Today at Logos

What a fun day it was today!  As dull as last week was, it was that NOT dull today.

The first thing that happened was that I opened the desk drawer and there was my jade earring that I had lost in the office sometime before Christmas!  I knew I had lost it at Logos when I took off my sweatshirt, but I couldn't find it and didn't say anything to anybody about it, just mourned its loss. At Christmas, Brianna and Lacie gave me a pair of earrings that I have been wearing since.  Now my lost earring is back...and I just have to remember where I put the other one now!

The first hour or so was the usual, people coming in asking for books, not buying anything except $1 bargain books. One woman bought a book called "The Unpublished Autobiographical writings of Virginia Woolf."  Uh...if she's buying them in book form can you really call them "unpublished"?

Then a couple came in. She started chatting while he was browsing.   She told me that her kids live here and she was in town to babysit, but that she and hubby had gone to the town of Murphys over the weekend just to have a couple of days alone, and what a nice town it was, but how terrible it was to get to.  She talked about wine tastings and chocolate tasting and I was ready to leave for Murphys right then.   (Actually, I think two of my aunts lived in Murphys for awhile and started the first AA group there.)

Somehow we got on the subject of theater.  I guess she asked me if I was retired and I told her that I was  doing volunteering and being a theater critic in my spare time.  She mentioned that she had a cousin who was in theater around here and asked me if I had ever heard of Peggy Shannon.  Peggy Shannon was the director for Sacramento Theater company and on the faculty at the University.  I knew her quite well and told her cousin that she is now living in Toronto and working for Ryerson University. She got into her (and their) genealogy and how many centuries she had traced their family back, Irish roots blending with Scottish roots (sounds like my family).

I just had a delightful time talking with her, while her husband left the store and was chatting with the guys in the sports store next door.  I promised to email her Peggy's e-mail address so she can contact her.  I felt very good when she left.

A guy came in with books to donate.  He carefully went through each book to make sure he hadn't left anything inside and we talked about several of them, since he reads the same kind of books that I do.

The Pink Lady came in next and spent a lot of time looking through cookbooks.  While she was there, Jeri called and we started chatting but when the Pink Lady was finished and had a stack to check out, I had to hang up.  Jeri said I could call her later, but then we suddenly got busy and about 10 customers came in (most of whom didn't buy anything)

But one of the customers was a woman who came in looking for a copy of "Grapes of Wrath," which we didn't have. I apologized and told her I guessed that the reason we didn't have it was because of the University's recent production of it. She expressed regret at not seeing it and I told her that it was quite good and told her some things about the production and mentioned a lighting effect that I'd noticed that I'd left out of my review...and told her I was a critic (she knew my name).  

That opened a whole floodgate.  She asked how long I'd been in Davis and I told her we had come in 1973 and then she said "do you remember a guy named Bob Cello?"  "Bob CELLO!" I exclaimed and said that Bob had been the very best Tevye I had ever seen.  I asked her if she had seen the production of Fiddler on the Roof that he was in and she said that she had been Tzeitel (Tevye's oldest daughter) in that production.  She mentioned other actors in town that we both knew and said that she had recently attended Mary Stambusky's funeral.  I told her that we were at that funeral too!

Talk about small worlds!

The next customer didn't stay long and didn't buy anything, but I mention her because she was just such a striking looking woman.  I saw her striding across the street, tall, in different shades of brown, with a fringed vest, a Panama hat boots, and bell bottom pants with a slits up the sides (that's what the picture at the left shows, unclearly!).  She looked through the art books, then turned and left, striding back across the street, her long pony tail moving to the rhythm of her body.

The next customer was much less striking, a rotund gentleman in a Kelly green t-shirt, green plaid shorts, and green flip flops.  He had a reddish crew-cut and a scruffy red beard.  He bought a bargain book and a couple of fantasy books.

The next customer also wore flip flops and shorts (in his case, cargo pants), but he had white hair and a white beard.  He bought a children's book about dinosaurs and a book about the predictions of Nostradamus.  I find I am endlessly fascinating by the book combinations that people buy.

Speaking of which, "my friend" didn't show up until nearly 5 p.m. and he bought a book of Siamese cookery. But this time I got a feeling for why so many of his books are of such widely differing subjects.  He told me that he collects books published by Tuttle Press in New Hampshire, which specializes in Asian books, primarily Japanese, but also have a wide range of other subjects and he is proud of his large collection of Tuttle books.

A stern, unsmiling professor type burst through the door, and walked purposefully around a couple of parts of the store and then, without buying anything, he left, but turned around as he left and said "Amazing.  Amazing books, Amazing prices."  Then he was gone.  Very odd.

About this time I heard a dog outside which kept barking and barking and barking.  I'm so used to keeping Lizzie and Polly quiet that I felt almost like I should go outside and try to quiet that dog too!

A biology professor who looks like Dan Florek, who plays Captain Cragen on Law and Order SVU bought a couple of books in Italian and said that he is going to be retiring soon and wants to know if Logos wants all of the books from his office.  I suggested he speak with Peter.

Peter himself relieved me shortly before 5 and I was able to regale Walt with my adventures today on the walk to the car.