January 21, 2011

Do Got Satisfaction



Behind the front door at our house. The Geezer
found these shelves in a dumptser. Every shelf
is adjustable…a most useful trait. Still, it
certainly is time to tidy up this spot behind
the door. 2011.


Yesterday and Today
Himself: Unfuzzying as I type. Coughing less and enjoying life more.

Herself: Really enjoyed the new PBS show Doc Martin. I slept well. WOW!

”You can’t just come in on a day you aren’t scheduled and take over a job,” the boss told us at a staff meeting. So I didn’t.

Wednesday our store Boss put the books on sale. What a wonderful idea. When I got to the store on this my regularly scheduled day, there was this little path back to the small white bookcase. Boxes lined the side of the path. The white bookcase was books half way to the ceiling. The floor in front was a pile of boxes and bags. Every box and bag within sight had books in them. We can’t sell books unless they are out on the sales floor.

Two hardbounds for a buck. Four paperbacks for a buck, too. Imagine that.

So Wednesday, I monopolized the shop’s little red wagon, and filled it again and again with good books. Bent, tired, worn, moldy, and water damaged books go to Father Jo who runs many of the homeless services here in town. He guarantees to sell them. The rest, with permission of the Boss, were scattered through the remainder of the store. Artistically mind you. Not like that hall bookcase of mine.

Thursday, mindful of the gentle warnings, I asked everyone I saw including the Thursday Book Lady, if they minded if I worked….explaining the sale. The Thursday Book Lady continually poked fun at me for the rest of my stay, but I got most of the books all out on the shelves while exchanging fun remarks with the Thursday Book Lady. Little books in baskets, and even kids books in baskets hit gaps in the shelves. Most interesting, for the first time we have a whole shelf of juveniles. All the Little House On the Prairie books came in, as did a vast number of Lemony Snicket books, and another pile of Nancy Drew.

There was an hour on the computer too. ABE Books, Alibris, and Amazon’s used book dealers all give me a good price range for the unusual books I find. One book I found was worth $119.00…the 1930 edition of the essays that La Boehme, and Rent are based on. Four very moldy and dusty art books, we can actually get seven a piece even with the mold. Sometimes I’m surprised, and there were a couple of other surprises. None of them went on the sale shelves this day.

Achoo!

I came home feeling good about the day. I went to bed feeling pleased about it all, and I even woke up looking forward about going in again today. Let me tell you, that’s job satisfaction.

10 comments:

  1. My upstairs neighbor is moving and there will be three bookcases left behind. I would love to have them, but I really have no room, unless I remove some of the pictures from the wall. But I'm afraid having move bookcases will tempt me to buy more books. Ah, life's dilemmas.

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  2. Good job, and I'm sure I'd want to buy tons of books if I worked there. I love the new Doc Martin too!

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  3. I did better than that: I bought a Kindle. It will arrive on Jan 25 from Amazon.

    More than 10 years ago, I worked at a public library in Hawaii, and because of my experiences there, I wrote and published 3 memoirs!

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  4. What a wonderful productive and happy day and it doesn't matter at all that the book case behind the door was neglected a bit. These books have the look of being well loved. I trust you have read the 'Velveteen Rabbit'? My kids got me to read it.

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  5. I am really excited to see what you pick out for me! Eve is excited too!

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  6. How exciting it must be to look for and find old treasures....I imagine there are a lot of them in your part of the country too.

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  7. Glad to see your getting back to your normal self and back into the book world you love. Good work.

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  8. That was some undertaking and brought you a feeling of having accomplished something good. When I think of all the categories of books you get at your shop and the care you go to price them all, I am very humbled. The charity shop I work in, divides the books into categories, and so each of us working in pricing books only have to tackle one category and thus not strain our minds (ha!).

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  9. I love the Doc Marten show, too. I wish it were more than a half hour! And, we are starting to watch the Downton Abbey one, as well.

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  10. I love the look of those shelves by your front door!
    Your post today reminds me of a multiple-voiced poem by Paul Fleischman called "Book Lice". Here's the link: https://sites.google.com/a/centennialchristian.ca/bakker-bulletin/Home/music-festival-poems/booklicebypaulflieschman

    The two voices in this poem are read simultaneously. I use a ruler as I go down the page.

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