B is for...

Branch, Will:
One of the best things about being a librarian is the librarian crush. No, I'm not talking about the crushes patrons have on librarians (those are generally creepy)--I'm talking about the crushes librarians have on authors, musicians, etc. Me personally, I have a children's librarian crush on Kevin Henkes (of course, who doesn't), Jack Prelutsky (this is also a childhood crush and stems back from the line "'Interception!' Daddy roars and once again the wrong team scores" in It's Thanksgiving!), Louis Sachar (I loooove the Wayside School books) and Norton Juster.

I now have a new librarian crush and his name is Will Branch, half of the musical duo Fox and Branch, who came to perform at our library today. Will is fun, he's funny, he's nice, he's easy going, he's great with kids, he's cute, he's tall, he has a great name (just say a few times. Will Branch. Nice, right?) and he plays the banjo. What's not to love? I liked their program so much that when I found out they were playing tonight at the library down the road, I was more than tempted to go to that show too. But then I think I would crossing into librarian stalker territory.

Bike Race:
Yesterday, I went to a bike race.... because I had to. I was trapped at the bike race. Because not only does my current place of residence love fests, they also love bike races... oh wait they call it the annual international cycling classic. And they love having them downtown, where I work and also where I get my haircut. This race is a circuit race (I think that's what it's called--although I have no clue what I'm talking about) so they have to block off a big mile long square in the downtown area. After I got done with work, I walked over to get my haircut and then realized that my car was parked inside of the loop instead of outside. And thus, I was trapped. So I gave up trying to leave and instead went to Sal's Pizza for a slice of roasted vegetable pizza (almost as good as Ian's...almost) and found a spot to stand to watch the race. I've never watched a bike race before but it was so awesome! They're flying past at about 30 miles an hour and they're biking mere inches away from you. It was terrifying and completely amazing. And it took place in the town where I live--it's still crazy that in this small town there's almost always something fun to do. I just have to leave my house and actually go.

Bernice:
So last night I got trapped at a bike race. This morning I locked myself out of my apartment. Woot! I'm on such a roll. I blame the library. See, we have these ugly bright orange "Get a Clue @ your library" t-shirts that we have to wear every Wednesday for our special events. I washed mine last night but didn't have the time to dry it before I went to bed. So I put it on a hanger in front of the window and hoped it would dry by morning. And of course it didn't. So this morning, I took a shower, threw on some clothes and went downstairs to put it in the dryer for a quick spin. And didn't bring my keys and locked my poor dumb little self out. Then, I FREAKED OUT. Had visions of being both late for work AND not having time to have any coffee (that's how you know you have a problem). So, I knew that our groundskeeper dude lived somewhere on the first floor and started knocking on doors, in that scary frantic way that would freak me out if I woke up to it. Thank god for Bernice. Not only does she not play shitty covers of Led Zeppelin at 2:30am, she was awake and not offended that I would be knocking frantically and freaking out like a little immature kid. She told me to call the landlady's daughter and let me use her phone--actually, she dialed the number for me, which made me feel like a 5 year old but not necessarily in a bad way. Luckily, the landlady's daughter lives in the building next door and she was up getting her kids ready for vacation bible school (sidenote: everyone in this town is constantly going to some form of VBS.) And I made it to work on time and even had time to stop for coffee. Yikes.