Read, Portland, Read!

It’s a gray, damp, cloudy sort of Sunday afternoon, so of course we went to the library.

Yes, in Portland, the library is open on Sunday.  The Gresham, Hollywood, Hillsdale, and Midland branches are open from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Why?  Because we’re readers in Portland.  There are statistics about it, which I’m not going to look up right now (see: Sunday).

We arrived at about 12:15, and the Midland Library parking lot was already three-quarters full.  Families, singles, retirees, people who need to use the public computers — it was packed!  My three-year old raced to the children’s section; I followed, trying to shush her, but she’s much better at weaving around all of the adults in the way than I am.

I settled at a table with my laptop (free wi-fi at the library!) and went through my to-read list on Goodreads.  Unfortunately, most of the books I want are not available; either already checked out or residing at a different branch.  I started putting things on hold, but we’re limited to 15 hold items at a time, and I had nearly 50 books on my list.

I did finally find five books that were actually in at Midland, and proceeded to check them out.  And I grabbed a stack of mysteries from the paperback exchange.  By the time I got back to the table in the kids’ section, where my husband was guarding laptop and children, I was nearly drooling like an addict about to get her fix.

Now I’ve just got to spend some time away from the computer to read them.  Books, I’ve been neglecting you.