Road Trips!

On the road!  This is the first of a couple road trips that I have planned for the summer.  The destination is…Washington DC!

A cool thing about Louisville is that it is very centrally located.  A day’s drive can take you to DC, New Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Memphis, and so on!  We stopped for the night somewhere in Maryland, in a town that has been namechecked in Nora Roberts novels!

On this trip, T and I are finishing a book we started last summer, The Odyssey!  This book is perfect to read since it is about the longest road trip ever!

It is a long read but a great read aloud, especially when you are in a car all day.  But I have to warn you, half of it is lengthy descriptions of dinner parties.

Ani Show

img swiped from T’s facebook page!

I went to see Ani DiFranco at Mercury Ballroom.  I didn’t listen to Ani a ton before this but I was excited to go for a couple a reasons.

1. To watch Trent watch Ani, he is a fan.
2. Because when I do listen to Ani, I like her a lot!
3. Because Ani is from Buffalo, and I will see any Buffalo artist if they come to Louisville, even if that means I have to see Chad Michael Murray in a Humana Fest play at Actors. (Just kidding, I would be SO DOWN to do that if it happened)
4. I love Ani’s Read Poster

I think she is holding an Woodie Guthrie biography.   Side note and librarian rant, the ALA should really reprint their vintage READ posters!!  That would be a huge money maker!!  I mean, what do you want more, Taylor Swift holding a copy of The Giver or David Bowie reading Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot?  In fact, take a look at all of these gems on Flavorwire!

WKND: Louisville on the Cheap

Another great weekend in Louisville!  I am trying to save my $$ for some summer trips so T and I hung out in the city without dropping too much cash!

Stop One: Speed Art Museum

Now this isn’t the cheapest thing to do, adult admission is 12 bucks. But T and I have a membership so it was free!  And we have been going pretty regularly so the price per visit is dropping!  This time, we went to the free tour which happens almost every day at 1pm.  The website says that the tour goes for an hour but our guide took us through the whole museum for well beyond an hour.  Not that we minded, and he said his feelings wouldn’t be hurt if we took off.  So we did, especially in the modern art section which was my favorite!

Stop Two: Village 8

Go here while its still open!  The Village 8 is Louisville’s beloved second run theater where you can get tickets for a low as 3 bucks a person!  We went to the matinee showing of Melissa McCartney’s The Boss.  Which was pretty funny, but I couldn’t laugh as much as I wanted to because people brought their kids to the show!  Pro Tip, don’t bring kids to a MM movie!  They are funny because she says terrible things!

Stop Three: The Main Library

I need to write a blog post someday about Louisville’s Main Library.  The people there are so nice, the book selections are good, the programs are great (especially their annual How To Fest) but their main branch could really use a beautification update!  Maybe there are plans in the works that I am not privy to, but LFPL has been building beautiful regional branches and I hope that they show downtown some love sometime soon!

At any rate, the library is still a great place to wander around on a hot afternoon, we picked up some travel books for our upcoming trip and the split up, him to US History, me to health and beauty (picked up a new book written by none other than Kate Hudson!).  We met up and had a super nerdy conversation that went something like this:

  T: Check out this book! (shows me the spine)

Me: 972? Well that’s not quite US History…hmmm. Central America?

T: The West Indies!  Specifically…the Danish West Indies…

So, we are pretty cool as you can tell!

Friday dance break: Vivian Green

Heard this on the radio this week (shout out to 101.3!) and it is everything!

Making me Happy: JWOWW

I have been re-watching Jersey Shore on Hulu (one of the joys of summer break, lots of time for guilty pleasure reality shows!) and while lots of things are dated, my love for JWoww remains!

Oh Jenni, I love everything about you!  Your loyalty to your friends (mainly snookie).  Your willingness to get into crazy fights with other ladies.  And now, your super cute mom hair cute and craft videos!!!

Whaaaaaaatttt???!?!?  But you know what? It works!  Needless to say, I have subscribed to her YouTube Channel!

WKND: vegan dinners, grilled hotdogs, and African Drum Circles

It was a great weekend in Louisville, it was Pride weekend, for one, my family was in town.  And I ate a lot of really great food!  Which is always great.  Here are some highlights:

Celebrating a 50th Anniversary at Fond

50 years?!  Woah that’s a long time. I didn’t know the couple that well, they are parents of one of Trent’s high school friends.  But by the end of the 5 course, all vegan, totally delicious meal, I felt like one of the family.  You can’t help it with great company and the cozy atmosphere at Fond.  It is a mini grocery store that sells local delicacies that transforms to a 12 seat restaurant on the weekends!

Watching my mom rock out in an African drum circle

While my brothers were sleeping in, my mom and I rose early to go to a benefit for a very worthy cause, Arts in Healing.  Arts in Healing works to connect local artists to community groups (VA Hospitals, Emergency Shelters, Hospices) bringing free visual art, music, storytelling, and literature programs as a means for self expression and therapy.  I am more than happy to support this cause!  Especially when it involves getting to play in a drum circle!  My mom is, clearly, a natural.

