Candy

The week at work was interesting. I usually don’t work seven days in a row, but these are exceptional times. These upcoming days will be my last workdays for several months, so I have to clear my desk and file away documents. I have noticed that I have an incredible amount of private things here also (mostly relating to family history research). We have had several meetings and I have written a few instruction manuals for my colleagues. They have started to show signs of nervousness and ask me a lot of questions. I’m the one who has been in the stacks the longest and has the most knowledge of the old catalogue. We’ll see how it goes without me. (One colleague suggested that they could scan the request slip and mail it to me, if they had problems finding the book)…

The major thing that happened at work was the arrival of a large display case and about 40 kilos of candy! It was the result of my name being drawn as first prize winner in a consumer competition. I understood it would be large box, so I asked to have it delivered to work instead of my apartment. I put the case in the staff lunchroom and poured the candy into the different spaces. It was a huge success, of course. Many of my colleagues took photos and posted on their facebook-pages (even the library boss did that). They were curious, so I explained the concept of consumer competitions and why my family takes an interest in this (it actually goes back to the mid 1980’s when my mother won some candy).

And like it knew I was going on vacation, the old (1955) metal compact shelving system in the lower basement quit working Friday afternoon. It got stuck when the ball bearings broke into pieces (the electrical moving force is so large that they shatter). There are no spare parts, and the janitor couldn’t do anything. The university maintenance sent two guys over, and they said maybe they could fix it next week. Sigh…

At home things have also been a little difficult. They are going to exchange all the windows in the entire apartment block (five houses) and also paint the exterior. There is already scaffolding on my building, so now I can’t have anything on the balcony. The flowers are inside, the furniture is in the attic and I soon have to remove the wooden floor somehow. We also have to clear the area near all the windows, so I have taken down curtains, moved the egg cup collection, lamps and vases. And I finally got to do my laundry on Wednesday.