Thursday, February 6, 1992

Another long day.  I meet with Liz, Sheila, and Chris for two hours.  The discussion of the appropriate behavior policy is not as time-consuming as I thought it would be.  As for the director evaluation pilot, they give the image questionnaire an emphatic thumbs-down.  I wonder how the board will react to that.

Lisa Landsdorf is the third candidate to be interviewed for the children's librarian position, and she is definitely the weakest of the three.  Her interview style needs a lot of polish.  I work til 9.

October 24, 1991

Is it post-award letdown?  An incipient case of Middleton burnout?  I'm not really very enthusiastic today, but I do conduct an effective Area Leaders meeting.   We're all agreed on how to deal with the noise issues; we're not a study hall.  Sharon reiterates her willingness to participate in the Saturday rotation again, which will begin in June.  I fast-forward to September.  Do we cut programming so I don't have to work every other Saturday?

When I return home, JoAnna is ready for bed.  She's not feeling well.  I fix myself 2/3s of a martini, which supplies me with a knockout punch at 8:00.  I crash, the excitement of the World Series not even registering.

September 19, 1991

The LINK meeting at Sun Prairie leaves us at a fork in the road.  How we proceed will depend upon a budget discussion that the Madison board makes later this month.

On the way back to Middleton, I stop at Land's End and a neighboring men's outlet that has recently opened.  I find a few things I like but spend no money.  After a longer-than-necessary lunch, I return to the library for a scheduled Area Leaders meeting.  Our agenda is mostly scheduling concerns and updates of ongoing projects.

Even though I'm supposed to pick up Andy at daycare, I stay at the library until 5:30  It's just too busy to leave things to two people.  A severely broken sleep pattern during the past two nights leaves me feeling tired all evening.  I have to put down the book I'm reading after a few pages and no recall.

August 20, 1991

Debuted at #88 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending August 1, 1964. 

JoAnna has an early meeting so I drive Andy to daycare.  On the return trip, I stop at Original Pancake House for breakfast.

Your order, please.

The corned beef hash.

I have the morning off.

While waiting for the carpet man to measure the rooms, I resume my taping of 1964.

A busy afternoon doesn't allow me the opportunity to work on the budget or capital expenditures drafts.  Sheila, Chris, Liz, and I manage to squeeze in an hour's worth of Area Leaders time.  I review our phone options.  Liz requests that the library close from 9-5 on October 16 so that staff may attend the Awards luncheon.  I swallow my emotion, but for the rest of the afternoon, I wonder how I'm going to get through my acceptance remarks without blubbering.

I pick up Andy and then grab some chow before returning to the library for my evening stint.

August 20, 1991

JoAnna has an early meeting so I drive Andy to daycare. On the return trip, I stop at Original Pancake House for breakfast.

Your order, please.

The corned beef hash.

I have the morning off.

While waiting for the carpet man to measure the rooms, I resume my taping of 1964.

A busy afternoon doesn't allow me the opportunity to work on the budget or expenditures capital drafts. Sheila, Chris, Liz, and I manage to squeeze in an hour's worth of Area Leaders time. I review our phone options. Liz requests that the library from 9 to 5 on Oct. 16 so that staff may attend the Awards Luncheon. I swallow my emotion, but for most of the afternoon I wonder how I'm going to get through my acceptance remarks without blubbering.

I pick up Andy and then grab some chow before returning for the library for my evening stint.

June 6, 1991

Area Leaders meeting is moved up to accommodate Sharon's schedule.  The discussion focuses on consistency issues, what staff should or shouldn't be doing, specifically.  For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, I hammer out a nearly complete draft of the long-range plan for the board members' packets.  I'm still ambivalent as to how they'll respond to specific objectives.  I pick up Andy at daycare and we stop at Sentry to pick up hamburger buns, baby food, coffee, and, at Andy's request, baseball cards.  I cook hamburgers on the grill.  I let Andy go to bed with me, but he wants the lights out and the TV off once he's ready to go to sleep.  I carry him to bed, and then go to sleep myself after reading five pages of "The Promised Land"  JoAnna gets home very late and wakes me up with a sharp moan of impatience.  She's dead tired but too wound up from a long day at the Capitol to fall asleep right away.

April 4, 1991

I wake up during the night feeling strangely woozy.  My body seems to quiver ever so slightly.  Once I get moving though, I'm pretty much back to normal.  I spent the morning at a city department head meeting to discuss the recodification of the Middleton ordinances.  Area Leaders last 90 minutes.  After a cheeeseburger and fries at the Village Green, I spend four hours revising my ETN notes for next Tuesday.  I decide to make notes for quite a few medical and legal titles that aren't on the bibliography.  JoAnna calls while she and Andy are driving home.  I can tell by the sound of her voice that she's sorry for last night's misunderstanding.  We don't talk about it though.

March 21, 1991

What could have become a somewhat contentious Area Leaders meeting turns into not quite a lovefest but certainly a very productive session. Earlier in the week, Liz raised a concern about the amount of programming we do compared to the paucity of coverage at the children's service desk. I presented a number of options to increase our ability to schedule staff when they are needed most. First of all, the LAIIIs will not work any evenings, always a slower time during the summer, and LAIs will provide double coverage at the circ desk from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. Then we decide when Apple may be used and reading slips exchanged for bucks.

I work late, until 7:30, due to Family Fun Night This gives me the chance to put the finishing touches on the revision of my ETN notes.

March 7, 1991

I meet with Don in the morning to negotiate an extension of the cleaning service.  He's not even gonna raise the price.  Area Leaders is mostly a futurescape discussion.  I leave early as I have an appointment with Techline for a measuring and estimate of the current project.  While Barb is taking a walk, I play with Eddie and then reorganize my closet and drawer space.  Then I peel some potatoes and put them on the stove to boil.

February 7, 1991

There's so much to cover at our Area Leaders staff meeting that little time is left for our long-range planning discussion.  I come up with a spur-of-the-moment assignment:  make a list of all the things the library should be doing (and should have) within the next five to ten years.  I started my own list a few days ago.  I think this will be a more productive approach than a focus on 8 dry roles.  Before cutting short my workday, Sheila talks to me about missing money out of the cash drawer and Sharon about the LSCA grants she is writing.

My early return home gives Barb an opportunity to enjoy a walk on another unseasonably warm afternoon.   I fix supper -- pork chops, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and cauliflower.  For the fifth night in a row, Andy's in bed before 9.