It's been awhile....another chewed library book

It's been awhile since I've had a thoroughly chewed library book come across the counter. But last week, somebody came in with one. Their dog is about a year old, and they're making gestures at leaving the dog out of the crate when they're not home.

The dog really showed some ingenuity, actually. The patron said the book was in the middle of an otherwise empty table, and it was the only thing dog chewed. Also, the cover isn't chewed, and the book is chewed in sections. I try to take these things in good stride, obviously. Elka never chewed any books, thank God, but she did chew things. So I understand. What I said was "That was some good problem solving! Give that dog a job."

Some flash fiction

At work, I'm running a writing workshop from now (started 2-7) through the end of May. I've done it in 6 week increments twice now, using NaNoWriMo as the leaping off point, and those were successful enough that we're doing it "for real" now, from under the NaNoWriMo umbrella.

In the the previous workshops, and it looks like this one too, we did a lot of writing prompts. Basically, I give a sentence, or an idea, or "include five words", and then set a timer and we all see what we can come up with.

Dogs frequently sneak into my writing, and did at least once yesterday, so I thought I'd share my little bit of "flash fiction" with you guys.

The prompt was "In the pile of leaves, I found...." to be used either as an intact phrase, or a situation to keep in mind, whatever. As I said to my writers, make the prompt work for you. If you're not into it, do something else.

Wordless Wednesday December 24 2014

Okay, almost wordless.

We had a Christmas party at work after hours, and I went home to get Elka so she could see the library and mingle. She was good (mostly) and had a blast! We also did Secret Santas, and my Santa, in addition to my gifts, gave Elka some tennis balls!

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo again (I know you're not surprised)

October is almost done, and the website has rebooted, so it's NaNoWriMo time again. I know you're excited. (Well, maybe you are. Maybe you should participate?)

Guiding Eyes Library visitor

In my town, there are people who raise puppies for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. One of my regular library patrons frequently ends up as a puppy sitter for the weekend, or for a couple of weeks, and the library is a great place for these puppies (of all ages!) to learn. We've got stairs, people, lots of new smells, and an elevator!

Monday Mischief: Dogs chewing books

Occasionally, a red-faced dog owner brings a chewed book back to the library.

I've posted pictures of them before, and thank the good Lord frequently that Elka is not a book chewer. She's not an inappropriate chewer anymore at all, actually (/knock wood).

This latest offering is 61 Hours by Lee Child. The dog owner was doing the right thing by having his dog crated when the dog, a Rottweiler, could not be supervised. However, the dog knocked the crate against the table where the book was, knocked the book off said table, and then drew it into the crate with his paw to have his snack. So good problem solving skills there!

I asked if it was all right to take pictures for my blog, and he said it was fine. We had a good talk about dogs needing mental exercise as well as physical, and I told him about the magic of a frozen  peanut butter Kong, even if it's "just" the dog's normal kibble and not anything more treats-y.

A collection of mostly unrelated thoughts, some dog included

So, as it turns out, to get a fortuneteller's license in my town, you have to not only take some test they come up with (which I'd do just to see it, really, if it didn't cost too much) and also be bonded for something like $5000. Which I don't know what costs the individual, having never been bonded. So that's a wash. But when I go to renew Elka's license, I'll ask if you still need the fortuneteller's license if you're going to be doing strictly for fun fortunetelling online. Or will that blow my cover? Hrm. I don't want to be breaking the law with illicit fortunetelling, to be sure.

Do you do audiobooks?

Not really dog related (I mean, we could play six degrees here, but I don't tend to play the Kevin Bacon one. I relate everything back to Fight Club instead), but I was sent this awesome infographic about free audiobooks that you can download online. Audiobooks aren't really my thing, personally, but we do a brisk "business" of them at the library, and so I was happy to pass this one along. Reading is reading, right? A lot of people listen to them on commutes, or while working out, or while doing housework.

It's a fairly simple process on that site: You download the Ambling book player, and then you download your free audiobooks (Sorry it's so small, but when I leave it "original size" it's just far too HUGE for the site's format).

Monday Mischief October 29 2012

Elka cannot claim dibs on this iteration of Monday Mischief, and to protect the embarrassed, I will not name names. Suffice to say, a certain young dog that I know of was home alone. And bored. And...found a library DVD.

Really, I learned something. I knew that DVD's (and CD's) had a plastic bit, and a coating that contained the actual data, and all that. But I didn't quite realize that they were two parts like that. Because the above picture is of a single DVD that fell to dog jaws. I'm just glad that it doesn't look like any actual pieces came off, and I do know that she's all right, as this happened a few weeks ago.

June 22 is Take Your Dog To Work Day!

Apparently, somebody decided June 22 is Take Your Dog to Work Day. I don't disagree with such a notion; I think it's a great idea. Especially because they keep doing studies on people who can take their dogs to work, and coming up with a measurable reduction of stress and an increase in job satisfaction.

But, I can't take Elka to the library. If I was going to commit to the notion that she's really-truly my service dog, I guess it would be no contest, but I don't feel that my migraines, at current, reduce my quality of life such that I suffer from that degree of disability. Some people do, and I know that I'm profoundly lucky. Anyway, I did the next best thing: I took Elka for a walk in the library park.