Walk-O-Rama: COPS – Library Edition

On this day, May 21st, at approximately, 12pm, numerous risks were taken by library folk, who are not generally risk takers.  Innocent choices spiraled into outright lawlessness, ending in a crime unlike anyone in library world has seen for at least a day or so. Allow me to illustrate this chain of events.

We knew we were in shady territory when David Weiner arrived, all sleeveless and bragging about the AM hour in which he was able to get up and do his laundry, being that he is retired and all.  Here is a man who clearly makes his own rules.  The empty laundromat at this time of day proves that assertion. Being that he had come all this way, we felt obligated to go face the heat out-of-doors.  So ill-prepared were we for this actual walk that we had not thought of a destination.  In fact, one was not planned until we were mere feet away from arrival.  Celeste made the bold decision of where to walk today, and that was not the end to her risk taking.  No, chopsticks were soon to be used, and are now actually her weapon of choice (at least for the first strike). We were happy to be back at Ten 89 Noodle House, especially since they had AC. Sweet, sweet AC.

Has anyone seen this man? He is wanted by WOR for Pen-Gate scandal questioning. Read on.

John instructs Celeste on proper chopstick usage before discretely backing away to take cover

Chopstick success! Celeste earns a well deserved fork for her effort

As we were served, David took the opportunity to slip away, virtually unnoticed (obviously, since we were now entranced by our delicious looking meals).  Where he was for the next half hour or so no one can say. But we were met with chaos when we returned to the library. And all fingers pointed to David as the culprit!

First stop: the Music Library, where an uproar had been caused over an alleged pen incident.  Pen-Gate, as it shall now be known, drew instant attention from the Campus Police, and almost certainly the FBI as well, as they have been monitoring the goings on of the Music Library staff for years.  Apparently, or so I am imagining, a pen was coveted by some person unknown to us and soon after taken. Threats were made. Lies were told.   Fingers were snapped, which is apparently the way the musically inclined display their aggression.

West Campus Side Story, where a storm is brewing in the Music Library

All this craziness so absorbed the attention of the Campus Police that they disregarded entirely the crime that was committed in Kristen’s office.  According to sources, a takeout container had been insecurely fastened, leaving the helpless juices no choice but to leak all over. It was a horrific scene to behold, and such an injustice to food lovers everywhere. Food container sabotage, surely!  Was this pen confusion just an excuse not to respond, as Kristen believes? So the Central Reading Room is in a less classier part of the building. And yes, the heat there is rather stifling.  But there are some of us who believe that there were deeper biases to blame.  Perhaps because the egg in that container was brown and not white?  This is, after all, the reason why it was not eaten by Ken. Are we not above such primitive egg color prejudices? So the container remains where it was left, on the floor, waiting in vain for the authorities to come investigate it to prove once and for all that this container unlocking was just another in a long line of crimes committed by David, who, as we have noted, has no alibis from the time of 12:30-1pm.  Walk-O-Rama will have to look into this further.

Today’s brown egg hate crime will surely remain one of the great unsolved mysteries

But until then, we hope you will think long and hard about all the reasons you should join Walk-O-Rama next week.  There are many indeed. Hope to see you there!

Walk-O-Rama: Burrito Perfecto

As with all Fridays in the office, there was magic in the air.  Or perhaps it was just the gas fumes from the nearby construction machinery.  But whatever the cause, Celeste and John both simultaneously experienced the same hallucination of a walking burrito, which inspired today’s journey to the newly opened East Coast Burrito shop.  John was feeling lucky and willing to bet that the much anticipated eatery would be open for business, unlike last time when he convinced us to brave the oncoming traffic only to find that the Grand Opening that they advertised was neither Grand nor Open.  We hope that this same luck will stay with John till tomorrow night as our hopes and dreams all ride on our group lotto ticket.

John and Celeste envision the perfect Walk-O-Rama mascot – a walking burrito

Upon viewing the online menu, our belief that this burrito shop was indeed Walk-O-Rama perfection was confirmed when we saw the option for Build-A-Rito. Clever.  Like us!

