Now Playing: "Empire Strikes Back" - yup. You know who, what, and why.
Current Mood : glad of my own solitary chair and my own 'island' right now...
Not much going on today - still recovering from yesterday's Book Fair shift with two misery mavens for co-workers. Luckily, one vanished about 20 minutes out of ever 30, and the other would get so weepy telling her tale that I could duck out to find her tissues and still keep my sanity. The Incredible Vanishing Guy was going through a bad divorce, and he said his ex made sordid abuse accusations against him every time Social Services or Law Enforcement started to investigate their son's claims that she abused him. Grandmother, Queen of Pain had a daughter-in-law who, three years ago, packed her bags and left to join an internet lover, leaving behind a confused little girl in a world of emotional trauma who still had to visit her mother's parents and hear how her mother's not such a bad person...
Grandmother also had to tell anyone who entered the library how evil it was that we had to sell Golden Compass books, and if she had her way, she'd destroy the lot of ‘em. She then followed with a list of how godly she was by rattling off everything she avoided. I kept my mouth shut for the most part, knowing that 1) an open debate with her about censorship would be useless, 2) religious discussion wasn't why we were there, and 3) I'd have to work with her again Thursday. Of course, in between telling six folks about her ‘piece of trash' daughter in law and weepily recounting the pain her granddaughter suffers daily, and telling at least three times that many folks to stay away from Compass, she barely had time to lecture me. She barely had time to do what she was there to do.
What was worse was listening to so many of the teachers agree with her. (sigh) I just hope this sort of intolerance isn't tangible in the classroom, but with the vituperation I could literally touch in the library, it's a darn slim hope. I don't mean to downplay any of the grief and anguish either of my fellow volunteers was feeling. It's just that after listening to it again for the third or fourth time, I kinda got tired of it. I knew exactly which word in Grandmother's monologue would cue her tears - it never varied - and about when Vanishing Guy would move in with his tale of woe, often talking over Grandmother, to get his share of the flowing sympathy. When the teachers scurried off, he'd disappear again, leaving me with...shoot, I still don't know what all that was. I felt like I was on a Candid Camera episode of Jerry Springer, furnished by a set decorator with a fetish for kids' books.
At least Dearest Son found two books he liked, and I found one, May Bird. Grandmother wanted to read it, although I could tell from the back cover blurb that it was full of the ‘ungodly' stuff she avoided. I urged her to read the back, but she was still interested, so I bought a copy and loaned it to her. Thursday should be interesting.
By the time I got home, I felt worlds on my shoulders. So I shook ‘em off. Visited the DollDivas page - I don't normally visit much, since they mostly adore Fashion Royalty. It's sort of like a Barbie-scale Prego over there, with some emphasis on creativity, but there's still quite a bit of ‘how much did you buy/what did you get/which $$$ and/or rare ones do you have ?' type comments. Plus I simply don't care for FR. Their diorama discussions are stellar, though. Check out the links here - http://www.dolldivas.net/dolldivas-dioramas.html and here - http://members.boardhost.com/DollDivas/msg/1173894758.top . On the second one, there's even a bunch of free Barbie-size patterns from member DebbieFS - pajamas, slippers, a sexy dress, and underwear. Look under ‘tutorials' for those goodies !
Anyway, I'm sorry for making you listen to the stuff I had to listen to today. Hope the patterns make up for it. I'm gonna spend some time in my lab and try to forget that I have two more hours with Grandma tomorrow...