The Morose Bookseller

Last week, the receptionist at my office sent around an email announcing that her brother is closing up his shop, and is unloading all books for $1. I felt pretty bad receiving the email, as I didn't even know his bookstore was there. I like reading, and the store is an easy walk from my office. Ergo, it must be my fault that Brother Bookseller is going out of business.

Despite my love of the outdoors, fresh air, and all that good stuff, I don't regularly go for walks at lunchtime (probably why I didn't know about the bookstore). I have too hard a time with the temperature fluctuations: when it's hot outside, it's cool inside, and vice verse. I don't like getting all sweatified in my office lady clothes. Not that my clothes are what most people would consider fancy, but to me, if it's not denim, I feel black tie.

With this freakish warm spell, though, I couldn't resist. I headed out at a rapid clip, walking a big loop around the downtown area so that I would pass the closing bookstore on my back to the office. When I first entered, it was desolate: very few books, and no shopkeeper in sight. I persisted with my sweaty browsing, and predictably found a couple of books worth buying.

It wasn't until Brother Bookseller came downstairs to accept my money that I realized there was a whole second story I'd missed. Needing to get back to work, I made some inane comment, I'll have to come back tomorrow. The response of Brother Bookseller was crushing. In the most despondent fashion imaginable, barely able to raise his head, he muttered, if I am still open. I understand that closing the shop is probably the hardest thing this man has done; he is giving up on a dream, a passion, a life. It can't be easy. But regardless of my easy feelings of guilt, the failing business is not really my fault, and now I feel even worse.

Will I return as promised? We'll see. I don't know if I can face that despair again so soon.

679 Empties

During the summer months, we always move our house plants out onto the screened back porch, where despite the paucity of direct sunlight, they seem to thrive. Bringing them back inside this fall was more challenging a task than in past years. These wretched cats seem to be on a mission of total destruction, and plants are a very attractive nuisance. The Christmas cactus had been broken sheer in half before I finally found a relatively safe spot on top of the curio cabinet.

In the midst of all the shuffling of that one particular plant, I decided I should buckle down and re-pot it. The pot in which the roots are growing is tiny, and that pot is currently resting inside a much larger receptacle. I knew we had potting soil in the garage, so it seemed a simple and timely task, a way to compensate for the destructive forces that had so recently torn the little plant in two.

However, when I went in the garage to find the potting soil, I quickly threw up my hands in defeat and retreated back into the house, tail between my legs. There would be no tender ministrations, for the potting soil was buried in a virtual avalanche of soda containers.

As his name might imply, SodaBoy drinks a lot of soda. [There is really no way to say that without it being a huge understatement.] And since my job involves longer hours than his, he does the majority of our grocery shopping. Problem is, he doesn't like returning the empties. We have curbside recycling, and could simply place the cans and bottles in the blue bin, and leave it to the city to attend to the details. But we live in a deposit state, where every container returned to store nets a nickle, and I am far too cheap to let that money slip away.

So I decided this afternoon to take advantage of the warm weather, and load up the car for a bottle run. Load it up I did: hatch, back seat, shotgun. When I unloaded the sticky bags into shopping carts in the supermarket parking lot, it took two full size carts, piled high, with even the bottom racks stuffed. After an hour of feeding cans into the machines and lining bottles up on the counter, I walked away with receipts worth $33.95 to put towards the grocery bill.

And the best news? I made a good-sized dent in the container drift in the garage, unearthing the potting mix. There might even be room for a car in there now.

Go Team!

I have been going to a lot of college basketball games this year, more so than ever before. Tickets are expensive, and my new found attendance is wholly because of the set of season tickets I was gifted to share with my sister, who alas, has been unable to attend most games, leaving the tickets for SodaBoy and I to enjoy. Rooting for the Hometown University men's basketball team has been an off again, on again hobby for me throughout the years, an odd character trait in one who is utterly indifferent to all other sporting events.

Attending all these games instead of just watching on tv drives home the point of exactly how many there are. There were two already this week, one earlier this afternoon, and another evening game to rush to after work earlier in the week. If I am this exhausted just from showing up, think how tired the players must be. They have to run up and down the court for 40 minutes, not to mention the daily practices, the travel, the college classes. I guess that's why I am not an elite athlete. Or one reason, anyway. There is also my complete lack of coordination. Minor detail, right?

The HU team has been blighted by a series of injuries and defections this year, and our bench is shallow. The coach has resorted to starting three freshman and two sophomores. The team has a lot of raw talent, and lots of room for improvement. It has been a fun season so far. They managed to win the first two conference games, and it will be fun to see how they hold up to stiffer competition. At least the next two games are on the road. I can watch from my couch, and with the new laptop, maybe even keep up with the blogging. Fancy that.

2007: The Year in Books

Last year when I posted my 2006 book list, I was full of grandiose plans for keeping a list of movies I'd watched, but that never happened. I actually started such a list, but it became shameful to me that the movie list might be longer than the book list. Then my computer died, and all the lists suffered for it (as did the blog). However, there has been a fabulous holiday plot twist to this sad story. Drumroll, please... I was gifted a shiny new laptop. Joy of joys! So in celebration of unfettered computing, I am posting a reconstructed book list. It is sort of a pathetic little tally, but it is a list, and they are books; good things both. Happy New Year!

Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen
The Position by Meg Wolitzer
The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
The Hungry Tide by Amitov Ghosh
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
A Mile in Her Boots edited by Jennifer Bove
A Midwife’s Story by Penny Armstrong and Sheryl Feldman
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

Backyard Buck

We had a visitor yesterday. The impending storm must have emboldened the buck, because it was broad daylight and he came right down near the house to browse the English ivy.

I had no idea anyone ate that stuff. It must be a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures. The buck looks pretty healthy though, which is good, because it's only December... we are guaranteed to get a lot more snow.

It was fun watching the feline reaction to the buck. SodaBoy was able to sneak them onto the screen porch without scaring off the deer, so the encounter was a close one. The cats love the porch, but had no idea what to make of the dining deer. Much kitty poofiness ensued.

The Island of Misfit Ornaments

This is the temporary staging area for those
ornaments rescued from the cats, but not yet re-hung.

Nervous Nelly

We bought a fir tree from a local farmer this weekend, and set it up, but just with lights so far. This is the first holiday season for the kittens, and we aren't yet sure how they will handle the temptations. They have already proven themselves suspect by pulling at branches and chewing on lit bulbs. Squirting them with water seems to work only when we are home to wield the spray bottle, as evidenced by a broken lamp and shattered ceramics.

We have been unplugging the tree lights before leaving the cats unsupervised, and I am leaning towards skipping the most fragile ornaments this year. SodaBoy complained that those are the nicest ones, and of course, I agree (which is why I don't want to subject them to the spastic enthusiasms of these silly kitties). Our other cats never posed a threat to trees or ornaments. My hope is by next year these two will have settled down some.

I feel a little uncomfortable being such a nervous nelly about my ornaments. This is the only time of year when such decorations can be enjoyed, after all. However, I have had many of these ornaments for 20-30 years now, and they wouldn't bring me much pleasure smashed into smithereens. Decisions, decisions. I think I will stick with wait and see for now.

I can always toss caution to the wind next week.