Evidence of Yet Another Disorder--ADDD

The names have been hidden to protect the guilty.
Perhaps the corporate sponsor was 3M.

This is the cover of a Summer Reading Programs brochure which details the different programs and dates and times on a separate page for each of the library branches in the system. The cover as seen here, and the nearly alphabetized pages by library branch inside, illustrate a newly identified disorder:
Attention to Detail Deficit Disorder.

A Random post from a Transatlantic Journey

The beer was ordinary Heineken; the olives were Spanish
green. I don't know what the price was about.

Beer and I thought complimentary green Spanish olives. At a little bar behind the Teatro Romano, Cartagena, Spain. Saw no menu. Admission to Teatro Romano, €6.00; food & beverage seen here: €13.50; learning to check for costs before ordering in a foreign bar: priceless

a table not next to the wood stove

I just posted a lie as a comment at a friend's posting request. He asked his Facebook friends to lie about how they met him. I am (much) more pleased with my lie than it deserves, so I thought I might inflict it on you as well--a kind of a "short-short" story. (You may hear an imperfect echo of a Marty Robbins song.)

We met...

Down in the West Texas town of El Paso, where I was drinking a Dr. Pepper.

You sat at a table placed next to the wood stove, and asked, "What do you think on a day like today?"

Thinking that this was the espionage pass phrase

I had been waiting for I answered thus, "Like the tide when the moon is leaving the seaside, your hair line, though dark is receding."

You started to jump up in umbrage proclaiming, "That is the rudest thing I've heard all day!"

Apprehending your meaning was not based in spying,

I tried to leave quietly, out the back door.

The waitress, though cute, had no patience with vagrants however they looked.

She brought a bouncer, bounced me back to the cashier. I was embarrassed and red.

This was not the unobtrusive meeting my handler had said.

And you were astonied, as they tossed me out, muttering, "I just bet he listens to old rock and roll five times a week if not daily!

We never saw each other again until, ironically, I was checking meal tickets and collecting lunch money at the serving line entrance in an El Cajon campus. Mostly unobtrusively, but without any espionage to keep me warm.

The new car adventures

My car got 36.9 mpg on the way up this trip. I filled up right after I arrived so the mileage wouldn't be diminished by any city driving. I suspect that not running the airconditioning for any of the trip may have made a significant difference.

On the way up, I had another rest area adventure. Some woman approached me and asked if I had jumper cables. I said yes, and then her male companion said they were over in the Pontiac further down in the parking lot.

He said it was a new battery and he didn't know why it had died over night, but it might be loose cables, because he had jiggled one the day or the week before and the car had started right up after it seemed like it wouldn't.

When I got over there I pulled out a couple of box wrenches I have in the trunk to see if they'd fit the battery terminal attachment. These, however were the small bolt posts that go into the battery. I had to get my socket set. After trying about eight sockets (because I could see that it was a small size, but I had no idea what size that really meant for a socket--the first few I tried were too small, the next were too big. Finally I narrowed down to the right one.

I'm sure any real mechanically inclined person with an adequate sense of depth perception would have got it in one or at the most three. I also looked at the water level as long as I was there and found that four of the six battery cells were low on water. I told him that would need to be fixed, too.

Anyway, tightening the battery terminals had no effect on the starting of the car. Next I attached my battery using the cables. We did it the safe way--negative cable on my negative battery pole, positive on my positive and then negative on metal of his car and positive on his positive battery pole. It still didn't start. Sooooooooooo I went ahead and put the other negative on his negative battery pole. The car headlights came on at that point.

"Oh! The lights were on all night," he said, shocked. "That's why the battery died over night!"

As he smiled and continued to watch his headlights, I said, "Turn your lights off."

Then with my car set to revving a little higher than idle, I told him to get in his car and start it. I stood by the jumper cable to take it off his battery as soon as he started (in hopes of not destroying nor damaging either his nor my electrical system).

