Midnight in Beantown

It's been a long day.  We were up late last night, getting the house ready for Ashley and David to move in and our suitcases packed because the plan was to leave by 8 a.m.  We rarely leave at the time we plan to leave, but we actually were on the road before 8:30, which is somewhat of a miracle.

Thank God Walt kept the traffic report on the radio because he had decided we would fly out of San Francisco, where we could get a direct flight to Boston, rather than from Sacramento, where we would have a plane change.  I have never heard traffic reports like this morning.  Every. single. highway.  Every. single. bridge. was backed up forever.  The Bay Bridge, the logical one to go over on your way to SFO was backed up from the toll plaza to Pinole, a distance of about 15 miles.  There didn't seem to be too much about the Golden Gate Bridge, so we decided to go that way and were VERY happy because when we got to the bridge (with only minor delays), we heard that the Bay Bridge was STILL backed up (though not as far now).

When we got to San Francisco, we stopped at the Stonestown shopping mall to look for a bathroom, which we were both "relieved" (in every sense!) to find.  I loved that they have those Dyson air hand dryers, which are SO much more efficient than those blowers...and fun to use too.

 

Outside the bathrooms, in the mall itself, we found these cute little "Mall Racers" for parents to push their kids around.

 

My favorite thing about them was the sign posted on the little bag attached to the back of it.

 

From Stonestown, we drove down to the place where we leave the car when we are flying out of SF.  On the way we saw something extremely unusual on the window of the car.

 

I seem to remember this phenomenon from years past, but I can't remember what you call it, it's been so long.

We had about 2 hours to kill in the airport, so we had lunch, and then they started lining up to get on the plane.  This was, they told us, a very. full. flight. so some people would have to be checking their carry on bags.  We were in the last group to board and I knew we would have to check our carry ons (which would involve unpacking one because there was no way I was going to check my computer and my iPad.

But then they called for people who needed assistance to board and I saw this one woman with a cane come forward and I thought...hey!  I can do that.  They got her in a wheelchair to take her to the gate, but let me follow (with Walt), so that we were the second to board and had no problem with stowing luggage.

In truth, I did feel a little guilty. Watching the woman who boarded with me, she obviously had a lot more trouble than I did, but I didn't worry about it too much.  During the flight she got up a couple of times and limped down the aisle, hanging onto the seats for support.

The flight was uneventful. For the first half of the flight, I read my Kindle and when it started to get dark outside (my seat light wasn't positioned well for reading), I switched to an audio book. I am listening to an audio book by Harlan Coben and the woman sitting next to me was reading a different book by Coben.

At one point, when bringing the meal cart down the aisle (you buy your meal...don't even get free peanuts or pretzels, for pete's sake!), the plane jumped a bit and all the meals feel in the aisle. We all helped pick them up and then when the guy asked me what I wanted, I told him I would take the tossed salad (well, he thought it was funny).  Walt and I shared an Asian noodle salad, which was tasty.

When we arrived at Logan Airport, I sat in a chair while Walt went to the bathroom and as I watched here comes the "disabled" lady and her husband, no cane in sight, and walking briskly, each pulling a suitcase.  She walked better than I do, so I didn't feel guilty about going in the disabled line after that!

I don't know how late we were arriving in Boston, but at least half an hour.  But Jeri, Phil and Lester were here to greet us and now we are at their house.  Everyone has gone to sleep and I will soon join them.  I'm missing the Tums I should have packed because that Asian noodle salad is giving me heartburn.  I'll sleep it off.

Where are the heroes?

Did we ever have heroes?  Or were all of our "heroes" the same as they are today and we just never knew it because we didn't have 24/7 news and all-seeing social media?

I had lunch today with my friend Kathy.  We meet once a month and we usually end up talking about what is going on in the world, getting increasingly depressed about what we see on the news. I asked her today where are the heroes?

I grew up knowing that the policeman was my friend and that if I were in trouble, I should run to a policeman.  Do you think any African American mother teaches that to her children today?  I have no doubt that the vast majority of policemen are wonderful, caring, heroic men...but there have been so many instances of "shoot first and ask questions afterwards" that I would be afraid to trust a policeman.  And whatever happened to the taser?  Now it's shoot to kill, even if you have no proof that your suspect did anything at all.

