Hope you all had a great Fourth of July! It was different
for us this year because the holiday fell in the middle of the week, so no kids
from Michigan or Maryland. They were here earlier, but had to go home early due to work. So we ended
up inviting Darwin, our friend the antiques dealer, for dinner on the third. I
used to be quite the cook, but not so much anymore so it was with great trepidation that I
took on a scary menu -- corn and
blueberry salad with jalepeno, red onion, and a dressing flavored with cumin; broiled
salmon; and a pasta dish with asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, shallots, white wine , basil, garlic and
chicken broth. I even made the sauce and broiled the salmon WHILE the two guys
sat at the island in the kitchen and talked to me! I don’t even think I could do that in my prime. Anyway, we topped
it off with a mixed berry cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Here’s the weird part
though. I bought a bottle of pinot grigio and for the first time ever got a
very BAD one. Fortunately, I had the wine our oldest daughter got us for our anniversary,
so I pulled a white from that. Bottom line –the cook’s still got it!
We had storms all day though, so it was fabulous to have a
lovely evening to sit by the lake and watch the fireworks. But imagine the
shock when we found ourselves the only people out there! In the old days we had so many people and
parties that every time an especially good rocket exploded our side of the lake
would say “oooooh!” and the other side would chime in with an antiphonal “Ahhhhhh!”
This year we oohed and aahhed by ourselves.
But enough of that. On with the books! The photos above are for you Hilda as per your request to see my
booth at the mall. As you probably can tell, there is another row of shelves down
the left side out of range of the photo. The holiday started off with a bang
on Sunday, so I was feeling pretty chipper, but, sadly, that turned out to be the last hurrah. We sold
stuff, but nothing great after that one day. Last year we had a run of several
great days over the Fourth, but the holiday was positioned better in the week
then for travelers. Eric noticed the same phenomenon at the store. I did,
however, sell two books off my Fourth of July display in the middle so I’m feeling rather
retailerish. Move over Barnes and Noble – Garrison House Books is in TOWN. Well, actually outside of town – but just
barely.
Online sales were brisker than one would expect, but nothing
great except for an order from ABE for a book titled Atlas Elipticalis which is
33” long and 23” wide and is supposed to go to Switzerland. Yeah, like that
will happen. Goodbye one hundred dollars. I’m not even going to think about it
because the 3rd was spent in a tizzy of shipping worries while I was cooking due to a lost
MUST HAVE order. A woman bought a book on B&N and had it shipped priority,
but it failed to arrive and was needed by her company as a gift for a foreign
dignitary. Delivery confirmation showed
it had left the post office, but after that it seemed to have fallen into the
Black Hole of Calcutta. I only had the one so I offered to order her another from
amazon with overnight shipping with the agreement that she would pay the B&N
bill on the first one and I would pay for the second one. I ordered it Saturday night with no problem, but
then on Sunday I saw that I had accidentally typed an additional number in the
address. Oh such anguish you cannot imagine! So I ordered ANOTHER one, got it right,
and got confirmation from Amazon that it would be delivered Monday morning. Only
on Monday morning the first thing I saw was an apology from amazon saying they couldn’t
do it, but would by the 6th. At this point the anguish skyrocketed, ricocheted off Venus, and took a hard right
in deep space.
To add to the fun beneath the amazon email was a note from the buyer telling me how
wonderful I was. Of course I wasn’t even so-so,
but as luck would have it, the storms began at that precise moment, so I had to shut down the
computer before I could tell her the truth about my wonderfulness. The whole
day stayed terrible replete with tornado warnings and high wind. I cooked, I
worried, I cooked, I worried. And meanwhile the house shook with the sound of
demolition, as contractors smashed and bashed our master bath down to the
studs. We’re having a lot of work done
on the house, so I will be living with this for some time which is fine, but
NOT when I am ready to jump out of my skin please.
