Libraries - Helsinki Finland

So, on our trip to Finland, we spent 3 days in Helsinki. Saw museums, churches, an open air museum and libraries. The libraries, of course, were my favorite. Oodi is the newest public library in Helsinki, which proves not just how much Finns love libraries, but also how important space and design our to the human psyche. The Finns seem to really understand that.

The library is designed to look like a wave, and not only does the roof line and windows seem to wave, but that theme inside follows with platforms that rise on the ends of the floor and ceilings that roll like waves. 

From the curving stairs to the rolling ceiling, the rounded edges of the building are so inviting. Maybe as a librarian I just find the spirit of the public library as a welcoming, democratic ideal inviting, but there is something about this building which feels warm, inviting, uplifting. 

The main floor holds meeting spaces and even a theater. The second floor is a makerspace with not just 3-D printers and laser cutters, but also sound studios and filming equipment. The third floor is the actual stacks and library space. 

Finns are avid readers and love their libraries. They also feel very strongly about the public supporting public spaces and frown on corporate money going to build libraries and other public buildings. And boy, do they know how to design buildings. Of everything we saw in Helsinki, I loved the libraries best. 

Here's the National Library and the University of Helsinki Library.

Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett died today. The world has lost its best fantasy satirist. I’m having trouble imagining a world without a new Terry Pratchett novel to look forward to.  Whether he was riffing on politics, religion, universities, or death, he always gave a laugh-out-loud depiction of human life.  Despite his lampooning of humanity, he gave me hope. Hope that we could recognize ourselves, hope that we could laugh at ourselves, hope that we could maybe even improve.

Facing life without a new novel featuring Death, or his granddaughter Susan, or Granny Weatherwax, or Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men is going to be hard. Let’s all read some Terry Pratchett tonight. The Wee Free Men, Equal Rites, Reaper Man, any of them will make Terry’s passing a little more bearable. And we’ll be the better for it.

Writing Funny Animals

I like funny writing. So, I'm always taking workshops or listening to speakers talk about how they write funny. And what I keep hearing is that taking two things that don't normally go together and jamming them into a situation can help set up a funny scene. As most of my funniest true stories occur when I've stuck animals in a place they don't normally belong, this makes total sense to me. You know, the goat in the car routine, the chickens in the bathroom story.

So, here are few things to think about when putting livestock in unusual places:

1. The time it takes for a baby goat to learn to jump up on the kitchen table can be measured in days, not weeks, months, or years.

2. Kitchen tables, especially when they have a table cloth, make it hard for little cloven hooves to gain purchase - thereby causing said goat to go sliding off the end.

3. Baby goats when "maaing" sound like a screaming human baby. Keeping them in the basement when they scream can lead to the neighbors reporting you to the police.

4. Modern disposable diapers that form a gelatin when wet will stay on a lamb better than a baby goat. Kids' (as in baby goats) butts slope, causing the wet diaper to fall off when wet. Lambs' butts are square, so wet diapers stay on better.

5. Disposable diapers also melt when they come in contact with a warm woodstove and unfortunately baby goats and lambs who have been brought into the house to warm up seem to like running around the woodstove.

6. Within a couple weeks, baby goats can leap from floor to table to counter to the top of the refrigerator in three bounds.

The Animal I Am

            I think we all want to be a certain animal. An animal who can snarl and not be told to be nice, behave, be anything but what it is. It’s why shapeshifters will always be popular. The ability to let the wild, feral side out is a dream for everyone. But of course, I want to be something noble, regal, something that flies, or runs, something with eagle eyes, owls’ hearing, strength of a bear, speed of a jaguar, loyalty and wisdom of a wolf. I’d rather not be a mouse or a rat, thank you very much.

            If I’m honest though, I think the animal I want to be, the animals I like, are not the animal I really am. I’m a dog person. Love their humor, their ability to scent, their loyalty, their unconditional love.

