Steveston

A couple of weeks ago Holly and I went to the coast and stayed in Steveston for a few days. We were fortunate that, at the last minute, our regular B&B had a vacancy. No breakfast this time - we had the suite so were on our own, but we still ate well. For example:

From the fish & chip place at Garry Point...

While I window-shopped Holly sat at the beach and read.

We got together for dinners and breakfasts with friends a few times. James and Richard came out for a visit too. It was a very relaxing time!

Good thing it's a long weekend!

I worked for most of yesterday. One of our librarians who's been off in hospital for a couple of months came back in the afternoon but there was nobody else to do the morning. And then I couldn't just walk off and leave him without a little catch-up!

After that I went to Sears and ordered a new dishwasher to replace our broken 15+year old one and picked up Breaking Dawn for Holly. Did nothing but half-heartedly watch TV last night.

Unfortunately I woke up at 6 this morning with a terrible stomach-ache, tossed & turned & felt sorry for myself for a couple of hours then moved to the couch. Where I went back to sleep till 11:00!!! Tummy's somewhat better but I have a headache. I think I'll be staying on the couch today. Too bad, I had given some thought to cleaning up my scraproom...

It's Official

I am now the permanent head of the Kelowna branch library. Knock me over with a feather! It wasn't even my idea (like I have that kind of influence LOL). But because of our severe staffing difficulties, HR argued that if my position were made permanent, then the Reference Supervisor position would become permanent and so on and so forth. They even made the 21 hour position permanent. So now maybe we can get some hiring done and move on. I can't believe we've been running 39 hours a week short of librarians for the past couple of months.

It's kind of weird though, ending up going to me when they turned down the two internal candidates who originally applied back in 2005. However if they hadn't gone through the EGTB experience, things would never have turned out the way they did. So - I better not screw up.

Funny how things happen...

Time Flies

I guess it's 'cause I'm now on the downside of 50 but time goes by so quickly it scares me. The days turn into weeks turn into months before I know it. Right now I feel like I just got home from work and I can already start thinking about going to bed (or at least it's way too late for a nap!)

Found this old picture from the late 70's when we girls had a 'tea party' one afternoon at Lynda's house. We all dressed up like ladies and had tea (and I think Tom Collinses) outside on Lynda's parents lawn. I think I'll have to edit this post to put this picture side by side with the one from a couple of weeks ago in our vintage clothes! To see how well we've aged?!

Things at work are going from bad to worse. Oh I shouldn't say that - I'm perfectly happy! But librarians are dropping like flies. One of them, who's been off sick most of the last 6 months, is probably going on extended leave. One of the Salmon Arm librarians is retiring so our only remaining librarian may get her job and leave us totally librarianless (except for the children's librarian and me). It's unreal, there's been more movement in the last year than there's been in the 20 years I've been there. I tried to convince our Executive Director to come down to do some shifts this morning but she says she'd require so much training she wouldn't be worth the effort.

Holly and I are going back to the coast next Friday for a few days. Flying down this time - I got an excellent rate with Air Canada for some unknown reason. We're staying in Steveston, at least for the first couple of days. I've booked us into the Steveston Hotel for 2 nights but I was afraid it might be too noisy so I didn't reserve longer. I'm amazed at how few Steveston B&B's there are listed on the Web - there must be more! My friend Mark (NYC) will be in town that weekend so we'll get together with him at some point.

At the rate I'm going our departure will feel like it's in about 36 hours instead of a week & a half - better start getting organized!

Keeper

Well.

We've been under the misconception the last 9 months or so that Myla was with us temporarily. Once the school year ended we thought we'd be having a discussion with her 'real mom' about whether or not we'd be keeping her. Turned out her 'real mom' cannot take her back so she's ours. She sheds like crazy, that's my main beef with her. Really she's a nice dog. sigh. We'll see how it goes. I told L, her real mom, that if we had to give her up I would let her know, but also that we would never take her to the SPCA or anything like that. Holly doesn't know yet - she's going to be really impressed. And my MIL wasn't too happy either; Myla always digs up any bonemeal that Barb puts in the garden.


