Reading Update

I stopped reading Under the Dome. It just made me feel icky inside, and having read 1/4 of the book, I feel I gave it a fair chance. Someone should tell Mr. King that perversion in prose is barely tolerable when it is purposeful to the plot, but entirely inexcusable when used to flesh out what began as a truly intriguing yarn. Most disappointed to have to quit a novel, something generally against my principle.

Library Gnome

"MEG SH-CHUTTLE, PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT DESK, MEG SAH-CHUTTLE, PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT DESK AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE, MEG SHUTTLE."
By the time he got to the second mauling of my name I was standing directly in front of the large desk separating the hobbit with the microphone and myself. He slowly switched off the mic, slid it to his left out of sight using two fingers, clasped his hands and looked up at me.
"Hi there," I intoned flatly.
"Hello, are you Meg Scootle?"
"No, I'm Meg Schudel," carefully enunciating the relatively simple sounds, shoe-dull. "Am I in trouble?"
"I'm not sure, are you aware that you put an empty CD case in the drop box?," he asked and opened the CD case for "Avenue Q" to prove that this was not an allegedly missing CD, this was true crime.
"Oh, whoops! Sorry about that, I actually know exactly..."
"If I had noticed this after your leaving, it would have been a twenty-minute procedure to renew the item, call you up, and process the empty CD case. I renewed the item for you but we will need it back sooner or later."
"Oh, well like I said, I'm sorry. Are the rest of them..."
"The rest are fine," he interrupted again. "Where's this particular, CD? If you don't know where it is or if it is lost, I need to know so I can..."
"It's in the car." It was my turn to interrupt him.
"Would it be too much to ask that you go get it?," he asked.
I pondered for a moment, where had I parked? Ah yes, hell and gone in the parking lot to allow the breeders and the aged to park closer. "No, I will not fetch the CD." I answered. I took the CD case out of his hands, careful not to snatch, but the loud snap as I closed it gave away my irritation.
I thanked him for renewing the item and returned to the DVD section. I had only just begun browsing them when the same man from the desk announced closing time. I decided that I'd been delinquent enough for one day and promptly queued up behind three moms with whiny kids. I didn't mind the kids at all. It was 5:30 and I wanted to whine too; I'm sure it was all our dinner times.
I bounced on my feet impatiently in line. The little man leaned to the left in his seat. I accidentally made eye contact with him and he waved without smiling. I waved back having no idea what was going on. He kept his hand up, turned it into a pointing hand and jabbed it toward the electronic book-checker-outer monstrosity librarians are always pushing on you.
I wasn't in the mood for this. There were two other patrons he could have instructed to use the book-scanning monsters, but he'd singled me out. I wasn't having it, so I decided to have a little fun with him. I raised my eyebrows pointed to the machine and looked back at him. He gave one curt nod. I nodded back enthusiastically without budging one inch out of line. He furrowed his eyebrows at me clearly thinking me barmy. He turned his attention back to patron number one, and handed her a receipt. Patron number two stepped up, the librarian leaned to the left again, scowling at me. I purposely made eye contact with him this time. He momentarily widened his eyes at me as if to say "yes, YOU," then jerked his head motioning to me to go to the machine while his hands busily scanned books. I looked at the machine then back at him and nodded vigorously again, smiling. He shook his head and finished with patron number two. By the time he got to me he was seething, the lights started to go out around the library, leaving a sort of weird spotlight on the front desk.
"Hi there!" crowed and beamed a smile at him.
"PLEASE do not speak in loud tones in this facility!" he hissed.
I slowly turned to see just exactly how many people I might be disturbing with my uncivilized volume only to be met with the darkened library. We were the only ones left in the building as far as I could tell. I slowly turned back to face him and returned the look he'd given me only a moment ago that clearly said, "I'm more than a little sure you're mentally unsound."
He scanned my items and informed me that I had late fees. I assured him he was wrong. I've not had a late item in the year and a half I'd been frequenting San Diego's libraries. He reiterated that yes, my DVDs were late. All five of them, $2 each. I told him they weren't, that I'd checked them out exactly one week ago from that day.
"One week and one hour ago, you mean. Technically, they're late." He said this as he held my new items captive.
I was aghast that this man's size was clearly a reflection of his character; small. I glared at him, extracted a $10 bill from my wallet and slid it across the marble counter to him. He relinquished my items and I snatched them from his hand, hugging them to my chest, still glaring.
"I hope my donation can do some good for the library," I said, rejecting the term "fees." To myself I muttered, "Perhaps it can go toward paying for the machines that were necessitated by the need to replace librarians like yourself."
Oh well, it was worth $10 just to antagonize the mean little gnome* that afternoon. I'm actually looking forward to visiting him this week; if he's going to charge me $10 for the pleasure of his company, I want my money's worth.

