What Day Is It? It’s a Summer Day

(Photo I forgot to include when first posting -- makes sense of text below.)

A recent morning. Maybe last Wednesday? Jet trails in the sky caught my attention as I set out for town and bookshop.

July morning over Northport marina

Family note: My sister arrived on Wednesday, and we had dinner at the Happy Hour. Thursday evening was shrimp out in the farmyard, and Friday morning the farmers’ market in Northport, another colorful scene, for a big salad supper, with take-out ribs from the Garage Bar & Grill, but throughout all this my camera saw very little use. (Poor camera can’t talk, after all, and talk was the order of the day for several days.) Interesting that everywhere we went, it seemed there were sisters visiting sisters. Is it that time of year?

Alongside sister visit, bookstore life went on. Many browsers, customers, readers, old friends. I have a guest author coming on Wednesday so will be posting more about that soon.

Dog note: Sarah has been very happy the last few days: company at work and company at home! Our dog loves company. If she knew that one of her favorite houseguests is arriving sometime today for an overnight visit, she would already be out on the front porch, eyes glued to the driveway.

When houseguests of readers are also readers themselves, however, there are quiet morning hours over coffee not involving constant play with dogs. Can you believe I made my way through a book during this busy time? A customer had brought in a loaner for me, The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, by Wendy Welch, thinking I “might find it interesting.” (Might???!!!) Wendy and Jack’s bookstore is in Virginia, and it’s in their house in the little town, and they have cats, but despite differences in our respective bookselling lives there was a lot in her story that was very, very familiar to me. Wendy and Jack are on a book tour now, visiting indie bookstores with her book. You can follow her here. They don’t seem to have any immediate plans to travel Way Up North, but who knows what the future will bring?

Additional reading note: I also made my way through The Telling Room, a book about so much more than cheese, as you will know if you heard the author on NPR the other morning; am still making progress in Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street; and started – yes! – yet another a book, a novel set in northern Minnesota that is not within arm’s reach at the moment. There is always time for reading, sometimes time stolen here and there for a page or two.

Sinking boat....

The calm before the rain....

Friday was overcast in the morning, with rain later in the afternoon and pouring rain by dinnertime. The peaceful country lake walk my sister and I started out on was cut short by rain, forcing us to go in search of ice cream cones. Talk about a mini-vacation: ice cream cones on a rainy day – ahhhhhh!

Blogging note: Looking at search terms that brought people to Books in Northport recently, I found the following: “dog with a blog ears.” What a host of speculative associations that phrase evokes!

See the pouring rain on Friday