Yes, we only see the rare case where this happens, but there are periods when it seems that there are reported shootings by policemen every night...sometimes two in one night.  Your perspective tends to get skewed.

I remember being so excited to be at the Giants game after Barry Bonds broke the home run record.  We missed it by a day.  I also remember the baseball heroes of my childhood.  Mays, McCovey, Cepeda.  Then we began to hear about steroids and player after player was accused of (or admitted to) using steroids.  Do the baseball stats mean anything any more?  Do our children look up to those giants (small "g") as heroes to emulate, or do they learn from them that it is OK to cheat as long as you win?

And now the NFL.  I am so incredibly disheartened by the NFL and its response to all the reports of domestic violence.  I am also disheartened by the players who feel it's OK to beat up a woman or a little kid. Jon Stewart had the best quote about this a few days ago.  When addressing the leniency with which the abusers had been handled, he said, "Let that be a lesson to NFL players everywhere. If you hit a woman, they will not let you hit a man for six more weeks.”

It is amazing to me that there has been no NFL policy regarding men who beat up helpless women or children. These are supposed to be our heroes.  I want little kids to look in awe at someone like Ray Rice with wide eyes and think "I want to be just like him when I grow up."  I don't want him to hear that someone like Rice punches women and think "ok--that's how I should behave." I don't want him to be afraid of Adrian Peterson because he beats 4 year olds with a stick hard enough to cause marks on his body.

The NFL should have had a policy in place long before this, not respond on a case by case basis depending on public opinion or sponsor threats to withdraw support (yay, sponsors!)

Quite honestly, I think Rice's punishment was too harsh.  But a 2 game suspension was too lenient.  Maybe this was the first and only time he has been violent with his fiancee/wife.  Should he lose his job and his income because of it?  I don't think so--but I also don't think that benching him for a game or two sends any message at all, especially when other abusers are let off with a one or two game suspension.

There should be a mandatory period of suspension, a hefty financial fine--one big enough to hurt, mandatory counseling, and mandatory community service working with abused women before he can go back to the team.

These guys should know from the day they sign their multi-million dollar contract that their responsibility to the team is to play to the best of their ability but also to be a good representative for the team. They should follow someething like the boy scout pledge.  They should be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,brave, clean, and reverent. They get paid enough; that shouldn't be too much to ask.  They should be role models for young boys growing up wanting to emulate them.  They shouldn't be teaching kids that you can do whatever you damn well feel like doing and earn a fortune at the same time.

And if you beat a kid, it should be much, much worse.  I don't care if that's the way you were raised.  My father beat my sister with a rubber hose.   I spanked our kids occasionally, and always felt guilty for losing my own self control and bringing myself to their level.  If you are a muscle-bound football player, you should not be hitting a 4 year old.  Period.  (Or as Jon Stewart said again tonight, you should not be permitted to do to a 4 year old what you are not permitted to do to a 250 lb linebacker dressed in helmet and padding.)

I want something positive to come out of all this.  I want there to be heroes again.  But they are going to have to work hard to earn that label. 

(As I was writing this, there was yet another report, this time on the Cardinals' Jonathan Dwyer, for "aggravated assault causing a fracture, one count of aggravated assault involving a minor, two counts of criminal damage, one count of preventing the use of a phone in an emergency, and assault, police said."   Sigh.)

Welcome to Davis

A Swap I am going to be doing soon for Swap Bot is "City Trip - Be My Guide!"  The idea is to write a "unusual city guide" for my partners, introducing them to Davis.  I thought I'd test it out by doing it here first.  Let me give you a guide to Davis.

Davis is a bigger city than it was when we moved here.   I think we've added about 20,000 citizens since 1973 and the size of the university has grown since we moved here too. Before we moved here Davis was always just a sign on the freeway that we passed on the way to Sacramento, but if this is your destination, you exit on Richards Blvd (the main Davis offramp), pass In-N-Out Burger, head under the railroad tracks and up to 1st Street, where you'll probably encounter a traffic light and while you are stopped there, enjoy the outdoor display at the Natsoulas Gallery, straight ahead.

