Listmania

I am a listaholic. I love grocery lists, to-do lists, book lists, staff lists, travel lists, and obscure lists of any kind. So naturally I was thrilled when Lucy said she was going to do a bulletin board display in the library about lists. Brilliant!

We included books like 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and The 10 Best of Kiwi Ingenuity. In addition, she found some lists such as the biggest libraries in the world (Library of Congress is #1) and most common baby names in New Zealand (Charlotte & Jack). And the best part was that Lucy wanted each of us to submit some lists, too.

We had great fun looking at lists online. The best site by far was Mc Sweeney's. http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/ McSweeney's is a publishing company founded by Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) whose mission is to support new writers and to promote writing to kids. They wanted to open a writing center for kids in San Francisco, but because of zoning regulations, they were told they had to be a retail store. Their solution? After careful deliberation, they determined that there was a distinct lack of pirate supply stores in the Bay Area. Their writing center now sells pirate supplies at the front of the store, and is a drop-in center for kids at the back. Curt and I went there once and bought loaded dice and an eyepatch, but declined the puffy shirt. As you can tell, they're a bit quirky, and their website is too. It has loads of funny lists submitted by readers such as:
TERRIBLE NAMES FOR HAIR SALONS by John Moe
Shear Hostility
Get The Hell Out Of Hair
The Mane Reason My Parole Was Revoked
Nervous McStabby's Hair Care Place
Reason Has Been E-Clips-ed by Rage
Running With Scissors
In No Conditioner To Drive
Hair Commandant
Cuts & Bruises
Dude, I'm So Buzzed
The Viet-Mane War Memorial
I Hate My Mother
George Hair-ison's Solo Career
Why Won't You Dye?
Mein Coif

Oh boy. I went home and immediately started brainstorming possible lists. When Boone (#4 son) was little, he used to read the dictionary for fun (!) and make lists of all the words that you could type using only the top row of keys on a typewriter (like troupe), or words that begin and end with the same letter (like alfalfa and ammonia). So he was my inspiration on a few of the lists. Being an English teacher also guided my choices, I think. Eventually, I chose the following lists:

PALINDROMES:
Some men interpret nine memos
Dennis sinned
Don't nod
Too bad – I hid a boot
Rats live on no evil star
No trace; not one carton
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum
Never odd or even
A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal – Panama!
A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal – Panama!

OXYMORONS:
Jumbo Shrimp
Pretty Ugly
Definite Maybe
found missing
exact estimate
alone together
original copies
genuine imitation
sweet tart
peace force
seriously funny
liquid gas

Worst movie titles:
Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle of Death
The Incredibly Strange Creatures who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!
To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar!
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid
Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood
Phffft
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
How To Stuff a Wild Bikini
Half Past Dead

Celebrities who go by one name:
Madonna
Jewel
Eminem
Prince
Sting
Bono
Beyonce
Pink
Moby
Beck
Usher
Oprah
Cher

Besides finding and writing our own lists, we invited students to add some to the bulletin board. They have included Favourite Songs (of which I was not familiar with a single one!), Places I'd Rather Be Than at School, and Best Fantasy Authors. It's been fun to see the students' responses to the display - both reading it/chuckling at it, and writing a list themselves. Coincidentally, there is a new TV game show in NZ about making lists called The Rich List. Lists must be the latest rage, and Lucy was obviously ahead of her time.

I made one last contribution to the bulletin board - a list of all 50 states in alphabetical order. My Kiwi colleagues were (mildly) impressed.
What lists would you include?

Getting Paid to Shop

Let me start out by saying that I love this job. Curt calls it my "easy job." Every morning when we head out the door, he says, "Have a good day at your Easy Job." It's a great job. Here are some of the things that I love to do:

ORGANISE - I love to catalogue books. After all, cataloguing is really a form of organising the books electronically. For non-fiction, I get to decide where the book belongs in the Dewey decimal system (like 940.93). For fiction books, I decide which subject headings it belongs in, such as SURVIVAL and ADVENTURE and ALASKA-FICTION.

PROCESSING (which is pronounced proe-cessing) - Besides a bar code, each book gets covered, a label on its spine, etc. I also put "Tattle Tape" in each book which will make the security system beep if someone tries to take the book out of the library without checking it out. I like the name of the product - Tattle Tape - which is really what it's called, made by 3M.

