Librarian Avengers

I was leaving work, tired and hungry, when suddenly a uniform-clad minion appeared at my elbow and offered me a snack. This happens occasionally. The Lab rents out its atrium to various groups on campus who bring in the caterers and the cashbar. We’re usually not invited, but this day I had decided to exit the building next to the caterer’s kitchen.

Big Mistake.

“Have some chicken”, she said “It’s encrusted with almonds!”

Note to self: when the devil tries to do you in, he uses words like “encrusted”.

“Are you sure those are just almonds?” I asked, thinking back to dozens of near-death moments brought on by my stupid peanut allergy.

“Oh yes”, she said “Toasted almonds!”

At which point my stupid Lizard-brain caused me to reach out and grab one. I took a bite as I walked to my car, thinking “How nice to be offered appetizers at work”.

By the time I got to my car I was trying to subtly vomit as well-dressed elderly women passed me on the way to their party. My lips swelled, my throat became a piece of granite. The usual.

I’ll spare you the really graphic details (trust me, it gets worse), but suffice it to say the Epipen came through again, along with some medical attention from my handsome EMT boyfriend. Hi guys! Thanks for the life-saving! Again!

All of which leaves me with the growing suspicion that a) I am really stupid for once again eating food of unknown provenance, and b) Cornell Catering really is trying to kill me.

Why, Cornell Catering? Why?

Any self-respecting librarian would commit seppuku for knocking over that many shelves of incunabulum. Self-referential bad movies are still bad movies.

hannon Says:
October 18th, 2005 at 1:47 pm e
Awesome! If you make it to Oxford (hours train ride from London) you can go to the Bodleian Library and visit the various haunts of people like Lewis Carroll, Tolkien and all sorts of famous literarys (as in pubs).

Believe it or nay, fair reader Shannon,  I have BEEN to the Bodleian library in Oxford. I was studying abroad in Dublin. I had two days in the UK. Where did I go? Oh yeah. The only library in the world that makes its patrons vow not to set the books on fire.

En route, I was lectured by an unamused train conductor on the correct pronunciation of Oxford. According to the man in the hat, it is not pronounced (imagine a thick midwestern accent) AAHHXFERD, as we kids insist, but rather (imagine a thick plank lodged irretrievably netherward) UHXFERD. This remains my only real memory of Oxford, so perhaps I should return.

Anybody want to hook a sister up with Bodleian backstage passes? In return, I promise to tell you the (two-drink minimum, not work-safe) story about my deadly encounter with the MSU library masturbator.  

1. An identity crisis might ensue,
Skipping the SLA meeting for a workshop on XHTML2.
*Sorry SLA. You’re great and all, but semantic, accessible, device-independent webpages whoop your ass.

2. A morning dogwalk at six.
Instead of eating the cat, he just licks.
* Dogfriend Odin has been staying with us. He thinks the cat is veeeery innnnteresting.

3. While lining the attic with insulation,
We find five thousand spiders in formation.
* Bravely, we battled on.

4. Attempting to recall possessive case,
I call the Spanish hotel. Hablas Ingles?
* I apparently suffer from Fear Of Spanish. Que Oy.

I’m going to London! And Spain! (not France - that was just to make the title funny) There’s a nifty-looking XHTML2/Xforms workshop in northern Spain next month, and we’re going! To Spain! And London! For two weeks!

I love mixing vacation with geeking!

If anyone wants to meet me in London and spend a few dozen hours drooling on the British Museum’s documents room, let me know. I’m making a beeline for the handwritten Jayne Eyre manuscript, and I’m not leaving until I achieve enlightenment. Or at least a higher state of consciousness. Or a sore butt. Whichever comes first.

Chris is also going to a Neilsen Norman Group workshop, hence the London stopover. I’ll just be sponging off the hotel room and bopping around for five days trying to drink as many IPAs as I can wrap my head around.

More on all of this later. Right now, I’m going home to celebrate by putting up some storm windows and raking leaves.

You, sir, are no Malcolm Gladwell, and thus I fell asleep several times as I waded through your social-studies-report caliber prose. Still, kinda cool how you dig up research vindicating diversity as a factor in successful decision-making and how you stomp all over the idea of group consensus.

Get thee to Serenity. It required some monumental orchestration, but we got there Saturday and spent the rest of the evening saying things like "Woah" and "Damn".

Go. Go now. Then go again. Then buy the Firefly dvds in case you haven’t already. Ogod this was a cool movie. What are you doing sitting there? Look up film times!