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Friday, October 03, 2003
book sale
ooh, joy, joy, the "members only" opening night of our library's semi-annual book sale was tonight. I only realized the book sale was going on when I read a post on one of my many email lists, wherein someone was offering a possible explanation for the quietness of the list -- "is everyone off at library book sales?" At first I thought, what an absolutely idiotic thing to say, does she think everyone's library has book sales the same weekend? And then I thought, Oh my goodness, my library's book sale IS this weekend!! So I turned around and asked the kids if they wanted to go to the library sale and buy books. C was enthusiastic; LT was not. Now here's the awful kind of mother I am: I said, "But you know, they might have some Star Wars books... it'd be a shame to miss it if they had Star Wars books..." and before the words have even finished leaving my mouth I'm mentally kicking myself -- what kind of mother ARE you??? First of all, you're the mom, he's the son, you say we're going to revel in cheap books and by golly, he just has to go! And secondly, exactly what are you going to do when you get there and there are no Star Wars books? You manipulative, lying excuse for a mother! So went my mental self-flagellations. I needn't have worried on one count, though, because we'd barely arrived at the children's section before LT found not one but two Star Wars books -- a storybook of Return of the Jedi, with photos from the movie, and a comic-novel version of Episode IV, most commonly just called "Star Wars", but actually, if we're going to go with the naming conventions used in the other movies, it would be called "A New Hope". Egads, let's not go with that, shall we?
Anyway, I spent $17 on books, and they're 50c apiece. This time I got stuff for the kids or for school, almost exclusively; I only got two books entirely for myself and they're children's books also. I found an almost-complete set of the Narnia books from the 80's (missing The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which, before someone determined to re-order the series, was #1). This edition is especially significant to me because it's the same as the set my brother and I had when we were little. I think I may even have our old copy of LWW sitting around somewhere. If not, I can find it on eBay. And I got a Trixie Belden book (#5, The Mystery Off Glen Road). It is my goal to re-accumulate all of the first 20 of this series. I had them when I was younger, and somehow they got lost or disposed of. I got a few horse-y books for C (I am a sucker where those are concerned. I figure she'll read them eventually...), and the rest of the books were just odds and ends that I thought we should have, either for reading aloud or for school or for both.
Enough about the book sale. We had a really nice evening after that. We came home and I barbecued chicken burgers and hot dogs for supper; I sat outside and read a library book (The Time Traveler's Wife -- maybe I was just predisposed to enjoy whatever I read tonight, but so far I am really intrigued by this book) while the kids played happily. It was a really happy scene, without a doubt the best part of the day. Earlier we went to the valley with the neighbor ladies; it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd worked myself up to think it would be, but still, it was not an insupportable amount of fun either. I got the very bright idea to walk along the bike/walking path in smallish-shopping-city from the park to Toys R Us, so we could look at stuff and the kids could work on their Christmas lists while we waited for the ladies to be done with what they were doing and ready to go home. It proved to be too much of a walk for C, and she had a spectacular meltdown on the way back to our car. I never expected to be one of those mothers pulling a sobbing child along by the hand on the sidewalk. Next time you see one of those mothers, please have some mercy in your thoughts of her, on my account. It was far less fun for me than it looked. The rest of the trip was nice enough, though.
I am kind of bummed because I lost my really nice Mary Cassatt stamps. I have got into the habit of requesting something other than the ordinary standard stamps given out by default, when I buy stamps. A couple of months ago I requested Audrey Hepburn stamps; this last time I just asked for "something different", and the postal person handed me these really wonderful stamps with Mary Cassatt's artwork on them. I don't collect the stamps, I actually use them; it just feels all interesting and different to use a stamp that's something besides the traditional flag or whatever. I'd used about half the stamps on that sheet when I lost the sheet. I am far more upset about this than I should be. For one thing, I can just get more. It wasn't a limited edition thing or anything. But that's not what bothers me. I am just idiotic about stamps. One time the kids got hold of a partial sheet and stuck two or three them on their clothes like stickers, not knowing they were actually for mailing things. I went borderline ballistic, as if the stamps were worth, say $34 apiece instead of $.34 apiece. I know for a fact that I have spent more than $.34 per sticker for a sheet of stickers for them to play with, on more than one occasion. Don't ask me why the stamp thing bothers me so much, but it does. There are many strange things about myself which I will never understand.
random thought: I love how on amazon.co.uk it says that the item is "usually dispatched in 2-3 days" instead of "shipped".
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