Dang

I haven't done this for a few years now. I just showed up at work this morning to discover that I'm scheduled to start work at 1:00 p.m. Sigh. There's nothing that makes you feel more like a bobo than showing up four hours early for work. I'm trying to decide what to do with myself. I suppose I could go home again and spend two hours doing housework - but I'm already clean and fully dressed. (Or as fully dressed as a rumpled librarian gets.)

We just got a letter from the City in our mailbox at home this morning. They are going to upgrade the water main on our street (yay! potentially no more water breaks!). The bad news is that our house (and probably all the other houses on the street) is slated for a sewer line upgrade at the same time. And for this pleasure, our portion to pay is between $900 and $1500. Ah, the charm of being homeowners. This fee I can come to terms with, but what really concerns me is the possibility that they might have to dig under my sister's new stone walkway to the house and under Jim's new cedar front deck. Uh oh. I really, really, really hope that this is not necessary, but the sewer cleanout in the basement is directly behind both of these beautiful architectural details. Maybe I'll go home and make a few phone calls, and settle my worried soul.

On the work front, I'm trying to get hip and cool. A few libraries have started using Instant Messaging as a way to provide virtual reference service, without having to purchase very expensive virtual reference software. IM should be easy to learn, right? I'm only 36, for God's sake. I should be able to do this. Yesterday a few of my colleagues and I booked off a few hours to tackle it. We're running an older version of Windows here at the Library, which does not support the current version of Yahoo IM. So, with the assistance of one of our Tech Support people, a session of downloading Miranda to support an old version of Yahoo IM, I was finally 'online' after an hour and a half. With quirks. And I had no idea how I had gotten there. One of my other colleagues said, "If it takes two hours to do Instant Messaging, I guess it's not very INSTANT, is it..." Wow. Nothing brings me to my little librarian knees like technology.

Spent a lovely few days last weekend at the Saskatchewan Library Association conference here in town. I always learn some good stuff and I have a great time chatting with people from elsewhere in the Province. I went on the pub crawl with the younger set ("Who ordered the 641.874?" Hee hee. Librarian joke.) and wisely chose not to make a drunken fool of myself. Probably because I introduced myself to a young librarian whom I had e-mailed professionally but had never met face-to-face. "Actually," she said, grinning, "I think I met you on the pub crawl at CLA in Winnipeg." The room spun. "Oh shit," I said. You must understand that the pub crawl in Winnipeg was the event after which I determined never to get stinking drunk with a bunch of strangers in my professional world. People that don't know you don't necessarily realize that you're a talented, creative, sensible professional, when you've just tripped over a pebble and are crumpled in the street. They WILL remember you, though.

I'm tempted to work a 10-hour day and take some time off later, but I've worried my supervisor with that suggestion. Perhaps I'll go sit in some fancy coffee shop and pretend I'm a yuppie DINK. Double income doesn't do you much good, though, yuppie, when your sewer line costs you $1500. Maybe don't have a triple-soy-half-cap-vanilla-chai-latte. Just have a coffee, girl.

Chip chrrrrr.