The Wanderlust Librarian | Drive the car , unload the car, and tune out

Camping is one of those little luxuries that everybody should try at least once. I started my camping career pretty late in life. It was about 10 years ago and my friend invited me and Scout to spend a long weekend in Bodega Bay. Having never camped, I brought a borrowed tent and an additional (borrowed) sleeping bag.

Camping: evoking memories of singalongs by the campfire, s'mores and the woods, waking up and looking grungy (and liking it!)

This looks like a house. Seriously. There's a side table. :/

Glamping: real beds, a couch, a heater and something resembling a living room under something resembling a gigantic tent

I've done my share of tent camping. I'm proud to say I've learned to cook outdoors (thanks to my friend inviting me to many camping trips and cooking alongside an amazing chef), pitch a tent (albeit with help) and build an effective campfire (thanks YouTube!). 

Our (tent) cabin in the woods

The beds were comfy! 

A while back, I went to the Big Basin Redwoods Campgrounds in the Santa Cruz Mountains with my daughter Scout and our friends Emma and Taylor. It was a long ride but worth every foresty minute. As the crow flies, it's about 40 minutes outside of San Jose...but as the car rides 25 miles per hour around windy mountain passes and blinding sunlight, it felt like 2 hours away from creation! It was one of the only times I've felt nauseous driving. Like a small child, when I got to the campsite, I was cranky, hungry... and needed a nap. Luckily, I was met with a tent cabin. A no frills wooden structure with 2 queen beds and a wood burning heater. Emma and Taylor had arrived before Scout and I did so they had set up a lot of the standard camping things.   

This left us time to do other things like cook great food and hike. This bloggess did NOT go on a hike with her friends and offspring. I stayed behind and cleaned camp. And read Gone, Girl. And napped. And made a sandwich. And napped. 

Oh.. and I scared away a big crow that was trying to attack our food. When it flew towards me, I ran away. 

C O O K I E!!! 

Camp oven! 

Lizzie brought her trusty camp oven. It's an amazing metal box that goes over the camp stove. The stove heats the oven and you bake things as you would at home. We had biscuits for breakfast and dinner and she made a huge, warm cookie that we had for dessert by the fire. It was fabulous. It broke the monotony of the smores that most people enjoy (we had them on another night). 

New Polaroid pictures are teeny tiny! 

Camping is always about relaxing in the quiet, having fun and enjoying the company of friends and family WITHOUT smartphone interruption. It was hard to not have pictures to share at the very moment things happened, but we survived. Taylor brought a Polaroid camera. Yes... they're back! We were able to take pictures of us and give them to the Camp Host next door as a Thank You for being so sweet to us over our stay. 

Our pictures are few but the memories are abundant! Take a camping trip nearby! The library has some fantastic books to help you plan your outdoor adventure.

Outdoor adventure is...outdoors! 

Do you have any camping tips or questions about our trip? Leave them in the comments below. 

xoxo

The Bloggess

The picture is blurry, but the food was fantastic! 

Trees. Awesome. Smell. Good. 

Scout on a log. Over a bog. Being weird. 

A pretty waterfall on the hike

Book Bucket List | Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich

I love October.  It's the beginning of fall, it's finally cooling off, and we have the holidays coming up.  This year, the county wide reading program, One Book One San Joaquin is also in October!  This year we are featuring the Gothic classic, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.  For kids, we are promoting an awesome picture book by Adam Rex called Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.  There are many stories and poems in this book and the art is pretty amazing.  This book has been flying off our shelves here in Manteca and will also be the theme to many craft programs throughout the county.

If you want to get in the spirit of Halloween and celebrate this creative book, join us at one of our Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich programs!

Friday, October 10 at 3:30 pm - Cesar Chavez Central Library

Tuesday, October 14 at 4:00 pm - Manteca Branch Library

Thursday, October 16 at 4:00 pm - Tracy Branch Library

Monday, October 27 at 6:30 pm - Mountain House Branch Library

So come to your local branch and check out your copy of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.  Also check out our website for more One Book, One San Joaquin program information!

Learning | Ombudsman

Ombudsman

Recently, a co-worker stumbled across the word ombudsman while she was helping the customer look up some federal government job titles.  We talked about what an odd word it is.  

I remember an Ombudsman's Office at my undergraduate alma mater; it helped people get through red tape with things like housing, financial aid, legal matters, and so forth. But I never really looked up the word, and wondered where it came from.

