Things that have made me smile this week

 1. Finding my Hello Kitty glasses. They were wedged in the car seat.

They look like this.
Source: Bonanza

2. Barley milk tea from Tea Era.

3. Watching my tulips bloom.

4. Spending time with people I like.

5. Discovering Ten Ren has hot grass jelly with sweet beans and taro (no tapioca, thank you).

6. Discovering a book store next to Ten Ren that sells asian magazines I like.

7. Attempting to read Dr. Seuss in Mandarin.
(Ee tiau yu, liang tiau yu, hong duh yu, lan duh yu. haha.)

8. Helping my friend with her wedding invitations. I am excited (even though I will probably have to learn photoshop at light speed.)

9. Adventures at the library.

Did I mention I recently started volunteering at the library? I help with Special Outreach Services which is a fantastic program that allows patrons who are home-bound for various reasons (illness, pregnancy, caretaker, etc.) to still have access to most of the library. Each person makes a list of material they would like to checkout (baroque classical cds, tom clancy novels, etc.) then a volunteer, like me, picks out recommendations for them and once-a-month a library staff person delivers the material and picks up the previous month's items.

I thought this would be a super simple monthly service project because I only have to go in 2 hours a month and I LOVE telling people what they should read and who they should listen to. Unfortunately, I only tell people what I have already read and listened to before. So this assumes you must be interested in novels that have been made into movies (such as Disney classics), books ranked as top picks by the staff at Powell's Books in Portland, books involving a shopaholic, and memoirs, especially memoirs by comedians and people who go through some life-changing, possibly crazy, fantastical experience or just think differently (augusten burroughs comes to mind). It turns out... the genre preferences of the people I was assigned to and my own don't overlap much. Bumbumbum. I know almost nothing about romance, westerns, thrillers, and science fiction (separate from fantasy). NOTHING! I cheated and looked on Amazon for reviews.

For the most part I used Amazon or just followed the authors they lsited. There was one book for which I deviated off the preferences. I threw in Devil in the White City by Erik Larson book for a person who wanted science fiction books by authors I have never heard of and Agatha Christie mysteries (which I think are a bit boring, although I haven't given her a real chance since middle school). Devil in the White City is categorized as a nonfiction biography because it's the retelling of the real events of a serial killer at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. I remember attempting to read it in college and not getting very far because it spooked me. I didn't get far enough to have nightmares but far enough to appreciate Larson's storytelling skills and recognize the fact that if I read further I might have nightmares.

This was a long intro to get to my happy moment...

There is no communication between the volunteers and people on the receiving end. I don't get to chat with the patron and ask how they liked what I picked or discuss anything. They are mysterious bookworms I must cater to via another mysterious third-party.

Today, I stopped by the library to pick up a hold and noticed my patron had put their own hold on Erik Larson's newest book.

I think they liked it!

Perhaps I will start throwing in more books that I liked even though they aren't quite what was requested. Perhaps next up will be The Professor and the Madman.


(By the way, you should read Ready Player One and listen to Mumford and Sons.)