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This morning began in an interesting way. I had a second weekend trip to make to the grocery store (usually I can’t carry everything in one go as it’s a long walk to and from). I was approaching a nearby Catholic church, and happened to see about 5-6 people get out of a car carrying signs. I thought it was it was pretty strange to bring signs into church, but I figured it was related to some type of sale after church ended (plants, cookies, etc).

As I came closer, however, I quickly realized that this was not the case at all.  One of the signs had the name of the priest on it, and underneath “come clean”. Another sign had “God doesn’t have any any statue of limitations on sexual abuse”. They weren’t really there to partake in the service.

To their credit, they waited at the end of the parking lot for people to come out, about 75 feet from the main entrance of the church. They merely smiled, said hello, and passed me a piece of paper as I walked passed. I read most of the paper on the way to the grocery store, though it still wasn’t clear what it had to do with the local priest or why they were at this church. (Later Googling revealed that it had nothing to do with this town, except that the priest now works here. He wasn’t the abuser, but he dismissed claims that another priest in a Bronx school had abused a child, basically insinuating that the child was lying when the mother confronted him).

The group was still there as I returned about an hour later. They remembered me, and asked where I was going. They were somewhat shocked about how far I walk to the grocery store (it’s not that bad, just hilly). They were peaceful – not shouting or anything. Of course I was not there when the majority of the churchgoers were getting in their cars and driving past them to leave. But it was definitely surreal, from a neutral standpoint.

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In other news, Marco spent about an hour dissecting my Dutch, which was mostly okay except for a few blatant Google Translate inspired errors. Even I knew it was not right, but I had no idea how to say what I wanted to say.

It’s going to be so nice to work a normal 8 hour shift this week… I can’t wait. We also have a catered all-faculty/administrator meeting on Wednesday, where they usually go all out and serve a large lunch. It’s been a pretty decent weekend, except I wish it had been longer (of course!).

One of the more random places that Marco, Roger and I went to last month was the New York Citystore. This is a touristy type of store, with official memorabilia. The store itself is on the ground floor of the Manhattan municipal building (pictured below).

I was excited because the website said: “Available at this location: Our complete collection of gift & collectibles, Including NYC Taxi, NYC Subway, NYC Parks”.

Complete collection… sounds like a huge store!

exterior of the Manhattan municipal building

Hardly… it was a tiny little store that barely had any room to move around in. They sold some interesting stuff, but nothing that jumped off the wall and said “buy me!”. The closest was a NYTimes crossword themed glass for a coworker, though in the end I refrained.

Still, the planning on how to fit it into our day’s activities and route was a lot of fun!

At times work is a bit tiring, though that is true of most jobs. However, the library has officially ended its extended hours for finals, as most of the students have packed up and gone home by now. It’s going to be very quiet this summer . . . because my library has a dorm right above it during the school year. We hear all of the bass in the music, and the fights, and the furniture moving. It’s an interesting situation.

As I alluded to in a previous post, lately most days I have been getting home from work later than normal. But not today! I left two hours early. I even got a ride home (someone who worked elsewhere in the college saw me and offered) so I had an unexpected full hour to myself before logging into MSN to videochat with Marco.

Of course, this little bit of relaxation comes with more pain – as I am working late, until 7pm, tomorrow. I will be teaching a library resources session for an Occupational Therapy class. I feel like a magician, since the computer lab has 17 computers and seating for 25 (at most). Originally I was told 35 were signed up but now we are down to 29. Here’s hoping 4 others switch to the alternate class later in the month…

A fridge magnet from one of my friends (Keith) and his trip to Jamaica… no problems indeed!

Another full day of things to do, both at work and outside of work. However, I am looking forward to leaving early tomorrow so I can spend more time with Marco on videochat. It makes up a bit for the extra hours the rest of the week.

Here’s another picture of something we saw in New York City. This time it was on the streets of Chinatown:

Homer Simpson statue in New York City’s Chinatown

When I first started watching the Simpsons I was young enough that all of the adult jokes went straight over my head. It was always interesting to watch reruns and get an old joke for the first time. My favorite crude joke is one of the signs shown on a store Homer visited (read the joke here if you wish).