I did look the word up in the dictionary; you will find the definition and etymology at the end of this post.  I'm hiding it at the end, because I want to show you a few things about using SSJCPL's website, www.ssjcpl.org.

Consulting the library catalog

I started by searching the catalog. I used both the classic and shiny new beta catalog, and found the same results in each of them. (Try out the shiny new catalog, and let us know what you think! We are still testing it and tweaking it a little bit, but it won't be long before it's the default search on our site.)

The only result from a keyword catalog search for ombudsman was

The Baby Boomer's Guide to Nursing Home Care. 

The catalog suggested trying the term ombudspersons, which yielded a 1973 document from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare: Child advocacy : report of a national baseline study

Just Life | Parent's Guide To The Common Core

If you are as clueless as moi about the new common core system in schools, I got good news for you.

At Troke, we just received these books called " A Parent's guide to common core."

Here are these books.

• A Parent's guide to common core. Grade 3

• A Parent's guide to common core. Grade 4

• A Parent's guide to common core. Grade 5

• A Parent's guide to common core. Grade 6  

Since I have a 4th grader and I don't know anything about this new common core system, I feel lucky to come across these books by accident. 

Don't forget that you can place any of these books on hold and pick it up from your local library in just a few days.

I hope you find these books useful.

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha

Just Life| Healing Foods

I was working at Chavez Library last Monday, when this book " The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods" caught my eye. 

So, here I was browsing through this book trying to find the fountain of eternal health.

Here is a little quote at the beginning of this book from Hippocrates:

" Let your food be your medicine and let your medicine be your food."

Recently, I have been hearing a lot about the the benefits of eating arugula. 

Let's see what this book says about it.

According to this book, arugula is an excellent source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Folic Acid, and the list of its benefits goes on and on. Here, it says that arugula has anti-cancer properties as well. Who knew such a bitter little leaf has so much healing power.

The book also mentions that broccoli can also protect you against cancer. 

Eat your vegetables ladies and gentlemen. That is today's message.

According to this book, the American Cancer Society recommends eating cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli to decrease your chances of getting cancer.

Is also says to eat Brussels sprouts. I think I'll take my chances with cancer. I refuse to eat Brussels sprouts. Those things are gross.

Here is another interesting fact from this book; carrots have the highest level of Pro-Vitamin A among commonly used vegetables. Beta-Carotene found in carrots protect the eyes against Macular Degeneration.

Here are a few books on this topic. 

The encyclopedia of natural medicine 

Eat well, stay well : 500 delicious recipes made with healing foods

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha

Just Life| The Enemy

The other night, I was reading " The Enemy, a book about peace" by Davide Cali to my daughter. The book is a very short story about two soldiers from the opposite sides of a war. 

These two soldiers are both inside their trenches holding their ground so to speak.

Here is a few lines from this book:

"The enemy is there, but I have never seen him. Every morning, I shoot at him. Then he shoots at me. We both stay hidden the rest of the day, waiting."

Then the book goes on...

" ..... the enemy and I have nothing in common. He is a wild beast. He doesn't know mercy. I know this because I read it in my manual."

Then Soldier Number One disguises himself and crawls to the enemy's trench. It is empty. There are pictures of the enemy's family. His wife, the enemy, and his three children. 

Then, in the enemy's trench, he finds a manual exactly like his own.

" This manual is full of lies. I am a man, not a monster. I am not the one who started this war." 

I am going to keep this book in mind for the rest of my life.

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha

The Wanderlust Librarian | And there shall be Comic-Con

Another ComicCon year has passed and I was able to fulfill a fantastic dream and go to this magical place with my daughter, Scout! This year was a little different than previous years. First off, there was no Doctor Who panel (ludicrous given the fact that the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, was to make his debut a scant few weeks AFTER the Con). Secondly, we were making the trip by car. 

By. Car. 

Keep in mind that the only way I had traveled to San Diego was in an airplane. Last year, I did this as a bucket list item upon arrival. 

The drive was long and full of traffic. And traffic. And some weird car issues that I'd rather forget (like those stupid hotel nachos). On the bright side, Scout and I had a proper road trip, enjoyed an overnight with friends in Los Angeles and listened to a ton of David Sedaris thanks to OverDrive and the library's audiobook collection! We took some time to stop and have some fun to and from San Diego. 

