Help Wanted

WANTED: A useful, friendly, responsible human to help me post *regularly* on my World-Famous Blog.  The Successful applicant must (a) be willing to share a chair, (b) keep gum wrappers and Temptations treats in her desk drawer, (c) give good tummy rubs, and (d) pretend not to know where I am when there are more than three (3) children looking for me at once.

Seriously, it is FINDING MONTH and we haven't even had a Festival/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week wrap-up yet!

I asked Photographer to take some pictures of my Library when it's a Big Mess.  On Festival Saturday (which, in feline time, was about four months ago) AB Karen has the library carpet cleaned.  This is a one-time-a-year thing, so my staff huffs and puffs and moans and groans and moves ALL (well, most) of the furnitures off of the carpet.  Except for things like book cases and hundred-year-old desks and stuff.

Here are a bunch of chairs To Be Cleaned:

Here is part of my Library minus Stuff:

Here is Stuff in weird places:

While all of the carpet cleaning FUN was going on in my Library (and under my supervision), my staff was busy Floating in the Thorntown Festival of the Turning Leaves Parade.

Here's some of my library staff.  We have Little Red Riding Hood (and Big Bad Woof Wolf), Edgar Allan Poe, Mother Goose, Mother Goose's sidekick, a Mad Hatter, and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz!

The Thorntown Heritage Museum entered a Float in the Parade, too.  It features two barn quilts that are going to be on the Boone County Barn Quilt Trail someday.

AB Karen is frowning at the sunshine--but it was the only picture Photographer had that didn't show someone's backside.  I was a-ok with showing backsides (mine is on here all the time!), but ladies seem to take issue with that sort of thing.  Huh.

After all of the Floating and Book Sale-ing and Carpet Cleaning, it was time to move the furnitures back on Monday morning.  This would be everyone's most favorite day of the year to call in sick--but they don't, because the rest of the staff would know that the "sick" person is full of malarkey!

Every furniture gets polished and shined and put back in its proper place.  Here I am investigating a printer cabinet that hasn't quite made its way home yet:

The worst thing about the whole process is that it becomes very difficult for a BossCat to find a comfortable place the sit.  The desks can get downright Dangerous.  It's a good thing I'm so brave and mancatly!

There you have it!  My re-cap of Festival of the Turning Leaves/Book Sale/Carpet Cleaning/Mess Week!  If you will notice, it was very light on the "Book Sale"--that's because we had lots of super Volunteers who set up the Book Sale, watched over it during the weekend, and helped to dismantle it and box up the leftovers.  AAB Photographer and the rest of my Assistants are very thankful for our Friends of the Library and volunteers. 

That was a Huge post--I need a nap!

Oh, and do you know what TOMORROW is????

Purrs,

Tober

An Official Visit

Last week Thorntown Public Library received a special delivery in our Interlibrary Loan bags!

Flat Cauli V, emissary of Cauli le Cat, the Original Feline Roving Reporter, has been sent on a Library Critter World Tour--and TPL has the honor of being the very first stop!

Cauli le Chat is from Mooresville Public Library in Mooresville, Indiana. Sound familiar? My staff stole their 2011 Festival of the Turning Leaves float idea from them.

Anyhoo, Cauli has a library blog and writes about all sorts of things interesting to cats (and people, and other critters, too). She's great about posting Breaking Library News and links to MPL book trailers and sometimes even music videos.

Since she's so busy, she sent Flat Cauli V (Flat Five) to represent her on the Library Critter World Tour.

We'll get along just fine. . . as soon as she gets out of my chair:

I'm just kidding. I'll share my chair. I have lots.

Maybe we can do some co-Bossing and I can whip my staff into shape. Suppers are getting later and later and I had to ask TWICE for catnip today.

I think Flat Five and I make an intimidating pair!

The Host with the Most,

Tober

PS I am crossing my paws that this post comes out looking okay. AAB Blog Helper about had a conniption fit when she saw that the Blogger interface had changed. When I told her to quit whining, she said it was kind of like when your people change your food with no advance warning. Or move your litter box to another room.

Bad news.

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

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

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.

My Library has the floatiest float and the cleanest carpets!

Hi everybody,

I am happy to report that everything is almost back to Normal here. It was a hectic weekend, but I survived!

My Library float won the Grand Champion of all the Floats in the Festival of the Turning Leaves Parade! The theme was "These are a few of our favorite things" and the Library's favorite things were Chocolate, Cats, Gourds, Smiles, and Books (not necessarily in that order) and that wad of tinfoil turned out to be a Sterno can and that card table turned into a giant Fondue Pot! (Sorry about all the ands. I'm a little excited!)


If you look to the right side of the shot, you will see the scary Imposter Tober lying (embarrassingly) face-down on a cushion. He is earning his place in the storage room by working as my Stunt-Double.

Here's the thing from the back of the Float of Excellence:


We also book-saled a LOT of books over the weekend. Over one half of the 80 boxes of books we put out for the sale found good homes, and people donated lots of moneys for the Friends of the Library to use for programs and things. (The moneys would also buy lots of Whisker Lickins.)

While my Staff and my Stunt-Double were lying around on an Award-Winning Float enjoying the parade, I was hard at Work snoopervising the cleaning of the Library carpets. To clean the carpets, my coworkers had to get all of the Stuff (except books & shelves) off of the carpets.

I took this literally:


This position made me very Tall and authoritative.


In other exciting news, my Library Staff discovered FURminators last week. Now, normally I wouldn't use this Esteemed Blog to advertise something unless I think it's pretty special. . . but I was quite impressed with the results of my FURmination last week, so my Staff ordered a box of FURminators so they can take them home for their house-dogs and -cats. I highly recommend them to all Animals who have extra furs they don't want.

The order arrived today, so if you fly over Indiana in the middle of the night, don't be surprised if you see a cloud of furs obscuring the Thorntown. That's a cloud of Happiness.

Proud and Recently DeFURminated Boss of TPL,

Tober

Festival parade float book sale carpet cleaning mess week.

Hello friends. This is the week that my staff tears up my Library and makes big messes so they can float and sell books on Saturday.

Oh, wait. I'm being told that's not quite what happens.

Okay, so the Friends of the Library are having a Big Book Sale this weekend, and that has to be set up. And the Library staff is making a float for the Thorntown Festival of the Turning Leaves, which is also this weekend. And they are taking all of the things off of the carpet on Friday so that the carpets can be cleaned, which is also this weekend.

Basically I was right the first time, except the staff doesn't really float.

Look at what they have done to my dining room and restroom area!!!!!


And the desk!!!! Look at the desk!!!!!


How is a cat supposed to fit up there?

If you think that is a mess, you should see the big card table parked by the elevator with a wad of tin foil underneath it. No telling what they think they're going to do with that. . . but I'll post pictures when they figure it out!

I did get to try envelope glue today, which I decided was pretty foul, and I had a smallbit of tape when no one was looking. I also found that it was necessary to interrupt to get some attention. The below distraction combines an irresistible tummy stretch with screwing up the letters in the poster-banner thing that AAB Britta was working on:


It worked like a charm.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better in the treat department, too. I feel I'm getting thin from this day of Neglect and messmaking.

Purrs (but weak ones from all the Neglect),

Tober