Library Notes
April 2, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
Here’s my sick self to tell you that my self is still alive and still sick. I may feel as bad as three dogs by now. This stuff just won’t go away. I’m on my third bottle of medicine. My couch is about ready to dump me on the floor, to be rid of me. One day I’ll think I feel a little better and the next day I feel worse.
I have 520 hours of sick time available for the year and, during the past week, I feel as though I should have used 519 of them. But, I haven’t, just used a few.
I went in on a Saturday morning to see a doctor. But, my Dr. Smith was not on call and I saw another.
He questioned if I had ever been diagnosed with allergies. I told him no, but I know I have them, and he agreed with me. Allergies and asthma and sinus and I got a pill for each. But those pills don’t seem to be, shall we say, "operating at their full capacity", because, believe me, I’m not.
That little ‘ole annual report for the State Library was due about the time I got sick. I gave some of my life’s blood and much of my body’s energy to that Report this year, believe you me.
I went to the doctor, took the first of my pills and continued work on that Report until it was finally finished, hours and hours and hours later. And, you’ll remember from past years, it is now our enjoyable experience to do it on the computer.
After I put in enough data to strangle a horse, and was ready, I presumed, to push the "Submit" button, I clicked on this cute little sentence that said "Unanswered questions". I proceeded to try and satisfactorily answer all of it’s lovely questions and you can about figure how that went. Fun and games.
Finally the only bone of contention we seemed to have left, focused on one final page in that Report. That one page has a place for the signature of the City Manager, the Librarian, and the Head of the Library Board. That page has to be signed and mailed to the State Library. Well, evidently, someone forgot to tell that stubborn computer that. It kept coming back to that page and showing an unanswered question. The only way to over-ride the smart-alecky machine was to ignore it, at least I hoped so.
After I had everything answered, I thought, to that picky machine’s satisfaction, except the signature page. After all the numbers and columns seemed to add up, subtract down and balance correctly, I pushed the "Submit" button. Hooray, Hot Dog and Whoopee!!! That Report sped on its’ way to Austin and in a minute, congratulated me on successfully submitting that Report.
Cheyenne loves a video the library has, featuring the Muppets and Harry Bellafonte is the special guest. He sorta’ challenges the long-orange-haired, wild-looking, muppet to a drum-playing contest. They beat and beat, faster and faster, trying to out do the other. Then they both collapse over on top of their drums, exhausted.
That is exactly what I felt like doing on that computer, just collapsing over on top of it. But, instead of that, I turned everything off, gathered up all my stuff, went home, ate something and collapsed on the couch, once again.
I’m now in about the 9th day of being sick. That lawnmower still sets where I pushed it in pre-sickness and it will wait until I have sufficiently recovered to once again tackle the challenge of "The Lawnmower". And the weeds grow on…………
Are you ready? Ready for a new Danielle Steel book? I know some of you certainly are, so let’s see about this latest one "Ransom".
"Outside the gates of a California prison, Peter Morgan is released after four long years and vows to redeem himself in the eyes of the young daughters he left behind. Simultaneously, Carl Waters, a convicted murderer, is set on the path of freedom with him. That night, three hundred miles south in San Francisco, police detective Ted Lee, comes home to a silent house; for 29 years, he has been living for his job – and slowly falling out of love with his wife. Across town, in an exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood, a mother tries to shield her three children from the panic rising within her. Four months after her husband’s death, Fernanda Barnes faces a mountain of debt she cannot repay, a world destroyed, and a marriage lost.
Within weeks, the lives of these four people will collide in ways none of them could have foreseen. For Fernanda, whose life had once been graced by beautiful homes, security, success, and stunning wealth, the death of her brilliant, brooding husband was already too much to bear. She simply couldn’t imagine a greater loss, until a devastating crime rocks her family to its core – and brings Detective Ted Lee into her life.
A man of unshakable integrity, Lee will soon become the one person who tries to save Fernanda’s family from a terrifying fate. Fernanda must draw on a strength she never knew she had. Racing against time in the underbelly of the criminal world, buffeted by the dark side of power and unmoored by loss and betrayal, no one can predict where this tragedy will take them."