COMPUTER - I like working on the computer all day, cataloguing or issuing books. I also like to help troubleshoot for the library's computer lab, the girls' laptops, the printer network, and even the copy machine. When a class is starting a new research project (pronounced proe-ject), they also come in for a lesson with me and I get to show them how to access the electronic resources.

TALK ABOUT BOOKS - Every 7th, 8th, and 9th grade class comes to the library once a week for a period of silent reading. It's my job to recommend books and to help them find something good. So I show them my crate of "favourites" and briefly describe each one. As the girls listen, I can see them getting excited. When I'm finished talking, I quickly move out of the way because the girls stampede me and my crate of books, trying to grab a certain one. It always makes me feel popular. I think they like my recommendations.

MAKING LISTS - This has always been a favourite of mine. In this job, I get paid to make lists of books about espionage, books about dragons, books about adoption, etc. (These lists help girls choose books) Even better are the lists I make of books we should buy. I get to read librarian magazines full of book reviews, and decide which ones we should buy.

READ - Besides reading librarian magazines, sometimes I get to sit and read with the silent reading classes. The teachers are supposed to sit with them, but if something comes up, they beg me apologetically to please take over. As if it was a hardship to sit there and read!

Well, you can probably see why I like this job so much.
And it gets even better:

Last Friday, I didn't feel like working. Maybe I had Friday-itis or something. So I was belly-aching a little. "I don't feel like working today."
My colleagues imediately went into solution mode. "How about cataloguing? You love to catalogue."
"Nah."
"How about making a book list?"
"Nah."
"Boy there must be something really wrong with you if you don't even want to catalogue or make lists! I know what you can do - you should go shopping at the bookstore."
Suddenly my spirits perked up. They want me to go shopping for books ... spending someone else's money. Perfect. I gathered the lists of lost books that needed to be replaced, worn-out books that needed to be replaced, and a few new books we'd been wanting to add to our collection. I was instructed to get anything else that looks good. (It sure helps that I work for a wealthy private school!)

I decided to bring Lucy along to help me shop. I might have too many books to carry. We also realised that we might have to stop for coffee and a muffin in order to validate our parking. Honest.
Two hours later, we returned with $800 worth of books. And muffins for the colleagues we left behind.
We got back just in time for lunch break.
I love this job!
And just think, I'll get to catalogue all the new books next!

My areas of expertise: organizing, parenting

I'm an organizer from way back.
So one of the first things I did was create a spreadsheet that showed which people would be at the house on which nights. Over the next few weeks, there would be boys coming and going, Scott and Diana making one last trip back to Missouri, Curt arriving from NZ, my younger brother and his family arriving from Hawaii, and 4 relatives arriving from Illinois. Some people would be staying at a hotel, some would be at the house, and some live in town but would be here for meals. My head hurt just trying to keep track of who needed to be picked up or dropped off at the Seattle or Bellingham airports ... not to mention there was a limited number of cars available to drive in the snowy conditions. See what I mean? I couldn't keep it all straight without having it laid out in a nice grid. Everyone made fun of my beautiful spreadsheet, but they sure used it a lot! Apparently my fondness of spreadsheets had even been a topic of conversation at Christmas time, especially the detailed travel itinerary I made for our 6 week trip to Europe in 1995 with the boys.

I also got to practice my parenting skills on Scott's two girls when he and Diana were out of town. Let's face it, I've raised 4 boys and I've taught middle school, so two girls for five days is no sweat. Add Grandma's experience to the equation and we're an unbeatable duo. In the morning, I'd ask the younger one if she'd brushed her teeth yet. She'd answer yes. About ten minutes later, I'd hear Grandma asking if she'd brushed her teeth yet. She's say YES. The poor thing. We really tag-teamed them. Just like the good ol' days when my own boys were littler, I was driving the girls to swim practice and to school. (The girls go to the same school I attended, and the same school all four of my boys attended. In fact, the older daughter has the same extraordinay teacher that #4 son had ten years ago) I was doing such a good job parenting that when Grandma told the younger one that her parents were expected back the following day, she replied, "Oh good. Only one more day with Aunt Megan as my mom." Which I consider a compliment.