Stuck in the middle with you.

So the better half's family drove down from L.A. this afternoon so we could all celebrate his mom's birthday. Our adventures started out well enough: first we hit up the charming, dusty bookstore DG Wills, where nat's parents hit it off immensely with the owner (who was sitting outside drinking wine with friends when we arrived, !). You would be hard pressed to find a nicer fellow anywhere.
(Incidentally, when nat and i first moved down here, i went around applying at every bookstore i could find, and when i asked this man if the place was hiring, he chuckled and said, "nope... it's just me." Damn. There is exposed wood everywhere, and so much bric-a-brac!)
The place is filled to the gills with books: poetry anthologies, new literature, old kids' books, dictionaries, latin, greek, maritime, art, classics, and so on and so forth. Various antiquated metal objects are everywhere, even up in the rafters; a typewriter, an anchor, an old iron stove.
i snagged a Valentine postcard from 1911 Minnesota:



Dear Mrs. Doll How are you? We are all well We are having lovly weather It will soon be spring than I will expect you down. Mrs. Beebel (?)
[Check out the abbreviation for Cincinnati ("Cin'ti") and the postage square (i assume someone already pilfered the treasure that was the stamp): "United States and Possessions". Awesome.]



Also, a first edition of a late-discovered Wilhelm Grimm tale, Dear Mili, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. i am super excited about this one. It's in great condition, and i hope my kids will read it someday in the wintry light on the floor of their bedroom.

After that, we thoroughly discombobulated a young counterboy at the cafe next door (ugh, we were totally That Annoying Family Who Are Ordering Together But Not All Ready At Once. Sorry, dude.), and then raced to the shore to try and check out the seals. The light was fading too fast, but we managed to enjoy 15 minutes of seal silhouettes and intermittent barking. We then made the poor decision of taking nat's mom to the British pub we recently discovered. We couldn't sit inside because nearly half of the tables were "Reserved" (for a giant group of assholes on a pub crawl, we later discovered), and the space heater near our table outside wasn't working. Then nat's mom's chips were cold, as was her fish, AND her peas... The usual '80s alternative radio they play was, instead, atrocious contemporary light rock, and two of our meals came out ten minutes after the rest. It was tough to enjoy the evening, but then nat's mom called basketball "netball" and everything was well again. Also, we all ended up eating cake and watching Eddie Izzard at home afterward, so who's complainin'? i think a valuable lesson for me to learn, should i ever give in to it, is to quit convincing myself that everyone else is having a horrible time and just enjoy myself. Magnifying and lingering on the tiny problems is never a good idea, and even if i'm not the one doing it, i always manage to convince myself that it's my fault anyway. Good times!


Thank goodness the NyQuil dependency i've built up all week has finally (mostly) disappeared. Gotta get up nice and early tomorrow; my first day back at work after a week of being ill. Let me just say this: i am not excited, not even a little. Especially considering that we're having an employee meeting an hour after i open the shop, which is about the time i'm done opening in the first place. This means there will be no "settling in" period. Better make sure i bring an extra cup of coffee to work; my boss is the type of woman who thinks that saying "Ow! Charlie bit me" is (and ever was) hysterical, and told me that her costume for Halloween was "a Chinese lady".

i will need all the help i can get.