I'm sooooo happy about my library card too. Book are expensive here. Expensive enough to give me pause and that is expensive (because I am a book-buying junkie). Paperbacks are $15 - $25. Hardbacks are $35 - $50. For someone with my kind of book habit, that's a rude shock. I brought a bunch of books with me but most of them are non-fiction and/or reference.Fiction withdrawl -- it's not be a pretty thing.
So while my closest branch here has a pretty small fiction collection, there are 20 or 30 libraries in their system and between them they have a decent selection. I checked out 2 books within an hour of owning that much-coveted library card and put a hold on 8 more for when they're available.
(I went back today and checked out two more but they're cookbooks so that's reference so that isn't really the same, is it?)
OH, and joy of joys, I discovered today that they carry the Washington Post! It's a photocopy in B&W but it's 7 days a week and it's only one day behind and it includes the comics, even on Sunday!
Yes, Justin, I am a nerd. Full-blown and unrepentent.What I need to do is troll bookstores for titles, write them down, and then run to the library. Imagine the way a gaggle of kids run when they hear the ice cream truck and someone has just put a dollar in their sweaty little hands....the mental image you have is the working definition of "higgledy piggledy" and it's how I would run from the bookstore to the library.
The library also seems to have some very interesting people working in it. The young lady, Lucy, who helped me sign up for the library card (and if she's not a young hip lesbian, I've lost my gaydar) also helped me figure out what's happening with a book club that meets there this Wednesday. She even helped me find the book they're reading, which wasn't even back on the shelves yet, it was in the to-be-shelved racks (a long-ish book but it's about a murder mystery in a polygamous Mormon sect in Utah; I'm already 1/2 of the way through it and I only got it on Friday. Pretty good read.).
("The 19th Wife", David Ebershoff)And THEN she told me there were actually a couple of book clubs but she didn't know enough about them herself, made a phone call, and suggested I talk to Via down on the first floor, and Via was expecting me.
Well. My goodness! She was the very model of not just customer service but interested customer service who seemed to be happy that she could help me so much.
When I asked what Via looked like, she said "she's kinda short with short hair and she's Canadian". And I thought "oh, yeah, 'cause you can always spot a Canadian in a crowd...".
So I found Via downstairs and chatted with her and she was extremely helpful and even told me about a sort of "avid readers" party they're hosting after hours this week. I told her about the whole "....and she's Canadian" thing (because I'm evil) and she said "Oh, who said that!?" and I told her and she laughed and said "I'm so gonna get her for that".
I think I'm gonna like this place. Spunky librarians. You gotta love 'em.
The reason it took me so long to get my library card is that I needed something with my name and my address on it. The lease, since it comes with Jeff's contract, has his name on it. So I've been waiting for mail. Several friends -- Tina, Judi, and Kitty in particular -- told me they had sent things.
However, I don't have a mailbox key. And therein lies the biggest aggravation I've faced since coming here. I've been asking (politely and now not so politely) several times a week for more than 2 weeks for this key and still don't have it.
We know that the property management company we're working with owns multiple properties downtown. We've come to suspect that our particular property management agent has gotten into the habit of using our apartment as his own pied-a-terre here in the city (he lives about an hour away). Why? I've gotten more than one business call for him on the apartment phone here.
We also checked out the mailbox, rattled the door a bit, and determined that it was pretty full of mail, though we didn't think most of it was ours. And our agent has been most reluctant to give us the key.
He has come up with plan after plan, scheme after scheme, delaying tactic after delaying tactic. All intent upon not giving us the mailbox key.He said he'd check the mail for us -- once a week, mind you -- and slip it under our door.
No.
He said he'd prefer we have our mail forwarded to another mailbox here in the building, which (again) he would check for us (once a week).
Not only "no" but "huh"?
He suggested we rent a mailbox at the local post office, which we could check every day if we wanted to.
Oh hell no!
He suggested it would be...well, he didn't say "illegal" but implied it would be illegal since the mailbox contains mail from previous tenants who haven't properly forwarded their mail.
No. (Also, I don't care about other people's mail. I'm happy to leave it there and if they aren't tenants here anymore, how much legal claim can they possibly have on the mailbox?)
Today he informed me that it's against corporate policy to give us a mailbox key because we didn't pay the deposit, etc., Jeff's employer did.
Huh? OK.....so give them the key????
But he also said he has only one master key and he put in the order almost a week ago to have a copy made, theoretically for us. Takes 7 - 14 days, sometimes longer!, but should be ready next week or maybe the week after that....in the meantime, how about he checks our mail twice a week?
Seriously, dude? You're starting to sound more than a little desperate.
If I wasn't so pissed off, it would be funny.
But I'm pissed off and I'm about to go all in-your-face-American on him. What I actually suspect is that the mail in the mailbox is not, as he suggested, for former tenants but for him and he doesn't want us seeing his mail. Also, maybe he wasn't supposed to be using the apartment as his own.
Either that or the mailbox is a drug drop. Which I normally actually wouldn't care too much about, except I am so not willing to risk my Australian visa for this.
The saga continues.
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