The Little Colourful People

We have them off an on where I work.  Mostly the ones from the daycare in their glorious colours of pink and purple and green and yellow and blue and polka dots.  Today I arrived at work to find them on mass in the Natural Sciences Museum.  The museum is two stories of open spaces which houses a T-Rex and triceratops skeletons, among others. There are small mammals and fish to be seen as well.  And today I came in and above me, noses pressed tot he plexiglas barrier of the second level, a wall of little colourful people as noisy and happy as you please.

I'd present a photo, but one can not photograph children these days without paperwork in triplicate. But this is what they were looking at.  You can see the barrier too.  It was side to side and three deep top to bottom with faces.

Book Knife and Book Repair - the modern world

I am a Jane Austen fan, and a Greer Garson fan.  There is a wonderful scene in the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice - the one where Elizabeth and Darcy are sparring for the first time in the drawing room at Netherfield - where Garson uses a book knife to open the pages.  It was a common practice.  Book pages are printed on a large sheet, folded and bound into the book.  When a reader sets out to read, they do so with a book knife in hand, to slit the pages.

Today, handed in to me for repair, a book without the pages slit.  The reader, and my coworkers confounded by the pages awaiting a book knife so the information could be opened to the world.  And the book that has confounded them with this small mechanical solution?  Big Data: A Very Short Introduction. (QA76.9.B45H66 2017).

I recommend the Very Short Introduction series.  Even it you need to open the pages with a knife now and then.



           

Today's count.

Mom with twins under 2' in the Bowl.  Twin stroller, and twin with stroller - pink.  Little grey floppy sunhats.  No sun.  Grey shirts, green shorts, blue shorts.  Flowers blooming.  Others on the lawn and walking the circuit fill out the scene.

Oh... there goes the blanket folding.  Lunch break is over.

Inclusivity

I am now responsible, among other things, for making sure the jumbo tron of the modern poster world in our library is up to date with its digital posters.  One of the new ones today caught my attention with its wording.  It reminded me of a newsletter I received when I worked at the campus Women's Centre in the mid ‘90s.  McGill’s Women Centre declared they welcomed ‘women and lesbians’.  This poster declares its event is ‘gender inclusive’ and ‘all are welcome’. 

I was surprised in the ‘90s to discover that lesbians were not women.  I am surprised now to find that all means everyone except those of specific, if unspecified, gender.  

The delicacies of a January Thaw

Admittedly we have not had much winter in recent years.  But this year we have seen the high end of the -30s.  Of course that's cold end of the thermometer, so that's the low 30s?  It confuses the brain at times.  But we all agree it's cold.  But today, it is not cold.  And with little snow to show for our season, now running into its third month, we have earth showing, and bits of grass.  I reached out to touch the delicate yellow green needles of a tamarack and found them as soft now as they are in the spring.  They peeled off into my palm and I raised them to my nose to inhale.  Sweet: earth and spring and warmth and peaceful afternoons.