In other news, I had my few days in Vancouver. Holly stayed home after all which was a good thing. It was a very busy time, starting Friday night when 12 of us went to Dan Japanese Restaurant and had a fantastic meal. I forget what it was called, but it was a multi-course affair where the food just kept coming. The friends I was hanging out with are my old university buddies (from my undergrad years 1974-1980) and it's amazing how much fun we still have after all these years.
There we are outside the restaurant: Rob, Mari-Anne, Greta, Roger, Kelly, David & Vivian, James, John and me...


We also had many meals at the White Spot (just like old times!), one at Vij's, Monk McQueen's at False Creek, Vivian & Kelly & I went to the Flaming June Day Spa for pedicures and shopped on Commercial Drive - buying vintage outfits at "Little Miss Vintage". Here we are looking divine outside Vij's.
You should have seen us on the Broadway bus, trying not to sweat in our new old clothes! (It was a very hot weekend in Vancouver too.)


And we did something I'd never done before - David & Vivian, Kelly & Peter & I went to Exhibition Park to the horse races on Sunday afternoon. And I was very lucky! I won every bet I made - too bad they were only $2 bets...

another new position

no not that kind! Get your mind out of the gutter...

As of last Monday I am the branch head - at least temporarily, 6 months more or less. However since nobody applied for my job, I've still been doing 2 jobs at once. But now that we've sucked James into taking on Reference Supervisor, I can get my act together and move my stuff into the BH's spacious office. The PSM tackled cleaning out all EGTB's old crap, ugly artwork and all so I can have a fresh start.

I went to a scrap class last week with the lovely ladies at Memories & More and a good time was had by all. Since I never do any scrapping anymore, it was lovely to actually get a layout done (50% success rate is great for me) And I got to go over the new bridge which was a treat as well.

Holly and I are going to Vancouver in a couple of weeks which I am looking forward to. Get to hang out with my girlfriends and have some dinners out, a little spa visit, shopping, etc. Just hoping H won't be too bored while I'm doing all those things. With luck, she and Anna will discover they have something in common. Otherwise I foresee H spending a lot of time watching TV in the hotel room.

Pinch Punch First Day of the Month

My friend Ruth used to say that to me whenever possible on the first of the month - it's accompanied of course by a pinch & a punch on the arm. Drove me nuts. Ruth, if you're still reading my blog - take note!

It's a rainy day here in Kelowna. Yesterday was still warm and sunny but I spend most of it inside - sleeping! What a waste of the little sunshine we've been getting this spring, but I've been feeling kind of dizzy and headachey the last few days so sleeping sounded like a good idea. Probably allergies.

Had a good time in Vancouver; the conference sessions I went to were really good. The kinds of ideas that you can get all excited about until you realize that with your library budget & staffing, there isn't a hope in hell of doing those things. However you can still keep it in the back of your mind. The physical set-up of the conference was not good though. The trade show was spread out all over the place. The one exhibitor I was looking for was hidden away at the far end of a hallway. I felt sorry for them. And - get this - there was no coffee!!! It was provided only on the first morning. After that, nothing. Lunch came in brown paper bags: a sandwich, juice box and piece of fruit (trying to take you back to your childhood I guess) with cookies after for dessert. Really weird.

Last Saturday the sun finally came out in Vancouver and Georgia and I had a nice walk down by the water and up & down Denman Street. Didn't do very much shopping: I got a pair of walking sandals & a cheap leather purse. A couple of good dinners...

The usual crazy busy at work. Finally the temporary branch head position was posted. It closes on Thursday so we'll see what happens. There could be a problem with the fall-out of that; I'm not sure we have enough staff to fill everything which will keep us in the same bind we're in now.

