Oi vey, what a day was today. If ever there was a day when I should simply have stayed put in bed, this was most certainly it. Got up, decided it was too early to be got up, went back to bed, remembered I had promised to show up early for work today, and got up again (you can see it's all downhill from here....)
Following the get-up, get-dressed, search for muffins or other suitable breakfasty items, I marched out the door to glorious blue skies, which, after I had progressed a suitable distance from home (and was an equally suitable distance from any shelter) the heavens opened up with a truly magnificent downpour of sideways rain. This rain is what those from Bermyville refer to as "good tank rain" because it's of significant enough force to fill up our water tanks as opposed to simply greening up the grass. So, soaked, I trudged on, only for the sky to again bloom into a magnificent blue complete with fluffy clouds and glowing sunbeams. Someone up there must be laughing.....
Upon arrival, soaked to the skin, I discovered that this was not going to be a peaceful day at Bookstore Central. Since it is MagazineyLand's last full day before final shutdown, Batboy was in full swing dragging in shelving units and other misc. items including a dazzling array of power cords the like of which I have never seen. Despite Central's growing bookspace and the general uphoria of thinking of all the many books we could jam on the shelves, it was still very sad to see the last of MagazineyLand. A mournful progression of people arrived to see if somehow miraculously the magazines had teleported to our store. Even viewing its smallness and the fact that every nook and cranny contains books and not a single magazine, many people looked searchingly through the store to see if we were lying about the 'no magazines' thing.
It was also a day jammed with people. They rushed the counter, so that no sooner did one begin to ring up one order but another person was there to order books, or one was shifting through orders while anxiously glancing at the anxious customer standing by. Somedays we are more bitter about having only one cash register, and this was one of them. There was no stopping the madness. When six o'clock arrived we were all completely finished.
My one bright spot of the day was that Fearless Leader, enthused with our book plan, has already done word counts and figured out pesky details like publishing formats. Another 2,000 words to add to the book and we'll be in business. What's next is to convince Rindeseyeu of the magnificent art talent to illustrate them. Here's to hoping.....
Rounding out the evening was our usual Lost Wednesday, at which we all descend upon Rindeseyeu's house for madness and general hoopla. We inaugerated a new fuzzy pirate anime which was surely brought to you by the makers of "That 70s Show", in a world where all the characters have astonishingly bad hair and useless technology, and where pirates are kind generous souls out to help the underdog, and who are bewildered when they are taken advantage of by con men. Oh yes, if you have ever longed for a movie that brought together campy swordplay, mech machines with less flexability than the ones you can get at Toys R Us, and truely ridiculous heroes with bad hair, then THIS is your show.
And with that, I think it may be time to go to sleep and put this day to rest :-p
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Muckedy Muck
The upheaval continues at Bookstore Central as we try to drag/carry/wheel as many bookshelves from our Magaziney counterpart into the store. By an ingenius (and possibly impractical) formation we have added several new bookshelves, and blocked off the window. StitcherAngel worries that this will now be the place where books go to die. Hopefully they will, in fact, have a more merciful fate.
Spent alot of today up and down ladders, stool, and other height assisting devices as all the new shelves are several times larger than my small person. I suppose I shall have to get used to it til the faery wings are fully operational. But we are already threatening customers with giggles by pixie dust should they misbehave. It has worked so far, so perhaps rigging the wings is not too far off.
Like our store at the moment, this post is pretty higgeldy piggeldy, and lacks a clear purpose, so let me share a few highlights of today:
explaining to a lady that the Portuguese language book she bought in 1966 with accompanying records is almost certainly out-of-print.
explaining that I hold with fair certainty that the kama sutra is an Indian documet (not Chinese, nor Japanese or even Korean), and that I believed that it did sell fairly well. This may sound easy, but you try doing this while gazing with said customer at a picture of folks doing improbable things on an elephant - sometimes I wonder at the shopping list involved for these sorts of things - date night with the hubby, hmm, must not forget to pick up elephant....
telling yet more people that the wonderful article telling people that they might purchase a book about Clipper Planes from our shop was quite wrong, as the book is out of print for the near future (the author of said lovely front page article believed he was doing us a favour by instructing people to rush to our store for a book it is impossible for us to get)...
