The Library Police

I love books. I really do.

I read approximately ten books a month, and I don't own an electronic tablet. Call me a Luddite, but I really think nothing compares to a REAL book in your hands.

I pinned this photo on my pinterest page because I even like the smell of books. Judging from the number of times this image has been repinned, I'm not the only one.

(Image from http://cache.gizmodo.com)

However, apparently I don't love books as fanatically as the staff of my local library, whom I call the Book Gestapo, I mean the Library Police.

I visit the library about once a week. I keep my vists as brief as possible, though, due to a conflict with library security. (I know, I seem like too nice a girl to have such a thing happen, but I was actually bounced from the library a couple of years ago. Click here to read about it if you missed that story.)

Now apparently the Library Police are upset with me on another front. Namely, they feel I don't give the books enough reverence when I read them. As in, I don't don plastic gloves and a surgical mask before opening the pages, I suppose.

Once they caught me folding down page corners, and noted my record accordingly.

Then last week, the man at the desk told me I'd been accused of smudging a page.

(I'll bet you think I'm making this up. I'm not. I promise. These people are nuts, I tell you.)

He said I needed to call the downtown branch and ask them what I needed to do to clear my record of this heinous allegation.

So I called them. The lady at the circulation desk said she'd look it up and call me back. After a couple of hours, she returned my call and said that apparently I'd returned a book last summer with a smudge on one of the pages. However, they'd cleaned it off successfully. Hooray!

So the stain upon my library record has been likewise expunged.

Until the next time I accidentally drop a cookie crumb inside a romance novel or something. Sheesh.

Carpe Diem... "Seize the Twins?"

I just finished reading the book “Choosing to See” by Mary Beth Chapman.


It was written by the wife of Steven Curtis Chapman, the Christian singer/songwriter, and it was about their life together, but mainly about the tragic death of their youngest daughter in 2008.

Needless to say, this book turned me into a weeping mess.

My husband observed, “Maybe that’s not such a good thing for you to be reading,” as I sat, bent over the book, with tears (and worse!) dripping from the end of my nose.

But I did feel like Mary Beth did a good job of both conveying the pain they went and are going through, and balancing it with faith and hope for the future. It is a brave thing to do, particularly when a tragedy like that is so fresh.

As I read, the major message I heard was to really live each day and enjoy each moment that you’re given with your children. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and trust God for the big stuff, praying for strength as you go.

I tearily resolved to do just that. “I will seize each day! I will not let little annoyances bother me! I will give the children all my love and attention while ignoring their small faults!”

And then I looked up and saw Baby Girl sitting on Baby Boy’s head. Both of them were shrieking. All around on the floor were the discarded remains of a construction paper art project they had ripped into tiny pieces. And on the couch, the “no-spill” sippy cups were planted firmly upside-down, dribbling twin lines of milk into the upholstery.

This is what happens when I turn my attention to a book, I suppose.

I think a prayer for strength would not come amiss here.

See Your Face in Every Magazine

First of all, let me say, I like to read magazines. I like to read books and newspapers too, but right now I’m talking about magazines, okay?

And I like to read them on paper. I like to physically turn pages and read them. My husband has one of those Kindle thingys. He loves it! He brags how he can have a million books on there. (Or some ridiculous number like that--when he starts giving me statistics I seem to get a little humming in my head that makes it impossible for me to recall the actual number later.)

But I don’t like the electronic form much. I like to hold a REAL BOOK. I like the way books smell: the brand-new book smell and the vintage-book aroma. I like a shiny new magazine sliding through my hands as I read it. I even like the black fingers you get from reading a real newspaper. It’s authentic.
But anyways, I DO like to read magazines. But I have to say there are some topics I’m getting tired of, because they are on the cover of every women’s magazine EVERY month.

#1: Losing Weight. Oh my gosh. Maybe it’s un-American of me, but I am SO SICK of all this talk about losing weight! Yeah, we’re all fat. We shouldn’t eat so much junk. WE KNOW! Let’s move on!

#2: Getting Organized. How many different ways can you say the same thing? Get rid of your extra stuff! Store the rest of it in cute little bins! Woo-hoo! That’s all there is to it. How can you keep squeezing a whole article out of this topic every month, ALL YEAR LONG?

