having fun isn't hard...

...when you've got a library card!

A couple days ago Wayne and I signed up for some library cards. We love libraries. We especially love libraries that are over one hundred years old that have marble staircases that echo with your footfalls as you climb the four flights up to the reference room, where the 25 foot-high ceilings are held up on every side by Beauty & the Beast-esque bookshelves, complete with wee spiral staircases and wrought iron balconies and skinny ladders that move along a track. Libraries where the scent of history and politics and theology and news and mystery and tales with knotted-up plots and exhale-with-relief endings drift past you from between pages and hardback covers and magazine racks. 

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This pretty much sums up our library here in Edinburgh. The nearest branch of the Edinburgh library happens to be the Central Library, right in the middle of Old Town. The library's construction and contents was made possible by the tremendous generosity of William Carnegie of Carnegie Hall fame, and it's a beauty.

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While seated at the information desk signing my name on the back of a card in black ink, I briefly wondered in how many places at how many different libraries I'll sign up for in my lifetime -- I've gathered quite a collection already. I also wondered whether the catchy tune of Arthur's "Having Fun Isn't Hard (When You've Got a Library Card!)" would trot through my head every single time I slip a new plastic card into my wallet. 

I'd perform that in a flash mob, without a doubt.... although we'd probably get kicked out of the library. Sorry patrons. 

{this post written in June 2013}