The cafeteria in our City Hall is closed this week because of the holidays. I went to a Burger King that's in a former bank building. The BK is closed - permanently. Why?

• Rising minimum wage
• High rent
• Worker's compensation costs
• Frivolous lawsuits
• The city won't allow them to install a drive-through window nor to increase their signage.

Some of this sounds an awful lot like whining. I don't care to patronize establishments that pay less than minimum wage. As for worker's comp costs, why isn't the business owner working with employees (read: teenagers) to reduce the number of claims?

I can't speak to the frivolous lawsuits against this particular restarant. I remember a McDonald's customer who sued because the lid came off her coffee and the coffee burned her. Maybe the BK store had something similar.

As for drive-through and signage issues: Given the store's location, and the probable expense of installing the drive-through (they'd have to take out an external wall), plus traffic (safe entrance through an alley), I'm not surprised the city has turned them down. Their signs seem adequate to me.

I'll go to McDonald's if I feel the need for fast food. The nearest store is about two blocks away, and I need the exercise!

I've received some sad news this week. Two long-time friends have died.

The first one that I heard about was George Link, the permanent president of my graduating class at Cal. He had a wicked sense of humor, and when I talked to him on the phone, I could visualize him sitting there with a straight face and a twinkle in his eye.

The other, Sally Dumaux, was a colleague at LAPL. She worked very hard on creating a special collection on the movies at the Hollywood branch, which had been destroyed by fire. I never saw Sally lose her cool.

May their memories be for a blessing.

Some musings about our area (Southern California)

I think my home computer has given up the ghost. This means I'm out of electronic touch for weekends and holidays. A disadvantage is I didn't see the weather report for Saturday, and was surprised by the rain on Saturday. (I was out in it, sans umbrella.)

The best thing about rain hereabouts is that the air is so clean afterwards. Bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds, nippy temperatures in the morning.

I went to friends' open house/holiday party Sunday afternoon. My friend Sandy, who gave me a ride, found a parking space right in front of the house! Good food, good friends, good times.

As I was coming to work this morning, I noticed that someone had put bubble bath in a small fountain that runs in a pocket park not far from my house. Don't know what that does to or for the fountain, but it looks pretty!

One of the joys of walking to the bus stop in the morning is seeing changes in the neighborhood. Carpenters and other craftspeople have been working on a three-story building for the past year or so. It's a three-story house, not a however-many apartment building. The most interesting part of the house - at least what can be seen - is what appears to be a turntable in front of the garage. Just think - a driver can pull into the garage, and the next time s/he needs to use the car, s/he backs onto the turntable and with a rotation of the wheel the car is facing front! This is a real innovation. Silver Lake Boulevard is a very busy thoroughfare. I would hate to have to back into traffic!

One of my buddies has recently begun working as the director of a medium-sized library system. She says that she's begun making a circuit of the libraries she manages, working on the circulation and reference desks.

In most public libraries, the three most heavily-used service points are circulation/library card registration, children's services, and adult reference. (Some libraries have others. In my library, we have service points at audio-visual and serials/documents whose staff face the public each day.) What's particularly helpful about my friend's library circuit-riding is that she learns what kinds of issues front-line staff face every day. Each library - be it a small one with only one outlet or a large one with nearly 100 outlets - serves a unique clientele with varying needs and interests.

Example: I worked at a branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. The majority of our users were children, and adults who used the branch were not readers of genre fiction. The adult services coordinator would announce that every library should order the latest Danielle Steel (or other hot author). At the branch where I worked, those titles circulated once (if ever).

As a substitute in the system, I watched the senior librarian at one branch tear out handfuls of hair because the library's administrators insisted she buy materials in Spanish. That would be fine, except for two problems: The branch was housed in such a small building she almost literally had to withdraw a book to make room for something new, and the majority of foreign language speakers using that branch were Armenian.

Fortunately, the director in the library where I work now has come up through the ranks. He understands our clientele and library culture. He is not averse to working a desk if need be, so he sees the kinds of problems our staff deals with.

I salute my friend for opening lines of communication with her new library staff!