Drinks are the best reason to stop! 

Someone needed to get their energy out. 

I don't want to cheapen my experience at ComicCon by telling you that it was fun. It was more than fun. It was simply... amazing. 

The picture doesn't really show just how close she is! 

No, Michael Rooker... YOU rock!

We spent a lot of time going to panels at Zachary Levi's Nerd HQ. It's at Petco Park. It's free for anybody to go and enjoy. There are tons of free video games, picture opportunities and lovely views of the Padre's ballpark. I spent many happy hours off my feet in a stadium chair enjoying the breeze. One of Scout's big deals was being able to attend the Walking Dead panel there. For the bargain basement price of $22, she sat withing feet of the cast as fans asked questions about the show. It was worth it to not sleep outdoors for the panel at ComicCon the next day. The questions were asked in an intimate setting as opposed to a 3500+ seat auditorium. During a free panel at Nerd HQ, Scout was able to get Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon-Walking Dead) to pose for her. For $20, you can get a picture with one of the parade of stars coming to do panels at NerdHQ. Scout got her picture taken with Zac Levi !

Yeah. She went crazy before and after
this picture was taken. 

There were a lot of free things to do if you weren't able to snag a ticket to get into the ComicCon proper. Outside of Petco Park, the parking lot was taken over by many booths and MORE free stuff! Out of the many booths behind the stadium, I really enjoyed a couple. Every Simpsons Ever advertised the showing of every Simpsons episode and gave out free blue (Marge hair) cotton candy and donut pillows. There was a Hello Kitty Experience which allowed you to take a picture with the iconic Sanrio character and get free nail art! All of this was free!!!

It wouldn't be ComicCon without the costumes. Cosplay (as defined by the Oxford dictionary) is: the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and and anime. Many people also dressed up as their favorite television characters. 

 I love this Up cosplay. Kevin is a girl! 

People get darn creative!
I love this DeadMaus/Nyan Cat mashup!

         

Stars from the show, "Heroes of Cosplay"

Movies, television and video games are heavily promoted at ComicCon. From booths to bags, posters to pins, there was never a lack of free items for one to snag. I met and discovered a lot of amazing artists at ComicCon. They had booths in an area called Artists Alley. Some of my favorites are: 
Katie Cook, Patrick Ballesteros, Karen Hallion, and Pascal Campion

I have a friend who is an expert (to me) on comic book art. He took me around to every booth and we looked at every bit of art. My friend talked to a lot of the artists and I appreciated the work they did and how iconic they were in the comic book stratosphere. It was one of the best walking days I've had. I learned a lot about comic book history and appreciated the talent that was at the show. 

Mockingjay had a huge presence at ComicCon.
Scout rebels against the Capitol! 

ComicCon is the perfect place to advertise
new games....and pose with them! 

Selfies in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! Our hotel had a free photo booth to advertise
the show Ascension. As  you can tell, we took full advantage of it. 

Security was a large presence in the hotel entrance and lobby. The entrants had to go up to the 4th floor pool entrance (our floor!!) to get to the party so it was easy to loiter around and sneak a peek before the celebrities went into the fete.

Scout and Matt Bennett

Saturday night was a huge night for Scout and the other kids in our room. It was the night of the Entertainment Weekly party. With good eyes and polite asking, Scout got a hug from Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead (Daryl Dixon), a dark (not visible at all) pic with Matt Smith (Doctor Who) and Matt Bennett (Robby Shapiro) from VicTorious. Scout wants to add, "If you want to take a picture with a celebrity, make sure to call them by their REAL name and not the character they portrayed. 

This didn't mean that I didn't see anybody noteworthy! I had my share of elbow rubbing. I had to be quick on my feet and ready to ask at a minute's notice. I was starstruck by the passing by of Orlando Bloom, so my friend took a quick picture. 

Andy Serkus (voice of Golem) and
Orlando Bloom walking around.

This year was made extra special by having Scout with me. It was truly a dream come true for me and an amazing experience for her. Should you do it if it's your dream?

Yes. 

Like I said, even if you don't have a ticket to go into the convention center, there is SO much to do in and around ComicCon. 

Until next time, SCIENCE! (and a picture of me with Grant Inahara).

I ran out of line just to take picture with Grant Inahara from
Mythbusters!! 

The ride home made us sad.