#3: Saving Money. Okay, don’t buy so much STUFF! That’s it. Seriously. Again, not something we should be needing to keep writing new articles about, month in and month out. By the way, I notice no one suggests we should Save Money by cancelling our magazine subscriptions. Hmmm….

#4. Find the Perfect ___ To Flatter Any Body. Fill that blank in with swimsuit in the spring/summer, dress in the fall/winter. Now I like to look at clothes as much as the next girl, but I take umbrage with the Any Body. Mostly because the models are all the SAME body! Where’s the regular chicks? You can put camouflaging pleats and ruffles all over me, but I am NOT going to look like these size-zero girl on page 48. And neither is 90 percent of the population. If you say Any Body, how about let’s SEE some of them and how FLATTERING the clothes are?

#5. Healthy Meals Your Family Will Love. Just give it UP people! They won’t love it if it’s healthy, okay? You keep trying to come up with new ways to serve the same stuff. So we end up with a long list of ingredients, half of which I can’t even FIND at the store, and I spend all day making something that will make my kids go, “What did you DO to this chicken Mom?” and “Can I just have a peanut butter sandwich?”

#6: Hidden Dangers in Your ____. Just fill in the blank with ANYTHING there. There’s hidden dangers in everything, it seems. I can get skin cancer from using sunscreen? What? Oh, because then I get a false sense of security and stay in the sun too long. I can get cancer from my plastic containers? Whoops! Better check the labels and try to remember which numbers are the BAD ones. (Again, that humming noise in my brain when I try to remember the numbers.) Buying cleaners in attractive bottles could KILL me? Oh, because they look like they could be food or perfume. (Assuming I’m an IDIOT, of course.) And it goes on and on, all the products that are out to get me.

And, all right, I admit that these can all be worthy topics. The thing is, I'm just SICK of them!
Okay, so all those gripes aside, what do I LIKE to read in a magazine?

#1: Interesting Stories About People. Well, that seems like a big duh, doesn’t it? But I mean stories about regular people, not just celebrities all the time. I especially like stories about people whose problems are way worse than mine, like “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” (I also love how it always IS saved!)

Or people who write in for advice, you can’t beat that with a stick! That’s always something different! What SHOULD “In A Dilemma in D.C.” do about her wayward daughter? How about those etiquette conundrums: Should I tell my co-worker his rancid B.O. is killing us all? Inquiring minds want to know!

#2: Miniature Investigations. Recently I read an expose on how big actual ice-cream scoops were vs. how big they were supposed to be. Seriously. It was fascinating. They went to ice cream parlors and got like fifty scoops each, and then went back to the lab and weighed them. (How do you get THAT gig, I wonder?) Result: Ben and Jerry’s was shortchanging everyone, and Baskin Robbins was giving everyone about an ounce more than they should have. And, oddly enough, Coldstone was the most accurate, even though when you get ice cream there it LOOKS so imprecise, with those two metal paddles they roll up your scoop with. Now THAT’S an investigative scoop I can get into! (Pardon the pun.)

I also like when people have a problem a with a company and a magazine reporter straightens it out for them. “You will be receiving a full refund and an apology, Mrs. Chambers.” BOO-ya! That’s what I’M talking about!

#3: Blogs and Fiction. I like it when they feature a blog, perhaps like THIS one. How about it, Good Housekeeping? Ladies Home Journal? Redbook? I’m available...

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How-To Books, Just For Fun

Although I said in my last post that life with five children is never dull, that is not entirely accurate. In fact it can get quite boring, because while I have plenty to do, much of it is repetitive and uninteresting stuff: cooking, cleaning, etc.

So every once in a while, I get the urge to spice things up a bit. And no, I don’t mean anything weird by that--this is strictly G-rated here. Sheesh, people!

So I was in the library and I saw a book called “How to Change Someone You Love,” and my first thought was, That would be an annoying thing to catch your spouse reading. And then I thought, Maybe I’ll check it out, and leave it lying around, and see what my husband says. Just for fun, you know? So I did.