Finding my new grilled hot dog spot

Mom and I worked up an appetite while drumming up a storm.  I asked what she wanted for lunch and she said, “grilled hot dog.”  Well of course!   We are from Buffalo after all, the land of Ted’s (aka the greatest hot dog experience you’ll have) but I haven’t found a place to get a grilled hot dog yet.  We took a chance on Bluegrass Burgers and I’m so glad we did!  It was cheap and really really really good.  AND they have a HUGE toppings bar with everything from pickles three ways, pineapple salsa to sauerkraut and at least a dozen different kinds of dressing.  I could go on about this forever.  We loved it so much that we went back with my brothers for dinner!

Coffee, always coffee

Trent and I have gotten a cool routine down.  Where we will go to a coffee shop in the mornings and spend a couple of hours reading and drinking iced coffee.  Okay, clearly it isn’t a groundbreaking idea but it is something that I’m always looking forward to.

 

friday dancebreak!

Why have we stopped listening to Jamiroquai?!?!  This is a great song for dancing, powerwalking, and more dancing!!

Have a great weekend of reading and dancing!!

Booksmart Booklist: Pride

It is Pride month friends!  When I worked in the public library, I loved to put up book displays in June for Pride.  Lucky for me, there are more and more great books for children and teens that want to read about LGBTQ characters.  Here are some that I like:

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz has won a lot of well deserved hardware.  The Pura Belpre Award for best book featuring Latino characters, the Stonewall book award for books with LGBTQ characters and it was a Printz Honor book that same year (best books for Teens).  Clearly librarians loved this book (all of these prizes are given by the American Library Association).   It is a beautiful story about an unlikely friendship that grows into love.  It made me cry, but in a good way.  Bonus!  The audiobook features the author and Lin-Manuel Miranda, my hero.

George was a hot book this year, it was actually a book request from one of my middle school students that heard about it on NPR on the way to school.  It is for lower grades, but I have given it to a wide range of ages.  When people see George, they see a boy but George knows that she is a girl.  Her biggest wish is to play Charlotte in Charlotte’s web but that part is only for girls.  George is young, in 4th or 5th grade so the book is appropriate for younger readers.  I also give it to my middle school readers because it touches on transgender issues with a very light hand.  Which is good because I brought up Kate Bornstein once during a 7th grade class and some of the kids were like, “wait….what?!?!?” Sometimes I forget to ease into things! Ahh, the role of a school librarian is like being a human “The more you know” ad!

Last but not least:

This day in June is a GREAT picture book for kids.  I read it during a lesson I have about parades (there are a lot of parade books out there) since I don’t have the kids in the library in June for actual Pride. The illustrations are beautiful and very inclusive.

For more book ideas for all ages, check out the booklists at the New York Public Library some of my favorites are:

LGBTQ books for our youngest readers.

LGBTQ books for teens!   (My pick: Hold me Closer which features my favorite character in Will Grayson, Will Grayson)

Books about Transgender Issues for Teens (complied and beautifully written by Anne Rouyer, Queen of YA Lit!)

 

 

ripped from magazines: summer reading

Hi there!

Every summer I promise myself that I am going to read some books for grownups, since most of the school year is devoted to Captain Awesome and Katherine Applegate books.  Here are some suggestions from Good Housekeeping magazine, in case you are in the same boat:

(img from Good Housekeeping)

orlando

 

When I read the news about the shooting in Orlando, which took the lives of over 50 people, I felt the same sick and helpless feeling that I felt after Newtown, San Bernardino, and the seemingly endless news of school shootings, movie theater shootings and domestic assaults.  I read about every person that was killed in the club that night and I was about to do my usual head in the sand burying when I saw this quote from President Obama.  “We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.  And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.”

It is easy to think that we are helpless during times like these, that the NRA is too big and powerful.  That terrorists will find a way to kill Americans with or without stronger gun laws.  But that is not a good enough reason to ignore what is happening here.  Even if my actions mean nothing, the fact that I am trying will mean everything.

Whenever things feel out of control or I feel helpless I think about when I was moving for the first time.  I was completely overwhelmed and my mother said, “just start with a drawer.”  Just do one thing, a little at a time, and you will feel more in control.

Here are some “just one things” that we can do after Orlando.

1. Support groups that are working to fight the NRA like Everytown.  And my support I mean, give them money.
2. Call your representatives.  Both of our Senators in Kentucky voted against gun control laws in 2015.  They probably will again, especially if no one tells them that these laws do have support in red states.
3. Focus on one thing.  For me, it is the AR-15 rifle.  This is the gun that killed 50 people in Orlando, 20 children in Newtown, 12 people in a movie theater in Colorado, and 14 people in San Bernardino.  After the Newtown shooting, sales for the AR-15 skyrocketed and there is an estimated 3 million guns in circulation today.  Most types of this gun were banned in 1994 but the ban expired in 2004 thanks to lobbying by the NRA.

My first instinct when something terrible and violent happens is to turn off the tv and forget about it. But I’m glad I didn’t this time.  I’m glad I saw President Obama’s quote and I have my drawer to start with.  I feel sad, I feed horrified, but I also feel ready to fight back.