Friday, September 30, 2011

A Proclamation

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but it's hard to get any work out of these people on the weekends.


Hear ye, hear ye!

Whereas, Boss Tober was rescued by Assistant Boss Karen on the Nineteenth day of the month between September and November; and,

Whereas, the previously Sad and Nameless month was given the name October in recognition of Boss Tober’s awesomeness; and,

Whereas, the tradition of Library Cathood is very important in the history of libraries of all types worldwide, as Cats protect library books from horrible mice and provide companionship to library users and staff; and

Whereas, Tober the Cat, Boss of the Thorntown Library, has performed admirably in his role, accepting all challenges laid before him, be they tedious or sticky-fingered and noisy; and,

Whereas, the Thorntown Public Library, by virtue of housing such a Handsome and Extraordinary Cat, has achieved World- and Internets-wide fame; and now therefore be it

Resolved,
that I, Boss Tober of Thorntown Public Library, do hereby proclaim the month of October each year, commencing in 2011 and each year thereafter, as Tober’s Finding Month in Boone County, Indiana (and the Whole World), and I encourage all citizens to visit me, pet me, comment on my Wonderfulness, and give me treats.


Proclamations take an awful lot of Whereases. Whew!

I should probably stamp it with a pawprint, but that involves ink. We did that once before and I said never, ever, EVER again.

Happy OcTOBER!

Tober

Festival of the Floaty Book Sale: The Conclusion

If you haven't read my blog in a few days, I suggest you begin reading this story from the beginning.

If you have been reading. . . here's the thrilling conclusion of Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week!

So the tree fell down! BOOM! Screams and excitement from the ladies--and all of them managed to use nice words when it happened, too! (This is what happens when you steal a Float idea from Mooresville Public Library.)

Most Library ladies would have said, "Nevermind this parade. I'm going to get a barbecue sandwich and an elephant ear!" But not my staff. Nope, they're real troopers. They decided that they would hold the tree up during the ride over to the lineup, during the long wait for judging, during the whole Festival Parade!


Lifting library books makes for really strong, tough, tree-holding women.

About 15 minutes after this picture was taken, the parade float pulled out, and the skies opened. It rained and rained and rained on my library ladies, but they kept smiling and waving (to keep warm)!

They thought they were off the hook for the Float idea theft until the Are YOU Evergreen float pulled onto Main Street. AABs Christine and Britta heard two very friendly-looking people say "We're from Mooresville!!!" and they waved and waved! Then one of them said "We saw a float like that in our parade!"

So our Float was BUSTED. Twice!

AB Karen sent an Official Apology to Mooresville Library's Boss, Diane (they have a human boss!), who very graciously accepted. Libraries are very good about Sharing, I think.

Our book sale made a whopping $900+ dollars--that's a LOT of Temptations, friends! And my staff came in Monday and put everything in its proper place.

Except for that busted Evergreen tree. It's in the Dumpster.

Lastly but most definitely not least, I would like to say a special Thank You to Nina and Gerald Caldwell. You see, we recently ran out of "deposit bags" here at the library. . . the special ones they use for my nightly maintenance, you know? So AB Karen called and asked these kind folks if they had any bags to Share.


Now I can have even more treats! THANK YOU!!!!

It has been an exhausting two weeks. . . but I'm super-duper excited about tomorrow. Do you know what tomorrow is?

CAN'T WAIT!

Oh, and because there are way too many non-Tober pictures on here:


This is how I feel about the whole Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week. Which is fine, since I have Staff to do all the hard work!

Excited about tomorrow, YAY!

Tober

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Festival of the Floaty Book Sale, Part 2

Oh my. Let's see where I was in recounting Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week.

I remember. . . I was getting ready to tell you about the creation of the Stolen Float!

Well, my staff got all excited about another library's parade float. Mooresville Public Library, home of Roving Reporter extraordinaire Cauli le Chat, used the theme "Are YOU Evergreen?" for the Old Settlers Parade. Evergreen refers to the Evergreen Indiana Library System. Over 90 libraries in the state of Indiana use the same system to check out books and dvds and things, so when you search our online catalog, you can also search the library catalogs of all those libraries. Library users are able to use their Evergreen cards at these other libraries, and they can place holds on items that other libraries own. . . it's a pretty cool thing.

So I guess my staff figured since we share books & things, why not share a parade float? I suppose it's good that they at least MADE the float by themselves (but that's probably only because a Stolen Parade Float probably wouldn't hold up well on the interstate).

So here's what happened:

First they found an Evergreen tree and decorated it. (This is NOT a Christmas tree. It's an Evergreen tree.)


Then AB Karen saw it, said it was boring, and it needed more stuff.