This menu also made Kristen and John very hungry, which motivated them to up it into high gear all the way to their destination. Despite the attempt of the others to take a super secret shortcut to shave a few feet off the walking distance, Kristen and John were already sipping iced tea and lemonade by the time the whole group assembled.  We looked as though we had traveled through the wilderness for days.  Hair was disheveled, grass trimmings adorned one walker, and a general look of fatigue could be seen on everyone’s weary faces.  We can’t wait till they deliver.

Though all the menu selections looked equally tasty, and though the Build-A-Rito option added an extra layer of complexity that might give any angry hungry person a headache, we all were able to order quickly, and were served with equally impressive speed.  Adorable brown paper bags of chips were provided, just like mom used to give us for lunches when sending us off to school.  One walker seemed to recall a memory that these bags inspired and frantically checked inside to make sure there was no note from mom that said “Don’t come back” inside.  It was not, so we shall return to East Coast Burrito someday, likely soon.

Some people were apparently more excited than others to try out a new restaurant

Kristen thought this was exaggerated by an X or two, until the burn set in

Don’t worry, we will

So many delightful options and somehow we ended up back at work

The route back had everyone on edge.  There were so many dangers that needed to be overcome along the way – such as a busy road to cross and a steep hill to climb – and we were much heavier and sluggish than we had been on our way there, putting us at a disadvantage.  Like cheese on a mousetrap, some predator had placed a chair in a netted enclosure, clearly meant to ensnare tired and/or lazy travelers walking along the path.  It was this hunter’s lucky day, for such a pest was tricked into taking the bait!

Ooooo…to our members an unmanned chair is like a huge hunk of cheddar to a hungry mouse!

Got one!

Though we considered leaving him there for the weekend to think about what he’d done, we encouraged him to escape so we could all continue on together (except Kristen, who tried her best to block his exit).  We all strolled back to the office together, motivated only by the thought that there were only a matter of hours until the weekend would be upon us.

We hope you will join us next week when we hope to take advantage of a day as nice as this one!

Walk-O-Rama: An Equal Opportunity Organization

Today we found ourselves sans most of our usual group and had to go out recruiting additional walkers.  This proved very challenging, which was strange on such a beautiful day.  As it turned out, the only member replacements we could find were three canine stand-ins, which we settled for since we have not yet discussed as a group whether or not we’re the discriminating sort.  They were excellent walkers and did not even ask to stop for lunch, which has not become standard WOR practice.  Patting walkers on the heads is also not usually done (though perhaps it should be in the future), but we made exceptions today, because how could you not pat such a fluffy head?

The John, Ken, and Kathy of today’s walk. Lookin’ good, guys.

We were relieved to see that we were not the only ones lacking members today, as we swung by Roth Pond and saw a lone reporter serving as her own star and camera crew.  We briefly considered taking over the project and creating our first Walk-O-Rama feature film, but we were not in the mood.  Plus we had little baby geese to find.  Strangely, they too were missing.  Is there some cool place on or off campus that we do not know about?

This project could have been awesome if we were not so lazy. I’m sure she did great too.

No baby geese were to be found in the Roth Pond area, which made Kristen cry like a baby person.

Having taken about 5 too many wrong turns in our attempt to take the quickest route around a construction zone, we ended up lost and confused in the wilderness.  Perhaps Kristen + Celeste, the two least direction savvy people alive, should not have embarked on such an adventure alone.  But Celeste vaguely recalled having taken this barely traveled path before, and so we bravely continued on.  Fortunately for us, we soon found a building that we could cut through (because Walk-O-Rama is all about taking short cuts to reduce distance), which is where we spotted the plans for a building we will soon be able to explore!

We can’t wait to cut through this building in the future.

Hopefully more people can join us next week, as the weather continues to get better and better! We’ll be whining about the heat in no time!  Perhaps we’ll see you there, especially since these canine understudies most likely have other plans.

Walk-O-Rama Special Edition: Ode to a Library

I am a sentimental person.  This trait has inevitably led to picture hoarding on my phone, which must come to an end, if only for internal memory purposes.  While scrolling through the images I tried to think of why each had been saved, and I came to the conclusion that it was because each represented a happy moment that demonstrated how awesome working in a library, at least with my borderline insane awesome coworkers can be.  Allow me to explain…

1) We love attention, at any cost. Seriously. We have no shame.