There's more but I've got class upcoming, so I must now turn my thoughts to early childhood studies, and the effect of violent media upon small children. If this sounds thrilling, you really need to take two asprin and hie yourself off to bed; for the rest of you, I'm sure you can sense with what anticipation I am approaching this class.....
Spent alot of today up and down ladders, stool, and other height assisting devices as all the new shelves are several times larger than my small person. I suppose I shall have to get used to it til the faery wings are fully operational. But we are already threatening customers with giggles by pixie dust should they misbehave. It has worked so far, so perhaps rigging the wings is not too far off.
Like our store at the moment, this post is pretty higgeldy piggeldy, and lacks a clear purpose, so let me share a few highlights of today:
explaining to a lady that the Portuguese language book she bought in 1966 with accompanying records is almost certainly out-of-print.
explaining that I hold with fair certainty that the kama sutra is an Indian documet (not Chinese, nor Japanese or even Korean), and that I believed that it did sell fairly well. This may sound easy, but you try doing this while gazing with said customer at a picture of folks doing improbable things on an elephant - sometimes I wonder at the shopping list involved for these sorts of things - date night with the hubby, hmm, must not forget to pick up elephant....
telling yet more people that the wonderful article telling people that they might purchase a book about Clipper Planes from our shop was quite wrong, as the book is out of print for the near future (the author of said lovely front page article believed he was doing us a favour by instructing people to rush to our store for a book it is impossible for us to get)...
There's more but I've got class upcoming, so I must now turn my thoughts to early childhood studies, and the effect of violent media upon small children. If this sounds thrilling, you really need to take two asprin and hie yourself off to bed; for the rest of you, I'm sure you can sense with what anticipation I am approaching this class.....
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Bookstorian
It's been a bit of a nutter of a week at Bookstore Central. The biggest thing is that our Magaziney cousin store has just closed down so we've got all our usual things to deal with, plus all the folks dashing in or calling in anxiously inquiring about the fate of their subscriptions, and store credits and the like. In addition we are inheriting much of Magazine Central's shelving units, replacing those of ours which are on their last limbs. Overlord, in his infinite wisdom decided that these shelving moves would be much better accomplished while the store was still open, so it's been a madhouse of shuffling going on. Later on there will also be a major switcheroo of shelving too, so things will be torn apart again. All in all, it was perfectly chaotic, which beats out in everyone's books, those very few days when the store is so quiet that we run out of things to do.
Thankfully our long lost British shipment chose this particular week to arrive so that we can unpack boxes at the same time. The most overjoyed for certain were those anxiously awaiting the Mills and Boons shipment which had been severely delayed. We had folks popping in every day on the look out for them. Tomorrow will be an early day as it's StitcherAngel's day off, and Fearless Leader will be babysitting our computer system as it moves house. So it will be just BatBoy and myself in the store for most of the day. Since Batboy will be on hauling duty, I'll be in charge of the front desk. I'll resist the urge tonight to go all Star Trek on you all and refer to it as the helm or the bridge, though in some ways it is. It's a big rectangular thing that's about 3/4 my height, so it's almost a separate room really, filled with books, and what can only be refered to collectively as miscellaneous.
The funniest part of the week for me started off as a joke. Still hyped from reading "The Gruffalo" one too many times (its bad that I can now nearly recite the book from memory too) I sat down at my computer playing with something Julia Donaldson said about the lot of us being right out of a book ourselves. So I sat down and wrote (in very rough form) the beginnings of a book about the store, full of literary embellishments of course, and fired it off to StitcherAngel thinking we'd have a laugh about it later. She then fired it off to FearlessLeader, who mailed it off to all and sundry and demanded to know what happened next. So I finished it, but not in great enough length, so we've all verbally expanded upon it all week long. The past few days we've all been working up diabolical plots for our nefarious villains and ways for our heroes to defeat them. So, my prank may in fact be its own book. We have mentioned to Rindeseyu that should it come about we plan to badger her into illustrating it, especially since the first book she's illustrated has just this evening rolled off the presses looking fabulous.
So, readers, should you stumble upon any nefarious plot ideas you'd like to share feel free to post them. The free sharing of ideas is definitely one of the things that I like best about working in a bookstore. You really get to see the things that are important to people, and you get to explore yourself in the process. Not a day goes by that I don't find my share of laughter, and I think that that may be the best part of all.