I used to keep a 'real' diary in the 80s and I still have most of them. It was very bizarre, yesterday I looked through the one from 26 years ago. I can't believe what an active social life I had in those days. It was a pretty rare evening when I sat at home alone. I can't even imagine having the energy now to keep up with that lifestyle. I certainly never had a day when I never got out of my pj's! Speaking of which, maybe I'll get dressed soon...

(Getting) Ready or Not

I'm going to Vancouver tomorrow for a few days - the annual Canadian Library Association conference. My plane leaves at 7:40 a.m and I should be getting ready. But I seem to be stuck in the same stupor I've been in all day.

OK It's nearly 5:30 pm and I never did get dressed today. I had taken today off as vacation which made for a nice long long weekend. But with the rain starting yesterday my rheumatiz has been acting up something fierce so I had a terrible sleep; lots of tossing & turning interrupted by trips for more Ibuprofen. I'm still in a little pain now but not much. I really need to have a shower, pack my clothes, etc as I'll be leaving home in just over 12 hours. And I'd like to spend at least 8 of those hours sleeping!!

We can't believe we signed up for something that goes all the way till 5:00 tomorrow afternoon, and then less than a couple of hours free before the Opening Reception. So we're already planning when we can decently leave the session. And of course we'll miss the first hour or so as well since we can't make it from the airport in time - unless we drag all our luggage with us, which is so not happening!

My colleague and I are staying at the Landis Suites Hotel which looks like it should be quite nice - a 2-bedroom suite for $219 plus taxes. I'm very much looking forward to meeting Jane, our former Public Services Manager, for drinks & dinner on Thursday. And then I'm having dinner with AM on Friday night. Saturday is for shopping before we come home again.

On the work front, they're supposed to have posted the branch head position on a temporary (6 month) basis but I see that hasn't happened yet. Theoretically I should be able to get that, but you never know - I've been surprised before! And then my position would be posted and so on down the line. So while I'm at CLA I have to do a little unofficial head hunting as well.

However all this is not putting anything in my suitcase is it?

Mothers Day Weekend

Well I had a great weekend, spent time with some wonderful women...

Friday after work the traffic was so bad, with one lane of the bridge being closed, that it resulted in total gridlock all over town. So I went for a drink with Pat. We went to Rose's Pub for awhile; no one else from work came over, and then we wandered through the Arts & Life Festival for awhile. It was a beautiful evening; we sampled some fantastic curry and salad dressings.

Saturday Holly was going to a birthday party so I took her to PC Bang to buy some computer time for the birthday boy. Then we went back downtown to the above-mentioned Arts & Life Festival and got henna tattoos! I would take a photo, but mine particularly is so pale it's hardly visible. After I dropped her off at home I went to meet my cousin Nita at Michael's. She lives in Robson so I hadn't seen her since last year some time. We wandered through the stores a bit and then had supper at Cactus Club. She is such a sweetheart - brought me a box of chocolates and a little card marking the 4th anniversary of my Mom's death. I learned that her son is 30 years old! How the heck is that possible when we're barely 30 ourselves?!?

Sunday everybody at my house slept in (well except me of course) so eventually I went out for coffee with Georgia, did a couple of errands (ok buying makeup & bras...) and then we went in to work for a couple of hours. Some fun eh? Actually it was really good, and useful to be able to ask her stuff. My friend Marjory from library school came up so she called when she got to town and we went out for a light & early dinner at Earl's. I only see her about once a year as well so we had a lovely visit.

No breakfast in bed on Sunday, but instead after I got home again and into my pj's, Holly made me a bedtime snack of really awesome scrambled eggs with cheese, toast, banana & ice cream and water with lime.

And I got an email from my friend Ruth in Australia so I had a wonderful time (re)connecting with many of my favourite female friends & family. You go girls!

Memories & More Creative Retreat

Karen and Fern 'helping' Dawn in the kitchen.

