Sandy was working today and we had a long chat. We are
bemoaning the approaching end of Logos (end of January) and Sandy said
starting in October, she will only work every other week, so I won't
see her as much.
It seems each time we have a long chat we learn more about
each other. I learned today that her daughter was a midwife at the
medical office where I worked for 12 years. She didn't come until
about seven years after I left, but we talked a lot about the office, the
partnership, The Mother Ship and how it screwed us all. It was nice to
have yet another thing that connects us.
There were many customers who came in and out while we
chatted but we kind of ignored them, especially when we got into the
upcoming election and how depressing it all is.
But she eventually left and my afternoon was moderately
busy. The first customer looked around for a long time before buying
"The Dynamics of Automotive Controls."
My friend Ellen called with a question about our local
internet provider, but she also told me she was in a 4-car accident on the
freeway yesterday and her car was totaled. Miraculously nobody
was injured. She sounds like she has a bit of PTSD today. I
couldn't talk long Nobody was in the store when she called, but
finally 3 customers came in and I feel uncomfortable talking on the phone
while there are customers in the store.
A
woman I described in my notes as a "me-type," i.e, the same kind of build
and posture, though much younger. She was wearing a very oddly
patterned shirt, that looked almost tie dyed, but not quite. Hers
turned out to be one of the funnier encounters of the day. Shortly
after she came in and started looking through cookbooks, an older couple
came, both very tall. They were wandering around the store and the "me
type" had put the cookbooks she was going to buy on the desk and was looking
at other books.
While she looked, I was browsing through one book she found
called "Artichoke," not only artichoke recipes, but also the history of the
artichoke (which apparently goes back 2,000 years). Anyway, when she
was ready to check out, I told her my theory that artichokes were a sign
that God says it's OK to eat mayonnaise.
Then
I added that I remembered seeing an Our Gang comedy where Buckwheat was
given an artichoke to eat--and from somewhere in the book store, the older
guy called out "No...Stymie!" (In truth, I never thought it was
Buckwheat either, but couldn't remember any of the other characters except
Alfalfa, and I knew it wasn't Alfalfa).
[This is, by the way, why I don't like taking personal calls in the office
when there are customers there!]
So that was my bit of humor for the day. She paid for
her books and left. The Little Rascals expert was with his wife.
Both were very tall and both wore wide brimmed hats. She was a vision
in purple. He bought two photo coffee table type books and was saying
he hadn't been back to Davis in a long time, that he had gone to school here
in the 70s and he was amazed at how different downtown looks. We
compared notes on restaurants he remembered that are no longer her (like
Larry Blake's, with its wonderful Rathskeller in the basement). He
asked for a bag for his two large books and I told him I'd have to charge
him. He waved me away and said they now live in Santa Cruz and "we have that
rule there too."
A mother walked by the store and I only noticed her because
she had two little boys, abut the age of Brianna and Lacie, and each of them
had his own iPhone and they were looking at them intently, I wonder if
they were playing Pokemon Go.
A young woman almost wearing a crotch length skirt (I can't
believe how short skirts are these days!). Her friend had a slightly,
but only very slightly, longer skirt. She bought coffee table books on
the Louvre and the D'Orsay museum and the very next customer found two
coffee table books on the bargain table on Versailles and one other French
place. The second woman told me she was going to France in 2 days with
her kids, 6 and 8, that she home schooled them and that she uses books like
this to make "scavenger hunt" books for them when they travel.
A very thin woman with skinny arms that make one appreciate
a layer or two of avoirdupois under the skin bought Nora Ephron's "I feel
bad about my neck."
My friend arrived shortly after 4 and found a book on rifles
in the bargain bin, though it did not have a bargain price on it I
made an executive decision and told him he could have it for the bargain
price. He also bought an art book.
A woman named Alice, who seemed to be a friend of Susan's
came in and told me she had received a note from Susan saying she had left a
book for her. We went to look at the pick-up shelf and it wasn't
there. She read over Susan's note which said that the book would be in
a bag on that shelf, with her name on it. I texted Susan, who had no
memory of the incident--or the text--but she told me to look on the top
shelf of the cookbook section and there it was. But it had a price on
it and Alice thought Susan was giving it to her. She decided
she didn't want it if she had to buy it, and then Susan texted that I could
just give it to her, but by now she had decided she didn't want it after
all.
A Japanese young woman came in wearing the cutest pants I've
seen. They were denim, but they had a design of zippers all over them,
and each "zipper" opened a bit to show a dog or a cat underneath, peeking
out. There may have been other animals too, but I only noticed the
cats and dogs.
She bought 3 horse story books from the children's room and
paid with a Japanese credit card, which our machine accepted, but it was the
first time I had been asked to enter a PIN for a credit card.
When the transaction was completed, she signed the receipt in Japanese.
A professor type bought 3 books on electrical engineering.
A tall woman who looked like a professor type bought four board books in the
children's section for her new 4 month old grandson (her first....she was
very excited).
A short guy wearing ear buds bought two Tolkien books, and a
Martha Stewart type bought two bargain books.
A woman came in with two bags of donations, which she
deposited in the back and then bought a copy of "The Orphan Master's Son,"
which is a Pulitzer prize winner set in North Korea. She says she has read
before, but it's wonderful.
A man with ruddy complexion and bleach-blonde hair, who was
probably homeless, left his huge backpack and bed roll outside and came in
to check the science fiction section. He didn't buy anything, but when
he left the store to get his stuff and go on to...wherever he was
headed...he was talking to himself. (Pretty sure he was not talking on
a cell phone).
Peter came to relieve me. Apparently there is going to
be a notice in the paper, maybe as soon as tomorrow, about Logos going out
of business in January. Guess it's really happening.
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