His car started. I pulled away the cables. I told him: don't let it die--it won't start again. I left him and his companion to do whatever they planned next.

Gambling for money is a bad career choice for me

Doing some quick snacky shopping tonight (pint of milk, pint of strawberry milk, reduced price quart of chocolate milk, bismark filled donut, and a roast beef sandwich from the deli case) I discovered again why I need to stay away from gambling.

I just don't learn!

In the past 6 or 8 months, I have been beguiled to buy a carton of chocolate milk that had a hugely reduced price sticker on it because it was its very "sell by" date. The first time, it was a half-gallon in Safeway, and when I got it home, it was weirdly sour. I mean it was foul and I severely regretted putting it in my mouth.

A while later, I saw another half-gallon of chocolate greatly reduced at Safeway. I picked it up, but this time I asked at the checkout if I could try it right there because the last one I had bought like this was foully sour. The checker said yes, and Yechh!!! It was foul again!! At least that time I got my money back because it was still there in the store.

So tonight, months later in a completely different store, a completely different brand of chocolate milk, and even a different size: 1 quart instead of 1 half-gallon; still, you know what happened: it was foul!!! I just threw it away again.

But I've got to remember: don't buy chocolate milk after the sell by date. It goes foul. Maybe it's just me picking it up just then, but whatever the proximate cause, the result is foul, foul, foul after the sell by date.

Fortunately, not everything works that way. Many products at least taste wholesome at their sell by date and immediately afters.

But not chocolate milk, not for me.

It cudda been another "Who's on First?"

"I'd like to find a book," said a child patron softly.

"Sure, what would you like?"

"Once I Ate a Pie."

"You ate a pie?"

"No, I ate a pie!"

"[I so could have run with this!]oh, okay. Once I Ate a Pie. Our copy is checked out. But I can put it on hold for you."


"No thanks. I'll check back later.

:-)

It's alive!! It's Ah Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvve!

Not to get all mushy and inspired, but sometimes you just remember why you wanted to be here in the first place.

A young patron comes in and asked if we had Dr. Dre-the Biography. I said we did have the book, but it was checked out.

"It's checked in elsewhere in the system. I can put it on hold and it should be here for you in three to five days."

"Okay. Sure. Do you have any other biographies like that?"

"I've got 46 in the county. Did you want just what's here, what's in?"

"Yeah, just what's in the building."

"Okay. I've got thirteen here."

"Wow. Could I see that? I didn't think you have those kind of books. [about Rap performers] Where are they?"Then I showed him where they were. Whoooooo hooooooooo!!! Seriously, that sent a jolt like a triple espresso in a brewed cup of coffee right through my veins.

(And even though I have no personal desire to read ANY of those books, it's just an emotional rush to have them here and be able to surprise a patron who wanted one. [No doubt for a school assignment, but even that doesn't matter. We had the books!])

I have a longer post, but first, this Quiz result!

Thanks to a colleague for the quiz location. I parodied the cover from a book on Amazon.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

I saw that.

Random vignettes from today.
1. The man in the snack machine corner by himself talking to the vending machines, “Just remember that! That’s what I thought. . . Just remember that!”

2. A different man. I forget how he even knows my name, but he almost always says, “Hi, Yorick!” when he’s coming in or going out. Today he told me it was his birthday yesterday--but his family was out for the weekend--so they were going to take him to a steakhouse today.
Then he mentioned that he had seen some commercials for a particular steakhouse over the weekend while watching ball games on TV. His brother said that the place was way too high end so he wasn’t taking him there. And he said how he felt that most steak places were the same anyway—just take a steak and cook it over open flame, after all. He said he did like to eat at The Mug Steakhouse better than at The HugMug Steakhouse (names are changed so that this isn’t a commercial). Then he said he guessed there was some difference in steakhouses after all.
I smiled and nodded and told him happy birthday late, and have a good dinner.
He smiled and said thanks and went out and I still don’t know him as well as he seems to think he knows me.