The cool girls....er I mean the focus group! Dawn, Heather, Michelle, Fern, Cheryl & Karen

Dawn drawing names for a door prize. Notice how she has her fingers right inside the glass - eeeeeeuuw!

It was a great weekend - and I even got a couple of layouts done, finished a project started a year ago at Artistry, and made an awesome piece of art from a cupboard door. Not to mention some great make & takes and all the visiting and eating. And eating.

And laughing!

grrrr

There's nothing like the feeling when you're told to do something right away 'cause it's an emergency & time is of the essence. Never mind that you brought it up in the first place, asking for direction and stressing that it should be done soon...in an email that you sent two months ago!!!

cool

I saw this site on Kelli's blog - what a great idea! I just aged one of my Puerto Vallarta photos with it...

What turned out to be a good week

I was heading off to bed quite awhile ago but instead what do I do? Change my blog a bit. And then I figured after all that I'd better do a post too...

I'd been fretting endlessly for the last week or more about a situation at work. A local group who rented the library a couple of months ago called & wanted to book it again for next year. I was really not comfortable making that decision and tried to pass the buck up to management but they passed it back down to me. We finally agreed to meet to discuss the last event. Then, as I kept stewing & losing sleep over this, I compiled (with help) a list of all the things that happened during the last event. These people came in, took over the building, brought in tables & chairs, caterers, floodlights, dance floor, etc etc (while we were open) and it was just an unpleasant experience for the staff. There was no way I wanted to put everybody through that again. Plus this group only gave us $1,000 which I thought was pretty paltry.

Anyway, turned out after I forwarded this list to management, that they knew nothing about it! EGTB had organized the whole thing & didn't tell them. Well... there has to be a contract, a 300% price increase, they have to pay the staff's wages to stay & move equipment etc., and they can't set up until after the library's closed. Thank God. I know it's impossible for this group to get ready between 5:30 and 8:00 so I think we're off the hook for 2009.

You know what else I learned this week... EGTB's parting internal voicemail message: "it's been a pleasure working with some of you"! Can you believe it? That woman sure knows how to burn bridges.

The other good things this week were the Ask a Genealogist Day last Saturday which was well-attended despite the snow. And on Wednesday night the BC Book Prizes Tour was in town. I had the pleasure of introducing the group and really enjoyed their readings - and of course had to buy all the books!

Two, count 'em, two jobs at once

Well I'm just such a busy beaver these days. Since EGTB left I've been acting branch head which has been kind of fun, and kind of a pain in the butt. There's nothing like just starting one job and then a few weeks later getting appointed to another one as well. So I'm trying to do both, neither one very well I think. But since there was no training for either one, I don't feel too responsible. I'm just muddling along as best I can.

This past Saturday (you know, that day when we woke up in mid-April to SNOW!) we had organized, in conjunction with the local genealogy group, an 'ask a genealogist' day. It was pretty successful I'd say and I'm sure that if it weren't for the weather we'd have had even more people. Lots of fun though.

Wednesday this week the BC Book Prizes Tour will be here in town. The 4 authors and one illustrator will be doing readings at the library in the evening. I don't expect much of a turn-out for that. The Book Prizes people were supposed to do the PR and I haven't seen a thing. So the Friends of the Library had sent some stuff out; we'll see if it has any effect. I have low expectations but there's not much work involved either.

Of course I screwed up a few things in the preparation for both these events, but what the hey, I didn't know!

Other than work I don't really have a life these days. Very looking forward to the scrapbooking retreat in a couple of weeks and then a couple of weeks after that I'm off to Vancouver for the Canadian Library Association conference. In between my friend Marjory will be in town. So I guess I will have a social life in May. By then I'd really like to think we'd have a new branch head but I won't hold my breath.

Speaking of which, EGTB did not clean out her office when she left; you should see all the stuff in there! Everything from soup to nuts (and that's practically the literal truth...)

