Another Week Goes By and All That Jazz!

It's been a busy week.  At the library I've been up to my eyeballs in promoting and publicizing the summer reading programs which will be beginning in June at all six of our locations.  We've got a wide variety of programs planned.  There will be a local author book signing, a science program, a magician, a representative from the zoo with animals in tow for a nature program, and a visit from the mascot of an Indiana baseball team. 


Also, the theme for summer reading this year is "One World, Many Stories," with an emphasis being on learning about the traditions, customs, and culture of other lands.  So the branch managers have special programs and activities planned about numerous countries around the world.  It's my job to take all these dates and times and details and add clip art and photos and such and design flyers and handouts and posters to promote these programs.  I also write press releases for the local newspapers, put notices about them on the local community channels on TV, and post updates to the library's Facebook page, among other things.


I did take a short forced break from work yesterday.  I say "forced" because I really had no choice but to do so.  I went home to eat lunch and on the way back, I was stopped at the last traffic light before getting to the library. The power to the traffic light suddenly went out and the light stopped working.  It was at a busy intersection of the  two main streets in our town with four lanes on both streets.  


It was a bit of a free-for-all, then, trying to get through that intersection and make it to the library.  When the power goes out to a traffic light, the intersection is supposed to be treated as a four way stop.  Obviously, quite a few of the drivers around me were not aware of that.  I watched as some of the others made false starts and had close calls with other cars around them. My turn came, and I made it safely back to the library.


My coworkers were sitting outside of the library on top of a short concrete wall along the front of the building and called me over to join them.  The power was out inside the library too, of course. Although most of the library  gets natural light from outside through the windows, my office is on the second floor of our annex building, and it happens to be windowless.   So when the power goes off in there, it is dark as the inside of a cat (a phrase my mother used to say).  Also, almost all of the work that I do is done on a computer, so even if I could see, I wouldn't be able to get any work done without electricity.  The cargo, processing, and circulation departments of the library all rely heavily on computers too, so things were pretty much at a standstill inside.  


We sat and watched the traffic try to get through the two intersections at either end of our building. There were several near misses and almost accidents, but luckily the police arrived in a short while to start directing traffic until they could get the lights fixed.  I haven't heard yet why the power went out.  It was only out in that one block of the city as far as we could tell.

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We went to hear my younger son play his upright bass with the Toledo Youth Orchestra on Monday night. His girl friend, playing the violin, is in this group too. It was their pops concert and the last one of the season.  They take the summer off and begin again with the next school year.  

He will keep busy with his music during the summer anyway, though, because in June the City Orchestra here begins performing again.  He also stays busy with his quintet which has several weddings booked in the weeks ahead.  

I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and  recorded several of the songs.  Here is one that I recorded if you have the time and want to hear them play.  I will probably put the others I recorded on Youtube but won't put them all here on my blog.  

I don't know how I always manage to sit behind somebody with a gigantic head when I go to these concerts, but somehow it just happens.  This video is a fun medley of tunes from the musical Chicago.