Yes, folks, she’s officially come unhinged

It became all too clear this afternoon. While at the University Bookstore, which I was visiting because I happened to mention to my boss that I haven’t yet been in the brand new library. He insisted I go right that minute and see the new library. Which has been open since JUNE, so I really have no excuse, other than not thinking about it when I can actually go over. It’s got to be all of a thirty second walk from here too. And has been the talk of the university for ages, and is huge and towering and impressive, and it is a little sad that I hadn’t been.

So, I went to the library. And it’s very nice, although I have to say that I kind of expected there to be actual books in the library. When you first walk in there’s an airy open atrium, which is quite pleasant, and then you go into the first floor area and it’s just a lot of open space and bunches of computers. However, I am pleased to report that on the second and third floors there are in fact real books. There’s a lot of open space, which seemed strange. Our old library was quite crowded. I didn’t care for the color scheme – a little too brown and olive for my taste, but the airy architecture was nice.

Anyhow, I wandered around admiring the library for awhile and feeling a sudden urge to go back to school. Then I went to the new bookstore, which is beside the library, and which I’d been in once just to glance around six months ago. For someone who likes to read so much, I certainly haven’t been spending much time in places that have books. And are a thirty second walk from my office.

SO I found myself in the children’s section, because my niece’s little boy is going to be three in a week or so, and I need to get him a present. And I found the books about Jenny!! Jenny the cat!! Jenny Linsky the little black cat who lives with a sea captain and wears a red scarf!!!

And yet again, I nearly burst into tears.

Because, yeah, I am SO coming unglued.

But I’d forgotten all about these books. I LOVED these books when I was a kid. And I’d completely forgotten about them. Jenny and Captain Tinker and Pickles the Fire Cat with the very bad manners! I’d forgotten all about them!!!!

So I bought this one for my great-nephew. Who of course isn’t old enough to read it, but he does enjoy being read to, and he loves cats. I just can’t believe that I’d forgotten all about these books. I’m wondering if they’ve been out of print, because they were written back in the 40s and I never ran across them in all the years I was buying books for my nieces and my nephew.

I actually have felt much better ever since realizing how crazy my reaction was. Crazy to the point of being really amusing. "It’s JENNY!!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" Maybe I just needed to be amused.

Speaking of amusing, we’ve lately stumbled upon some very amusing television viewing. Well, we’re viewing it on DVD – BBC America shows it, but I’d just seen bits and pieces and thought it was okay. We kind of rented on a whim the other night, and if you watch it from the beginning, it’s just hysterical.  

It’s a parody of a reality show, with cameras following around these two losers who have just gotten out of jail in the first episode, and go home to their trailerpark (an amusingly neat and clean trailerpark to be such a supposedly desperate place) . Their trailerpark in Nova Scotia. It’s a Canadian show. The Canadians do great pretend-reality. SCTV, for example.

The shows have titles like "Take Your Little Gun And Get Out of my Trailer Park" and "F*ck Community College, Let’s Get Drunk and Eat Chicken Fingers" and "I’ve Met Cats and Dogs Smarter Than Trevor and Cory" and "A Dope Trailer is No Place for a Kitty." How could you go wrong? It really is hysterical. Bizarrely, and sadly, Netflix for some reason doesn’t have it yet. It’s there, but the availability is "unknown." While our local cult video store has them all, I think. Very strange behavior for Netflix, which usually has EVERYTHING. Immediately.

Anyhow, that’s well worth a viewing, but start at the beginning. The characters are really well done and hilarious.  And now it’s time to go, hooray!