was dealing with a crazy patron who claimed she paid a fine for a book she lost from another library that we actually paid for. Because he was dealing with her I never got an answer from him (Apparently he had been dealing with her since 9:30am, I came into work at 11:00am), so I ended up have a pow wow with "Amy" and "Julia" to try to figure out what to do. We decided that we needed to ask her to leave so "Amy" walked into the picture book room and told her that her child needed to be wearing pants. The woman didn't even look at her. She came back into the office to tell us what happened and then she walked right back into the room and repeated herself. Again the woman didn't answer, but five minutes later she called the rest of her children over and told them they were leaving and they left. She came back fifteen minutes later with her kids and this time they were all wearing pants.

A couple of hours later we had a patron hand "Lori" a picture book and she told her that the book had booklice. I didn't see the book or bugs on it but "Lori" did say there was a little bug on it. I called my Director when she and "Emily" asked me what they should do with the book and he told me to withdraw and chuck it.

Maybe an hour later we had a man bathing himself in our mens room. According to a patron some dude was just in there without a shirt on just giving himself a good rub down. Thankfully it was around the time that our Security Guard was in because he dealt with that one.

"Emily" got crazy attitude from a babysitter after she told her the name of an author and told her to look under the letter of the authors last name. The babysitter peaked in the stacks, told "Emily" she didn't know where to look because she wasn't a librarian. This just caused "Emily" to go on a rant about her knowing that the girl learned in school how to look up books. It wasn't good.

Then everyone was spilling drinks all over the place. We don't even allow food and drinks in our department because the carpet is still relatively new, so these people were super wrong.

In addition to all of the stuff above, I just had a lot of patrons with problems today. They weren't necessarily library problems but I had to play therapist to several mommies throughout the course of the day.

On top of everything else "Marie" called in sick claiming that her daughter wasn't feeling well when she got back from camp. We all knew she called in sick because she lives about forty minutes away and there is supposed to be a crazy storm tonight. She didn't want to drive home in the storm. So now I was supposed to get off at 7:00pm and I am working an extra two hours to cover the reference desk while "Amy" does all of her Thursday night programs.

NOTE: Our Department Head is on vacation this week, so everyone in my Department is coming to me with questions.

How Are You Not In Jail...

I swear I cannot stand "Julia" one bit. I was having a conversation with "Favorite Page #1" and our night custodian (He is this loud Sicilian-American guy who is funny as hell) about my weekend and how the trip went, obviously "Julia" was being a creeper and eavesdropping. While talking about it I had mentioned that I wasn't a fan of Phil's sister's boyfriend, blah blah blah. This caused our custodian to start cracking jokes about how mean I am and that I have different levels of mean, etc. We continue talking and joking around when "Julia" looks at me and asks me how I've managed to keep out of jail. Really?!?!! I wanted to smack her. What is wrong with her?! She needs to not speak to me anymore because she makes me angry every time she opens her mouth.

1, 2, 3... Rant!...

I'm currently at work and I'm am very irritated. First off, in the past two days more than one person has referred to me as a "girl" who works in the Youth Services Department. Are people trying to be disrespectful on purpose or are they just stupid? Aside from the fact that I am a 27-year-old woman, I am a librarian in this building and I should be referred to as a librarian and not just some girl who just to happens to work in the Youth Services Department.

Secondly, I just had to school "Julia" on how most Cubans are actually very well educated individuals and that Cuba is not some ass backwards country, it's just communist. She made a very uninformed and rude comment about me visiting Cuba to build a library like they didn't have one.

Thirdly, I came on here to rant and saw that I lost a follower. That is so upsetting. I don't unfollow anyone's blog that I started to follow. It's so upsetting loosing a follower. It's like, what did I do that this person decided that my blog sucked and they didn't wanna be bothered by me anymore.

So yeah, I'm not in the best of moods right now. I hope everyone else is having a better day than I am.

The One That Runs The Reading Club...

I just got a phone call from a mother of a teen reading club volunteer asking for "Julia" whom she referred to as "The one that runs the reading club." Um... No lady. "Julia" does not run the reading club what-so-ever. If anyone ran the reading club it would be me because I am the one that has put the reading club together for the past four years. Ugh!

"Mama Page" heard me on the phone and when I got off she was saying that she wouldn't put it past "Julia" to be telling patrons that she is in charge. She is probably right! I am so annoyed right now.

"Julia" Makes Me Want To Scream...

