Friday, February 6, 2015

Today at Logos

After a few weeks of not-very-busy days at Logos, today was pretty steady for both Sandy, in the morning, and me in the afternoon.  Susan said we made nearly $400 for the day.

The first person in the store for me after Sandy left was a very tall woman dressed in shorts, despite the chill outside.  She had a panda bear back pack and started checking the Fantasy section when suddenly she came to ask me if we had a bathroom.  Ours is for the employees and really not fit for the general public, so I directed her to a building across the street and she raced out the door.  I didn't expect her to return, but she did later (though still didn't buy anything).

Next was a mom, who rushed in asking if we had kids' books. I showed her the kids' room and she went in there while her mother was outside with a baby in a stroller and two dogs, a little fluffy on and a big Lab, on a leash.  Mom came out with a stack of books, asking me how much they cost (apparently the price tag on the back was too subtle for her).  She put most of them back, but did buy two, one of which was about cows learning how to type and leaving messages for their farmer.  I was sorry I hadn't seen that.  I would like to know how cloven hoofed animals learn to type.

Then one of the other volunteers came in with her mother, who looked around and said "so this is where you work."  They bought a book on quilting because apparently the daughter was going to start learning how to quilt and Mom had given all of her books away to her sister years ago.

A middle aged guy with long hair and a full beard was looking for a book called "Maps to Ecstasy," by Gabriella Roth.  It's about healing through dance.  I directed him to our Personal Growth section but he didn't find it and left.

A tall, guy, neatly dressed in slacks and a blue sweater with the most highly polished shoes I'd seen in awhile strode in purposefully, went straight to the literature section, plucked two books by Herman Hesse, paid for them and was out of the store in less than 5 minutes.

A chubby woman who reminded me of me, dressed in baggy sweat pants, a chartreuse t-shirt, a baggy blue sweater and athletic shoes came in with an armload that consisted of newspapers and a bag of chips which she kept rearranging because it seemed like it was going to fall.  She started looking through Personal Growth.  She was very pleasant and happy looking, but didn't find anything to interest her today.

Next a dad with 2 kids and a mom with 1 kid came in, one after the other and went to the children's room.  The kids were all very excited.  The mom and her son chose books first and came out to pay.  He handed me his book to ring up, with sparkly eyes and a smile on his dirty face.  When I handed it back to him, he clasped it like I'd just given him a million dollars and they left.

Then the dad came out with his two kids, each with a book.  His daughter (4-1/2 years old, she told me) had "Queen Bea" and the boy had a book on ships.  He told me he likes boats "even plastic ones."  They were thrilled when I told them they could each take bookmarks.

(I just love these parent-kid visits!)

A nicely dressed, attractive woman in a suede jacket and khaki pants came in and picked out a book of J.D. Salinger short stories.  We talked about what a recluse Salinger was and she noticed that I was reading "1984."  She said she was a teacher and her students were about to start reading that book.  We talked a bit about Big Brother and how that relates to 2015.  It would be interesting to see what her kids think of the book.

Two guys stood outside looking in the window at the books on display.  One came in to pick a book called "Monet's Kitchen."  His partner came in (I got a gaydar vibe).  They stood with their backs to me and they were dressed identically, with baggy jeans and matching hoodies.  One guy had white hair and the other one had a tiny pony tail at his neck line.  When the guy came to pay for his book, he was preceeded to the desk by waves of body odor.

A burly guy in a red cotton checked shirt, wearing a backpack, and sporting a full beard started looking through the literature section and chose two books by Mark Twain.

My friend showed up right at 5 and wandered around a bit, finally buying a book on Indian (from India) miniatures.

A Latino guy wanted bibles, but apparently didn't find the one he was looking for because he didn't buy anything.

An older guy came in wanting to know if we bought old textbooks.  It sounded like he had his college engineering textbooks (so does Walt!)  and recently found one of them for sale on e-Bay for considerably more than he paid for it, so he thought he could make some money finding a book store to buy his old books.  We don't buy books, but I gave him some ideas of where he might try to sell them.

It reminded me of the book I typed (all 651 pages, multi equations and all, three times, on a pre-Selectric typewriter) back in the 1960s.  It was called "Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics" and I think it sold for something like $20 back then.  I just checked on Amazon and it's still for sale...for $102 (and has a lot of 5-star reviews from patrons).  That book was translated into many different languages and the most fun one was Japanese because on the acknowledgements page, it's all Japanese characters except for "Beverly West," which is written out.  

Toward the end of the day, Bruce came in.  I hadn't seen him in months.  I hardly recognized him because this was the first time I had seen him without his home made hat and the bulky sweater he was wearing made him look considerably heavier than he is.  However he was still all in white.  The sweater was unraveling and over it he wore a too-big white t-shirt.  He looked around for awhile, but didn't find anything and left, turning to give me a wave as he did.

At the end of the day, Walt picked me up and we went out for a fabulous Japanese dinner to "celebrate" what would have been David's 42nd birthday. I ordered tempura.  I just love the "tempura tower" (I call it).


Walt ordered two plates of sushi rolls and we shared everything, which was just perfect.

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