Another tiring weekend

Another garage sale weekend. For some bizarre reason, last week when we did no advertising and had only 2 signs, we were much busier than we were today when we had an ad in the paper & lots more signs up around the area.

Everybody is downsizing, nobody wants to buy other people's old junk (even when spelled junque) anymore. However I did sell some old scrapping stuff yesterday: some stamp sets & ink pads in garish colours. So today I brought out some more and only sold 12 pieces of paper! It's really not worth all the work. And the shortage of sleep.

Shame on those of you who accused Mark of sending threatening emails...! Of course it wasn't him. He was away from work but it wasn't because he was arrested; he was just sick, like the rest of us. We all had a bad stomach bug which was not a result of the potluck last Friday, although the way it spread through the staff made it seem like a possibility.

And just to show that you can make art out of anything... LED lights in the backyard.

Who said being a librarian was boring?

Yesterday was my first day as Acting Branch Head (EGTB's last day was Friday). And the day started off with a phone call from the RCMP about a threat made from a library computer. I told the person on Reception to forward the call to HQ. The Executive Director is the only person who can allow information to be given out about people using the library. A few minutes after that, another RCMP officer comes in the building, wanting similar information. Once again I referred him to HQ (and he was not a happy camper!). The Director was in a meeting in Vernon so there was much to-ing and fro-ing between management, her, and the RCMP and the curiosity was killing me but I never heard anything more.

This afternoon on Castanet I saw this story:

Threatening email leads to arrest
by Kevin Berar - Giant FM - Story: 38549
Apr 8, 2008 / 3:40 pm

The South Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver and nearby elementary schools were in lock down Monday due to an email threat.

Staff at S.O.S.S received an email from an unknown individual saying they were a student at the school and were going to bring a gun and shoot everyone in their path and then shoot themselves.

S.O.S.S notified Oliver RCMP, who investigated and arrested a homeless 33-year-old Kelowna man.

The man admitted to sending the threatening email, as well as a second email to a school in Westbank.

The man faces two counts of uttering threats and remains in custody pending a psychological evaluation.

So happy to see the library doesn't come into it at all (at least until I posted this!) but still very curious (and wondering if this is somebody we'll recognize!)

Merkaba Sunday

So last night while Holly and I were sitting in the dark for Earth Hour, Greg was in the garage making a merkaba (as he is wont to do from time to time). Today Holly and I painted it and generally hung around outside enjoying the sunshine.

Not enough time

I'm suffering from a severe lack of time. I would have thought that after having 5 days off last weekend I would have been happy to go back to work. No. I was kind of grumpy most of the week - and it was only 4 days! Now I'm supposed to go back to 5 day weeks!?

I've been to physio twice, not sure that it's helping. And the appointments are an hour long - I don't have time to stay there for an hour! I've got 2 more appointments this week, 8:00 Tuesday morning and 8:30 Thursday. I'm going to have to change the Thursday one - I've got a meeting at 9:30 and would not get there in time. Plus $220 for a week's worth of physio seems like money I could be doing something else with (like buying gas?)

We've been having meetings at work about statistics lately. Of course this was something that was brought up at the last reference librarians' meeting (last October) but nothing happened till the week before last and then we're all panicking 'cause it's to be done before the next meeting (this Thursday). Didn't we have 6 months to do this? So it's been a crash course in chart-making with Microsoft Excel for a couple of us.

On the bright side, I see the temperature is forecast to be 15 on Thursday! This is very exciting. Maybe spring is really coming after all. We did sit outside in the backyard yesterday for awhile which was nice. As long as I was in the sun it was quite lovely.

And we did it again today!

Tagged, Footloose & Fancy-free

Well I was tagged a couple of times in the last week or two, guess I'd better get on that!

