Duck, duck, duck

Last night, as I stepped off the bus in the middle of the park, I saw ducks. There's a low spot just behind the bus shelter where I usually get out that floods whenever there's rain. Judging from the line of tree detritus, the recent downpours had probably covered two dozen square feet or so in a few scant inches of grimy water. Now the puddle had shrunk to something like half that size.

There were three mallards in it, all drakes. Two looked tucked in for sleep. The largest of the three was more active and, shortly after I stopped to look at him, set his feet down and stopped floating. He stood in about two inches of water and ruffled his own feathers. What were they doing there, only a few feet from the street? Only forty, fifty feet beyond that was a huge pond they could be swimming in--quieter, presumably safer.

Then it occurred to me that maybe they'd been kicked out by the cool ducks. I was immediately reminded of the Three Geeks in BTVS. There they were, plotting their horrible revenge on the socs of Sunnydale Pond, none of us local residents the wiser.

Novel policy

About a month ago, I asked the head of the Art Library what the hell to do with graphic novels. See, according to Dewey, they get classed as "art", but most of the ones we have are ordered and paid for by one of the selectors for literature. The two of them had a nice little chat about the issues involved, the upshot of which finally got back to me: They can't agree, so let's just keep doing what we've always done.

Which is what, exactly? Supposedly, the precedent is to put the black and white ones in Main and the ones in colour in Art, no matter if this splits up series, works by the same author, etc.