Library outreach has been stressed more than ever over the past year or two, since students, for whatever reason, do not seem to be aware of how awesome we are.  In an effort to correct this oversight, we have made our presence known all over campus, whether it be highlighting library services, or just horsing around to make a scene.  No arrests have been made thus far, so apparently we are on the right track, or at least acting within legal limits.  We have displayed our artistic skills at booths in information fairs and tried our best to provide our students with stress relieving activities to show that we’re more than just books.

Kathy works very hard to make a rock ladybug to symbolically show students that our resources are as numerous as all those tiny bugs that have been invading US fields and buildings

Though I do not recall where exactly this was taken, I’m pretty sure it was an early example of stress relieving student outreach. This may or may not be replaced by dog and/or llama therapy.

We dabbled with celebrity appearances, though they were not very convincing, perhaps because of the sticks…

2) Staff that plays together stays together

Our staff knows how to have fun, on and off the clock.  This is not often conveyed in Google searches of the words ‘library’ or ‘librarians’ (though if you perform a search for ‘sexy librarian’ you might stumble across an image or two of John’s runway swagger or Diane’s truly distracting happy dance when she got her bacon salad).  By finding activities that we can all work on together as a team, we have learned more about each other than we ever could have by staying at our desks all day every day (I’m not the only one who has to work those hours, am I?)

Poetry board in the Central Reading Room. Someone knows us.

Perhaps that poet has seen this picture…

Library workers caught in the wild. Don’t feed the animals (unless it’s dessert – we like sugar)

Working behind the scenes does not keep staff from dancing and having fun

c) We follow our captain

The Roth Regatta brought many staff members together to prove that “Yes we can!” build a cardboard wiener that will float.  And we did. So many other staff members who could not contribute time or labor generously donated money, which we wisely spent on booze and slot machines and hot dog costumes. I’m sorry, I could not honestly cross out that last item in the list.  Our team, the Melville Hot Diggety Dogs beat out numerous other cardboard vessels and brought many proud colleagues out of their offices to cheer on Donna and Ken.  We must thank Ken for volunteering to be our brave leader, and for unknowingly being the one to go down with the ship if the project was a failure. Hooray! It was not. Good job, all, for the second year in a row!

Ken, the fearless leader (yes, Chris, that’s the missing hat)

Donna was even able to con outsiders into helping with our library effort. Thanks a bunch, Bob!

All those who doubted our success were told to keep their mouths shut. Hey!!!

4) We know each other well and like each other anyway

Richie Feinberg left behind a fortune in art work known to all as Feinbergs.  Many of these treasures prove how well we know each other, without having to share things in words.  For instance, Richie somehow knew that Kathy loved the color yellow, which was predominate in her painting, as did he somehow guess that Kristen secretly wanted a little yellow house with a small garden and her own moon that was always in the waxing crescent stage.  Wait a minute…did Richie break into my office?!!

Richie’s painting bore a striking resemblance to a picture already hanging in Kristen’s office. I suspect tracing paper was involved.

So thanks to all for being so much fun to work with, and for providing an interesting place to come each day (for me and our students I’m sure).  I hope to see more of you on our Walk-O-Rama outings!

 

 

 

 

 

Walk-O-Rama: Happy Feet, Miserable Bladders

Today’s outing began with happy dances of many colorful varieties, and ended with the same.  What happened in between was another story, which you will soon, whether you want to or not, learn all about.

With the best of intentions, we set off on this sunny afternoon to celebrate Celeste’s birthday! Being quite starving, we were all extremely giddy about our upcoming meal.  This giddiness caused some Walk-O-Rama members to initiate their trademark happy dances, which were all very inventive.

