A Fan of My Man

We do not have central air in our house.  We have two window units, one in the living room and one in our nephew's bedroom, which when his door is open and our door is open does a good job of cooling both rooms.  Our room has a north facing window and when the nephew goes to bed and closes his door we can usually do okay with a box fan either in or out of the window, depending on how the air is outside.  

I personally am not a fan of window units, they are noisy and the one in the living room blows directly at my chair and after a while my eyes get really dry (another reason I don't want one in our bedroom).

Latif's favorite spot to sit is not in direct line with the air conditioner and I get cold before he gets comfortable, so there is at times a struggle.  Sometimes we compromise, and for the sake of my eyes, I bring the box fan into the living room and point it at him and make do with directing the already cooled and dried air at him.  The fan is also much quieter.  

Wednesday August 7th about 10:00pm when I decided to go to bed, I left Latif watching TV with the fan blowing on him.  About 4:30am I woke up in the bedroom with him next to me and it was uncomfortably warm.  I opened the window and could feel cooler air but needed a fan to pull it in. Problem was that when he came to bed he left the fan in the living room.  So in my semi awake overheated state I stumbled to the living room nearly tripping over our cat, Jazz, who was parked outside the bedroom door and then had some difficulty getting the fan unplugged and carried back to the bedroom so I could get it in the window.  The effect was most welcome but It was not a quiet process and I woke Latif up.  As I crawled back into bed I said to him, "You need to be sure to take the fan with you."  He gave me a sleepy "All right.  All right." And we both fell back asleep.

Fast forward a few hours and we're both up and dressed and ready to head off for day four of Vacation Bible School at Luther Memorial Chapel.  I've got my checklist of things to bring and am already thinking of what I have to do when I get to church and Latif is right behind me carrying our box fan.   I give him a quizzical look as he locks our back door and he asks, "Don't we have enough fans at church?"

"Of course we do" I reply "Six fans were donated a couple of years ago so there would be enough to go around"

"Then why do we need this one?" he asks.

"We don't." I say flatly

"So why am I bringing it?"

"I don't know."

"You said very clearly that I needed to be sure to take it with me."

I start laughing as I tried to explain that I meant not to leave it in the living room when he came to bed.  

"You were very emphatic about my needing to bring it" He says, then also starts laugh.

"Yes, at night, to the bedroom, so it's there when it gets too hot."  

"So not to church," he says.

At that point I'm laughing too hard to give an answer.   The fan was left in the garage until we got home from VBS when he was sure to bring it with him, back to the bedroom.

The moral of the story is never tell your husband something when he is not fully awake.

Jimmy's locked up

 I work at a public library branch and I love my job.  I do not save lives but in many small ways I help people.  Sometimes I locate books for them, like something to study for a nursing exam, or to fix plumbing or an author they want to read.  Sometimes I show off a database that might be helpful.  I relish those times that I get a college student taking online classes and I can put on my old instruction librarian hat and show them how to find peer reviewed articles.  But most of what I do is helping folks bridge the digital divide and print out, fill out, download and upload needed documents to function in the digital world.  There are about half a dozen folks at the new Fiserv Forum downtown that I helped submit applications, download employment contracts, scan and then upload employment documents.  I didn't get them the job, but they needed me to get their employer what was required.  I enjoy helping people.  

Now on a typical day, several hundred people come through the doors of the Martin Luther King branch.  I have never been good with matching names and faces.  It takes me a while and I have to make an effort.  So pretty much the only patrons I know the names of are the ones that are frequently in need of assistance (particularly those who regularly ask me to put holds on items for them so I see their name on my screen) or patrons who have caused trouble and I have had to fill out or read security reports about them.  By far the vast majority of folks I just don't remember.  The regular ones look familiar but I may never learn any of their names.  I'm friendly to everyone, so for the most part it is not a problem.

The branch I work at is not far from where I live.  I can (if I get my act together and the weather is right and I already have my lunch in the break room fridge) walk to work.  This means that occasionally when I’m out walking or shopping I will come across folks that I've met in the course of my work.   More than half the time I don't recognize them, but I assume if someone recognizes me it is because I helped them in some way.  I will engage in small talk and hope they don't expect me to know their name.

The other morning I was shopping at the local Walmart and as I put a pack of toilet paper in my cart an elderly black woman rolled her cart up to me and got a big smile on her face.  "Oh it's you!"

I nodded and smiled figuring her for a library patron.

"It's so good to see you." she said, then she got serious, "You know, Jimmy is locked up…. Yea….He doing a lot better now, but he's locked up."

I nodded and said, "Glad he's doing better"

"Yea.  Yea, He graduated from high School.  I was proud, but he's locked up now…. Still he doing better.  Sometimes he ask if I see any of his teachers…Not really."

I smiled and nodded.

"Well I am so glad I saw you.  I'll tell Jimmy.  This really made my day" and she walked  away smiling.

I have no idea who Jimmy is.  I'm not even sure if this woman knows who I am, but whoever she thinks I am, I'm glad I made her day, and I hope that Jimmy really is doing better.