(no subject)

[the_rck]

Sunday, Scott and I shopped while Cordelia was at a long birthday party. We got some candy for the stockings, a couple of small toys for Cordelia and her panda calendar. We had lunch at Bob Evans. I had a burger, and Scott had a chicken sandwich. We picked up a couple of dresses that I'd had made, one royal blue and one cherry red. That is a bit depressing because the seamstress is having trouble finding cloth (cotton interlock) these days. Her selection of colors is ever decreasing. She says it may come down to just black one day.

We spent a little time in Whole Foods, looking at caffeine free teas. Cordelia likes the idea of tea and keeps asking to have some when Scott and I do. She just doesn't like most teas and gets rapidly tired of the one tea she does like. We got red velvet chocolate tea and key lime hibiscus tea. When we tried them that night, Cordelia wasn't impressed with either. The key lime wasn't as sharp as I expected it to be. The red velvet chocolate was kind of okay, nothing special.

The librarian at Cordelia's school is sick. She has been for going on three weeks now and will be for several more weeks. (I have no idea what's wrong. Asking seemed none of my business.) This left the book fair in serious jeopardy.

Fortunately, the previous librarian, the one who worked at the school all the time Cordelia had been there before this year, is still in the same school district. She just moved to one of the high schools. The principal asked her if she could step in for one week and run the book sale, and she agreed.

Sunday evening, she sent out a limited call for volunteers, just people whose addresses she happened to have. She asked most urgently for help on Monday, help with setting up the fair and with helping some of the kids make their wishlists. Usually, I stay far away from set up and tear down so that I don't wear myself out or end up lifting something too heavy and hurting myself, but this year I knew there wouldn't be many other people to do it, so I showed up.

I worked about two and a half hours in the morning. That part was setting up displays, photocopying, cutting things apart, putting together flyers. There were two other women there, neither of whom stayed as long as I did. I went home for lunch. The librarian offered to pick up food for me, but I had no money, and she was going to Qdoba. I have to be extremely careful about what I get there due to not tolerating tomatoes and peppers.

In the afternoon, I helped with a class of kindergartners. They all wanted the expensive, showy stuff. There are a lot of really great looking (and much cheaper!) books further into the sale, but most of the kids never got that far. Once they were gone, the librarian and I redid about four tables to put tablecloths on them. About then, another woman showed up to help. She worked on the display board for teacher wishlists (there are pockets for each teacher that hold slips of paper with book titles and prices. Parents who want to can purchase those books and donate them to the classroom). I started in on labeling the last book in each stack. Those last books aren't supposed to be sold. The label on them lets the cashiers know that they have to fill out a form to order a copy for later delivery. I did that until I ran out of labels. Then I spent a while with the paper cutter. Then I labeled more books.

By the time I went home, I was aching all over. I spent most of the rest of the day sitting and trying to recover. Fortunately, the aches are gone today. I'm never sure how that's going to go, and I got lucky this time.

Comments

[kyrielle]

Yikes. Thank you for helping so with the book fair - glad recovery went okay!

As far as tea, what's the tea she does like? *curious*

[the_rck]

She sometimes likes the chocolate mint tea we've got. She'll often drink that completely, but the last time we made it for her she said she was tired of it. We have a rooibus with vanilla and strawberry flavors that she had once and drank. It's lower on the list because it smells kind of nasty even though it tastes good.

[kyrielle]

Huh. I hated chocolate mint tea and can't stand most red teas (most), so I don't think I should say "I loved x, maybe she will!"

However. I have a lot of tea samplers that had two of each flavor and I didn't like them, and a few teas I like that she *might* also like. Would you be interested in having me send them your way for her to try, or would that be un-helpful?

[the_rck]

We'll happily take whatever extras you've got. There's no rush, however. I'd suggest waiting until some time in January when the post office isn't likely to be so crazy.

[kyrielle]

Boxed up. I'll try to turn it over to the tender mercies of the post office today or tomorrow. (I go after-hours and use the self-service machine at our local one - pick the right hours and there's not much competition - but even so I agree the holiday rush is not the time for it. Everyone by now has either shipped or is out of luck, though, so it should work. Hehe.)

As an aside, all the tea is inside ziploc bags in addition to its own protective packaging, so if the box gets soaked, the tea should still be okay. :)

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Is your seamstress still my next door neighbor? If so, cool! She's really nice.

I'm glad the school rescued the Book Fair, and glad that you bounced back okay from working to make it happen. I hope the missing librarian is okay -- three weeks is a long time to be out sick.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I think it is Really Weird that cotton interlock fabric is disappearing from the world. I am baffled about why things disappear like that.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I went to ebay and typed in "cotton interlock fabric" and got lots of search results. That might be a useful way to find it in the future, once it disappears from everywhere.

[the_rck]

I googled the same terms and found cloth for sale. None of what I saw was stuff I'd be willing to wear, though. It was all cutesy patterns that would have been fine when I was three. I'll check E-bay, though. Maybe they'll have some decent, solid colored stuff in colors I like.

[the_rck]

The seamstress says that she suspects it's a matter of tightening budgets. The companies that make the cloth are only making enough for their big customers and not supplying any for sale through the outlets she uses. People can't afford to keep inventory around, waiting for it to sell. She said the only two colors she was able to get on her most recent shopping expedition were black and lime green.

[the_rck]

The seamstress is your neighbor. She does good work. I like her.

The missing librarian said when I e-mailed her that she'd be sick for several more weeks. Whatever it is must be serious. Hopefully, she'll be back in January. It's hard on the kids. They're not getting any time with the computers while she's out, and they're supposed to be learning a lot of different things about computer programs and such from her.