John’s penguin dance looks more like a runway swagger when captured digitally

Diane pauses mid-dance to accommodate Kristen’s slow camera

Celeste and Diane began a lovely discourse that caused them to lose focus and slow in walking speed, incorrectly assuming that Kristen and John, who had both been angry hungry for hours, would follow suit and slow their speed out of common courtesy.  With their destination in site, the two raced into incoming traffic and sped down the street, envisioning their tasty meals as they ran.  By the time the chatty duo arrived, Kristen and John were already ordering the check.

John and Kristen move onto the second course as their fellow walkers arrive

Diane distracts Kristen from placing her order by photographing her…button

The grudge caused by this walking mishap led to an eating showdown, with both nutrition and eating speed being judged by Diane, who defended the healthiness of her slab of bacon salad.  As her defense began to lose ground, she changed strategies and began to mock the speed at which Kristen was eating her meal, and took a set of action shots to document this lack of adequate eating progress.

Diane’s “healthy” salad, after it had been ravaged of its bacon

Kristen’s meal before…

Kristen’s meal after. Totally different.

Kristen later got her comeuppance for her failure to walk slowly when they left the restaurant and she almost instantly had to…freshen up in the powder room.  Though several makeshift stations for that very purpose were passed in the sports fields on the return trip, none seemed quite adequate.  Just when it seemed like all hope was gone and that Diane’s llama bathroom stories would cause a bladder explosion, the Union came in view.

It was a serious situation

John is not impressed with these goings on

Full bladders, run this way!

As with all Walk-O-Rama adventures, a happy ending was in store and all was right with the world again.  Though the excitement left us frazzled with no time to consider what next week’s walk will be, we do hope you will join us with some awesome ideas.  Or without awesome ideas…we’re not picky.

Rays from Heaven shown on this sign

Kristen stole John’s happy dance on the way out

…and yes, we all felt like winners!

Walk-O-Rama Special Edition: OMG I Wanna Sit

On Saturday, April 27th, many members of Walk-O-Rama, as well as a few of our present and former colleagues, embarked on one of the greatest challenges we have yet known: a ‘Lost New York” scavenger hunt in the Financial District of Manhattan. I am sorry to report that much of it still remains lost, despite our best efforts. Unlike our last eating hunt, this one involved much less munching, and, disappointingly, much more thinking.  This is a difficult thing to do the day after post-Regatta racing celebrations. And so it was that Team OMG I Wanna Sit was narrowly beaten by The Wooden Teeth Brigade.  We failed most of the clever clues in fantastic fashion, thereby leading us to the conclusion that we should limit any future Watson Adventure participation to only those events that revolve around eating, which is a challenge that we are always up to.  Though we had been training for all this walking and adventure for over a year in Walk-O-Rama, the best times seemed to come afterwards, when our two teams merged and we enjoyed more of the often overlooked treasures that the city has to offer.

Food stop #1, and bathroom stop number 13 of 47. AKA the place that made Kristen not be so angry hungry.

Innocently thinking we were not about to spend the next few hours failing at our hunt

But we did…

Having unsuccessfully located a supposedly severed head and a building on stilts near Battery Park, we decided to do some hunting of our own as we searched far and wide (well, 3 or 4 blocks) for a tavern that George Washington himself had been known to visit.  This was a wonderous place filled with rare ales and other beverages, whose names we cannot recall since Kathy referred to them solely by their alcohol percentage.  Kristen had cider 6.5%, whereas Kathy introduced us all to the rare Pale Ale 7%, which many soon after ordered as well. As we explored the historical tavern, we found a plethora of centuries old artifacts, including an 8 foot tall leather banquette that Kathy was not successfully able to sneak out the door.  Hours were spent dining on funky cheeses and fish and chips, as well as some divine strawberry rhubarb pastry thing that Raquel kindly shared with the members of her losing team.  Thanks, Raquel!

If it’s good enough for George Washington I guess it’s good enough for us.

Nothing says ambiance like a gun on the wall.

After some presidentially inspired drinks, it was decided that the next logical step would be to board the Staten Island Ferry and ride it to and fro, which reminded Kristen of the poem Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  This new experience was a first for some of our group, and plans were soon made to also board a freight ship to France and ride the Port Jefferson Ferry to scenic Connecticut as well.  We are uncertain which of these two would be more exciting, and so the plans have been put on hold until a unanimous vote is taken.  No delicious cookies or ice cream were to be found anywhere on this vessel, much to Mary’s dismay.  Nor did time permit her to get some in Penn Station, due to inconvenient time restrictions.  With any luck, she had a stash of her own at home.  Such a happy ending would have just made the fun day complete!

