Oh, dear. I am working today, and there is a public patron here who tells me that she has fired umpteen lawyers over the 11 years her case has been going on because they were all incompetent so she is going to do it herself. She tells me she was fired, and they made stuff up about her including the fact that she smelled bad.

I am here to tell you that they didn't make that part up.

Now, smelly patrons are part of the librarian job, so I try to take it in stride -- but it's going to be 90 degrees here today and she is dressed in a black polyester suit with a scarf on, and with the heightened sense of smell that pregnancy gives me, I'm really hoping she leaves.

Bad librarian.

Come on, you guys, it's for science.

Well, anything to help the cause. Count me in.

I think it's cool that we can see that s/he has hair and get 3D pictures.

That is very cool. They didn't have the fancy stuff 15 years ago when my last baby was born. Awesome.

DH is redoing my utility room. We had to drag out the washer to work on it, so he got carried away and drug out everything including the utility sink and vinyl floor. Now he is painting, to be followed by new flooring. Whee! Doing laundry will be so much more pleasant. [link]

While I was at it I also uploaded the team pictures of my other 11 sons. DH's basketball team. [link]

eta: Poor Sparky! Can you put something pleasant smelling close at hand?

Can you put something pleasant smelling close at hand?

There's really nothing around here that could cover this. What I have done is moved to my office, to work from there, where I can open some windows if she comes back. Fortunately, it's not 90 outside, yet.

Oh, man, Sparky, that's horrid. Isn't there some very important yet obscure volume you can send her off to hunt down? Something she'll need hours to track down and pore over at the opposite end of the library?

Gnyargh. When I think about you working Saturdays with smelly patrons, and the stingy maternity leave they're giving you, I don't like your work at all. Anyone lucky enough to employ you ought to be treating you much better than that.

Lots of ~ma to Wallybee and the wee bee. IIRC, my water broke less than 24 hours after Matilda's head engaged.

When I first started working for doctors, women over 40 with a first pregnancy were called "elderly primagravidas." "Advanced maternal age" may not be utterly fabulous, but it's a vast improvement over that and "geriatric."

Still waiting for ups. Actors arrive in about an hour. Should be a fun morning. I think this is 12th ring of hell.

Going into what should be a fairly unpleasant conference call. Do not want.

It's a beautiful Saturday. People should not be having such crappy days and tasks!

Isn't there some very important yet obscure volume you can send her off to hunt down?

I neglected to mention that her glasses are broken and only have one lens, so she has difficulty finding things.

At least she remembered to bring her own pen and paper. Patrons that show up with neither make me wonder about what picture they had in their head of what they would do here.

Anyone lucky enough to employ you ought to be treating you much better than that.

My co-workers are being fabulous and flexible w/r/t my pregnancy, and I've volunteered to work all sorts of Saturdays and holidays because when I have to go out they'll be stuck with all of them. It's the institution and it's policies that deserves to have rotten tomatoes tossed over its walls.

< Storming with the rant >

Dear God, help me not to strangle a friend of mine, for she is, in her way, strangling me.

I might have to reconsider my relationship with her. She's needy and have anxiety issues she's working on (both are things she admits about herself, and working on them), and I told her she can talk with me because I hate leaving people I care about in situations like she is in now without support, but God dammit. I think I talked with her more in the past 2 weeks than with any other person in my life, and we're not that close. I care about her, but I don't wanna - and I can't, in fact - jump everytime she's feeling anxiety over ridiculous things, which happens about 1-2 times per day.

Don't know what to do. One of the funniest, cleverest friends of mine, but the woman is 30+ and spent over an hour, this week, analyzing to death and freaking out on the other side of the phone whether or not someone read the FB message she sent to him. There's only so much I can do, and I'd like to be there for her, but I don't think what I'm doing is enough. And the little I try to do is mostly driving me crazy.

OK, I'm done.

Shir, does she have a therapist of some sort? You may want to gently persuade her to utilize her therapist more...