To visit "downtown Davis" we will zig zag up and down the streets, pointing out things you might otherwise miss.  So if you go right into the heart of downtown, you will be traveling down E Street (I should point out that getting around the main part of Davis is very easy since the east-west streets are numbered, 1st St through 14th St. and the north-south streets are numbered A St. through L St., but "downtown" is really ringed by B Street through G Street.  A Street runs along the University and nobody ever uses that street.

As you travel down E Street, to the left are stores that weren't there when I was working downtown.  I don't even know what is there, except that Sophie's Thai Place is still in the back of the multi colored Orange Court, where I used to work.  I haven't eaten at Sophie's in years, but it's where I learned to love Pad Thai and it's still my favorite place for that treat.  There is also the Hot Dogger which is a tiny hole-in-the-wall place that has been there since 1984 and is everyone's favorite place for hot dogs.  It is so tiny that it fills up with two people inside, but there are tables on the sidewalk, if you want to eat your hot dog there.

A commercial complex is on your right, dominated by a large Victorian mansion.  This is the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer House, which now serves as the location for several city offices. It is one of the oldest buildings in Davis and is an official Historical Site, built between 1871 and 1875.

Straight ahead on the right is Baskin Robbins, noteworthy only because there was a time when all directions in Davis started at Baskin Robbins, because everybody knew where that was.  The ice cream store sits on the E Street Plaza which, I must point out, is the place where there is a performing area dedicated by the Downtown Business Association to Paul, who worked downtown and was popular with many of the businesses.

There's nothing really exciting ahead, so let's turn right at the corner, pass by one of the many bike stores in town and go to F Street, the street that heads all the way to 14th street, where, if you turn left, you'll get to our house.   But I digress. 

 

On the corner of 3rd and F is the famous statue called "The Joggers."  It sits in front of a restaurant that used to be the police department (most old timers give this tour by telling you not what is there but what used to be there!).  When this statue was first erected, the story goes that someone accidentally ran into the statue and injured his eye on the upraised finger of one of the joggers.  (Actually it never happened, but people thought it might happen.)  There was a bitter debate about the safety of this statue and it was finally moved back from the sidewalk a few feet.

Now turn right down F Street and there's not much to point out, so turn left on 2nd, but first look to your right at the Varsity Theater, halfway down 2nd Street.

The Varsity Theater was here when we moved here, built in 1949, and it was a movie theater.  In 1976 it was remodeled into a duplex, with two screens.  In 1990 it was going to be shut down, but the city took over, and turned it into a community theater, taking down the wall between the two movie houses and redecorating it.  It was a legitimate theater for 14 years, and Paul was the manager until his death. In 2005, finding it financially difficult to keep it running as a community theater it was turned back into a movie duplex again.  I expect that sooner or later, someone will decide that it really would be great as a legitimate theater (see "The Philosophy of Juice and Crackers" link in the left column).

But turn left at the corner and go to where 2nd street ends, which is the historical railroad station.

The original station was built in 1868 and the current building was built in 1913, and is also an official historic landmark.

Now turn around and go back down 2nd street and between E and D on the right is Logos Books, where I volunteer one day a week. It is now the only used book store in town (the SPCA Thrift shop has a big book section, but Logos is the only store left dedicated to used books -- all the book stores left when Borders moved in.  Now Borders is gone, but so are the other book stores!).  

I always make sure to tell customers that their purchases go to a good cause because the proceeds are donated to Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children.  Susan and Peter donated $40,000 last year and hope to donate more this year.

When you get to the corner of 2nd and D, turn right and you will find the Pence Art Gallery.  It's a modern looking place now, but it was not always so and it had a performing area behind the building itself where our kids performed with the Jazz Choir and Acme Theater Company.  I don't think Lawsuit ever performed there.  I do miss those theatrical days, but the gallery is more hoity toity these days.  The stage area fronted on an alley way and directly behind the stage was the store that is more missed than any other in town, Discoveries, which was "the" place to go for gifts.  It's been gone for a long time and I still miss it.

