Day 291
Can you imagine living a couple of hundred years ago and while visiting a friend they offer you a drink and then lead you over to a box that STAYS COLD ON ITS OWN no matter what the temperature outside? I suppose you would either be completely stoked and start making plans for your friend to turn lead to gold or you would hightail it down to the local authorities and get a lynching mob together.
Dude…that stuff’s MAGIC
Have you ever noticed how the most amazing things become mundane in pretty short order? And it extends past things like written language, electric lights, and the BeDazzler. It is easy to not always fully appreciate the amazing things around us. I have a view of Pike’s Peak from my back yard and it is SPECTACULAR. When we moved here ten months ago, it was such a change from West Texas, I could barely take my eyes off the purple mountain’s majesty. But now, some days I go from dawn to dusk without even a glance in its direction.
This is me, giving myself an internal lecture about not recognizing all those WOW opportunities. I should say WOW more often.
While on the topic, the other miracle of our modern age I have been taking for granted is The Library. The Simple Year has caused us to change our behavior in many ways and one of them has been our use of that amazing institution.
Yeah that’s right, I said it—AMAZING INSTITUTION.
All that knowledge, all those resources are available for all of us to borrow. The concept of the library has been around for several hundred years, but the contents were limited typically to the very rich. It wasn’t until around the turn of the 20th century that the hoi polloi were given access to libraries, thank you Andrew Carnegie.
Today, most libraries keep up with the times, in addition to the traditional offerings, many now offer eReaders, music and movie downloads, video games, software and online courses for check out. The main branch in our city even has a movie vending machine (much like a RedBox, only free) in its lobby.
Also, where else can you go and have a staff of true experts, with master’s degrees in How to Find Stuff, there perfectly willing, even eager, to help you. They are like the ninja masters in deciphering stupid questions. I stopped at our local library once and realized I had forgotten the name of the book I needed, so I stood there loitering in the front probably looking vacant and confused until some librarian took pity on me and asked if I needed help. I actually said to her, “Well, I’m looking for my book club book, but forgot the name. I can only remember the book was blue with white writing and the authors name started with S…I think.” The woman actually consulted a list of popular book club book titles (who knew such a list existed?) and then was able to correctly produce a copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
Dude…that stuff’s MAGIC
We are readers in this house and in the past if a favorite author had a new book coming out or there was a movie we really wanted to see, I’ll admit, we would just buy it. Because we were all about instant gratification. This year we put ourselves on the waiting list for new titles and the wait really never seems that long. We have had the opportunity to watch movies we might never had thought about if we had been only watching the newest flicks, wonderful family movies like Mary Poppins, The Apple Dumpling Gang, ET, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Annie.
Nobody feels like they are missing anything by not owning our favorite books or not having immediate access to the latest movies, in fact I would even say that it has probably slowed down the pace at our house on the weekends, which is a good thing.
Thumbs up on this one! I love the local branch of the Library. It’s close to home and although it is small (out where we live surrounded by the prairies in the flat bit of Colorado, everything is a bit smaller), it has a good selection of new books and a good size DVD section. If I want a book that is in the system I can order it and pick it up, usually in a day or two. I can even download books and magazines to read on my iPad.
What’s even better, if I get a book from the library and it turns out to be horribly unreadable as recently happened, I just take it back and I didn’t waste whatever a new paperback (or even worse, a hardback) costs. I even liked them of Facebook! (that’s an in-joke)
I took my 2 y/o daughter to the library on Tuesday. It was the first time I’d been in years. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of kid books and puzzles available for check-out. And she loved it so much she cried when we left. Her cry seemed so much louder than normal while in such a quiet place.
Dianne- Also at that age the library often has weekly story times and/or singalongs, the kids usually like it and its free entertainment!
I have always used the Library– I guess because I was used to it from college– and figured I could read for free instead of buying– usually go there once or twice a week. Not so my children or husband though.
Reading this makes me want to look for my library card…I think it dropped out of “billfold favor” many purses ago. Kerry, I’m sure you will remember that most of the artwork we had on the walls at home when you were growing up was “borrowed” from the library, I don’t think they even do that anymore.
And don’t forget the miracle of Interlibrary Loan, by which even the tiniest library can usually get even the rarest books. I once borrowed a book that (at the time) had only 500 copies in existence — but one of them was in the “local authors” collection of a library 500 miles away (and a cracking good read it was, too).
That is a miracle. I once obtained a copy of Ulysses that way because the small town library in which we were living didn’t keep classics on hand…apparently not enough people read them…
Kerry, remember the Acacia branch just south of Dunlap. It’s on my way to and from work and I’m there at least twice a week, I read 3 -4 books a week. I can almost hear their eyes rolling when I walk in SHE’S BACK. I track future releases of my favorite authors (and because three of my family let me use their cards) I often have more than 20 books on hold. I also used to buy whatever books I had to read NOW! While I have a 8′ wide 12′ high bookcase with old faves, I rarely buy a new book. Our library sells extra copies and donated books for real cheap, so I can still get a copy later if I loved the book. Great entry today!!!!
I doubt they roll their eyes. I bet you are the highlight of their week.
Port towns always seem to center around the library. Beanie had a great time walking from the marina to story hour last summer. Definitely good times!