Return of the Prodigal Mother, or: Blood and Gore Galore

So, I'm back in the good ol' 'Cuse. And happy to be here, in the bosom of my loving family: a harried but heroic husband, a couple of hyperactive, selectively deaf children, and a menagerie. New York was awesome, but I confess it gave me a whole new appreciation for Central New York. I'd wax rhapsodic about the treasures of our beloved home, but my return was marred by the sight of my daughter's pet rat and its second head.

My husband tried to prepare me. He'd been talking for two weeks about the eye infection that looked like an alien, and how it turned our cute little albino rodent, Cloud, into nothing less than a zombie. Would that I'd listened, and not pooh-poohed and dismissed him as a wuss of the first order. ("I can take it," I said to myself. "I'm a mother. I gave birth. I clean the toilets.") Then I saw the rat, and OH. MY. GOD. It was like Night of the Living Dead. In my HOUSE.

I blame Google.

Now, I'm not a total buffoon. (Though these posts might indicate otherwise.) I know what's a good website and what's not. I mean, I did the H.E.R.S. assignment in 605. I know about information literacy, y'all. And when I Googled "rat" and "eye" and "discharge" I came up with a few sites that said, essentially, "Don't worry too much about it. Might be infected, but probably minor. Could also be nothing but a cold." And they weren't fly-by-night sites that you don't bring home to mother. So we waited to see what would happen. And I mean, come on....we're talking about a RAT. Are we really supposed to take it to a vet and pay for antibiotics and shove said meds down its throat?

You betcha.

My heroic husband and brave little girl did just that when the second head appeared. TWICE. Because the first time it actually worked. This is what my husband told me when he called me in NYC: "Cloud's face fell off! I was nauseous for three hours!" But underneath her skin was pink and healthy and she was on the mend. Unfortunately, it was only the intermission, because by the time I got home I swear her head looked ready to explode and cover the whole house in blood and gore.

Long story short: It didn't get better despite copious doses of antibiotics, so I made the call and we had poor Cloud put to sleep and buried her in the backyard next to the two groundhogs, three squirrels and one parakeet. (I'll tell you about our killer dog another time.) Later that day our daughter, still dressed in her funeral black, sat by the grave and wept.

But you know what I found thanks to Google, that would've taken a lot of extra time and effort otherwise? The Mourner's Kaddish, in Hebrew, PLUS the phonetic transliteration, PLUS the English translation. (I think saying it for a rat may go against all sorts of laws, though, so don't tell anyone.) So Google's not quite dead to me yet. But when it is, I think I'll bury it in the backyard.

(don't forget the databases)

It's a little pathetic that I'm posting something from another iSchool, but I firmly believe we could have rocked this, if only we had thought of it first. Without further ado, here are University of Washington Information School students and faculty channeling Lady Gaga in "Catalog":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_uzUh1VT98

Gonnabe Librarian’s Log – PubDate 5/20/2010

One week from tomorrow, on the PubDate of 5/28/2010, I embark on a month-long assignment in New York City. My mission? To work as an intern for the New York Public Library, in the Jerome Robbins Dance Archive. I will master the art of film and video processing for said archive, and become a world-class archivist of the moving image, giving me the power to RULE THE MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVE WORLD! But this position affords me an equally opportunistic ... um ... opportunity: to leap headfirst into the secret mission given me by my alter-ego, for whom I work undercover under the guise of a loving but impatient mother and devoted but moody wife, but who actually has enacted a hostile takeover of my subconsciousness and rules my every stupid move. The secret mission? To learn ballroom and latin dancing, and remake myself in the image of Cheryl Burke or Edyta Sliwinska and RULE THE BALLROOM FLOOR! I confess, however, to not a little trepidation and angst, for I fear I will look less like Cheryl and Edyta, and more like Cloris Leachman. Ah, the pain…..

E'erbody in the lib gettin' frisky

I'd really like to see all of this survey's results...

Survey: Librarians get frisky in stacks

Published: April 19, 2010 at 3:57 PM

NEW YORK, April 19 (UPI) -- A 1992 survey of 5,000 U.S. librarians, long withheld by a professional journal, found one in five respondents had engaged in sexual trysts among the stacks.

Will Manly, who said the New York-based Wilson Library Bulletin withheld the results of his survey in 1992, published results recently on his Web site indicating 51 percent of librarians in the early 90s were willing to pose nude for money and 61 percent of respondents admitting to renting an X-rated film, the New York Daily News reported Monday.

Manly said the survey questions were printed in the now-defunct journal, but bosses withheld the results and fired him for the saucy survey, which he said received 5,000 responses from librarians.

The survey also found 22 percent of respondents believed condom dispensers in library bathrooms would be a good idea and 14 percent said they had been sexually harassed by a patron.

(from United Press International, http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/04/19/Survey-Librarians-get-frisky-in-stacks/UPI-70101271707027/)

The 15th Ward

So I'm almost finished with a final project for my Digital iCreation class. It's a website created for a public memory project focused on the 15th Ward, a neighborhood wiped out by urban renewal. I-81 was built, the hospital district moved in .... but that's not what I'm here to say.

I'm here for SEO. Search Engine Optimization.


I'm here to make the 15th Ward site come up on Google. So, I'm going to link to it here. So, pardon me ... 15th Ward.

It's cold, I know. Using this blog to promote another of my projects. Who knew Gonnabe Librarians would come to this? *Sniff* *Sniff* *SOB!*

Meanwhile, don't look at the 15th Ward yet. It's got some glitches. (Oh, look at that! Another link!) But, HOLY CRAP! did I learn a lot this semester! In fact, I created an eportfolio with all sorts of videos for the class, and you can take a peek at that if you want. And, while I'm at it, here's where I'm doing all my blogging now, in case you didn't already know. Which I'm sure you did. Because I wrote about it right here. And I swore my ass off, so if that offends....well, then you shouldn't be reading this blog at all.

Man, I miss swearing in print. Why? Who the hell knows?

Thank God for Nicole and PBJ, who keep this blog on life support. You guys ROCK!