Continue on down D Street to the park at 3rd and D.  It's Central Park and covers the area from 3rd St. to 5th St.  On the corner of 2nd and B is the Bike Museum (which used to be the teen center). The area bounded by 3rd, 4th, B, and C used to be called the Arden-Mayfair lot because at one time there was going to be an Arden-Mayfair built there, but that never happened.  Eventually they connected the Arden-Mayfair lot with the small park across the street.  Now there is a Farmers' Market on Wednesday evening (complete with lots of things to buy to eat and musical groups entertaining), and also on Saturday morning.

The Gay Pride celebration used to be held in this park (attended by city council members, sometimes in drag).  The Hattie Weber Museum of Davis history is located here, and there is a marker from the old Lincoln Highway here. In 2006, a flower garden was built, showcasing sustainable horticultural practices.  There is also a human-powered carousel which was built in 1995.  One person pedals the thing and the others ride.  Recently a big celebration was held to celebrate the addition of a new outdoor bathroom wall for the newly constructed bathroom.

We've about covered the high points of downtown Davis and we haven't even hit the Davis Co-op, Community Park, the Veterans Memorial Theater, the Art Center and the various memorials to the dead Sykeses of Davis. But at least you have a taste of Downtown Davis.

Giggles

There wasn't much unusual about my visit with my mother today.   I had gone over to drop off her laundry, which I washed last night.  I settled in as usual and talked about our upcoming trip to Boston.  "You're going to Boston?" she cried, though we have discussed this every day for the last two weeks.

She followed that with her usual question when she knows I will be out of Davis for a few days.  "What should I do if I die when you're gone?"  She's very concerned that she knows what is supposed to happen when she dies and if I'm not here, obviously she can't die because she doesn't know what's supposed to happen and she wants to make sure "things" are taken care of.

It was an hour and a half discussion about her death and its aftermath, but the difference between today and other such discussions (which we have often) is that I guess my head was in the right place today because I was able to make a joke about it just about every time.

"If you feel you're going to die and I'm not here, just run down the hall waving your arms and screaming 'I'm dying! I'm dying!' and somebody will notice you," I told her.  She laughed a lot and told me that was a good one.

I usually tell her she won't have to do anything because the housekeeper will find her on house cleaning day so she wouldn't lie there all that long.

I also tell her that I've made arrangements with the head chef and he will just hang her in the meat locker in the Atria kitchen until I get home.

Then she wants to know what is going to happen with all her stuff when she dies.  I told her today we were going to throw it all in the box with her body and have it cremated with her.

I was surprised when I left Atria to discover I'd been there an hour and a half (a typical visit is an hour).  We really had talked about very little else but her death, living to hunnert, how she'd like to live to hunnert, how her husband is waiting for her, how she's the oldest one left in the family, and what will she do if she dies when I'm in Boston.  But we had gone over those topics many times and I was able to make things sound so ridiculous that we had a really good laugh for a long time.

That felt good.

---

We got a notice from Laurel that they are signing Brianna up for a theater workshop and that its winter production will be The Music Man.

 Oh my does that take me back.  Paul as Winthrop and Jeri as Amarylis in the first pre-Davis Musical Theater Company production of The Music Man.  Paul as Winthrop again when he performed at the Woodminster Amphitheater in Oakland (for which he won an award as best child performer of the year), and Paul again, this time as Tommy Djilas, the kid who "almost got perpetual motion once" with DMTC again.

I always hoped he would go on to play Harold Hill and eventually Mayor Shinn.

He never actually played Harold Hill, but did do part of "Trouble" in one of his monologue shows once. That was really fun for me.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen The Music Man over the years.  I still like it...and now maybe we'll see Brianna in it.  The torch is passed.

In Memoriam

I wrote this several years ago and wish it were still true today:  "...here is a woman who, at 88, still volunteers for the Hospice of Marin thrift shop (which she has been doing for some 20 years or so), still drops what she's doing to help a friend or a family member in trouble, is the person that everybody takes their troubles to.

She is slowing down a little now, but she still does more in a week than I do in a month.  She lights up any room she walks into.  She knows how to talk to people, to make them feel special.  She is a gracious hostess who still hosts large dinner parties from time to time, always with beautiful table settings and food perfectly prepared.  Plants positively light up under her care.  More than one dying plant has burst into luxuriant bloom thanks to her.

She is always impeccably dressed, coifed and made-up, but is neither vain nor a spendthrift--she gets all of her clothes and shoes at the thrift shop where she volunteers."

