Working girl weekend report

Days like yesterday and today make me damn proud of Keeper. And humbled that she wants to work so much.

Yesterday was a good test of how well Keeper's getting used to the chaos that happens at the library. I've dropped books on her and near her in the last couple of weeks and she just looks at me like "that was uncalled for." She no longer looks at me like I've yelled at her. Still dealing with her startling at the hollow 'boom' of a book tipping over on a metal reshelving cart, but honestly, I flinch at those, too.

First thing in the morning yesterday, a wasp came to visit Circulation, and stayed on the window near the lights. I don't mind them, but one coworker was backed against the desk staring like she'd seen a grenade with the pin pulled, another was uncomfortable and a third is allergic. I'm too short to kill it with a book, so we were all standing around waiting for someone to bring the Raid. Then the security guard comes over with a broom, swats it, steps on it, and disposes of it. Keeper watched this all with a "yep, the monkeys are nuts..." expression. At no point does she catch the other people's fear, and she didn't seem to mind the unorthodox use of the broom.

All zonked out while trombones, flutes, saxophones, clarinets
and more make a ruckus.

In the afternoon we had the "instrument petting zoo" put on by the local orchestra. Lots of kids getting their hand on lots of instruments for the first time, playing horribly off-key at maximum volume. It's the stuff of my nightmares. Keeper slept right through the cacophony as if it happened every Saturday. I was very happy to hear the "5 more minutes!" call. It was loud and obnoxious. I don't handle random sounds very well.


Keeper's been a rockstar today as well. We did 4 hours of shelving, most of it upstairs in the warmer non-fiction section. She seemed tired this evening. When we got home from work, she was still laying in the backseat of the car as I opened her door, not on her feet and hopping forth to head into the house as per her usual. As soon as her gear was off, she pancaked in front of a cold air vent and was asleep.

We were inside for about 10 minutes, then it was time to head out to Father's Day dinner. I was thinking with the heat we've been having that she might not want to work the restaurant tonight, so I was making plans with my parents to be temporary Service Humans and trying to remember where I left my cane. When I got up to go find it, Keeper got up to follow me. I asked "wanna go work?", fully expecting her to go lay down somewhere, but she came over to get her gear on with enthusiasm and a puppy grin. She did well in the restaurant, the bathroom and the parking lot, but was considerably slowed on the way up the driveway once we got home, and is all crashed out now. I'm grateful she's done as much as she has, and happy we can both sleep in tomorrow.