~Tuesday~ A couple of items from yesterday that I wanted to capture:
- Anna Karenina was due. I was unable to renew it online, so I called the library. The conversation went like this:
Library: “Hello, this is Jane Doe with the Cameron Village Library.” [Wish I’d’ve caught her name.]
Me: “Hello, Jane, this is John Martin, and I’d like to renew a book. It’s due today, but it won’t let me renew it online.”
Library: “Do you happen to have your library card number with you?”
Me (after giving her my number and as she searched for my record): “Yeah, it’s Anna Karenina, you know. 817 pages.”
Library: “And you’re not done yet?” she mocked.
Me: Well, I’m at 350. Not bad. The last time I tried to renew it online it wouldn’t let me either, because someone was on the waiting list for it, even though there were several other copies of it on the shelf.”
Library: “Yes. Unfortunately, that’s the way the program works. If there’s even one person on the waiting list, even though we have more copies, it won’t let the already-checked-out ones renew. You’re all set now. The new due date is July 13th.”
- One of my blog entries from last week—the one about swearing on the bible in order to update my will—was featured on 30threads.com. Yay. I like Ginny’s intro to it:
If you’ve never read Raleigh resident John’s blog, then this will be an interesting introduction for you. John’s blog is more like a journal, and in this recent post he shares an anecdote about having to swear on the Bible when he renewed his will. I like how she says “renewed his will”—as if it came due or something. 🙂
Today’s buscapade involved random observations and some characters from the past:
- Observations
- The lady sitting in front of me was listening to—what is already thought of as “obsolete” in my mind—one of those round “Discman” CD players from the 90s. Hers was covered with all kinds of colorful stickers, which made it seem even more dated. Also, instead of earbuds, she had on black, heavy-plastic headphones like the kind pilots wear. Oh well. At least she wasn’t using her gadget to drown out the noise of any of her children.
- A man, who looked to me like one of the last people I’d expect to be reading a book, held a hard-covered library book in his lap while he slept, which enabled me to look at it long enough to note that it was Planet Of Twilight by Barbara Hambly, which I’d never heard of.
- Blasts from the past
- The “Amazon lady,” whom I was just thinking of at the end of last week—that she hadn’t been on at the same time as me in a while—got on at her regular stop on Gorman, just before the Western Boulevard intersection. She did not have her trademark cup of coffee from the nearby convenience store with her. I just looked back at my description of the first time she rode, and it made me smile.
- Also riding this morning was “the Right Hand Rule lady,” last seen with her geeky husband several months ago.
- And the final blast, although not an actual bus rider, but a buscapade veteran nonetheless, was the jogging woman pushing the double-seat stroller, whose contents I’d checked last time for a missing Asian baby.
A real mind warp from failblog.org today:
I had a very ambivalent workday today. The good thing about it was that I had no meetings for the second day in a row. And although I have three tomorrow, I have none again on Thursday. I hope to work from home then.
Let’s see. Both my boss and my boss’s boss are out this week and I’ve had the least meeting-filled work week that I’ve had in ages. Things that make you go, “Hmmmm.”
I had every intention of going to the gym tonight, but I felt like a total slug after another one of those most delicious salads with chicken in it. This time I soaked the chicken briefly in Teriyaki sauce instead of soy sauce, and it was just as delicious.
I got in the bed at 8:30 and read just a couple of pages of Anna Karenina before falling asleep.