...I'd be happy if only one of those things were still true today.  But at least she is still here.

* * *

We went to a memorial service this afternoon and I was very sad.  Not sad because of the decedent, whom I knew slightly, but probably, after all these years, would not have been able to recognize if I passed her in the street.

It was a lovely memorial service, with memories by her family and her friends and then a lovely bunch of refreshments which kind of crept up on you so that neither Walt nor I are hungry for dinner (no cooking ... yay!)

But as I looked around me I realized that the room was filled with the people that I knew best from the time when our kids were in school, when I was in so many activities, when I had friends I saw regularly in town.

I still have casual friends, of course.  But as I listened to the memories they had of the decedent, she had the life I always wanted to have in this town, making life-long friends with whom she was still close at the end of her life.

Book clubs.  I heard about book clubs and the friendship made there today.  The thing I wanted for so long.  I would listen to people waxing rhapsodic about their book club and how close as friends they were and I would make a comment about how I'd "always wanted to join a book club."  But nobody ever invited me, so I never got involved in the close relationships that these women formed.  Now it's too late.  They have a lifetime of emotional support, they know each other's inner secrets, have seen each other through triumph and tragedy.  I'm still the outsider. The person they all know, but don't really know in that intimate way that close female friends bond at a certain time in their lives.

In fairness, I suspect most of these groups formed as an extension of the Farm Circle, which it seemed everyone I knew belonged to when we moved here.  But Farm Circle was for people associated with the University, and we were not.  Nobody ever said "oh come on anyway -- nobody cares," so I didn't.

I am finally in a book club, but I may drop out after this year.  This is a huge book club with no discussion of books and just a formal presentation each month.  There will never be a chance to bond with anyone, since they live in a different town.  It's technically a book club, but definitely not what I hoped for.

Whenever I have an experience like today, I know it's me.  It's me because I never invited people to our home because I wasn't a good housekeeper, and we had the cacophony of being a quasi International House for so long, and I was embarrassed because I was too fat.  I realize I cheated myself out of what I most wanted in moving to a small town and now it's too late.

When you get to this age, you don't make new "best friends" any more.  I'm so happy Charlotte is in my life, but she lives so far away and you don't just "drop around" for coffee when you are 100 miles from each other. It's a long schlep to borrow a cup of sugar.

Three different people commented today about how they wanted to learn how to use Facebook and I offered each of them my services if they wanted to have me come and show them some things.  They all smiled blankly and moved on.  That will never happen and they were just giving lip service to wanting to learn Facebook.  I know that.  It happens whenever I run into someone who is on Facebook, doesn't know how to use it and knows that I do.  I don't care if you ever learn Facebook, but if you do want to learn it, I'd be delighted to work with you.  But you don't.  Not really.  It's just a topic of conversation.

I am very embarrassed about one woman who came up to me, gushing, remembering that time when I had met at so-and-so's pool, with my grandchildren.  Well, no.  My grandchildren have never been here to my house and certainly not left in my care in this town.  Then she went on to apologize about something she'd said, rattling on about the XYZ Foundation and how she realized later that I had founded it and she must have sounded stupid.  Well, no.  I never founded any foundation and didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so I must have seemed rude when I excused myself to get some lemonade.  Walt told me later he heard her say "School Arts Foundation," which I was part of (though not the founder), so maybe that was what she was talking about.  Anyway, our chance to have a nice conversation was cut off because I really didn't understand anything she was saying except that she had seen me with my grandchildren and I knew THAT wasn't true!  I wonder who it was....?

I don't know how I felt when I left.   Happy to see people again, sad that these were once potential good friends who now have their own close circle that never included me. Two different people once offered to go walking with me, many years ago, in the days when I could walk.  That only happened once because...I'm fat and couldn't keep up. Neither of them ever invited me again. It might have blossomed into a friendship if I could have kept up, but I couldn't.

Jeri always gets angry with me when I get down on myself like this.  But on days like today I see what my life could have been if I had been a housekeeper and not fat.  I have no one to blame but myself so yeah, I get down on myself occasionally.

A Day With DMTC

The older I get, the more I have those times when every molecule in my body is screaming "Go to sleep.  NOW!"