Now, this is a real book. I am not kidding. Check it out at left there! It promises “Four Steps to Help You Help Them.” This seems so obviously aimed at gypping gullible women out of $24.95. (Because who wants to change the one they love more than women? I ask you!) First off, if there’s only four steps, why does it take you almost three hundred pages to tell them to me? And second, isn’t it IMPOSSIBLE to change someone else? It seems a little irresponsible to me to give someone false hope that they can change another person. But I digress...

So anyways…on Monday I checked out the book and put it on the kitchen counter. It sat there all afternoon. While I was dishing out Jell-O after dinner (it’s almost like fruit, and therefore healthy, right?) my ten-year-old daughter saw the book. She said, “Why would you want to change the one you love?”

Ah, the innocence of youth! One day you will know, my child.

All week I moved the book from the dining room table to the kitchen counter and back, trying to get my husband to notice it. But he had no comment. Either he didn’t see it, or he’s been intentionally ignoring it, which I think is more likely. At this point, when it’s been almost a week, I pretty much have to either say straight out, “Did you see this book?” or forget about it. But I think mentioning it would kind of take the fun out of the whole thing.

So I guess my experiment is a failure.

Oh well, at least I got a little extra exercise this week, moving a book around the house at random, right?

Maybe I’ll write a book myself: How To Eat Jell-O and Lift Books for Fun and Profit! Anybody got an extra $24.95?

Storytime, interrupted

Storytime is a big deal at our house; I enjoy reading aloud and the kids usually enjoy listening. I like to use different voices for different characters, and can turn a good story into quite a little performance. The only thing I can't stand is when they aren't listening.

So I'm reading to my oldest three daughters tonight; they are ages 13, 10 and 7. (The babies are in bed already.) We are currently reading book four in the Starcatchers series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It's an interesting take on Peter Pan; I recommend it if your kids like adventure stories.

                    

                  
(Forgive the product placement; I just figured out how to put images into my blog and I'm excited about it. This is a big thing for me, as a certified tech-inept.) So... moving on...



My oldest daughter likes to listen to the story, but she doesn't really like to admit it, so I am reading in the room shared by the younger two. They have bunk beds and a papasan chair, as well as a desk chair that I sit in to read. (Mommy doesn't sit on the floor.)


So today my youngest, whom we call Boo, was sitting in the papasan chair, where the oldest likes to sit. We'll call the 13-year old ET for Evil Teenager. So ET says to Boo, ever so sweetly interrupting my reading, "MOVE!"


Boo of course refuses to move, and I have to say, "Either sit on the floor or sit on Boo's bed." And with much grumbling, ET lies down on Boo's lower bunk, since it's too short for comfortable sitting.

I begin reading again, only to be further interrupted by a screech and a howl from ET, who vaults off the bed and into the center of the room, yelling, "There's POO on the WALL!!"

I roll my eyes at this ridiculous exaggeration, and Boo and her sister--let's call her GG for Giggle Girl--laugh hysterically. Boo says, "I can't get it off of there!"

I say, "There is NOT really poo on the wall," but ET insists, "There is, Mom; there really IS!"

GG is laughing so hard she can barely choke out, "There really is!" I turn to Boo with fire in my eyes.

Boo says immediately, "Neighbor Girl did it!"

Neighbor Girl is our family's Not Me (of Family Circle fame) except she is a real person who lives two houses down and seems to spend every waking minute at our house. So everything bad that I discover and don't know who did it--Neighbor Girl did it.

GG explains, "Neighbor Girl was holding our pet mouse and it pooped so she wiped it on me and I wiped it on Boo and she wiped it on the wall," before collapsing into more laughter. She adds, pithily, "I think I'm going to wet myself."

I take a deep breath. To GG I say, "Go to the bathroom," and to Boo I say, "Go get something to clean that off." They both scurry off and ET sits in the papasan chair, pleased by this turn of events.

When they both return, I continue reading. But basically, the mood is ruined for the adventure story, since all three girls continue to randomly giggle and say, "poo," under their breaths.

Then when GG throws something suspect--unrelated to the poo but definitely meant to make her sister THINK it is--onto ET's lap and much shrieking ensues, I give up and close the book.

And of course they all say, "No, no, we're sorry; keep reading Mommy. We'll be good and listen." But that's it for me.

I will NOT be upstaged by poo.