Today at Logos

I  relieved Peter and Susan, who were off to the home of a hoarder, who had a large collection of partially decomposed books.  "Peter just loves this stuff," Susan says.

I was going to choose a book to read and then saw this staring at me from the bookshelf facing the desk.

Nearly 300 pages of behind the scenes of the writing, producing, decorating, and acting of Downton Abbey.  Wonderful book.  I loved it.  Filled with great photos.

It was 40 minutes before my first customer(s) showed up, a group of 3 (2 women and a man), who looked like they were seeing the place for the first time.  One woman wore a neat, attractive paisley print skirt, something you rarely see around here.  The other woman, wearing long, shabby cargo pants, asked me about the store policy of donating proceeds to charity.  She said she will donate books to the cause.  She also bought a contemporary fiction book.

A big guy named Charlie came in to talk about donations. He says he is consolidating two homes into one newly built home and he has "24 feet of books" to donate.  A lot of books "more than 100" (which doesn't actually sound like all that much!) and he pulled out his cell phone to show me both a bookcase of books and his house, currently under construction in Napa.

It was 30 more minutes before I made my second sale, 2 bargain books.

A quite colorful couple came in.  She had pink hair the color of Easter Peeps, which clashed terribly with her red "Animal Place" t-shirt.  He had shoulder length greasy looking hair that looked like it was being grown out from bleach blonde because the new growth was dark brown.  He also wore red boots with the laces untied.  They didn't buy anything, but they added color to what was starting to look like a pretty boring day.

At 4 p.m., things picked up a little.  A woman in a long flowing filmy type black dress with a long black coat over it and shoulder length black curls bought two bargain books.  (To this point my total sales for the day were about $9)

A father and daughter came in.  The daughter asked about kids' books and then asked if we had any bibles.  The father, dressed in shorts and a shirt with wide muted blue and red stripes, asked if there were still a Logos Books in Santa Cruz.  I explained that we were not connected to that store, and he wondered about the legality of two stores in California having the same name, but not connected.  He seemed troubled by this, but he bought a copy of one of those "pretty" books of Dickens stories (the kind of book you buy to dress up the appearance of your book shelf)

A guy came in looking for "Of Mice and Men," was pleased to find it, bought it, and left.  We usually have a good collection of Steinbeck books.  Maybe people want to get rid of Steinbeck more than some other authors.

A guy in rumpled white cargo pants and a faded aloha shirt wandered around for awhile, then left, then came back in again to check one of the books on display in the front window, but again left without buying anything.

A large woman came in wearing a sleeveless black top with lacy panels on the side that showed off her polka dot bra and her many tattoos.  She also had anklets visible under her jeans, one bright pink and the other chartreuse.  She, too, bought a bargain book.

My friend showed up at 5, saying he had not been here last week because he had gone to Ashland and told me about the six plays he had seen in 4 days.  He bought a book on the art of Black Africa.

A white haired woman with a flowered shirt over a yellow t-shirt bought 3 cookbooks, a book of Japanese prints, a book about barns, and a book of "miscellaneous facts."

A woman carrying a huge tub from the local frozen yogurt shop came in to buy a bargain book.

And in keeping with the theme of "colorful day," my final customer was quite a sight.  She was short and petite, had a round face and curls that encircled her head.  She wore a short brightly pattered skirt that was the length of an ice skater's skirt, but with something under it that made it stick out like a ballerina's tutu.  She had tall Mary Jane type heels with bright pink socks with lace cuffs.  Her blouse, which had short puffy sleeves, was black with a large white lace triangle accenting her neck line, down to her cleavage, and she carried a pink backpack.  She didn't buy anything, but she certainly added "character" to the day!

Walt arrived about 10 seconds after Peter and we rushed home because I had to review of production of Chekov's Uncle Vanya at 7 p.m., which gave us about 20 minutes to have dinner and get to the theater.