Thankfully our long lost British shipment chose this particular week to arrive so that we can unpack boxes at the same time. The most overjoyed for certain were those anxiously awaiting the Mills and Boons shipment which had been severely delayed. We had folks popping in every day on the look out for them. Tomorrow will be an early day as it's StitcherAngel's day off, and Fearless Leader will be babysitting our computer system as it moves house. So it will be just BatBoy and myself in the store for most of the day. Since Batboy will be on hauling duty, I'll be in charge of the front desk. I'll resist the urge tonight to go all Star Trek on you all and refer to it as the helm or the bridge, though in some ways it is. It's a big rectangular thing that's about 3/4 my height, so it's almost a separate room really, filled with books, and what can only be refered to collectively as miscellaneous.
The funniest part of the week for me started off as a joke. Still hyped from reading "The Gruffalo" one too many times (its bad that I can now nearly recite the book from memory too) I sat down at my computer playing with something Julia Donaldson said about the lot of us being right out of a book ourselves. So I sat down and wrote (in very rough form) the beginnings of a book about the store, full of literary embellishments of course, and fired it off to StitcherAngel thinking we'd have a laugh about it later. She then fired it off to FearlessLeader, who mailed it off to all and sundry and demanded to know what happened next. So I finished it, but not in great enough length, so we've all verbally expanded upon it all week long. The past few days we've all been working up diabolical plots for our nefarious villains and ways for our heroes to defeat them. So, my prank may in fact be its own book. We have mentioned to Rindeseyu that should it come about we plan to badger her into illustrating it, especially since the first book she's illustrated has just this evening rolled off the presses looking fabulous.
So, readers, should you stumble upon any nefarious plot ideas you'd like to share feel free to post them. The free sharing of ideas is definitely one of the things that I like best about working in a bookstore. You really get to see the things that are important to people, and you get to explore yourself in the process. Not a day goes by that I don't find my share of laughter, and I think that that may be the best part of all.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Eventful Week -
Well, far be it for me to have had a peaceful return to the island. My returning present was a lovely bout of gastroentitis. After a peaceful and entirely healthy Saturday, I inaugerated Sunday with severe dehydration, high fevers, delusions which involved a rousing chorus all intoning with great seriousness "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe", and fainting spells.
After I lost consciousness for several minutes, my family decided not to believe me when I assured them that a few ginger ales and some sleep would cure my ills. Instead, I was half dragged to the car and dropped off in the Emergency Room of the hospital. Now as an indication of just how bad I must have looked, you should know that the King Edward Memorial Emergency Ward is often overflowing, and even if you arrived with a limb falling off, you would still have a two hour wait. But in this case, over my protestations that I was "just fine now, really," (by which I meant, "I'm conscious, really, so take me home," I was immediately booked into the emergency room, depribed of several vials of blood for testing, and hooked up to a machine and given over the course of several hours, multiple bags of fluids, and lots of medication. As usual, the hospital was not the most fun I'd had, ever, but the nurses and docs were quite nice (which I did not appreciate as much then as I did later).
After my hospital visit, I returned home to have a week's worth of all the symptoms of the flu, coming on a day to day selection, so that each day highlighted a new symptom of the flu in glorious detail - day one - nausea, day two - aches all over, day three - violent headache, day four - whooziness, and day five - extreme fatigue. But, thankfully, the worst seems to be over, and I've been back at work this week, which rocks.
Today was a fun day, if still fairly brisk. The new computer upgrades continue to taunt me, however, by sheer force of will, I beat it back into submission. One of our several Julia Donaldson shipments finally arrived, so that we are somewhat stocked up in preparation for her book signing on Saturday. It looks to be a mob scene on Saturday. We had a stream of sad-eyed parents coming in over the last few days, who, like me, were unable to get tickets to the instantaneously sold-out "Gruffalo and Friends" book reading. I've already gathered together all of our considerable Julia Donaldson books in preparation, in spite of the fact that it probably won't make much of difference to six year old Madam, who will probably be far more occupied with her Christmas Baby Born doll.
