Saturday Night at the ER

I tripped over the base of a bike rack on the sidewalk outside the YMCA on 63rd Street this weekend. I went down hard, fracturing my wrist (and my tough girl image) in the process. The doctors and nurses at Roosevelt Hospital were very pleasant. Although hanging in traction, being poked with needles, and having my wrist bones stretched and twisted was not my idea of fun, I can report that the big city ER was not anything like you see on TV shows. The staff did not keep up a constant barrage of amusing banter and witticisms. There were no romantic involvements between handsome residents and fetching hospital administrators. Unshaven, maverick medical genius diagnosticians sporting canes were conspicuously absent. Instead, everyone was boringly professional. When several NYC cops led a handcuffed prisoner in, I thought I'd see some drama at last. However the guy was quiet, well-groomed, and did not appear to be ruffled by his incarceration in the least. So much for entertainment vs. real life. Anyhow, I am now featuring a "half cast" on my right arm and learning to do everything left-handed. Our readers may have to get along with less regular infusions of my prose, however speech-to-text software could provide an answer. Let's try it:

uiyer lwkuhfg gd lkj

OK, well, maybe not.

Confessions of a Library Hooligan

The sleepy Concord Library simmered in the March sunshine like a sausage on a street vendor's cart. I gave the joint the once over and entered, lugging a bag big enough for a circus elephant to nap in. A snooty society dame at the desk gave me the hairy eyeball. She got a hard look from me in return. I cruised the DVD stacks until I found what I wanted -- an obscure Russian film that in one, long, mystifying take takes in every room of the Hermitage -- then took my stash up front. I was in no mood to show my card to the authorities. Hell, no. Strictly self checkout for me. The laser flashed in my hands like a paintbrush in Picasso's. Thirty seconds later I was out the front door, burning rubber on some dusty back road. I can tell you this: the Concord branch hasn't seen the last of me.

A Notch & a Nosh

The Wellesley Library? Just another notch in my belt. I hit the joint on Saturday, a library card in each fist. A smart-mouthed Reference Desk yokel gave me some lip, but I just breezed past him into the DVD stacks, where I snatched up an obscure indy flick that hadn't made it to my local biblioteque.

Stopped at a local hash house and eyeballed their menu. What's a gal have to do to rustle up some grub in these parts? And bring me a double boilermaker -- no, make that a single -- in a dirty glass. Yep, dig the tony surroundings. After all, it is Wellesley.

Ban the Bandura

Only Harvard could get away with erecting a building this big in Cambridge. How big is it? I'm glad you asked that question. It's so big, it's got its own zip code. It's so big, it makes the great wall of China look like a guide rail. It's so big, black holes fall into it. It's so big...ah, you get the idea. Seriously, the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing complex designed by architect Robert Stern covers two city blocks and is apparently part of the Harvard Law School's evil plot to dominate the planet Earth. Talk about your ivory tower: its front windows are each as tall as a city bus standing on end (about 50 feet). My pet name -- I can hardly bring myself to use diminuitive -- for this behemoth is the Reichstag, though my ancestors would probably call it a big bandura, a gourd-like string instrument that Ukrainians refer to as a synonym for all things large and unwieldy.

Annual Retort

This is the time of year that most companies spend a load of dough to impress their stockholders. They make much ado about gross profits and fiscal outlooks with the aid of slick photography and high gloss paper stock. Not me. I blaze my own trail, so to speak. Anyone who wants to call and ask me how I'm doin' is welcome to. Otherwise, I ain't publicizing which alleged mattress is stuffed with what quantity of alleged cash.

Risky Business II

Time to take a break from my budding career as a library hooligan and return to one of my favorite interests: weird signage, especially the kind with explosive possibilities. My latest find concerns a blow-up that's more than just potential. This one's actually scheduled and publicized. A blinking message board posted on a certain road warned me that BLASTING BEGINS today. That's the kind of thing that makes me run to duck and cover!

On the Library Lam

I pulled my heap up to the branch library in Wayland and gave the joint the up-and-down. It looked an easy mark. Inside, JoeY and I glommed the loot no problem. A dizzy skirt and a skinny number with a big nose did the scanning thing at the desk. That was jake with me until the sucker with the schnozzle piped something about a 14-day loan. I told the dumb mug to get his mitts off the marbles before I played some chin music on his mush. "Tell your moll to hand over the mazuma," sez I. She did. We promptly scrammed out, jumped in the flivver and faded.

Wild in the Stacks

OK, I confess to taking part in a rash of hit-and-run branch library knockovers. JoeY first masterminded the idea of recklessly searching the online catalogue to find out-of-town libraries with attractive selections of DVDs and books, and grabbing the choicest pickings in daring daylight raids. I quickly became his wheelman and willing accomplice. It goes like this: we blow into some hayseed burg and swagger right up to the local branch like we own the joint. JoeY piles up a thick stack of books while I point my card at the help and announce "We're takin' these out!" It's plenty allreet by me if those stiffs get their jollies by bar-code scanning when they hand over the loot -- as long as they hand it over. Before they know what hit 'em, we're outta there for a clean getaway. The latest notch in our belts was the sleepy little Winchester Library. Of course, the staff was docile and cooperative. They never expected to deal with the likes of me. Metrowest librarians, beware: I just may sidle up to your counter packin' heat in the form of a Minuteman Network library card and say the words, Check me out, will ya?