I have cats, but they and I just tolerate each other. They all but have “do not disturb” signs tattooed to their sides. They demand food when hungry or attention when they need a scratch. But otherwise, it’s a swat or bite for me and the dogs when we get a little too close. It’s their job, they believe, to keep the riff raff in our places. They are as cantankerous and irritable as I am.

            I’m afraid, I’m really a cat. I’m afraid, I love dogs because they are the exact opposite of me. The yin to my yang. The gentle to my irritation. The happy to my annoyed. I would be in an existential crisis by this discovery, except I’m too much of a cat to let the thought disturb me. There are some benefits to being a curmudgeon after all.

Dog - Free to a Good Home

            If there is any universal truth – other than Jane Austen’s – it’s that you shouldn’t answer a “dog, free to a good home” ad unless you are planning on coming home with the dog. I blame it all on Bruce, actually. He was the one, who after saying we didn’t need another dog, showed me the ad.

Finn, our first Golden Retriever had just died at the age of fourteen and a half years and with three other dogs Bruce opined that we didn’t need a fourth. I, reluctantly, agreed. You can’t have too many dogs in my book. But then, Bruce showed me the ad – Golden Retriever, Free to a Good Home. He blames me, of course, but if he didn’t want the dog, he shouldn’t have shown me the ad.

            We arrived at the small farm on an out of the way road and were greeted by a pack of barking ankle high balls of fluff. The real dog, Dexter, was tied underneath a huge oak. He raced to the end of the chain, and when the tether pulled him up short his forward momentum drove him up onto his hind legs. A restrained ball of energy – and not very restrained at that. The dog had been racing around on his chain so long there ground beneath the tree had been cleared of all grass. But more than that, he’d spent so much time standing upright trying to propel himself further than the chain allowed that the muscles of his hind legs bulged. If he’d been human, he’d be a weight lifter, lifting with his legs.

            Dexter was two. It turned out the people who owned him were his fourth owners. They’d gotten him when they bought a baler. Apparently, the previous owners (Dexter’s third) had told them they could only buy the baler if they took the dog, too. They, obviously, had really wanted the baler.

They let him loose, in order to prove he was friendly and not vicious crazy. His tail wagged constantly, thumping against my leg.  His tongue lolled out happily, wanting to lick everything within reach. It moved almost as much as the dog’s legs did. But Dexter couldn’t sit still long enough to actually be petted.

            We walked through their pasture, as the dogs ran. Dexter came back every couple seconds to make sure he hadn’t been abandoned. And then he was off again, unable to stay still for more than a second. The woman explained how they tried to let him in the house, but he ran around so much she was afraid he’d break her china. Which only confirmed my theory that if you have dogs you should never own anything that you value more than the dogs.

            Bruce and I just looked at each other. We had three dogs at home, a Great Pyr, a Newfie, and a Border Collie. In her day, the Border had expended energy chasing Frisbees for hours. But her energy was always directed and contained. Dexter’s was neither. The Pyr and Newfie, of course, thought that getting up to eat dinner was enough energy expenditure. That and a walk would do them.

            Still, Dexter after ten minutes of running, ran back to us with his tongue flopping out and sat down. He leaned against my leg. Then he stood, circled, sat.  Stood. Ran. Returned. Sat. Leaned, torn between getting constant attention and not being able to sit still.

            “What do you think?” the man said, eager for an answer.

            Bruce and I looked at each other again, knowing that no matter how crazy the dog was he needed a real home, not just fifth owners. And really, my look said, you can’t leave him with these people. We went home with the dog, who managed to sit still in the backseat. It helped that Bruce sat with him, holding the dog on his lap the whole ride home.

            Dexter loved our dogs and they loved him. And at night he’d sit still in the house, if you pet him continually. Long runs each day, a lot of attention, and Dexter finally calmed down when he was about twelve. But of all our dogs, he was the one that always came when you called, always stuck close on walks. Because he never quite believed he wasn’t going to be given away again. So, he made sure he didn’t get left behind.