"Julia" drove me crazy at work today and I wasn't even dealing with her directly. Every time we have a reading club at our library she is put in charge of the teen volunteers and for some reason every year she does the same stupid crap. Like she doesn't have a flashdrive with all of the volunteer instructions saved, so every year she has to write a new one up and she has a hard time doing it even though nothing has changed from the year before. Also she has trouble remembering the fact that every year, year after year that the three reading clubs are color coded. They are always green, blue and yellow for the babies, kiddies and tween/teens. I don't understand.

All day today she kept asking people stupid questions about stuff she should know like the back of her hand. I don't know what is wrong with this woman!! Listening to her ask questions about all of these things just made me want to scream today. I don't know if I can handle listening to all of the same things tomorrow.

Fifty Shades Of What?...

While I was at work earlier my Department Head was going through her mailbox and there was an order form for a book with a title that included the words "shades" and "gray/grey" and she starts getting loud demanding to know who put an order for the novel in her mailbox. "Julia" stutters that she put it in. My Department Head starts going off about why would she put an order in for an erotic novel and that it wasn't appropriate for the Youth Services Department, etc. "Julia" stutters some more and tries to explain that it was a novel about a girl with barbed wire on the cover. My Department Head continues being loud and saying that it was one of the books in the Fifty Shade of Grey trilogy, that is when I butted in. I explained to her that it wasn't actually a title in the trilogy.

While this is going on "Julia" is still trying to figure out what she did wrong. My Department Head is yelling about Fifty Shade of Grey and "Julia" looks at us and says that she has no idea what that is. I honestly could not help myself, I looked at her like she was an idiot and said "What planet do you live on?!?!!! How do you not know what Fifty Shade of Grey is?!!???!!" She continued to say she didn't know what it was.

Really?!! Where has this woman been the past two months?!?!! The Fifty Shade of Grey trilogy has been discuss on every form of media possible, libraries have banned the books, there are thousands of holds on the books in the libraries that have them, all of them have been on best seller lists, etc.

I could not believe what she admitted. What kind of librarian are you if you have no clue about a series that has taken the publishing industry by storm?! Honestly, I have not read any of the books and I refuse to do so but I know about them! I have friends that have read them and I've talked about the series with them, so on and so forth.

Someone needs to take this woman out back... I swear she is useless.

If You're Hurt At Work...

I wish you could see me right now, I'm sitting at my desk with my legs up on one of the extra chairs that we having floating around the office because around 9:40am my right patella decided to pop out on me. Unfortunately when this all happened I was alone with "Julia" who asked me only once if I was okay and she did it between me crying out in pain and screaming fuck (Which apparently "Mini Page" heard from the stacks). Obviously she wasn't getting an answer out of me while I had my head on my desk and I was clutching my knee.

About ten minutes go by, with me still in the same position, before she says anything else to me. She tell me that she needs to leave the building to do a program and asks if I'll be okay to cover the desk. I really had to try hard not to start screaming and cursing at her. I said no, she needs to call adult for coverage because there was no way in hell that I was moving from where I was. Did she call? I didn't see her. All I saw her do was wander away. Thankfully this all happened at the comfort of my desk and my cell phone was right next to me. I text Lenni and called Head Clerk's cell to see if she could help me. When she answered she was outside of the building but she was right in front talking to "Amy" so she sent her straight up.

So, for the past four hours I've been in the same spot. Why haven't I gone home you ask? The elevator is still out of commission from the freak fire alarm situation yesterday and there is no way I'm gonna tackle those stairs right now with all of the bags that I have with me. For now I'll just sit her at my desk, pretending to do work until it's time to go home.

I'll keep you up-to-date if anything else fun happens.

"Julia" Fail...

Today was one of those days at work where I didn't have a crazy amount of work to do but I didn't feel like doing what I had to do mainly because it involved helping "Julia" with a project that she totally screwed up.

So, "Julia" is in charge of a poetry magazine ever year and somehow for however long she had been doing this particular project she has gotten away with pawning it off on a volunteer. I have honestly never actually seen her put very much effort into the project aside from bossing her volunteer around. This year for some odd reason (Because she suck, is my guess) the girl who volunteered to put the whole things together quit, leaving "Julia" to put the magazine together by herself.

For days now my coworkers and I have been watching her struggle with this project (None of us wanna help her). Finally today my Department Head gave in and started to help her, only to find out that she totally screwed the whole thing up and that it would be easier to start from scratch than to even touch any of the work that "Julia" put into this thing.

Now that my Department Head is working on this thing she expects me to help, which I still really don't want to do because I really want no part in anything that "Julia" does. But I've been sucked into helping out much to my chagrin. So I spent what should have been a peaceful day getting frustrated over the crap that "Julia" produced (I reformatting the document, proof reading, retyping poems, etc).

