Library Snafu

A few days ago I went to the library looking for the last 2 books in the Twilight series. Being popular books, they were already checked out so I put them on hold. A few days later I get an automated call from the library that both books are in. Usually it costs .50 per hold but if you go in right away and do the self check-out they don't charge you. Less work for them I guess.

So there the two books were with a white paper with my name on it rubberbanded around them like a sleeve. I took off the wrapper to make sure it was the right titles, then I grabbed some other books, and headed to the self check-out monitor.

I did the other books first, which went through just fine. So I put up the first hold book and the screen says, "Too many objects on the console, please remove and re-scan." So I did. This time the screen came up telling me to have the librarian check it out.

I tried the other book. Same deal.

So I waited until the librarian was free. She was young as librarians go. She takes my card and the books and tries to check them out. Then she tells me they are not on hold for me, and I have no holds on my account, and she personally put one of those books over on the hold shelf for someone else and did I have another person in my family with a different card that the hold was on.
Then when I said no, both by words and by facial expressions she implied I was lying about the whole thing. I could see this was getting nowhere. And that if I wanted the books, I had to go put a new hold on them and wait my turn.

Now I can understand library snafus and problems with computers. What I can't tolerate is when someone screws up and then their staff tries to make me out to be the villain. So I ask to see her supervisor. On the way I take the paper out of the trash that had my name on it to prove the books were indeed on hold with my name.

The supervisor is a young man and he in at another section of the library. So he goes over to the back counter, picks up the books she took away from me and goes to check them out for me. She jumps in and tells him I can't have them.

Non-plussed, he tells me he is going to take them to the back room and research the history of the holds and try to figure out what is going on. Meanwhile I'm standing at the counter where Ms. Snooty is helping others and glaring at me in spare moments.

Eventually the supervisor does give me the books. What he thinks happened is that the first time I scanned them, it checked them out to me, and when the error message told me to scan again, the machine checked the books back in, and the automated system erased my hold and notified the next person in line that their book was in. He said it was some kind of a glitch they'd have to look into.

Why on earth the first librarian would jump to the conclusion that I was trying to 'steal' the books placed on hold for another person is beyond me. Think of the logic of it? How would I know the books were even in if someone hadn't told me? Or if one book was for me, why would I look for the second book, remove the hold sleeve, and put it in the sleeve with my other book? She did go check the shelf and found both the name that she thought she's reserved it for under another person's label, and also one of the Twilight books under someone else's name. What a mess.
What really miffs me is she never apologized.

Weird Night in West Anaheim

After the neighbors woke me up at 3:15 AM with their pounding last night, I was in the Etsy chatroom. It was about 5:15 AM and the Etsy treasury was about to open up so I got all ready to make a new treasury for the first time in a month. Then my power flickers, I hear a popping noise on the street, and my computer loses it's ISP connection. I try to restart twice to no avail. I notice the house lights are now a strange yellowish color. So I go into the living room and the fish filter is making an awful grinding noise so I had to unplug that. My guess is a transformer on the street blew out. When I stepped outside the air had an odd smell to it like burning paper. Other apartments also had an odd yellow glow to their lights which were kind of flickering and yellowish. So were the safety lights over the driveway. So I came back in and woke my boyfriend up turning off his computer. I didn't want the power to suddenly come back on and fry everything. My phone kept trying to restart so I unplugged that too. A few of the apartment lights still worked so I took a book to bed and finally fell asleep about 6 AM. Then I slept until 11:30 AM when the neighbors once again woke me up pounding on something.

Why I Am Up at 3 AM

As you might expect, I was sound asleep at 3 AM. I was having some sort of a dream that I don't remember now when something woke me up. It sounded for all the world like the people in the apartment I share a wall with were hanging photos. The pounding seemed like it went on for half an hour. At least 3 times a week they wake us up with banging noises or loud talking or music playing. This time I had had enough so once I was lucid I wrote a letter, got dressed, and walked around to their front door. Just as I was turning the corner a man came out of that apartment I think and crossed the street. He didn't see me. And I wasn't entirely sure he came out of the apartment or was just on the sidewalk stepping out into the street. At any rate I shoved the letter through their mail slot and if anyone in there was awake they would have heard the metal slat bang shut.

I have no way to know if they read the letter. But now about fifteen minutes later I can hear them talking again loudly on their patio and they cranked up some kind of music. So either they haven't read the letter and it's just business as usual, or they have read it and are just being belligerent. They are from India so I don't even know if they read English.

