I wish I could say I didn’t post yesterday because I was burning the place up with industriousness, but that would be about fifty miles west of the truth. I ran around with Nancy in the morning and spent the afternoon reading and working a full week’s worth of New York Times crossword puzzles. Eric called at six and after I talked to him I made some pasta and spinach salad and tortured myself with one of those 9-11 retrospective shows on TV. Sales stayed strong online – one more gun-related book and then zap! the weapon streak snapped like a crisp carrot. After that it was on to genealogy. I am not kidding. I sold two genealogy books within two hours last night – The Butler Family of Lebanon, Connecticut and Certain Topics on the Ingraham, Waterhouse and Allied Families which joined the earlier Stonington Graveyards and Planters of the Commonwealth. I have no idea if there’s any truth to this, but I have substantial anecdotal evidence to show that every time that genealogical TV show, Who Do You Think You Are? sponsored by Ancestry.com airs genealogy books fly off the shelf like poltergeists. I noticed last night when I was flipping channels that the segment featuring Lionel Ritchie was on again.
To be honest I also spent a certain portion of yesterday grousing about the post office. When Eric is here he takes the orders to the store with him every morning and ships from there using electronic postage and the small, friendly post office in nearby Lodi. I love the Lodi post office, but it’s ten miles away from here, so when he’s gone I revert to the one in town. I very much like the branch which is located in the grocery store, but if I have overseas orders I can’t use it. Ever since 9-11 all overseas mail must be taken to the main post office. I won’t enumerate all the reasons why I heartily dislike that place, but I most emphatically do. Yesterday they decided I could not insure an overseas package to Great Britain, so rather than make a fuss, Nancy and I took our toys and went to Lodi in a mini-snit. It turned out to be fun though. I am rarely at our store, so the sight of customers inside and out did my heart good, as did watching Nancy’s reaction to the museum.
Over the years Eric, the perpetual historian, has added to his father’s collection of antique Ohio rifles and created a museum – a really, truly honest-to-goodness museum with well researched signage and displays all around the walls of a large room off the main showroom. An enormous fireplace flanks one wall and in the winter it blazes perpetually so people sit around on Saturdays in rocking chairs whiling away the afternon talking and reading. While the rifles are the centerpiece, there are also collections of antique powder horns, Indian relics, Indian beaded items such as moccasins and belts, local history, antique tools and an especially poignant showcase doiminated by a Civil War Union uniform worn by a guy from nearby Lodi. Along with the navy blue jacket is a portrait of him and his discharge papers. I didn’t realize when I was there that I was going to blog about this, so of course it never occurred to me to stop at the house and grab my camera. But I promise I will get Eric to take some pictures this week when he gets back and I will upload them then.
After we checked out the museum, we headed for the “cozy room” upstairs under the eaves of the original old barn structure (the store’s been added onto several times). Every time I’m there I yearn to take over this space with MY books, but Eric has so many up there I couldn’t cram in one more. The books steal the show, but there are also art prints on the walls and even a wooden rocking horse. Maybe the reason it feels so homey to me is that it’s furnished with an old couch that was once in our family room and the round oak pedestal table that used to grace our kitchen until we put in the island. I’ll get pictures of this too.
Anyway, the books and the museum mellowed my miffed mood, as did The Mill’s breakfast special which Nancy and I enjoyed immediately upon return to Medina. By the time I got home I didn’t even hate the post office anymore because there waiting on the porch was the brand new L.L. Bean deluxe book bag I’d ordered to launch the fall book buying season. We have lots of ratty old canvas bags, but nothing on the order of this beauty which cost an arm and two legs, but is so worth it for it capaciousness, it’s zippered closure, and most especially, it’s rigidity.
One look at it and a feeling of expansiveness poured over me. I think subconsciously I’ve always associated these bags with “real dealers.” I don’t what I’ve been these past 14 years if not a “real dealer”, but the U.S. post office brought me an outward symbol.
So I guess I can’t really harbor a grudge.
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