The most unorganized picture ever

Oh, we did!

Finally, we got to sit.

The view almost made up for the lack of cookies and ice cream

Group picture: attempt number 8

John showing the MetroCard guy who’s boss. It turned out to be the MetroCard guy.

We hope you will join us next time as we return to munching in our hunts as opposed to thinking.  And we also hope to see you on Thursday when we enjoy the fine weather on another on or off campus walk!

Walk-O-Rama Special Edition: Can’t Beat Our Wiener

Last Friday the professional conduct of all Library Staff was put to the test, as our hotdog shaped Roth Regatta boat (a play off the ‘frank’ in the Frank Melville Library) brought out the fourth grader in all of us as we resisted the urge to make too many offensive wiener jokes.  But this was no laughing matter.  Our two sailors, Ken and Donna, had their game faces on and they were prepared to do the unthinkable, prove that all other competitors, despite their best efforts, could not in fact ketchup to our wiener.  We were very proud of their achievement! After over a week of working tirelessly on assembling a sturdy boat that would withstand the rough waters of the raging Roth Pond, the man-made pit of H2O (we hope) that was known for eating boats and their crew members whole, the moment we had been long awaiting was upon us.  With the theme of ‘America’, the competition was a fleet of happy meals, eagles in military attire, and space shuttles that now served no other purpose besides entering this race now that our space program has been all but dismantled.  How, you might be wondering, could our delicious looking boat possibly hold its own in a group of such artistic excellence?  Well, as it turns out, boats cannot stay afloat on good looks alone (nor could that girl who jumped in to get her free Regatta t-shirt and went under at least four times as we all looked on) and clever design was not necessarily in indication that the boat would not sink upon initial contact with water.  We know, we laughed at many tragic yet comical attempts.

Some staff were more successful than others at hiding their immaturity

Sad but true.

There are cannibals among us

Team Melville Hot Diggety Dogs

A dance-off was held to choose who the members of our team would be. Or at least that’s what we told David

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day for the event, which was good for those who wore the standard t-shirt and apron costumes, and bad for Kathy and Meryl who had decided to attend in full hotdog attire.  Their show of team spirit did wonders for library publicity, as students from all over campus asked to be photographed with them, and one small boy laughed with innocent delight at the dumb lady in a wiener suit.  It was great.

Donna was prepared for any scenario, as she brought along her fancy professional paddle for winning, or a matching life vest and water shoes in case the boat were to capsize.  Both rowers wore diner hats and aprons to fit the theme, since neither could be conned into dressing as condiments of any sort.  As it turns out, Donna did not need her fashionable accessories after all, for they rowed to victory in the first heat with ease.  All others sank at the starting line, which did not make the victory any less sweet for them or any members of the Library.  Though the duo was very narrowly beaten out by a Twinkie in heat #2 (a boat that we’re certain used just as many questionable crafting ingredients as its “edible” counterpart) we were still so proud that the boat was in tact, and therefore a testament of the Library’s fine craftsmanship.  Having seemingly failed to advance, Donna went back to begin the survival celebration. Much to our surprise, we were soon after called back to the starting line to race again in the final heat between the four fastest speedsters!  Unfortunately for Ken, Kristen had to jump in in Donna’s absence, and she had never held a canoe paddle in her life.  Halfway through the course she was quite positive that she was going to have to give up and rely on the currant to coast them to shore, but embarrassment compelled her to keep on rowing and they finished, happily, still in one piece. Though they did not win a trophy this year, the team still made up their minds to celebrate just as if they had. It was a great day for all, and we can’t wait till next year to see who our brave representatives will be!

Kristen was about as effective at carrying the boat as she was at rowing it

Donna’s determination clearly frightened off all the competition, for none of them made any attempt to challenge their speed

YAYYY!

These wieners were publicity winners today! Thanks, guys