Honestly, it is bull that I have to fix something that this woman is going to take credit for without batting an eyelash. My Department Head should just let her suffer and fail but she won't do it because of the children that participated, as well as how it would make our department look. Ugh! "Julia" is just so infuriating.

Music A To Z: H Is For...

H is for... Hate On Me by Jill Scott and Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!) by Blu Cantrell

Hate On Me is my ringtone for when "Julia" calls my cellphone. My Department Head told me I was a jerk when she found out. Others thought it was amazing. Hey, I could have made it Fuck You* by Lilly Allen...

Hate On Me

If I could give you the world
On a silver platter
Would even matter
You'd still be mad at me
If I can find in all this
A dozen roses
Which I would give to you
You'd still be miserable
In reality
I'm gon be who I be
And I don't feel no faults
For all the lies that you bought
You can try as you may
Break me down when I say

That it ain't up to you
Gon on do what you do

[Chorus:]
Hate on me hater
Now or Later
Cause I'm gonna do me
You'll be made baby

(Go head and hate)
Go head and hate on me hater
I'm not afraid of
What I got I paid for
You can hate on me...

Ooh if I gave you peaches
Out of my on garden
And I made you a peach cobbler
Would you slap me out?
Wonder if I gave you diamonds
Out of my on womb
Would you feel the love in that
Or ask why not the moon
If I gave you sanity
For the whole of humanity
Had all the solutions for the pain and pollution
No Matter Where I live
Despite the things I give
You'll always be this way
So go ahead and ...

[Chorus x2]

You Cannot...
Hate On me
Cause my mind is free
Feel my destiny
So Shall it Be
[Repeat x2]
[Chorus]

 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

This is mine and Erin's song. If we're in the car together this song comes on at some point at least once and it is played full volume and sang loud and proud.

 Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)

While he was scheming
I was beamin' in the Beamer just beamin'
Can't believe that I caught my man cheatin'
So I found another way to make him pay for it all

So I went
To Neiman-Marcus on a shopping spree
And on the way I grabbed Soley and Mia
And as the cash box rang I thought everything away

(Oops)
There goes the dreams we used to say
(Oops)
There goes the time we spent away
(Oops)
There goes the love I had but you cheated on me
And that's worth that now

(Oops)
There goes the house we made a home
(Oops)
There goes you'll never leave me alone
For all the lies you told, this is what you owe

Hey ladies
When your man wanna get buckwild
Just go back and hit 'em up style
Put your hands on his cash
And spend it to the last dime
For all the hard times

Oh, when you go then everything goes
From the crib to the ride and the clothes
So you better let him know that
If he messed up you gotta hit 'em up

While he was braggin'
I was coming down the hill and just draggin'
All his pictures and his clothes in the bag and
Sold everything else till there was just nothin' left

And I paid
All the bills about a month too late
It's a shame we have to play these games
The love we had just fades away, away
[| From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/blu-cantrell-lyrics/hit-_Em-up-style-lyrics.html |]

(Oops)
There goes the dreams we used to say
(oops)
There goes the time we spent away
(Oops)
There goes the love I had but you cheated on me
And thats worth that now

(Oops)
There goes the house we made a home
(Oops)
There goes you'll never leave me alone
For all the lies you told, this is what you owe

Hey ladies
When your man wanna get buckwild
Just go back and hit 'em up style
Put your hands on his cash
And spend it to the last dime
For all the hard times

Oh, when you go then everything goes
From the crib to the ride and the clothes
So you better let him know that
If he messed up you gotta hit 'em up

All of the dreams you sold
Left me out in the cold
What happened to the days when
We used to trust each other

And all of the things I sold
Will take you until you get old
To get 'em back without me
'Cuz it might be better then money or sex

Hey ladies
When your man wanna get buckwild
Just go back and hit 'em up style
Put your hands on his cash
And spend it to the last dime
For all the hard times

Oh, when you go then everything goes
From the crib to the ride and the clothes
So you better let him know that
If he messed up you gotta hit 'em up

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

* For those of you who have never heard Fuck You by Lilly Allen here it is...

I'm So Angry...

I'm really very annoyed right now. "Julia" is scheduled to do a thirty minute storytime outside of the building at a location that is literately five minutes away. She left twenty-five minutes early to get to the place and before she left she told me she'd be back in a little over an hour. On what planet does a thirty minute storytime and a ten minute drive in both directions take over an hour?!! I'm so pissed and I'm all by myself because we're understaffed today, so I have no actual physical person to bitch to!