Big Brother made the fatal Christmas error of getting Madam the must-have Baby Born dolls, which like all the good casinos of Vegas, then keep you on the hook forever purchasing Baby Born supplies. Poor Big Brother spent all of Sunday attempting to flush out Baby's insides after repeated feedings, leakings, arm-squeezing tears, and squeaks of joy. He grew less and less impressed with Baby Born as the day worn on, and I think a little gleefully, sent Madam home with the lovely hippopotamus of joy :)
Bookstore Central continues on in its usual speed, including our daily 2007 Lullapalooza Festival of rock (at least this is the term used by the office accountants who inhabit Central's upstairs, and whose office configuration is apparently laid out in such a way, so that every desk lies directly on top of one of Bookstore Central's speakers, and thus vibrates with every note of School House Rock. We were also gifted by a vist by two of our favorite readers today, the Dashing Gentleman (DG) and Many Interests Man (MIM). Between the two of them, I am convinced that they must have the most amazing and varied libraries in all of Bermy. They are among the select who have standing order piles from which they come weekly to fish through, and add to with new orders. And they always get the most interesting books. MIM is currently going through a yogism faze and has every conceivable book on the subject to be found in print. DG, possessor of several wonderful hats of the 20s and 30s era, always gets wonderful historical books; his most recent selections include books on Mozart, the Elizabethan era, the most photographed women of all time, and a biography of Duke Ellington.
Anyway, fellow bookstore minions, it is to bed with this minion, the better to carry out nefarious book deeds upon the morrow. Take care of yourselves, and keep on reading!
After I lost consciousness for several minutes, my family decided not to believe me when I assured them that a few ginger ales and some sleep would cure my ills. Instead, I was half dragged to the car and dropped off in the Emergency Room of the hospital. Now as an indication of just how bad I must have looked, you should know that the King Edward Memorial Emergency Ward is often overflowing, and even if you arrived with a limb falling off, you would still have a two hour wait. But in this case, over my protestations that I was "just fine now, really," (by which I meant, "I'm conscious, really, so take me home," I was immediately booked into the emergency room, depribed of several vials of blood for testing, and hooked up to a machine and given over the course of several hours, multiple bags of fluids, and lots of medication. As usual, the hospital was not the most fun I'd had, ever, but the nurses and docs were quite nice (which I did not appreciate as much then as I did later).
After my hospital visit, I returned home to have a week's worth of all the symptoms of the flu, coming on a day to day selection, so that each day highlighted a new symptom of the flu in glorious detail - day one - nausea, day two - aches all over, day three - violent headache, day four - whooziness, and day five - extreme fatigue. But, thankfully, the worst seems to be over, and I've been back at work this week, which rocks.
Today was a fun day, if still fairly brisk. The new computer upgrades continue to taunt me, however, by sheer force of will, I beat it back into submission. One of our several Julia Donaldson shipments finally arrived, so that we are somewhat stocked up in preparation for her book signing on Saturday. It looks to be a mob scene on Saturday. We had a stream of sad-eyed parents coming in over the last few days, who, like me, were unable to get tickets to the instantaneously sold-out "Gruffalo and Friends" book reading. I've already gathered together all of our considerable Julia Donaldson books in preparation, in spite of the fact that it probably won't make much of difference to six year old Madam, who will probably be far more occupied with her Christmas Baby Born doll.
Big Brother made the fatal Christmas error of getting Madam the must-have Baby Born dolls, which like all the good casinos of Vegas, then keep you on the hook forever purchasing Baby Born supplies. Poor Big Brother spent all of Sunday attempting to flush out Baby's insides after repeated feedings, leakings, arm-squeezing tears, and squeaks of joy. He grew less and less impressed with Baby Born as the day worn on, and I think a little gleefully, sent Madam home with the lovely hippopotamus of joy :)
Bookstore Central continues on in its usual speed, including our daily 2007 Lullapalooza Festival of rock (at least this is the term used by the office accountants who inhabit Central's upstairs, and whose office configuration is apparently laid out in such a way, so that every desk lies directly on top of one of Bookstore Central's speakers, and thus vibrates with every note of School House Rock. We were also gifted by a vist by two of our favorite readers today, the Dashing Gentleman (DG) and Many Interests Man (MIM). Between the two of them, I am convinced that they must have the most amazing and varied libraries in all of Bermy. They are among the select who have standing order piles from which they come weekly to fish through, and add to with new orders. And they always get the most interesting books. MIM is currently going through a yogism faze and has every conceivable book on the subject to be found in print. DG, possessor of several wonderful hats of the 20s and 30s era, always gets wonderful historical books; his most recent selections include books on Mozart, the Elizabethan era, the most photographed women of all time, and a biography of Duke Ellington.