A Jealous Writer

            Writing, for me at least, involves a lot of jealousy. I wish I could be one of those people who enjoys some else’s brilliance without thinking, “I wish I’d written that.” But alas, that’s not going to happen. If I’m not thinking, “I wish I’d written that,” then I’m thinking, “I wish I thought of that idea,” or “I wish I could write that well.” I think this with almost everything I read, because the truth is, if I’m not loving it by the end of the first page, I’m probably not reading it.

            My current “I wish” meter is being directed toward E.K. Johnston, author of The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim and Michelle Knudsen, author of Evil Librarian.

            Johnston had the brilliant idea to take a modern day Canada and introduce one fantastical element – dragons. She then rewrote history for a world that has evolved to deal with dragons, hence Owen, a teen dragon slayer. But, Johnston’s gift doesn’t end with world building. In Owen, his bard Siobhan, and his family, she’s created people that I care about. So much so, that I’d almost want to live in their world and have them as friends even if that meant having to take driver’s education over again to learn defensive dragon driving maneuvers.

            The Story of Owen is such an incredible idea, I’ve been trying to figure out how to come up with something equally as brilliant. It apparently just takes inserting some mythical creature into the modern world. Except Johnston has done dragons. Vampires, werewolves ,and demons have all been done. So what’s left, I wonder?

            Knudsen’s novel does something I thought would turn me off. The villain after all is the librarian. And I rather like my librarians to be heroes. But in Evil Librarian the protagonist is so normal, so goofily funny, so ready to take on demons without any powers other than being the one person who can see the librarian is a demon that I couldn’t help falling in love with her. Here’s a normal teen girl madly in love with a boy who doesn’t know she is alive, able to withstand a demon’s attraction, and with an encyclopedic knowledge of musical theater. None of those are the things of superheroes and yet, Cynthia is a superhero.

            So, I’m thinking I need a normal teen with vast knowledge of some topic, an evil creature, and voila! But musical theater and demons go so well together. And of course, writing as well and funny as Knudsen does would be the onerous part.

            Still, hope springs eternal and there must be a good side to jealousy, right?  

Riding in Cars with Goats

 

                The Lego Club, at the library where I work, met yesterday. A group of girls made a vehicle, a person, a dog, and a sheep. “It’s a truck, so the sheep can ride in it, too,” one of the girls said, as she loaded in the person, sheep, and dog.

                “I’ve ridden in a car with a sheep,” I said.

                “A sheep skeleton,” another girl said, referring to the fact that once a year I borrow bones from my husband to do a program at the library on skeletons. The bones include a full sheep skeleton that because I am not good at returning things immediately, usually rides around in my car for a few days.

                One year, the UPS man told me I’d left my dog in the car too long.

                “I’ve ridden with live sheep and goats, too,” I said, but I’m not sure they actually believed me.

                My sharing-a-car-with-a-ruminant adventures first started when I was nine.  My family was moving, so my dad drove the U-Haul with my sister and our dog in the cab. My mother followed in our station wagon, with my grandfather riding shotgun and my grandmother, my other sister, and me in the back seat. Our goat, Heidi, rode in the way back.

Heidi and I had a precarious relationship. She’d pinned me against the garage wall one too many times and generally I tried to stay away from her. It’s been my experience that goats don’t like people that can look them in the eye and so are often a little wary of children.  By the time we moved, Heidi had stopped trying to wailing on me every chance she got, but I can’t say I adored her. Anyway, on the six hour trip to our new home she didn’t try to beat me, although she did spend a lot of time reaching over the seat and chewing on my braids.

I’ve moved from Illinois to Virginia with a goat riding on my lap, driven Bruce around with assorted sheep sitting on his lap, and gone home to visit my mother for Christmas taking a goat along for the visit. Generally, they make fairly good car riders, although when they decide to stand up it can do a number on your legs. Don’t try it while wearing shorts.