Another Wild Librarian Party

I woke up at 6:00 this morning, the usual time for me on a work day.  Knowing that coverage of the Royal Wedding was supposed to have started at 4:00 am on the television, I turned it on to see how far along the ceremony was.  As it turned out, the procession was just then starting up the aisle at the church, so apparently I didn't miss too much.  It wasn't worth missing any sleep over.


My husband watched some of it with me providing his own running commentary to accompany the ceremony "Mystery Science Theater 3000" style.  For example, as the bride was coming down the aisle, Prince Harry turned and said something to Prince William.  Husband chimed in with, "You can still back out if you run now!"


When the camera panned across the faces, husband said, "Oh look, there's the Queen--oh no, wait--that's Elton John."  


Young son joined in too.  Noticing the long train on the bride's dress, he contributed, "Don't step on her dress!  Don't step on her dress!"  The two of them went on like that for a while, egging each other on.  Needless to say, the romance of the moment was rather lost on them.


After closing at the library tonight, my co-workers and I had an "After the Wedding" party. These are pictures of a pretty tree covered with white blossoms out in front of the library.  Parts of the street the library is on is lined with these trees.  The fact that they were all out in bloom added to the festive feel in the air for celebrating the Royal Wedding day.

 We had a great time at the library party.  The ladies wore fancy hats or fascinators made from flowers and feathers and lace and such, something like these:

(I took pictures of my co-workers at the party, but it was with the library camera and for official "business" as part of my job, so I thought it would be best if I not post them on my blog.)


I baked chocolate-cherry butter scones for the party (I substituted chocolate covered dried cherries for the cherries.)...

and others brought chips and dips, crackers and cheese, and other edible goodies.


The reference librarian, who is crazy and creative and tons of fun, brought all of us a sapphire and diamond ring exactly like the bride's engagement ring (OK, well, they were exactly like hers except that hers was real and ours  were not, but it was close enough to give us all a smile).  Here's mine:

See, it looks just like Kate's!

She also passed out little plastic animals made to hang on the edge of a glass.  I got a little blue monkey.  Isn't he cute!

I was drinking from a can of diet Pepsi instead of a glass, so he didn't work too well at the party, but I brought it home because it was so whimsical.


The reference librarian also brought along fake plastic "British" teeth for whoever wanted them.  I didn't get any teeth because I was busy taking pictures when they were handed out, but that is probably just as well!!

She had us all laughing as she talked with a British accent and wore those silly teeth along with her large, fancy, very extravagant fascinator that included feathers, flowers, and even some pussy willow branches!!  

She was very animated as she talked which made the pussy willows bounce around.  The two people sitting next to her had to keep ducking and dodging so that the bobbing pussy willows didn't hit them in the face!  We had a blast, and it was a fun way to celebrate the Royal Wedding day.

Magnolia Tree

MAGNOLIA TREE

From across the street it looks as if 

a flock of pink parrots

have taken over the limbs.

A closer look reveals branches full of buds

like the points of pink lipsticks

twisted to the rims.

Some of the buds have opened

swirled among the tree's twigs

like cotton candy on a paper cone,

sweet proof that with faith and patience 

good things will come...

 if good seeds you've sown.

Doubly Blessed

I'm doubly blessed.  Two of my blogging friends have both passed on this blogging award to me.  Thank you, Mountain Mama and JL Dodge!!

Of course, now I feel like dancing! I've seen this video several places recently. Thanks to my friend Cary from the blog List of the Day who shared it with me first.  Thanks to my friend Sandy too, who also posted this.  Just in case you have missed it, for whatever reason, I thought I'd post it here.  


This is a T-mobile commercial and spoof of this video done with some talented look-a-likes in honor of the soon-to-happen royal wedding. This made me laugh.  I hope you enjoy it too. 

Colors of Easter Weekend

I thought I'd share some bits of color from my weekend.  The yellow forsythia bushes are popping out all over.  These bushes with their bright cheery yellow are one of my favorite signs of spring.

I found lots of these little purplish-blue flowers hiding in the grass too.

These white flowers are growing near the park. It was very windy here yesterday, so it was difficult to get a good picture.  The petals were blowing in all directions.

On the ground under the tall trees in the park there is a carpet of little white flowers and some taller yellow flowers. 