That's how I felt as we left the Davis Musical Theater building last night.  It was opening night for Shrek: the Musical and my plan was to come home and write this entry and then go to sleep and write the review in the morning.  But my body was having none of it.  All those molecules were agitating and I could feel that I simply could not do anything but go to sleep.   Immediately.

So I did.  I walked in the front door, put my purse on the kitchen counter, changed into sleep clothes, did my evening ablutions, and collapsed on the couch. I was asleep almost instantly.

That means, of course, that I am writing this at 4 a.m. because I don't have the sense that God gave me and though I could probably go back to sleep after getting up, it would bother me that I had left my journal entry un-written.   So here I am.  Then I'll go back to sleep.

Yesterday was a Davis Musical Theater day.  I had recently written a feature article about the company's 30th anniversary and during my interview with founders/directors/producers Steve and Jan Isaacson, Steve mentioned that each year when The Enterprise puts out its "Welcome to Davis" issue, the paper does a lovely feature on the university's Mondavi Center, where all the big time concerts take place, and then there is a secondary spotlight on one of the other theaters in town, and DMTC is relegated to some "also ran" slot in the back of the insert.

Two years ago, he said, they protested that the second place had been given to a little theater and not to them, and were promised that the following year, they would have the second place, but the following year it went to a brand new theater in town. 

In point of fact, DMTC is the longest-running, year-round, non-professional musical theater company in California. It operates at 91% capacity and it really deserves more respect than it gets.  I have watched its productions grow from pretty mediocre to pretty good.  It used to be that in my reviews I was kind to the shows because they gave them such heart, if not talent, but it has been a long time since I've had to write one of those carefully worded reviews.

I decided to go to bat for DMTC, and contacted the editor.  She agreed with me that it was time for DMTC to have a spotlight and next thing I knew, I was assigned to write the article for the Welcome section.

I had several other things to write and I kept putting off doing the DMTC article until night before last when, as I was going to sleep, I realized that the article was due the next day.  So I spent the day putting together an article that would be different enough from the one I just wrote a couple of weeks ago, that it would be interesting to read and would give newcomers to Davis (it's aimed at students coming to UC Davis) an idea of what the company offered....and how to audition or buy tickets.

I finally got the article written just about time to think about leaving to go the opening of Shrek.  

It was a wonderful production with a terrific Shrek, the ogre you love and his unexpected search tp find a mate.  There were 29 in the cast, a huge cast for DMTC, and they had rented costumes from a professional costume company so they were spectacular.

Shrek has no songs you will be singing the next morning, but it's a cute show and I enjoyed it and will give it a good review.

After the show, I looked through the DMTC scrapbook on display in the lobby.  They had recently had a 30th year celebration and so had hauled out all the old stuff, and this first scrapbook was part of our history as well.  The very first production in 1984 was Peter Pan, for which Walt built the sets, Ned and his friend Greg did the lights, and Jeri was the stage manager.  Walt continued to build sets for awhile and Paul did a couple of shows, though he was now a teenager and his interests would soon turn to music and Lawsuit.  But there he was in the book too.

By the time my molecules started kicking me in the butt and telling me to get home and get to sleep now, I had enjoyed a nice, brief trip down memory lane,  I enjoyed it.

Day 74:  My son the Nazi.  Paul in a DMTC production of Sound of Music

Today at Logos

On our drive to lunch yesterday, Susan informed me that the girl I call "Eliza" is not, in fact, the girl who gave her name as Rain.   They just look a lot alike...and dress a lot alike, but Rain didn't wear the heavy blanket and Eliza does.  Nice to have that cleared up.  Neither of them came in today, though.

When I arrived at the store, Sandy was ringing up a sale for a guy who was mentioning that he had attended Jesuit High in Sacramento.  I asked if he knew my old boyfriend, who was on the faculty there awhile ago, but he said he did not.   I wondered if he really did not, or if he knew that my old boyfriend has been "benched" at the seminary because of charges of inappropriate behavior with a minor.  He did look at me rather oddly when I asked him.