Finally at three o’clock the sun came out, so I fired up the
computer and began composing a mea culpa note to the buyer. But wait! What’s this? Up popped a note from
HER thanking me for the safe arrival of her overnighted book. For this the
United Stated Post Office deserves a box of Godiva chocolates. They got it
there on time even with the extra six in the address and all! Amazon canceled
the second order with not so much as a
whimper, so by the time Darwin showed up all was right with the world.
I just thought of something. No WONDER I was pouring wine
into the pan, sprinkling flour, and whisking like Julia while engaging in snappy
repartee. After all I’d been through, what was a sauce?
6 comments:
Thank you for the pictures. I wasn't sure how you had everything positioned when you were writing about shelves, a display table, antique (or vintage) chairs. It sounded like you would have needed a huge amount of room. This looks just right. What size is your space? Everything looks so nice and antique-ee (is that a word??) The only thing that surprises me is you don't have a locked display case for your expensive books.
I'm so glad you had a good experience with the post office last week. My experience with them has negated it however. I ordered a replacement laptop battery from Amazon. That went great. They had an estimated date of delivery between 7/5 and 7/9. I pulled up the order Tuesday to see where my package was in the process. To my surprise the delivery confirmation tracking number showed it had been delivered last Saturday - several days earlier. Wow. This would have been fantastic except I never received it. It made it to my local post office. I called them. At first they told me my husband had picked it up over the counter there. NOT! Then they told me they checked with the delivery lady and oh well - surprise - she didn't remember anything about a package. She probably put it in our mailbox but just couldn't remember. No apology from the postmaster. Just an oh well. Why is there no accountability anymore? Now I have to reorder, change my address to my po box on Amazon which may cause delays for verification(?). After this I went to $ Store for a couple things. Waited in line for 10-15 minutes to get checked out even though I was third in line. When the checker asked how everything was I said slow and she replied, Oh Well, you're up here now. AAHHH!. Thanks for letting me rant. Wish there were something I could do about the PO fiasco. Not the seller's fault.
Oh, Hilda. Bad stuff for sure. That's why I was so freaked over the package -- I KNOW what it feels like when you need it now. Sometimes no matter how hard we try we end up with a snarl. I wonder if it will ever turn up or whether amazon gets it back. I wonder the same on the lost package that started my whole fiasco. My booth is 10'x10'. I can move that table back and have a piece of furniture there -- that's were I sold the two green chairs.
Yes, the post office event bothers me for three reasons. One, I am out the money, 2- I will have to wait longer for this battery. I wanted to be able to sit outside with my laptop in the mornings. And 3 which bothers me the most, is they spent a whole two minutes on this and then didn't care about the problem at all.
I remember reading about your green chairs. It's nice to be able to move the table back and forth. When you move it back doesn't this cut into your book sales of those blocked by the table?
I have learned one thing about post offices -- they are not all created equal. I can;t stand one aroudn ehre and love the other, so I think it depends on who is there. I hear your pain though. Been there! Oh, no the table doesn't block it off at all. I have some leeway -- not much, but enough. I have learned that it's in my best interest to have some other stuff besides books. that wasn't true initially, but as the book world changes so changes the mall. Is this so for you?
I always go to the local post office as I live in a small town and it is only about six blocks from here. Next one is over ten miles. Ours changes depending on if the REAL postal worker is there. she has worked there for over twenty years but if she is on vacation - well, to put it nicely, things don't work as well.
Antique Mall: I have been in this antique mall for almost a year now. I noticed I had to change types of books just because of changing malls from a few miles down the road. Also, I have sold out of vintage bookends. Everyone told me not to bother with these. They don't sell immediately but within a couple months all of mine have sold. Also, I have put in a few vintage games. I have a couple shelves I experiment with to see what happens. And yes, I have sold a nice vintage table there within hours of putting it in. Nice books and bookends on it. Books stayed but table went. And that's ok too.
Yes, my experience exactly with the mall! I ave been at mine a year and haldf and sold the following non-book things: 2 sets bookends, 4 games, two unused colorform sets, a barrister bookcase, the two green chairs, two chairs like the one that's there now,a huge copper kettle, a few prints and imigrant's trunk. I think we have to do that the way things are headed.
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