 This is what the white flowers look like.

The yellow flowers look like this.

We've had some colorful skies this weekend too.

  

Oh yeah, the bruise on my arm, although faded, is still pretty colorful from my failed attempt at donating blood too!! HA HA HA!  No need to worry, though.  It is feeling fine.  It just looks like it would hurt, but it doesn't.

Oh look, there's the Easter Bunny!

I hope you all have had a colorful weekend and a Happy Easter!

Jubilee on the Square

April is National Poetry Month.  I had hoped to write and post more poetry this month here on this blog, but time has a way of getting away from me, and now spiders have begun to build webs in the corners of my blog, and the month is nearly over. 


Some of the bloggers that I visit have been writing and posting a poem every day from a list of poetry prompts.  I didn't sign up to do that because I knew I wouldn't get it done.  I thought I might use the prompts, however, to occasionally give me a jumping off point for my poetry.  You can see the list of prompts on the March 30th entry of JL Dodge's blog here if you are interested.


The poem I am writing for today is using the first prompt in the list which goes like this: "Grab the closest book. Go to page 29. Write down 10 words that catch your eye. Use 7 of the words in a poem. For extra credit, have 4 of them appear at the end of a line."


The ten words that I chose from page 29 of a nearby book were: particular, concoctions, flood, unsavory, fireworks, camp, mopping-up, clairvoyance, bless, and grudge.  I used seven of the words, which I underlined, but I didn't get the extra credit.  (I thought I was doing well just getting the poem written without aiming for overachieving!)  Every summer a street fair called the Jubilee Festival comes to my town, and I chose that as the subject of my poem.

JUBILEE ON THE SQUARE

The carnies wash in on a Friday night

in a flood of pick-up trucks

and tractor trailer rigs.

Just another small Midwestern town 

on their long list of summer gigs.

Ready to set up rides for the street fair,

unsavory-looking men dribble out,

until there's a puddle of them

ebbing to and fro in the town square

smoking and spitting and ambling about.

They set up camp to hawk their gambling games

and their deep-fried, artery-clogging concoctions.

Haggard faces on tattooed men with no names,

gypsies who have thrown to the wind all precautions.

They aren't particular as to where they sleep.

One town is as good as the next.

Everywhere they go, they're judged by the company they keep.

Why they choose such a life leaves many perplexed.

At the end of the week is the fireworks show.

While the townspeople line up to gasp and exclaim,

the carnies start mopping-up, getting ready to go.

Nothing left behind to show they were here

and on to the next town,

they're all the same, all the same.

Sunset Walk

Earlier this week, I took a walk at sunset through the park and took pictures every few minutes of the sky.  It seemed to change with every step I took.  I put the photos into this slide show. My walk was forty-five minutes long, but this quick montage is less than a minute of what I saw.  I hope you like it.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me...

So my schedule has been pretty full of late, and I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to.  I finally have some time to blog tonight, but I'm struggling with it a little.  The reason I am struggling is that I have a bruise the size of an orange on my right arm and my arm is swollen and stiff.  


I'd show you a picture of it, but I don't have a camera right now. (You probably wouldn't want to see a picture anyway--it looks pretty ugly!)  My husband has been out of town for a couple of days and will be gone for a few more.  He took the camera with him, so I don't have one here at the moment. He is on a business trip that is going to segue into an Indians game trip over the weekend.  So this arm of mine is sore, making typing not much fun.  It's not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience.  Perhaps I should explain.


I went after work to donate blood yesterday.  I passed the iron test and the blood pressure test and so forth, and they said I was A-OK to donate.  So I climbed up on the chair they provided, and they cuffed me (no, not handcuffs--a blood pressure cuff!).  The nurse rubbed my arm with iodine so cold that I suspected it just came out of the freezer, and then she told me to make a fist while she started pushing on the inner part of my arm where it bends at the elbow trying to find the vein.  She looked puzzled.


I said, "It's not you.  It's always this way."


She said, "It is?  I thought I was just tired."  I had come at the end of the day, in fact, I was their very last person to arrive to donate.


"They have trouble finding it every time I come here," I told her.


She proceeded and finally chose a spot to stick the needle in.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong spot.  She managed to get the bag started, but the needle was hurting me, and soon the bag stopped filling.  She called another nurse over.  He took a look at things and declared that the scale that the blood bag was sitting on wasn't working right.  


