Monday

What I'm doing between questions: those ever-popular Death Dates (I'm doing the first pass-through for November's and December's names).

1:00

• Patron reports "all kinds of official cars" down the side-street from us; Librarian B and I do a quick local paper search and (surprisingly) find this:

  The [City] Police Department was called ... at around 7 a.m. Monday for a report of a man lying unresponsive on the ground.... The body was found in the driveway of a rental property in that area. ... The identity of the man and cause of death has yet to be determined or released... [and t]he investigation is ongoing.

  Keep in mind that the high this morning was about 11-degrees F and it's been falling all dayto the current 4 degrees. My first thought is, "Has anyone seen Mr. Ick this morning??" Yes, he's here.  Whew
• [phone] Reserve two books and a video series based on one of the books for patron [video not available in our consortium, so I'll try ILLing it, and she is pushy about getting these guys to speak at our library--yeah, THAT'll be in our budget]; meanwhile I've got people backing up here in person
• One patron goes off to find another person to help; I think his internet session was about to expire
• Pay to print
• Head of Circ comes to take away our extra money and we discuss the dead dude and wonder if we know him, whether he was homeless, whether he froze...because, well, this IS a small town in a lot of ways
• "Can I check this out?" [Texas road atlas. Yup, only if your kind and friendly, though. He says he is but he wants to be somewhere warm...lol...no kidding]
• Pay to print
• Pay to print (and I no longer have ANY change in the drawer, just 1 $20 bill...so I'm off to break that)
• Guest pass [surprised we're open]
• Forgot password
• Guest pass dude needs a little help getting online and also wants to know our food policy [no eating near the computers and preferably downstairs, covered drinks are ok anywhere--and I tell him that if it's good food he has to share with me...lol]
• [phone] Circ says it's someone calling for me, but...I'm thoroughly confused since she's talking about today's appointment with me and the local community theater building manager--whom I don't know except in passing--about....blah blah [I finally stop her and say, "You DO know you called the library not [theater], right?" "Oh My God, I am SO sorry!" Whew. At least I didn't drop the ball on a meeting!]
• Buy a floppy drive [yes, her computer has a slot for them--several of the newer ones don't]

4:00

• Stapler
• "Can I bring an extra chair into the study room with me?" [I think this makes once that someone has asked before doing it...and then leaving it there; wonder if he'll put it back]
• Restrooms [she's either drunk, high, or a big-ass goof]
• Two youngish people wearing Harley gear looking for Plato's Republic
• Help with finding images to represent Catholic education for a family flag [wtf, teachers?] [I show the woman (grandma?) how to do it, but before I leave, I 'suggest' her bossypants kid/grandson sit and do the actual work. Cuz I'm mean like that]
• Biographies of preachers [wow, MY section]: we find Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis [uhm, not a preacher, but ok]
• One of our regulars just stumps in (well, he does 'stump' rather than walk) with a cup of coffee from McD's. He takes his time getting online, getting his work area set up (??), and finally takes off his coat and he's wearing a sleeveless shirt. [wind chill has now lowered the outside temp to -8 degrees]
• Preacher woman works on trying to convert me--ha ha no dice--and it turns out she lives about 60 miles from my sister in western CO. Weird.
• Stumpy keeps muttering about it being cold--he's having trouble typing because his hands are so cold, and he keeps doing that swimmer thing: shaking his arms out
• My guest-pass guy from this morning is back: "How far to the train station?" [today it's gonna feel like 10 miles, but it's only about 6 blocks] ; also, what time does the homeless bus pick up from there [I call to be sure it's actually 5:30] ; another guest pass [dude

5:00

• Catholic flag images need to be printed [but first I squash them into as few pages as I can] ; and now for Word-Art [yes, she's totally doing this for the squirt]
• Paper & pencil for Stumpy--who is now doing his Traffic School course [yes, I know, because I've done it too, about 18 months ago]
• Guest pass guy and his local friend head off in hoodies for the bus...brrrr
• [phone] Librarian T letting me know she's sending a kid in for a guest pass [which I print off and have ready for him when he arrives]
• More help with flag project
• ...and they're finally done
• Fax
• "How can I look up a book in the catalog?" [those computers there...or ask me? She looks it up herself] -- and after a few minutes, her phone 'rings,' or maybe there really was an invisible horse galloping through the reference area