Yoga

As many of you know, I've picked up yoga again (after five years!) in an effort to get in shape. And by "get in shape" I mean "build some semblance of muscle." Anyway, in light of said fact, this video made me laugh out loud repeatedly until my sore abdominal muscles cramped up and I couldn't breath. So take a deep breath, relaaaaax, and watch this...

Exquisite

As you drive down the hill on 800 South in Orem toward Provo and the river bottoms, about a block and a half before you get to Will’s Pit Stop and the University Ave. intersection, you hit a roundabout. Instead of just blowing straight through like we usually did, we went 270 degrees around into the neighborhood to the north.

In the waking world, I’ve been in that neighborhood before—and it’s lovely! But what I saw yesterday morning was something else entirely.

The light was bright, and kind of a pale pink, like a summer sunset after a rainy day, when everything is still shiny from rain. Only it was winter, still. The road, which was made of cobbles, sloped down and up on multiple planes, and curved gracefully to the right into a kind of cul-de-sac. It followed the contour of the Provo River, which rushed by about ten feet below, iron gray and turbulent. A venetian-type bridge arched across the gulley, connecting the two sides of the street. Expensive houses—the kind you actually find in that neighborhood—stood very close to each other, as if fighting for every last inch of real estate. Houses like palaces, with Currier & Ives-type lampposts in their front yards, and turrets, and sloping gables. New, old-fashioned townhouses lined the west side of the road in crescent formation, filling in the minute gaps between mansions.

We were going somewhere, to someone’s house perhaps. But we never got there because we were too busy marveling…
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I don’t know if it was remembering the scenery from having watched the Merchant of Venice the night before, or the muted morning light glowing through the red, satin curtain of my bedroom window… I often dream about interesting places, but the setting of this particular morningtime dream was exquisite.

Workplace FAIL

A friend of mine recently introduced me to failblog.org, which is basically a website that celebrates, through pictures and video, the idiocy of others. Oh, let’s put it more gently: the…comic, and sometimes EPIC, failures of others. (There. That’s so I don’t sound like TOO much of cynical misanthrope. I love my fellow humans. I really do. But part of that love includes laughing at them. Is that so bad? Is it??)

Right.

Well, let me share with you all a REAL life epic workplace fail that happened to moi. We all know the economy is bad. Well, Orem City has had to make some cutbacks in response, one of which includes reducing janitorial services to almost nothing. As of this week, city staff is responsible for the cleaning of everything in the city center and library EXCEPT the bathrooms. (Hallelujah.) This means that in addition to regular opening and closing procedures (balancing tills, booting up computers, etc.) we also now have a whole litany of other little nitty-gritty tasks to complete. Vacuuming, sanitizing drinking fountains, washing support pillars, emptying garbage cans… etc.

The mezzanine of the children’s wing in the library is a pretty pleasant place (ugh. Alliteration.) a pretty pleasant place to work. Vaulted ceiling, windows, panoramic views of both Timpanogos and Cascade Mountains, and a nice view of the art glass window on the floor below… not bad, eh? Fortunately, I will be working there a lot during the next few months. I was working there Wednesday night with P, the Childrens Librarian when closing time rolled around and we began to make the janitorial rounds.

Note: About a month ago, the library staff all sat down and brainstormed ways to cut back spending and one of the things we all decided to do was turn off the lights at night. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not really, because up until a week ago, the janitorial staff (the now notoriously ABSENT janitorial staff) would come in at night and clean. Now that they no longer come…well, you get it.

So, P and I are upstairs cleaning, and we’re just about done, when suddenly…

I wish there was some sound, some onomatopoeia, for being plunged into the inky darkness that is a darkened library. Oh, wait. There is. It sounds like this: HEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!! Or if P and I had been any fainter of heart…AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!…. You get the point. Whoever had been working downstairs finished, and—dutifully heeding the counsel of our library director—turned off the lights. Upstairs and down. So what’s the big deal? You’re asking. Why not just…turn ‘em back on? Well, they are the big, halogen (or whatever) gymnasium-type lights that take like TEN MINUTES to warm up and turn on again. Even if they’ve just been turned off.

So the end of the story is this: P and I drop whatever we were doing, find our stuff in the dark and basically FEEL our way downstairs to where there are still some lights on. Needless to say, P was incensed and gave everyone downstairs an earful.

Me? I thought it was kind of hilarious. However. I’m really, really happy we weren’t in the dungeon basement somewhere.

An effort to save money one way pretty much precluded the possibility of saving money in another. EPIC FAIL!

Ring in the New

New Year's Resolutions

1. Remain integral. Whole. There are a lot of new developments in my life right now. What I am figuring out now is how much to change/give and how much to reserve/receive, and how to remain integrally myself through it all. The way I figure it, one of the great works of this life is to achieve balance in every aspect possible. Apparently one of these equilibriums is to try and learn how to interact with other people and still stay true to yourself and what you know is right. Hard? Sometimes.

2. Strengthen my body. This will require my going to early morning yoga, which will require early bedtimes, which will require self-control. And healthier eating is included in this equation somewhere by default.

3. Remain as close to the Good and True as possible. I don't think this has ever been as crucial to me in my life as it is now. It is frightening how much is at stake. This will require me to be very consistent in practice and in attitude.

4. Get to know Children's literature very well. I just found out my winter schedule at the library and I will be working almost exclusively in the Children's wing. Having read a lot of adult fiction recently (and by that I don't me "x-rated," p.s.) I think I'm ready to explore something new. I'm ready to read about human issues through perhaps the less jaded, gentler lens of childhood experience. I'm also excited to be working in what I consider to be the "pretty" part of the library: vaulted ceilings, panoramic mountain vistas...ahh. More on that later.