Sunday Salon, October 18

GKHS, the circular part is the library on the second floor.

Weather: overcast with intermittent rain...the kind of weather the Seattle-area is famous for. Ugh.

Nothing special week: oddly nothing special happened this week that is report-worthy. I did attend a 5 minute meeting. It took me 15 minutes to drive to it and 15 minutes home, so it seemed longer than it was.  This would have been a good meeting to have on Skype.

Ghost toilet will finally cease its phantom flushing: we heard from the city that our water bill was too high and we should look around the house for possible leaks. We didn't need to, we know where the ghost toilet resides. We have finally scheduled a plummer to come in and repair it. No more toilet flushing in the middle of the night.

My library clerk is a hero: the school district delivered 500-600 iPad keypads and asked us to mark them before distributing them to teachers. Sharon spent Friday in the school's wood shop branding the plastic with a hot tool. She got all but 20 of them done.  She is my hero! Thank you, Sharon.

Update on Muffy: Our dog had neurosurgery a month ago. She had her one month exam with the veterinarian neurologist and it was recommended we take her for doggy physical therapy. Cha-Ching. Who knew there were such specialties as neurologists and physical therapists for animals? We were also told to quit babying her and force her to walk more and more on her own.

Mock Printz Roll-out: I rolled out this year's Mock Printz list of books at all three lunches on Friday and around 30 students signed up to participate. There was a tremendous amount of energy during one of the lunches because upperclassmen were all excited to share their experiences with Mock Printz from last year. Phew! I was worried no one would want to join. (See my blogpost about the sad state of affairs in the library this year for an update on reading at my school. Click this link.)

Book finished this week:

• Read blog post "When reading does not go as planned"
• Shadowshaper by Daniel Perez Older---considered Urban Fantasy, and I would add, with a bit of Horror thrown in for good measure. The characters are Puerto Rico-Americans and the topic has a bit to do with island mythology. Not a favorite of mine but I think the students will like it.

Currently reading:

• Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, a memoir by Maya Van Wagenen. The author wrote this book when she was in 8th grade after finding a guide of how to popular published in 1951, she decided to try the advice in that book. Very clever. Progress 60%.
• Symphony for the City of the Dead: Shostakovich and the Siege on Leningrad by MT Anderson. This is my audiobook currently and this may well be my favorite YA book of the year even though it is nonfiction.
• Hired Girl by Laura May Schlitz---in diary format set in the early 1900s.
• The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing our Brain by Carr. I listened to one disc of this book before switching back to Symphony.

Gotta run!  Have a lovely week.