Wheels

My squirrel husband has just been complaining that there's just no good blogging going on these days. So here's me, stepping up.

We just got new wheels. When I say 'new', I don't really mean 'new'. It's more like we got rid of our car that sucked really bad, and bought another one that sucks less. It's new to us. Our last car hasn't been highway-worthy for the last five years, so we haven't taken any road trips for a long time (except for ones where we've travelled along with others). This car will make it on the highway, I'm pretty certain, so the first thing we did after buying it was to book a trip. For Sprout's big-4 birthday, we are going to the Moose Jaw spa for 2 days. Ahh, I love Moose Jaw. Old buildings, decadent mineral spring spa, groovy coffee shops, ohsopretty library, and the best darned Sally Ann I've ever seen. (I was just there for union school two weeks ago, so I feel like I can talk like an expert.)

And, as they say in junior land, "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round". The latest in Gwen's library life is that I have signed myself up for a family storytime once a month. This means that I am the children's entertainer once a month at a regular drop-in program at the little branch with the big heart. I have no children's programming experience, aside from parenthood and going to a lot of storytimes with Sprout, so I'm rather nervous about it. But I'm sure it's going to be good for me, just like vitamins. It will be hard to get good at it when I only do it once a month, but what the heck. My squirrel husband, who does it regularly in the Children's Department, is giving me valuable feedback on my style (I'm focusing on that rather than on the patronizing 'aren't you cute and oh so hopeless' grin on his face that occurs each time I try to do a finger play).

In other news, I have taken my obsession with not getting enough exercise and bought a treadmill with it. The City has this nice program where city employees can get a loan to buy exercise equipment (a wellness initiative, hopefully to keep us off of sick leave due to slothfulness). The beast arrives tomorrow, and will probably dominate the living room in our tiny house, but I'm determined. I hate 'exercise' but I really enjoy walking at a good heart-pumping rate. If I can continue to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop a few times a week, and can add a daily trek on the treadmill, I should be a healthy zen squirrel.

Union school was fantastic. I meant to tell you all about it, but I'm in catch-up mode at work. Can't quite. Catch up. I took a course called 'Collective Bargaining', since I'm on our Union's negotiating team and have never done it before. The whole bargaining process is so fascinating. Let's face it, human beings are endlessly fascinating. Bargaining has developed traditions to it, and developed processes, but every individual who participates can turn it into a completely different animal. At union school, we talked theory for a bit, but how do you teach someone to do bargaining when it's so fluid? What they did was to split us into two teams, union and management, and got us to negotiate a fake contract in a fake economic situation in a fake city. It sounds like it shouldn't work, but it was fabulous. All the elements were there: team-building issues, alpha-male competitions (and not just between the males), communication breakdowns, stereotyping, suspicion, everything. We got so into it. When all the other classes had done their school for the day, we were still spinning our wheels developing proposals and hammering it all out. It was exhausting, but that sort of activity always gets me wired right up. I hummed for about four days afterward. And now I'm ready to bargain, boy howdy. Let me at 'em.

And did I mention that I'm very, very cute these days? D gave me a haircut that makes me look like Louise Brooks. It's a bit librarianesque, and a bit naughty schoolgirl. I'm having lots of fun with it.