Leaving a Library

Our local city library has enlisted in the ranks of our ginormous county library, so I'm now a regular patron of only one library system (with an occasional jaunt into the Seattle proper system). I'm a bit sad about this, but the pleasant news is that soon my hold shelf will be in the library within five minutes of my house, on the way to school, not the one fifteen minutes away not on the way to anything but a nice Thai restaurant and a pet shop that sells my finicky cat's expensive cuisine. They spent this week merging the computer system, so starting now all my holds can go to the beautiful library on a river, and this is my last regular stop at Fairwood, my usual haunt.

Fairwood is a beautiful library, with a generous although not enclosed children's section, complete with nifty toys on the wall and a handy series book section, as well as a well stocked YA area and a dangerous staff picks wall near the exit. The worst thing about it, however, is their vending machines, which are magnets for several of my shorter companions. It seems sacrilegious to come into a library speaking only of your choice between mini-oreos and gummi worms, and to actually sit and consume your snack in the LIBRARY WHERE ALL THE BOOKS are grates on my nerves. Since this was our last visit, I let the kids go wild, which meant we had very little time for browsing actual library materials, but did keep me from getting too sentimental. Next week -- downtown!

I checked out almost nothing, since I'm still in recovery. Two of them were re-loots, books that got triaged during the panic of last week:

• How to Teach Physics To Your Dog. Chad Orzel. Which I was enjoying before the library demanded it back. I may recommend it to my book club, some of whom have dogs who may need remedial physics lessons.
• Wild Life, Molly Gloss. All Jo Walton's fault (from tor.com). Another reloot.
• Space Viking, H. Beam Piper. Also Jo Walton's fault, although it was Scalzi's news that made me remember that she recommended it.

N was the only kid who remembered to pick out music for me, and he chose more piano pieces. I'm down now to 58 total things, all of them mine, although I'm a bit worried that some books aren't listed on my online page because of the merge. I may start trying to count the number of books I actually plan to read, or maybe I'll make one of the kids check out all the music from now on. One picture book seems to have gone AWOL...