It’ll always be my favorite show, even if I don’t watch the new episodes the first time around anymore. I probably catch a few a year – but I know I will eventually see them on reruns or DVD. The older seasons were the best anyway!

Last month we visited Bronx Zoo. Here are two of the cuter pictures that I managed to snap.

He looks like he just did something naughty and knows it. All together now: “Awwwww”.

Bronx Zoo tiger stretching — took the picture about a half second too late, unfortunately.

When I tell people I am a librarian, I always hear: “Oh that sounds great! You must get so much reading done!”

… I wish. I probably have not picked up a book since October of last year. I am not really quite sure where the time goes. I suppose I should be glad I work at a college, where you aren’t as pressured to keep up with the latest and greatest fiction, but more pressured to stay late and teach classes — boo to having to stay 3 hours late again next Friday.

The thing is, there are several priorities I have going right now: this blog, creating new content for Avatar MUD, and learning to speak Dutch. Sadly it seems to be in that exact order as well, because I always manage to write a blog post, I usually get some work done for the game, but I never have time to learn Dutch.

My newest tactic for this weekend was to go to the library and check out a book. Maybe by doing something relaxing with no pressure behind it, I would actually feel refreshed enough to work on the other stuff I had been putting off, rather than just feeling tired after getting home from work every night.

I succeeded. In the checking out a book part, at least. The book I ended up getting was Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. I was surprised to see it was on the shelf — the English version came out in November but I deliberately waited for it to be available and not on hold for someone else.

And then I went to the library to get it…

925 pages. Yikes! Apparently it is a 3 volume set, but I checked out a copy with the entire 3 volumes in one book. The most amusing thing is it was found in the “Fast Fiction” section, which means I only have two weeks to read it. That might be pushing it a bit, but we’ll see.

Which books are you looking forward to reading?

I was not able to get outside to see it, but the space shuttle Enterprise flew past our college today (and also apparently circled around the campus) before continuing back to Manhattan. The flight path of the jet was from Virginia, past Manhattan up the Hudson river to Tappan Zee bridge, and back south to the Statue of Liberty. It then did a large circle over northeast New Jersey, flew over New York City for an hour, and then headed to JFK airport.

You can see more pictures at this link (highly recommended – large, beautiful photographs and some background history for the space shuttle).

A picture of the flyby over the campus. Circled - one of the T-38 airplanes which accompanied the jet and space shuttle on its journey

While running to catch the train home a few weeks ago, Marco spotted an unexpected sight: a Steak’n’Shake restaurant. I grew up with those in the midwest, but I didn’t realize there were any on the east coast. And right next to the Late Show with David Letterman, of all things!

But we couldn’t stay and take an extended peek since we were trying to catch the train. Thankfully we did manage to make it in time. Marco even had time to run into the Toys’ R Us to take a few pictures of their Avengers display (which I believe came out today in the Netherlands).

Steak-n-shake restaurant next to David Letterman's studio

Of course since it is on some prized ground, it has to be called ‘Signature’ and have lots of neon lights. I don’t think I ever had a steak burger while at one of their restaurants — just the chicken fingers and fries meal. And the french fries are the very thin type. Dessert was always a chocolate malt for me. Usually the wait for those is pretty long, because everyone orders them!

Yum. A little bit of home, there.

The vacation is now over and it is back to the “real world” as it were. It’s at least 5 months until I will probably see Marco again. Kind of crazy to think about, so I won’t, you know?

On a happier note, last night’s post was my 100th post on this blog. (Wow.) It’s been hard at times, but writing posts in advance and scheduling when they will publish has helped me on occasion, especially during the last vacation. The crazy thing is when you start to think about where you were at 100 days ago… it was still winter (sort of), and cold, and I had lots at work ahead of me. Now it is getting closer to summer so it is  bit easier to relax at work — I even helped an elderly coworker book her 3 week summer flight to Atlanta.

Today I will talk about the awesome time Roger, Marco and I had at the Rockefeller Center…

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