I asked one of my faculty, RH, who is retiring this summer after 41 years on the job, and who is known for his poetical leanings, to maybe respond to his annual evaluation this year by writing a poem about it. He left his comments in my box, and I was delighted to read:
Thanks for support of every sort;
My 41 years seemed very short.
Together we aided with relative speed
Those with an information need.
Librarians, strong and dedicated,
May your work continue unabated!
A certain person was working in the library, and took a reference call from a young male patron who was looking for a movie that OPL did not have. The young female librarian assured the young man that she had ordered the movie (which met the collection development criteria) and that when it came in, there would be a hold placed on it for him.
Whereupon he said, "Well..actually I was calling to ask you on a date."
Young Librarian, flabbergasted because this is not what you expect to talk about on a reference call, didn't know what to say, so said the first thing that popped into her head, which was "How old are you?"
"21," he replied confidently.
"Well, I am almost 28..." she said.
"So is that a no?" he asked.
While telling me about it, she said, "Whenever I think about dating someone who is that much younger than me, I always think...does he realize how many of my nieces and nephews (and my niece's husband) are OLDER than him? That is just weird."
Yesterday...
I was having a little rest because my eyes were tired and needed to close, only I fell asleep.
BAM! BAM! BAM!! I jolted awake, my heart pounding to match the sounds I was hearing...someone was knocking on our front door, really loudly!! In fact, Josie and Lydia were downstairs watching TV, and the knocking was so intense that they were also wondering what in the world!
I answered the door, Josie right behind me.
There on our front porch was a policeman.
"Is everyone in this house alright? Did you call 911?"
Josie and I both shook our heads and said no, we did not call; yes, we were all fine.
"I got a 911 call for this address," the officer insisted. "Is Bruce Layton here?"
"He is not here," I said. "He has left for work, but he won't be at work yet--he usually goes to the mall and walks for awhile before going to work."
I was feeling a bit worried--did Bruce call 911?
The police officer checked the phone number that originated the 911 call. It was indeed Bruce's number.
I said that I would go and call him and make sure he was alright. Josie hung around upstairs, too, to be sure.
He answered on the first ring. (His phone is set to literally ring, so it literally did ring once.) He was fine.
He has a new phone holder in his vehicle. He got in and put the phone in, and hit some buttons, and his phone started flashing and weirding out, so he was quickly trying to make it stop, in the dark--and apparently accidentally called 911.
I informed the policeman, who was patiently waiting while I called, and I thanked him. I did not know what happens if you accidentally call 911, but apparently a police officer comes to your door.
Today, Kaly posted about her meet-up with Patrick in Honolulu. She said: "We had a wonderful, personal walking tour of Honolulu with the best walker ever
(thanks Patrick!), we visited the Honolulu Museum of Art, and headed back to our hotel with happy tired legs, ready for a dip in the pool." 
I am still walking 20 minutes every day, and still planking in the morning. However--I am now planking for 2 minutes and 10 seconds. I had been discouraged because, after two years of planking, 2 minutes still felt long and horrible. How would I ever get better at it? So I decided not to wait for it to get easier, and then increase the time. Rather, I will increase the time, and see if it gets easier. And it seems to be working, because I get less tired at 1:45 or 1:50 now--at 2:00 I get tired, but only have ten seconds to go. In a month or so, I'll go to 2:20, and see how that goes.
I was happily surprised at work when my s-i-l Andrew's sister Emily popped in for a quick hello. Her timing was perfect, because I was between meetings on a meeting-filled day. Here are the two of us together:
Emily worked in book repair for us, binding music scores, so I told her to go down to level three, and notice the lack of anything in that space where book repair used to be. Today, Emily is a high school music teacher, teaching mostly choral music, even though she specialized in instrumental music. She does teach one orchestra class, but prefers choir. She had brought a busload of students from Idaho to Utah for a couple of days at universities and high schools and musical theatre events. Fun times!
Today, my cousin Lavon send me two pictures that I had never seen before. Clearly because someone in her family took them, so they were not on the cameras/film of my family of origin.
One photo is Bruce, Arlene, Colleen, and Lavon with many of Lavon's dolls. Notice "the big dolly" as I called her. I have blogged about that doll before, because many or at least several years ago, Lavon gave me a picture of ME with "the big dolly" which I was so happy to get, since both our mothers were also in the picture. This picture I am not in. I am not sure of the year. It has to be earlier than 1964 since Arlene doesn't have her silver tooth.
The next one, she did give me the date: Remembrance Day of 1964 (November 11). Priscilla is wearing her poppy, but Arlene and I are not. You can see me, my mother holding Kerry Navratil, and my mother's Aunt Bessie. Priscilla and Arlene are in front. We for sure were not at Aunt Bessie's house, because her house was very full of stuff, and the house in this picture is not. Maybe at either Lavon's or at Navratil's? My 1964 memory is not so good. I think the colors on this picture have faded a bit, because I think that Arlene's sweater is red.
So, I am sorry, my mommy. I think you look very pretty in this picture, so you must have been pretty. Thank you for loving and being kind to the obnoxious little girl that was me.
I was very happy to receive these two pictures from my cousin today!