Here is a shot of me with the tree in the background. I'm Investigating the scrapbooking things in the tote:


The Float-to-be arrived in a very unFloatlike state, so the staff and some very nice Volunteers got to work adding petal paper. This was fun for the first hour:


Notice all of the green grassy stuff. Please join me in hoping that next year's Festival of the Turning Leaves Parade theme is something like "Putt-Putt" or "Lawn Maintenance is Good" or "What's Your Favorite Color?" or something.

The library staff working on the Float cried big crocodile tears because they missed out on helping to move all of the furniture in the library. Luckily the sunshine and fresh air dried their tears quickly.

I helped with the furniture moving by staying out the the way. I was very Upset when I learned that my toilet was moved into a public area, but at least furniture moving gets done lastly before closing for the weekend.

It was decided that the Evergreen tree should stay inside, and that it would be added to the Float in the morning.

In the morning, the staff put the tree on the Float. Just when everything was arranged perfectly, and AB Karen was expertly fluffing the tree skirt, and AAB Christine was standing back to take a picture. . .

. . . the tree broke and fell down.

With that cliffhanger, I must relax my paws for another evening. I hope everybody can sleep tonight with all the suspense!

I will sign off with a special picture for my special girlCat, Miss Ali Zophia:


AAB Photographer thinks that this is a particularly good picture of me. I hope you like it!

Who knew a Float Story would take so many words?

Tober

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Festival of the Floaty Book Sale, Part 1

Last week was THAT week in my Library. You know, the week when the staff Ignores me, then moves ALL of my furnitures (including the toilet!!!!), then lets Strangers with funny booties into my building, and then moves stuff BACK on the following Monday.

Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week.

So I knew something was up when I saw cutout letters and huge pieces of paper lying around.


Am I Evergreen? Actually, I'm annoyed that all of this stuff is on my floor.

So first my Staff started working on the Float. Last year they had the Floatiest of All Floats, but this year they thought they would be Rebels and ignore the Festival theme. (The theme was Remember the Golden Oldies, but no one could agree on what a Golden Oldie was, so they gave up. Too much hard thinking.) Then they got super-rebellious and decided to borrow steal another library's parade theme. ("Borrowing" is when you ask first. More on that later.)

Anyway, once they got the preliminaries for the Stolen Float underway, they decided to set up the Humongous Book Sale.

For some reason the AABs were all excited when this sign was the first one out of the box:


This would have been helpful, except for the fact that the Very Nice Volunteers who showed up to help set up the sale really needed the signs that said stuff like fiction, nonfiction, VHS, etc. so that they could put things in the right places.

Luckily they found the signs before real Mayhem ensued. (You've never seen mayhem like Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week Mayhem!)

So the Book Sale got set up, thanks to the efforts of many Volunteers and Staff:


AAB Miss Shirley found lots of Stuffies that were put up for adoption during the sale. Here they are looking cute and adoptable:


Now, please take special note of the Stuffie on the bottom left of the picture. One of my ABs (oh wait, I only have ONE of those) took it upon herself to harass me with that Stuffie. This was uncalled-for behavior, and I made my displeasure known:


See my displeasure?

Okay, I think I'd better pause my telling of Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week right now. My pawpads are getting sore from all the typing and I really really need a snack.

Exhaustedly Yours,

Tober

PS The harassing Stuffie, and most of his friends, have been adopted by loving families.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Sharing

How to share a chair with a person:


Notice that my back is to the person. This allows me to push my feets against the back of the chair with all my might, ensuring that I have ample relaxation space.

This also helps to make the person look busy and alert. She will thank you for this later.

Let me know how your sharing experience goes!

Purrs,

Tober

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Long time, no blogging!

Hi everybody!

It's been two whole weeks since my last post! I've tried to at least snoop around on everyone's blogs a bit, but we've been "busy" here. I use the quotes because sometimes I suspect that helping me with my blog is not the High Priority Library Business that it should be. So there's all sorts of "busyness" going on that isn't very important, like:

1. A big long staff meeting during which I heard laughter,

2. Making a tree out of construction paper,

3. Putting stickers on books,

4. Eating lunch,

5. Having bored meetings and working on library budget things,

6. And, last but not least, planning for festival parade float book sale carpet cleaning mess week.

None of these things are as important as UPDATING MY BLOG. Here is how I have been spending my time:

Supervising staff:



Greeting customers:



Helping with decorations:



Guarding unattended belongings:



NOT BLOGGING because my helper is too "busy":



I can almost promise that I will have lots of posts later this month, because something about moving books and furnitures and making floaty parade floats inspires AAB Blog Helper to sit down at her desk and be a helpful Assistant. Maybe it's her way of shirking her Librarianly duties?

Purrs,

Tober

PS--I would like to issue a Formal Apology to AAB Linda White for urping on her very important papers. AAB Linda, I am the most sorry about that. You will need to cover your desk with a tarp from now on. (AB Karen should do this, too. Just in case.)