Author: Erica Firment

Erica Olsen Firment is an omnivorous mammal of the genus Ailurus, having an endothermic physiology and a long, furry tail. Erica's range extends to both deciduous and coniferous forests, and can often be found working on software user interfaces and creating information architectures in Silicon Valley.
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Typical Ithaca Bike ride

I just took a ride around Cornell’s Bebe Lake, a mile-long loop where the Loch Ness Monster is said to be submerged, having being used as a prop in a silent film back in Ithaca’s glory days. I took the bread-ends that we’d saved in the freezer all winter, hoping to feed the ducks, but they were ungrateful today and paddled off.

We saw an Amazon rainforest-caliber slug on the way back. It was as long as my hand, and had tiger stripes and two sets of antennae. Also, a horse chewed on my bike handle. We biked up to the horse barns, and the foals were friendly and curious.

This afternoon there were cardinals, goldfinch, titmice, doves, junkos, hairy woodpeckers, flycatchers, robins, chickadees, and a Northern Flicker hopping around our bird feeder. Hummingbirds zoomed around the garden, and two male deer with a full set of horns trotted down the road in front of our window.

I live in a Disney movie.

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Wedding registry does good

It’s about time the Wedding-Industrial Complex held up its end of the social contract. The clever people at the Bowery Mission Women’s Center have set up a wedding registry to help collect items they need for the 18 formerly-homeless women who live at center as they develop the skills to live on their own. You can donate by going to Bed Bath and Beyond or by entering registry #1718811 on the BB&B site. (yoinked from Salon’s Broadsheet which you should subscribe to and read because dang it’s good)

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Food poisoning (Part Two)

One of the things I managed to learn in Librarian School is that you can (and probably should) research everything. So about an hour into The Food Poisoning, I got online and found a bunch of handy tips, which included such things as “drink tons of water” (no matter what happens to it afterward).  The handy tips seem to have helped, and I’ve now worked my way up to drinking ginger tea WITH HONEY. The best part is I can rest assured that I’m vomiting in a reasonable and well-researched way.

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Informationistas in New York City

I am in The City this week, visiting friends and shopping. I’m currently being sniffed by this dog, and am looking forward to watching the final game of the World Cup this afternoon at a pub where folks actually care about football. Go France! And Italy! I don’t care as long as the footwork is amazing!

Lizz and I went sari-shopping (sort of) in Jackson Heights yesterday. I was thinking about trying on one of these, but the whole process was way intimidating, and I felt like a cultural-appropriating jerk. Plus even the ugly saris were over my budget. Still, wow.

If any enterprising readers want to go shopping or Darwin-exhibiting between now and Wednesday, send me an email (ericaATlibrarianavengersDOTORG). I’ll be bopping around all day while everyone is at work.

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Teenagers at the Library

Even nature sanctuary libraries have problems with unruly teenagers hanging around in the parking lot. These geese are at the awkward stage between being yellow fuzzy poofballs and tall feathery adults. As a result, they listen to emo music and wear heavy eyeliner. Someday they will grow up to be bankers. In the meantime they cause trouble and occasionally mess up cars.

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Plover!

plover.pngThe hot news this weekend is that we got a new kitty. I swear, I just went to the pound to pet the cats. But there she was, a four-year-old fluffball with a penchant for laps. She only has about six teeth, so she looks surprised all of the time. We’ve been on the Maine Coon rescue list for several months, but nothing had really come up. Then I found the cat of our dreams sitting in the Humane Society three blocks away. We named her Plover.

We brought her home Friday, and I spent the weekend doing cat-integration. There were about five minutes of fur-wrenching, then a truce was called. Now the house is swarming with cats. Two cats can make an impressive swarm.

Last week I met a swarm of digital librarians. My work hosted one of Cornell Library’s Digital Preservation Workshops. I helped show off our homegrown catalog and a/v player (which generates spectrograms that you can muck around with!) and our very-exciting-for-library-geeks data entry application. So man, can I just say? Talking to digital librarians? Very exhausting. You guys? Pretty intense. I found myself saying things like “Why yes, the animal behavior table in our data model IS tied to the hierarchy nodes in the taxonomy tree”. And then I went home and drank.