Saturday afternoon and Google Books!

Today I felt as though I was either PMS'ing (I never know now when that could happen) or it was a full moon or everyone was a bit "slow". One of those days when the reference questions do not stop and that cup of coffee I was going to drink just got cold too fast. Another 6.5 hours on the reference desk.

A woman came in looking for a poem by Phyllis McGinley - she said it was called 531 and was about a man coming home on a train. Looked around a bit, saw people huffing and puffing standing behind her, placed 1 request for another title for her and an ILL request for another title for her and told her I'd look for her poem and give her a call.

It slowed down for a bit a few minutes later and after Googling the poetess' name and 531 and train, etc. etc. I found a link to google books with the poem (which is quite lovely but called The 5:32). It was in the Bartlett's Poems for Occasions which PX owns and I copied it for the customer & called her on her cell - she came back 15 minutes later to pick up the poem. YAY!! Read the poem:

The 5:32

She said, If tomorrow my world were torn in two,
Blacked out, dissolved, I think I would remember
(As if transfixed in unsurrendered amber)
This hour best of all the hours I knew:
When cars came backing into the shabby station,
Children scuffing the seats, and the women driving
With ribbons around their hair, and the trains arriving,
And the men getting off with tired but practical motion.

Yes, I would remember my life like this, she said:
Autumn, the platform red with Virginia creeper,
And a man coming toward me, smiling, the evening paper
Under his arm, and his hat pushed back on his head;
And wood smoke lying like haze on the quiet town,
And dinner waiting, and the sun not yet gone down.

Subscribing to Google Blog

OK - did it. But don't see myself having time to follow it. I don't even have time to put aside to really get managing my own blog down.

I will admit that I found the article on the designs seen on the ocean floors to be interesting. I'd much rather be spending $2billion on mapping the ocean floor than sending folks to Mars or LOTS OF OTHER THINGS.