When I came in to work this morning, this book was lying on my desk with a small note, from the library's cleaning lady, clipped to the front:

"I keep finding this book under the trashcan in the children's restroom."

I wish I could make myself believe without any doubt that giggly teenage girls are taking it into the restroom to giggle over the sex questions and answers; I really wish that I could. Unfortunately, despite the sign on the door specifying that the bathroom in question is for patrons under the age of fourteen only, we have more than our share of adult patrons who also use this bathroom. Occasionally, we even have the creepy adult male patrons - the ones who stand by the books, furtively glancing over their shoulder at the younger patrons - who use that bathroom. We can't really stop them (wouldn't want to try), or even say anything to them about the rest of their behavior, as it's not against any specific regulation to be a grownup in the children's room. Anyway, the very notion that one of them has been taking the book into the john for "personal enjoyment" makes me cringe to my toes.

At least the book still appears to be in good condition...No, er, stuck pages or anything like that.

The infamous classroom collection project!

It's done, it's in circulation, and it's still a huge mess. Boss-Lady set me about getting it into some kind of order, since the sheer quantity of bags makes it quite difficult to find the one being requested by a teacher at any given time. The sets have been numbered alphabetically by author, so I decided to sort them that way.

Until I found duplicated numbers on a couple of the bags. I tried correcting them, and found more duplications. Messes were being compounded even as I tried to right them. Eventually, as I sat cross-legged and cross-tempered in the middle of the floor of the storage closet, surrounded by blue bags and luggage tags, I suddenly burst into laughter. "Not my problem!" I declared it, and I immediately felt a rush of relief as my blood pressure dropped back to normal levels. I fixed the worst of the issues and left a few for somebody else to find and correct.

Really, it's a minor detail. The project itself is beautiful in its completion.

This is the last week of storytime for this session. Yesterday morning I had the older kids, and I was exploring the shelves for potential titles when I came across Jazz Fly. I remembered seeing this book come through cataloguing a month or so ago; I was tempted by it then, and the temptation still lingered.

The plot: a jazz-playing fly gets lost on his way to the club and asks several animals for directions. When he gets to the club, he and his band jam until the club's "Queen Bee" demands a "new sound." The fly, after some thought, creates a new beat based on the animal sounds he heard on his way to the gig. Instant fame and fortune!

The key to the book is that it is not intended to be read, but scatted. The fly doesn't ask for directions in so many words, but instead by repeating the phrase, "ZA-baza BOO-zaba ZEE-ZA roni?" As the story develops, the scat becomes more and more complicated. A CD came included with the book as a performance suggestion; it was full of jazz combo music and done splendidly.

Could I pull it off? I couldn't resist trying. First I practiced the words. Once I learned them well enough, I then added the "librarian's trick": reading upside-down so that the children would be able to see the pictures. That took some extra doing, but eventually I got it pretty much down pat. My only problem was fighting off the giggles that threatened whenever my tongue began to trip.

The kids loved the book. A few of them rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the words and tried to hum along. Quite successful, if I do say so myself.

We recently purchased a CD-ROM full of Teletubbies activities for the children's computer. It falls into the category of "poorly written, poorly designed software that made it to market because, after all, it's 'just for kids.'" I have yet to be able to figure out how to quit the game without invoking the Task Manager, and it loves to lock up the machine without provocation. The children get frustrated and leave it running; I often walk into the room to see Po wandering around in circles, muttering, "Fi-dit, fi-dit, fi-dit," seemingly with no inclination of ever stopping.

One evening, after we had shepherded most of the patrons from the library, I stepped into the computer room to make sure everything was clean. The lights had been turned off already, so the only sight to greet me was the little face of a grinning blue baby from across the room. It took me a few shocked moments to realize that this was the "Sun Baby" from the Teletubbies game, and that the computer had locked up and shaded everything blue in an effort to frighten whatever small child had been trying to play with the CD. Not a calming picture, you understand.

"I am the Great and Powerful Sun Baby....Muah-ha-ha-ha!"

I went for Chinese for lunch today as a treat. (I've been avoiding it because of the excessive sodium levels and my already swollen ankles, but my craving for the cuisine reached an all-time high today. Besides, indulging in a little Chinese food once every couple of months can't be too bad, can it?) When my fortune cookie came, I laughed and laughed.

In case you can't read it, the slip says, "You are almost there." My coworkers told me I needed to save it for the baby book. I suppose I really should buy one of those sometime soon, shouldn't I?

Today I realized, while looking over the brochure for the water aerobics class that Mary Ann prescribed for me, I realized that I was going to be having a conflict in May. The classes are on Monday nights, when I'd normally be having storytimes. I immediately ran to find Boss-Lady and tell her of the problem. I suggested that, since it was only for a few weeks, I could exchange night shifts with someone else.

Boss-Lady rolled her eyes and said in a highly irritated voice, "We'll see. You're taking Saturdays, Mondays, Tuesdays...we'll just have to see." She stalked off.

Okay, first things first. I don't know why on earth she's getting irritated about Tuesdays. I don't even work Tuesday nights! Last night I went to my very first La Leche League meeting, and that only meets once a month. What on earth does that have to do with any of my library duties?

Secondly, after getting my Saturday class dates, I found that I only had one Saturday conflict, with which I quickly dealt. No problem, and certainly not an issue.

Third, this is my health we're discussing, not a vacation. I told her that these were classes that my midwife had specifically prescribed, and she rolled her eyes at me. I'll be nine months pregnant at the time, and if I keep swelling like this, I might not be able to even work at all. Would that be preferable to helping me find a night to which I could switch for a few weeks?

She was obviously angry with me, and irrationally so. Therefore, I did the most logical thing I could: I went over her head to Boss-Zilla. I didn't go to complain, but to inform her of the situation and ask for her help in resolving the issue. She seemed most sympathetic and happy that I'd come to her. She would find a workable solution, she promised; she actually laughed that, from my expression, she had expected to hear much worse news than this.

Fifteen minutes before my shift ended, Boss-Zilla telephoned the Children's desk and asked Boss-Lady to come to her office. She must have left from there, since she was gone by the time I left.

I have a meeting first thing in the morning with Boss-Lady to discuss Summer Reading Program. Nothing like dread of the inevitable to make for a pleasant evening. Wish me luck.