Last Day of Work at the Library - Nothing Happening in the Tropics

Okay, today is my last day at the library and if I am not going to write about that... what am I going to write about?

I have been here six years. It's sort of a lot like leaving high school.

We had a cheesecake party with hot fudge sauce and cherry sauce and fresh cherries. Oh, I said that probably.

Who cares? It's my blog I'll say it again.

I am leaving everything I have known for the last six years and going off to start something new.

I'm scared.

Who cares?

Some people do and I do.

And... I know I will be fine but I cannot believe I am leaving this reference desk where I look out on the world and talk to all my friends. Help them find things, put them on the computers and watch kids from the local schools grow and go off to college. And.. now I have to say goodbye to people I have been so close to..

Why am I doing this?

Because I have to..

Because life is about taking chances and opportunities and life is about change.

We change day to day, year to year and over the decades.

And, the more we change.. the more we stay the same in some ways.

Only some...

I teased Troy today how he never thought we were going to become close. He came running towards me through the libary and I told him "go on, tackle me" and I cracked up. Teased him a lot (as he has been teasing me) that when I first came here he probably thought "oh right little white jewish girl who probably has a husband somewhere taking care of her" and then he found out about the kids and he kept saying "TEN KIDS, TEN KIDS" and everytime he saw some guy coming on to me, hovering over the desk flirting with me he'd go saunter over to them (if he didn't like them) and say, "she has TEN KIDS" and then he would later let me know he got rid of that guy who had been bugging me. Well, he didn't get rid of everyone as the Indian got through and Ernie is here somewhere and Nat and either way I am going to miss Troy so much. So much. And, Sondra... no words for how much I will miss Sondra. Zee is already gone...she left like others for Georgia.......... (hate Georgia).

And, I will miss talking hurricanes with Sue and Illiana and plan on talking to them often on the phone; maybe meet Sue on the beach for coffee.

Wow, I am going back to South Beach. Leaving the Ghetto. Back to Lincoln Road where my father had 3 offices and I grew up wandering around Lincoln Road getting Cuban coffee and watching storms blow in over the ocean in the summer.

Sweet Home South Beach.. okay, it sings funny but it works.

So... no tropical development anywhere in the Atlantic Basin today.

Lots going on behind the scenes at work.

Saying goodbye to my friends, my hood, my life for the last six years and being way too loud today and way too irreverant and I haven't even had a chance to finish reading my emails from Jeff or read www.flhurricane.com.

Wrote a poem today about the street where the library is just down the block from where they put in the new boring Walmart where I buy somethings and not all.

And, if the little guys in the booth reading my stuff online at City Hall want to string this together into one good book or movie... just don't sell my City file of emails to the National Enquirer because I don't want to be on the cover for things I prefer to keep to myself.. and others, such as in Mr. Ed's words "the one doing it"

I love this place.

I will miss this place.

But, until I am gone the picture of Stephen King hangs crookely over the reference desk and I will wear my red glitter slides to work one last day before I go off to a job in Academia... two blocks from the ocean on Miami Beach and hope that a storm surge like 1926 doesn't wash my new job away.

I'm jazzed. I'm cool. I'm nuts.

How many people can put on their resume as references Dr. Paul George (Historian of South Florida) and the Deputy Director of the Hurricane Research Division (who has brought me so many smiles over time and held my hand through my father's death online) and...........

How many people can get to be tackled by Troy in the Reference Section.

God I love this place.
But it is time to leave.

So... take your winnebagos and your dusty yachts named Brigadoon and feel free to send me any Native American OJIBWE Indians who played hockey for 11 years and who comes to Miami to go swim at Haulover... play your cards but play them well because as my father once said, betting on people is a lot harder than betting on dogs.. because you can buy someone but you can't buy their heart.

Love everyone reading this and this is my poem for the day..

To read my tropical thoughts.. go to www.hurricanecity.com and see why I think the National Hurricane Center kissed off this wave and waved good bye to it..

Bobbi
Reference Librarian
Freelance Writer
Researcher of Hurricanes and Florida History.


I walk past
the Jamaican grocery
where they sell
oxtails
goat meat
and burnt feet skin
and on fridays
I buy my vegetables
and talk to my friends.

Bobbi..tackled by Troy

http://www.tolatsga.org/ojib.html