I do know my boyfriend has an 8:30 AM dental appointment and I'm guessing the pounding woke him up too. But unlike me, he's pretty good at rolling over and going back to sleep. My problem is I can't sleep because I expect them to begin pounding again at any moment (and sometimes they do usually just when I've nodded off again). I'm beginning to think it would be better to live in a tepee on five acres than to put up with this anymore. Oh how I miss having my own house where none of my walls touched anyone elses.

Twittermania

When it comes to Twitter I have multiple personality disorder. First I made a name just to talk about my daily life. Then I had to have one just for crafts. Then I had to have one for when I'm feeling naughty and I don't want my every day followers to know how kinky I am. Then I needed a metaphysical one for those zen moments. Then I made a few names for random moods. I had to have one for poetry, just poetry. And now I feel like I need one for comedy...would that be sit-down comedy? Oh, and my finger puppet has her own twitter. Almost forgot about that one.

Am I Acting Weird?

My boyfriend is jealous that my daughter can make me laugh more than he does. It's really starting to bug him. He's getting competitive about it. He shouldn't feel like he's failing. I'm just not that jovial of a person. I don't sit around cracking up at sit-coms. And shows like America's Funniest Videos often make me cringe when people get hurt. I start to wonder if they had to go to the hospital afterwards or if there were any long term effects from falling into the pool after being hit by a drunk swinging at a pinata.

I'm never really sure what I will laugh at. If I knew what would make me laugh, I suppose I would seek out more of it.

My boyfriend often says I'm in an odd mood or a weird mood. I can't tell when I'm in these so called weird moods and I have no idea how to stop acting weird and just act normal, whatever normal is. He's uncomfortable around me and I'm uncomfortable around him. It hasn't always been that way but I can't see it changing anytime soon.

Ranting About Youtube Comments

Today I had to remind myself that we can't get our self-worth or our self-esteem or our sense of accomplishment from the Internet. I don't want to be on such a mood swing rollercoaster because one person gives my youtube video five stars and the next one calls me insane and gives me a one. Then there are the people that watch a tutorial, and instead of checking for other tutorials on the same topic until they find one that meets their needs or answers their questions, give me a low ranking because I didn't answer every question directly addressing their problem. Ditto for those complaining about video quality. I don't get paid to do videos. I don't have professional equipment. If they want to buy me a new better video camera, then I'd be happy to make better quality videos. I think people expect a lot for free. You can't learn everything on youtube. You actually have to go to a real class and pay a living instructor from time to time. Otherwise your learning is just going to be a mishmash of techniques. If a tutorial is for a complicated crocheted hat, don't chew out the person who made it because they didn't cover beginning crochet techniques. Look for a tutorial labeled 'beginning to crochet' or something. I see that a lot, not just on my stream but on many. One lady said, "Can you slow down. I just learned yesterday." If a person just learned yesterday they need a lot of practice. I think people want to learn instantly. No one wants to put in the time to really master anything anymore. They give up knitting after an hour because they can't make a sweater yet. I think videos make things look quick and easy because there is a lot of fast forwarding involved. It literally looks like they made the hat in 10 minutes, when in real time it may have taken 10 hours or 10 days even.

Then there are the people that are just haters. They hate women, they hate fat people, they hate black people or they just get off on being mean. Usually I just block those people.

My Sunday

I'm suddenly getting more followers to some of my blogs, which makes blogging even more fun. I tend to post more to certain blogs if I know someone is following them. Then I don't feel like I'm a voice crying out in the wilderness.

I have a goal of reading 100 books this year, so today I started with book one, Ender's Game, a Sci Fi novel my daughter recommended. And I like it so far. I got up to chapter 8 today and will try to read a bit more when I lay down. I fall asleep pretty quickly when I do that but at least it's an effort.

I was using an ATM machine to deposit a check and I accidentally hit the number one button on the keypad instead of the deposit button on the screen and $40 came out of the ATM machine and out of my checking account. Good thing I had $50 in there, but what a weird glitch.

It's almost 1 AM and my brain is turning to mush so I'm going to scoot off to read. Tomorrow is the day '9 to 5 ers' go to work after the holidays. I'm grateful that I work in my home office. No fighting the traffic to get to a cubicle. No timeclocks. But sadly, on many a day, no income. But I hang in there.