Today at Logos

I'm glad I worked today.  I was feeling kind of blah after the news of Dave's death and Jeri's beautiful "eulogy" for her truck, which she had for 19 years, but which did not survive the Winter of '16 and being buried under snow for 3 months.  She had driven it across the country 6 times and through 31 different states and Canada.  She will miss it sorely.

But Sandy was finally back from her travels and it was good to see her again. Her 8 year old granddaughter was with her and the two of them had dusted all the bookshelves today, since business was so slow.  But they were off for frozen yogurt, so didn't stay to chat.

There was, inexplicably, a display of books about cheese on the front table today.

Never saw so much about cheese before in my life.  I also checked the sci fi shelves and for the first time in the 3 years I've been volunteering at Logos, I actually found a book by my friend David.  Nobody ever has donated a David Gerrold book before.  I have this one at home, but decided to read at it today anyway.  It reads like a lot of his "soliloquies" on life and religion on Facebook.

It was fairly quiet, but still a number of customers during my four-hour stint.  Two Asian women poured over the self improvement shelves.  One bought Mitch Albom's "One More Day" and the other a book by Rick Warren.

An older gentleman bought 3 bargain books and Alex Haley's "Biography of Malcolm X"

A woman who could have been a clone of my friend Ellen came in.  She was too thin, but the hair and carriage were identical.  Very weird.  She didn't buy anything, though.

A girl with a deep tan in an olive green sundress with bright aqua colored nails (I still have not adjusted to non-red nail polish) bought a French dictionary and a contemporary fiction book.

A friendly Mexican man with a green shirt with a tiny Mexican flag on it bought a book by Eckhart Tolle, which he said was for those with no spirituality.  As he was leaving, he returned with another Tolle book.  We give free bookmarks to those who want them and he decided to take Logos bookmarks in every color.

Several people brought in donations today, including one woman with a box of books who had brought in other books before, including three she had not meant to donate.  She searched the store to see if they were there so she could buy them back.  She didn't find what she was looking for, but did find "100 Uses for a Dead Cat," another of her donations.  I told her to just take it.

My friend arrived at 4:15 and bought 'Horace Walpole's Cat," a discussion of the Thomas Grey poem written in her honor and a look at the cultural scene in the 18th century.  He also bought a sci fi book by Jerry Pournelle, whom I think I met once, but I'm not sure.

A mom and young son came in and I thought they spent a long time in the children's section, but she bought 3 books on parenting and no kid's book.

A couple bought a bargain book called "One Minute Organizer," which I thought surely must be science fiction.  Or humor.  Not sure which.

A lovely woman who said she was a librarian, who had never been in Logos before was charmed by both the store and its policy of raising money for Doctors without Borders and Save the Children.  She was very friendly (and smelled nice too--like some lotion or soap) and I liked her. She bought 3 childen's books from the "old book" section and a book on physical fitness.  I asked where she was librarian and she gave me the name of the center, one of the more vocal and virulent anti-gay churches in town.  Oops.  But she was otherwise a lovely person.

So my day ended and it was home again in the heat, which had dropped a bit from 100 degrees with the setting of the sun.  I'm hoping this is the last gasp of summer.  As I find I am doing more and more often these days, I went to sleep early and put off writing this until morning.