Sandy had a so-so day, but I had a terrible afternoon.  There were a total of six sales, the largest of which was to "my friend," who spent nearly $20.  Four of the six sales were for bargain books, so a sum total of $4.  We have had donated books, though and for today at least, the number of books donated was more than the number of books sold on my shift!  I am assuming that when the temps drop to something more comfortable and when the students are moving in to Davis, not moving out, this ratio will reverse itself.

Shortly after Sandy left, I had a "butt call" from Walt.   I tried yelling at his butt, but he didn't hear me.  I did call back and leave a message, which he eventually got, but didn't return the call since he hadn't wanted to talk to me anyway.

I saw Bruce looking through the bargain books, but I guess he didn't find anything he wanted because he didn't come into the store.

A Chinese guy bought 2 bargain books.  He told me he was from Nanjing, the capital of Eastern China.  He has only been in town for "40 days," he says, and added that he thinks the people of Davis are very nice.  He wanted to know where he could buy sheets of stamps and I drew him a map to the local post office and assured him that yes, he could get there on his bike.

A woman wearing heavy jeans and a sweatshirt came in and complained about the heat.  She was looking through the travel books and bought a book on Vancouver and "The Sun Also Rises," explaining that she is leaving for Spain next week.  She also talked about how much she loves Vancouver and what a great city it is to get around in because the transportation system is so good.

A woman came in to find out where she could catch a bus to Sacramento.  I had to tell her I wasn't that familiar with the Davis bus system and I was going to call Walt to ask him (because he would know), but she left before I had a chance to do so.

A kind of nondescript woman, fresh-faced, wearing a light weight sundress with a very short skirt and showing off her boobs nicely came in.  She had curly hair that she wore in a pony tail high on her head.  She wandered around for awhile, but, like almost everyone else so far, she also left without buying anything.

A tall guy with a list in his hand went rummaging through the Literature shelves and eventually left without making a purchase.

A woman who reminded me of our old friend Merrell came in.  She was short, rotund, and had a mass of unruly bronze colored curls.  She was looking for books with Spanish on one side and English on the other and I told her I didn't think we had anything like that.  She found a chair to climb on so she could check the top shelves, since she was so short.  Eventually she left empty handed.

In contrast with the low key dresses that the Merrell doppelganger was wearing was a young woman wearing a busy dress with a short skirt in shades of purple, beige and gold, with a butterfly motif.  Her straw bag was woven in the same shades of colors.  I was impressed.  She checked out the "old books," but left without buying anything.

An Asian woman was looking for "Building Bridges, not Walls" and I directed to her toward the Personal Growth shelves, but she didn't find what she was looking for and left.

A Dad and son came in and checked out the children's room, where the son found a book on snakes.  Dad wanted to know if we had any MadLibs books and I told him he was unlikely to find a used MadLib book.  He and his son sat at the front table for a very long time, off and on giggling, which I found cute. They ultimately left without buying anything, and without putting the snake book back in the children's room.

An older man in rumpled pants and a cut-off t-shirt came in.  He reminded me of our old friend Harry Krade (now long dead).  He wandered around for awhile, checking the travel books, before leaving.

A woman came in looking for Harry Potter books.  She bought "Goblet of Fire" and was out of the store in less than 5 minutes.

A Japanese environmentalist was looking for books on the National Parks and also a book on Village Homes, an environmentally friendly subdivision which was so famous in 1975 when developer Mike Corbett built it that Rosalind Carter came out for the dedication.  At least one of our kids was part of the welcoming committee for her.  Sadly, I don't think anybody has written a book about Village Homes (but in case someone has, I sent him to the Avid Reader to look) and he didn't find what he was looking for about national parks, so another no-sale.

A Mom and son came in.  The little kid had a tube of "something" and I asked him about it.  He told me that it had everything--knights, dragons and swords.  "That's cool," I said.   "Yeah--I have good stuff," he told me.  Mom ultimately bought a different Harry Potter book.

I almost didn't notice the "purple lady," who, as it turned out, was my last customer of the day.  She was wearing a purple dress, a purple headband, shoes and purse which nicely contrasted with her blonde hair and pale skin.   But she was in and out very quickly and, of course, did not buy anything.

Peter arrived just about 6, followed soon after by Walt and my exhausting day at Logos was over for another week.

Day 73:  I LOVE my new t-shirt!