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?