1. If your doctor told you today that you were pregnant, what would you say? Medically impossible in so many ways!
2. When was the last time you flew in a plane? January 25/08
3. What did the last text message you sent say? Probably something like "How r u getting home? we can't pick u up"
4. What features do you find most attractive in the opposite sex? Sense of humour, nice hands & nails, happiness.
5. What is a goal you would like to accomplish in the near future? Be able to walk normally!
6. Shoe size? 11
7. Been to Mexico? Yup
8. When is the last time you had a massage? Long time ago...
9. What was the last TV show you watched? Enterprise
10. What are your plans for the weekend? WW, maybe shopping, and Easter dinner on Monday at the MIL's.
11. If your significant other asked you to marry them today what would you say? ummm let me get back to you on that.
12. What is in the back seat of your car right now? Crutches and doggie towels.
13. What were you doing at 8 am this morning? Getting dressed.
14. If you could marry any celebrity today who would it be? George Clooney
15. Have you ever been to a strip club? If I have it was a really long time ago.
16. What is the best ice cream flavor? I'm so boring - vanilla!.
17. What is the last sporting event you watched? You mean live? The Whitecaps back in the 80's
18. Ever go camping? Once again, many years ago.
19. Last phone call? To physio.
20. Are you allergic to anything? Creamy cucumber salad dressing & certain brands of toothpaste.
21. What is one thing you have learned about life recently? I think I'm about as grown-up as I'm going to get.
22. What do you do at work? Librarian.
23. What is your mom's name? Ellen but commonly known as "Dot"
24. Ever cried for no reason? probably
25. Can you do the Crank Dat dance? Not likely
26. What is your favorite color to wear? There's so many!
27. What is the longest plane ride you have ever been on? Vancouver to Oslo.
28. What is the longest road trip you have ever taken? Ooh I'm bad, haven't really done any. through the Kootenays and to Lethbridge I guess
29. What are your turn-offs? Stupidity and rudeness, irresponsibility
30. What was your last alcoholic beverage? Wine
31. What are you craving right now? Nothing, I'm full! (but note how we all assume this means food).

In other news, no more roboboot!!! I took today off work and went back to the Ortho Clinic at the hospital this morning. The doctor said the fracture is healing fine & I don't need the roboboot anymore. As for physio he kind of left that up to me but I'm going to go for it. My first appointment isn't till next Thursday though. Afterwards Holly and I had appointments at the hair salon so it was great that I was able to drive there myself...although I did notice that my foot was a tiny bit weak when it came to braking so I had to watch myself.

Holly got her hair cut & coloured today - and I had my roots done. So it was an expensive visit but worth it; she LOVES her new 'do and I have to say it looks terrific - a bit darker than her own colour with a few reddish-purple foils in it. Barely visible in the picture.

And the other picture, I just had to take - my office door!

Anyway hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Whiny

That's how I'm feeling this morning. But I'm also a little smarter at the same time as it appears feeling this way can be spelled either whiny or whiney.

Anyway I'm just unhappy with my foot. I figured that by now it wouldn't hurt at all, but it still does. Perhaps pain is too strong a word but it's certainly uncomfortable, even as soon as I wake up in the morning, which is why this morning I'm still lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. When I did hobble into the kitchen to make myself a chai latte I had a cramp all the way up my leg. But I go back to the specialist in less than 2 weeks and maybe by then it'll be much better. It's not the broken part that hurts - it's the rest of it!

I was out yesterday morning, to WW and then out for breakfast & shopping with my friend Georgia so I may have overdone it a bit. Bought a new pair of pants to replace the ones I'd bought last weekend which had split up the side when I bent over to put on my roboboot!

And now everyone knows that EGTB has handed in her resignation: she's moving across the country to head up another library. The staff are all quietly happy. Of course who knows who her replacement will be! Hopefully my predecessor will not be trying to come back. I think the staff in my department are all pretty happy right now and I'd like to keep it that way.

later...a side note. I just realized that today would have been my father's 103rd birthday! Talk about coming from old parents...