I’ve been volunteering at my local public library branch for a good ten months now and I find it very rewarding. Particularly the times when, as a non-paid volunteer, I can find a paid employee of the library to do the icky stuff (e.g. killing large spiders.) Yesterday I was stopped by a father in the children’s section. He informed me that his little girl had just vomited in front of the juvenile picture books. I smiled and took this information to the reference desk. Ah, the joyous things that are not my job. J
I can’t be the only person that would rather NOT see one of these creatures on her towel as she steps out of the shower. Ugh. And yet, it’s happened several times already this fall… The DH is more than familiar with my “spider scream”, the shrill noise I make when startled. This very morning, he pointed one out as it scrambled across our bedroom floor. Great. That will make going to sleep fun tonight.
The worst was two weeks ago at the library. I was at my volunteer shift, shelving Y.A. fiction when I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye. I kid you not, this thing was the diameter of a pop can. I didn’t scream, fortunately. I avoided it as best I could, but it decided to camp out in front of the “N” shelf…and naturally, I had a stack of Nicholson and Olsen hardbacks to shelve… I was hoping that another patron would walk by and scare it into running away, but no such luck. No one else seemed to even notice the spider’s presence. I managed to finish shelving and moved on to graphic novels… carefully monitoring the beast as I travel back and forth from the back room to the teen area. It didn’t move once. Finally, I stopped by the reference desk and asked the volunteer coordinator about his feelings on killing things and pointed out the spider. I’m sure he thought I was just being a huge baby. He promised to step on the spider and sent me on my way. Several minutes later, I heard a series of loud thuds. Then he walked over to me, panting, and dropped two large books at my feet. “Yep, that was a big one. My shoe didn’t work.” Eek. It was all I could do to go back the next week. Thank goodness fo government holidays – no shift today.
Photo obtained from Wikimedia Commons…
Yep, another busy one. As usual. J The puppy, the DH, and I drove home to visit all my grandparents this weekend. We left out Friday night, and met my parents at my paternal grandmother’s ranch. Many years back, my grandfather got a contract with the Bureau of Land Management to hold wild horses brought in from out West so that people could adopt them. The wild populations get too big and this was the solution to keeping the numbers in check. Works for me.
Anyways, the 5 of us drove to Sumner, NE – the tiny town where a big portion of my dad’s family was raised – and had dinner at Tub’s Pub, a rather decent steakhouse that also boasts a crazy rendition of “Happy Birthday” if you are unfortunate to visit on your special day.
Saturday we went to see my mother’s family. My grandfather has recently retired to take care of my grandmother, who is slipping away from us a little more each day. I’m honestly not sure if she knew who I was. It is very sad.
We continued on from there back to Lincoln for the football game. Our dog has never been tailgating before, so we brought him along – my parents spread out the tickets amongst my siblings, so my nephew and the dog got to spend the night at our place with “Mimi & Papa” and the game on PPV. Good times. The game was great, of course – nothing like watching a high-scoring shut-out during the 300th consecutive sell-out. Only like 45 years in the making…
Sunday was spend doing more domesticated things around the house. Fun stuff like laundry, and dishes, and canning. I baked pancake-muffins (the best invention EVER), and then canned 3 jars of pears and 10 jars of tomato sauce. Before all of that got started, I took my mom, my nephew, and the dog to the Nebraska Humane Society “Walk for the Animals”. The dog promptly stepped in a patch of burrs, screaming, kicking, and biting when we tried to pull them out of his paw, and my nephew almost immediately saw a playground and fell into a tantrum until Mom took him to the slide. The dog and I did the walk alone, and then browsed the vendor tables until the nephew was sufficiently worn out.
This week won’t be nearly as bad schedule-wise. No meetings, a few practices, a date with the DH, and plenty of homework to get done… Here we go!
