It's Only Tuesday

Well, tonight I ended up with five adults and four children for dinner which was fortunate because I happened to have made two 9 x 13 casseroles. My daughter (who was a last minute addition with her two children) said, "You just happened to have two casseroles hot and ready five minutes after I call?"  It's like she never met me. 

I was going to take a photo of my beautiful table settings, but I forgot. 

I was supposed to be at a "Townhall" meeting with an invisible representative tonight. After I got tickets for a very special and inspirational speaker who was standing in for him, I remembered I cannot climb stairs or bleachers and that there would probably be stairs or bleachers. I gave up my tickets. It is my understanding it was sold out and over 1,000 people were in the overflow room. I have been getting texts and photos and wish I could have been there. 

I went to my final PT therapy yesterday and she gave me pages of exercises to continue with, each stage a little more challenging. I came home and had a bad attack of sciatica and could barely move the rest of the day. I am now using the ramp to get to my weekly Monday meeting.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) I have my final review, with someone new since my therapist transferred to a different facility after my appointment. I  have done well at therapy since I really hadn't had any attacks of sciatica or vertigo since I started.  But I don't think further sessions will change anything. I just need to keep up with exercises to strengthen my foot and leg and keep marching down the hallway with the head motions for the vertigo.  

Tomorrow we are going to "early" vote since I am not clear what is going on with the "Save" Act where I can only prove I am a citizen and can vote if I have a passport. And I need to apply for a passport.  Then I am having lunch with my high school friends at the same restaurant I will be having lunch with my library friends on Saturday. Small town life doesn't have a lot of variety sometimes, LOL.  Then on to my PT review.  Thursday I will be in the office all day and Friday the brown truck should be dropping off the stickers for my next protest sign. 

Ohio is changing how they are funding libraries since 1983 when the state established a Public Library Fund, based on a percentage of that year's budget, and distributes the funding for operating libraries. Communities have a property tax for infrastructure and maintenance. The State actually sent libraries a forecast of the funding for 2025 in January. They have now introduced an amendment to this year's budget eliminating the Public Library Fund entirely forever and replacing it with a line item amount that has cut the funding by 27 million dollars.  They have also included verbiage that requires libraries to remove any materials that might mention LGBTQ+ ( you know, like a newspaper or a book) as well as anything else "objectionable".  And your guess is as good as mine on that one. 

I worked for our local library as a library assistant, as well as children's programing, in the 1980's and 90's.  I had two objections made to the board at that time. One was that my theme of "Bells" for my monthly "Kindergarten Club" storytime  and craft for December did not mention the birth of Jesus and the other was for a book in the collection - The Little Witch Goes on Vacation.  This toddler level story book showed the Little Witch and her cat riding a broom to an island for vacation. The objection was that it portrayed witchcraft in a good light. I would like to say that on my Sundays off, I was a first grade Sunday School teacher where I did mention Jesus's birthday. We did not receive one complaint about the book of naked pictures of Madonna that had a long wait list for check out. 

My sign for this protest will simply say "Restore Library Funding".  

AFTER WRITING ALL THIS - And in the middle of proofreading - I just got a text that the state is already back pedaling on this.  They are going to restore the Public Library Fund, but are not going to use the same funding formula. I may wait until the last minute to make my sign to make sure what is going on.  Instead of a percent of the total budget which is how the fund was previously funded, they are going to assign an amount each year.  I think I am staying with Restore Library Funding.   

Meanwhile the state budget is giving the owners of the Cleveland Browns $600 million dollars to build a new stadium outside of Cleveland which is not making anyone I know very happy either.