To quote my mother lately, I'm getting old, guys! For
16 years now, I have often stayed up until 1 or 2 a.m. to get tomorrow's
entry written. More and more nights now, the idea of getting up from
my comfortable recliner and coming into my office is moderately
overwhelming, when the thought of lying down and going to sleep is so
much more inviting. So you'll discover that probably at least half of
the time, entries are posted in the morning of the date instead of the night
before. Which may not make a difference to anybody but me, but I
thought I'd mention it!
So...Logos. Sandy is still on vacation so there was a
kid working, and I guess the woman with him was his mother (Walt told me
later that they are neighbors). At the end of the day Susan asked me
if the kid had said anything about something and I told her in all honesty
that he didn't. say. a. word. Seemed like he didn't know who I was or
why I was there, took his time about leaving the front desk, and left
without saying goodbye. So much for chit chat!
A couple of African American men came in, the one with the
beard and wearing bright red plaid cargo pants and a red shirt, the other
was carrying some take-out food and 3 or 4 of those commemorative rubber
bands on his wrist. They didn't buy anything, but waved and said "have
a good day" when they left.
The next guy was very ordinary looking and bought 3 science
fiction books and a book by Cesar Milan. He left saying "I'm so
excited!" (to be getting those books).
A very tall man with Einstein white hair and a goatee,
wearing shorts and carrying a book bag was looking through the foreign
language books, but I didn't notice when he left.
A woman came in with two bargain books. She laughed
and told me she had been in the day before and bought three books
then and that she was addicted. I told her I understood!
By this time I had chosen "Next" by Michael Crichton to
read. It was one of the ones I had donated and figured that I could
take it home if I got into it. It's one of those
gene-manipulation/cross species things. I noted, with some amusement,
that everywhere I looked, I found books that I had donated on display!
We brought the last two boxes in yesterday and I told Susan she now had
all of my donated books, but from the smallest of the book rooms in the
house. Lord help her if we ever start donating the books in the big
bedroom, which is almost the size of Logos.
A tall Peggy-type wearing an aqua top and denim skirt came
in. The resemblance to Peggy ended here because her blouse, while
neat, was not ironed (it would have been) and Peggy doesn't wear skirts.
She left her heavy book bag at the desk and browsed for a long time,
ultimately buying "Gilgamesh" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster."
A tall guy with "Silverson Pickups" and a big owl on his
t-shirt, wearing bright green trainers, was looking through science fiction.
He disappeared for so long, I thought he had left but about half an hour
later he showed up to buy "Watership Down" and "Stories of Mark Twain."
He paid by card, but it was a debit card and the machine rejected it, so he
left, went to the bank and was back in 10 minutes to buy his books.
A British woman, nattily dressed in black and white (but
with bright salmon colored trainers) came in to ask if we had law text books
for her daughter. Sadly, we don't.
An older couple came in. The guy didn't stay long and
left quickly, but the woman spent a lot of time going through the craft book
section and ultimately bought 4 books on quilts. I told her it sounded
like she was going to be busy, and she admitted she only bought them for the
pictures.
My friend arrived at 4:30 and bought a set of booklets on
King Arthur. He said that if he had met any of his grammar
school classmates he wouldn't recognize them. I told him I probably
wouldn't have either, but we'd contacted each other on Facebook.
A mom with two girls about the age of Brianna and Lacie came
in. The girls were dressed in matching bright royal blue dresses made
of some flimsy material. The dresses had long scooped hems in back and
some sort of embroidered panel in the front. One had what looked like
oversized Converse high tops and the others was in flip flops. The
girls didn't buy anything, but the mom bought a very heavy book by George R.
Martin. I told her it felt like, at $6, she was getting her money's
worth!
Two middle aged women came in with bargain books. They
mentioned the guy whose card had been rejected and told me of a Davis friend
who was shopping in Fairfield (about 15-20 miles away) and had her card
rejected. When she got home, she had an alert from her bank saying
someone was trying to use her card in Fairfield! What? You have to
notify the bank if you're going out of your home city???
A very tall guy with a female friend came in. He
bought 'The Prophet" and she bought "On Death and Dying." Sounds like
light reading for the two of them!
Then there was the woman who bought 3 books on Australia
(one a box of "Australian words and phrases--didn't realize Australian was a
foreign language!) and a box of Tarot cards. I asked her if she were
going to travel to Australia and she replied that she was buying these for
her boy friend, who was going for a few weeks doing research (she told me
what he was doing, but with my impaired hearing, I didn't understand her),
I mentioned that I had been to Australia for 3 weeks and said that I had
only gone to Western Australia. She appeared shocked. "WESTERN
Australia?" she asked. "Does anybody even LIVE there?"
I assured her that there were a couple of hardy souls who
eked out an existence in the wilds of Western Australia...and mentioned the
city of Perth, for example.
Two women came in looking for a bathroom and I said we
didn't have a public restroom, sending them to the bank across the street.
About then Peter and Walt arrived together, followed short
by Susan and dog Sammy. I packed up to leave.
We watched the wonderful night of the Olympics and the
accomplishments of Simone Biles and Aly Raisman (watching her parents was
almost more fun than watching her), and especially watching Michael Phelps
win his 22n gold medal (he has enough of them now to decorate a Christmas
tree!)
Then, exhausted, I went to sleep and left this for the
morning
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