Anyway, fellow bookstore minions, it is to bed with this minion, the better to carry out nefarious book deeds upon the morrow. Take care of yourselves, and keep on reading!
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Back in Bermy
Hola Readers,
Have returned home to wonderful Bermy, which is almost just as I left it. It was pretty difficult coming back to a house empty of the Fluffernutter. It was rougher than I had supposed it would be. She's in the backyard in her favorite spot, and soon I'll plant a rose bush there for her, but it still won't be the same. In some ways this is the end of my childhood. The cookster became part of our family when I was seven, and every important memory of mine has her in it.
Vincent has a poem called, "Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies", and I think that that does sum things up nicely. Before you encounter death, and have to say goodbye to someone you love, you feel much more secure with the world. Once you've passed that threshold, you know that nothing you love is really completely safe, and you have to face that every day.
Still, it is nice to be back home in my own room, shuffling in all the books that I bought while we were away. I'm a total book fiend, so when I go away and plan a shopping spree, I'm always heading for a Borders or a Barnes and Noble first and foremost. This time I went on a spree of books that I've been recommending from the young adult section at Bookworm Central. Of course there's not quite enough time to read all the books in the store, but it's fun to attempt with the ones that look really good :)
Went into town today to help Santa along with some presents that he missed on the first run around with Madam, who should, I predict, be having a lovely Christmas over the next several weeks. We've worked out that the best system is to dole the presents out over a while, so that they can really be enjoyed, especially since this year the big present will be a show stealer. A bunch of the presents, from me anyway, are books, so those are best appreciated when not competing with things that take two AA batteries.
Tomorrow is our Bermy Family Christmas, which is going to be low-key, and an all-pizza meal which we have never before attempted. There will be brownies, cookies, and lots of chocolate, and the star of the show, the Yankee Swap, which is a family favorite. I spent the evening tonight wrapping all of the presents, in my general inestimable style, which has been described as closely resembling being mauled by wolves.
Anyway, readers, I shall bid you adieu for the night, and I hope that all of you are doing well in the New Year so far.
Have returned home to wonderful Bermy, which is almost just as I left it. It was pretty difficult coming back to a house empty of the Fluffernutter. It was rougher than I had supposed it would be. She's in the backyard in her favorite spot, and soon I'll plant a rose bush there for her, but it still won't be the same. In some ways this is the end of my childhood. The cookster became part of our family when I was seven, and every important memory of mine has her in it.
Vincent has a poem called, "Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies", and I think that that does sum things up nicely. Before you encounter death, and have to say goodbye to someone you love, you feel much more secure with the world. Once you've passed that threshold, you know that nothing you love is really completely safe, and you have to face that every day.
Still, it is nice to be back home in my own room, shuffling in all the books that I bought while we were away. I'm a total book fiend, so when I go away and plan a shopping spree, I'm always heading for a Borders or a Barnes and Noble first and foremost. This time I went on a spree of books that I've been recommending from the young adult section at Bookworm Central. Of course there's not quite enough time to read all the books in the store, but it's fun to attempt with the ones that look really good :)
Went into town today to help Santa along with some presents that he missed on the first run around with Madam, who should, I predict, be having a lovely Christmas over the next several weeks. We've worked out that the best system is to dole the presents out over a while, so that they can really be enjoyed, especially since this year the big present will be a show stealer. A bunch of the presents, from me anyway, are books, so those are best appreciated when not competing with things that take two AA batteries.
Tomorrow is our Bermy Family Christmas, which is going to be low-key, and an all-pizza meal which we have never before attempted. There will be brownies, cookies, and lots of chocolate, and the star of the show, the Yankee Swap, which is a family favorite. I spent the evening tonight wrapping all of the presents, in my general inestimable style, which has been described as closely resembling being mauled by wolves.
Anyway, readers, I shall bid you adieu for the night, and I hope that all of you are doing well in the New Year so far.
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