*Note, he was not a real little person or anything, I'm cranky but not a total jerk. He had a smallish build, a scrunched up face designed for getting his grump on, and a sparse little beard with bald patches in it; he reminded me of Rumpelstiltskin.

Pet Peeves, Vexations, and Bete Noires

What pushes you over the edge? I'm a tolerant(ish) person, but there are simply some things in this world that are not to be borne:

1) Cotton balls. I tried to post a picture for this, but when I got to google images and saw ALL those cotton balls, I about died. Seriously, unbidden, shudder after shudder went through my body and I as soon as I had control of myself I navigated away from the page. They leave little icky cottony filmys behind and when you squeeze them (another shudder) they go "eeeee-er eeeeee-er." UGH, I can't stand it. As a practical joke in high school, my "friends" filled my locker with cottonballs, I had to miss my next class while I got a teacher to help me throw them away. I'm a little better now, I can touch them if they're saturated thoroughly with water or nail polish remover or if I absolutely have to, rolling around in my palm but never actually holding them between my fingers (I know people who have a similar reaction to popsicle sticks).
2) Not knowing what language I'm listening to. There are roughly 6,500 languages spoken in the world today, and despite the fact I can only recognize a tiny fraction of those, it drives me BANANAS to not know without a doubt what language I'm hearing.
3) Here are the big road-rage inducers: people who don't turn right on red when it's permissible (ah!), people who leave their signals on so you have NO idea when/if they're going to turn (ah!!), and the coup de grace, people who signal one way then turn the other (ah!!!).
4) Luke-warm coffee (or luke warm anything, for that matter).
5) Discovering you definitely wore the wrong shoes for the occasion but having no way of knowing that when you were dressing.
6) Waking up with your whole arm asleep, a charlie horse, or with hair in your face.
7) Sneezing just after/while applying masacara.
8) JUST settling under the covers, propped up with a good book, cracking it open, then being blindsided by sleepiness when all you want to do is read.
9) Folding a fitted sheet...is an oxymoron.
10) Hearing the word "Anyways." I'm usually good about not taking my wordsmithing out of the office to the point of judging, but PEOPLE, it's "Anyway." "Anyways" isn't a word. I promise.

That's all! I'm actually having a very good day, but it's not bad to air out one's pet peeves every now and then, even if they give you a reputation for acting like this guy:

Have a peeve-free day!

America's Got Talent...for Unstimulating Broadcasts

I want my half-hour of life back I wasted watching America's Got Talent.

Jerry Springer serves as ringleader to this true celebrity circus (I won't even get into that show...), which is a painful parade of mediocre performers judged by two E-list celebrities and one oh-so typical British snob/Simon Cowell knock off. The general ineptitude of the judges' careers beautifully sets off the line up of sub par magicians, untrained singers, and sideshow acts. Most abrasive are the fame-hungry parents of some of the kids that are forced out on stage only to be brought to tears by the snobby Brit (whose name I could easily find out but is too inconsequential to merit the effort), and defended by the abominable Hasselhoff who, as headlines tell it, made no scruples of slurring insults at his own daughter.

The vomit-inducing back stories the majority of the performers conjure up are beyond the pale, these individuals' powers of invention would be better applied cowriting a piece of fiction with Mitch Albom. "I haven't sang in 11 years because my throat was run over by a tractor while living in the Bronx where I lost my entire family to their crack addiction while my girlfriend was cheating on me with half the neighborhood...but now I will dance/sing/contort to victory!," or some such nonsense.

I know no one's forcing me to watch this piece of primetime, but for some reason this show pushed me over the edge and incurred my disgust more than most (I don't get cable, so I'm mercifully spared many of the even less palatable reality TV going on).

America, if you've really got talent, prove it by using your time for something more worthy than turning your attention to this show.

Yeah, this is why I can't wait to go to heaven...

This charming fellow (I choose to call him Marvin), is showing us a bird spider. So called because it feeds on, that's right, birds. A spider big enough to eat birds. Aren't birds supposed to eat spiders? Try not to lose too much sleep, one would have to go to Australia to encounter one of these beasties. However, since I subscribe to the old adage "know thine enemy," the following comprise the sort of spiders I can look forward to encountering while I'm here in S.D.:

An antrodiatidae, also known as the folding door spider


A ctenizidae, known as the trap door spider


a theraphosidae, I would need some theraphosidae if anyone ever traumatized me enough to put a spider on my face like this


And the crown jewel of scary spiders, the theridiidae or black widow spider that would kill me instantly (no, not from a bite, just from looking at it)


All this said, I must say, I've gotten GOOD at coping with spiders here. I have little brown, fast-moving, spindly legged ones in my house on a biweekly basis so I'm getting better...