I explained again, that this happens every time I come here, that they have trouble finding the vein.  He repeated that it was just a faulty scale. In spite of his belief that it was the scale, he moved the needle around anyway (once again hurting my arm) and got the flow going again for about a minute.  


A third nurse was called over--this time it was the charge nurse.  She adjusted the needle once again while I finished drinking the Pepsi that had been brought for me (an effort on their part to keep me from passing out, I believe).  My arm was hurting, and I sucked on an ice cube trying to distract myself from the pain.  I leaned my head back on the headrest of the chair and took some slow breaths.  I continued wiggling my feet and opening and closing my hand as directed trying to get the blood to move a little faster.  


Once again, the bag started to fill.  It got to about three quarters full and then stopped.  The charge nurse was called over again.  I wasn't very happy to see her.  She jostled the needle around in my arm again, and unable to stop myself, I said "Ow!" rather loudly.  At this point, the charge nurse decided to abort the mission of drawing my blood.  If the process takes longer than fifteen minutes to fill the bag, the blood is thrown away as unusable.  The time limit had been reached, and it had taken too long.  The bag hadn't filled in the required time and my blood wasn't going to be used.


"No good deed goes unpunished."  That's something my mother used to say. That's what was going through my mind as they bandaged up my arm and taped an ice pack to it.  They showed me to the canteen where I was served an egg sandwich, some chips, cookies, and more Pepsi.


So my attempt to donate blood was unsuccessful and the experience left me with this bruised, swollen, and sore arm.  Sometimes things just don't work out the way you think they should.


I've got some pictures already on my computer that I took a few days ago, early in the week.  I'll share a few with you to end this post on a cheerier note, and save the rest for another time.


I took a different route on my walk the other day.  I got a late start and the sun was already going down.

This  house belongs to one of the very well-to-do families in town.  "Well-to-do."  I always thought that was kind of a weird term.  This house overlooks the edge of the park where I walk.  Nice, don't you think?

They own this field (too big to call a yard, I think) next to the house (mansion?) too.  Quite often there are deer grazing in this area.  I was hoping to see some this evening when I was walking by there, but no such luck.

Walking back into the park, I noticed the silhouette of this branch against the blue sky.  I like the little spiky spheres hanging off the branches.  I don't know what kind of tree this is, but I bet some of my readers will know.

Here are some of the spiky things on the ground.

I like the way they look tucked in amongst the leaves too.

The sun was setting and there was a pink streak across the sky.

An old lullaby floats through my head.  "I see the moon.  The moon sees me..."  Well, the moon is pretty little, but it's there if you look closely.

Good night, friends.  My arm says it has had enough of the computer for one day.  Enjoy your weekend.

Please, No Paparazzi!

We finally had some warmer temperatures here this weekend.  I was thrilled to get in a couple of walks in the park.  I noticed the daffodils in this flower bed had buds on them getting ready to open.  Just as I was about to take a picture of them, I realized that there was more to my picture than just some soon-to-open buds.  Do you see her there?

IN THE FLOWER BED

She crouched behind 

a daffodil.

I nearly missed her, 

she stood so still.

Not a whisker moved, 

till the camera click.

Then she bounded off, 

spry and quick.

She bounced away,

 camera-shy,

waving at me

a white-tailed goodbye.

Come On, Give a Little!

It's the weekend!  You all ought to be dancing!!  My son was watching Vh1 on TV this morning.  This song came on and caught my attention because it is fun and kicky to both watch and listen to. Yes, this is the same Hanson of "MmmBop" fame.  HA!  Don't be a hater.  Give it a listen and see if it doesn't get your Saturday off to a nice cheery, bouncy start.

There's Something You Don't See Everyday

Do you remember the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man who was in the movie, Ghostbusters?

I saw him in the park the other day.  No, really I did!  What's the matter?  Don't you believe me?  I even got a picture of him.  See!  Here he is.

Can you see him there running across the treetops?  No?  Well, here.  Maybe this will help.  If I only had a giant graham cracker and a giant Hershey's chocolate bar, he'd make a heck of a S'more, don't you think?

How about you?  Have you seen anything unusual recently?