What November Hath Wrought

January Came Early

First came the snow, January snow in mid-November, well in advance of Thanksgiving. Days. Days and days of it, not just falling but blowing sideways and in blustery gusts, shifting direction without warning, turning each country road from clear path ahead to white wall hiding the path. Time on Monday for the pack to crowd together in the truck, so none of us had to travel without 4WD. We didn't get an accumulation of three feet, as did some parts of the country, but driving was still dicey.

Boots

Then came cold, the wind howling and chilling as if the temperature were subzero. Car doors and truck doors froze shut. Not even the dog wanted to go for a walk but came indoors from her necessary sorties as quickly as possible, shaking ice and snow from her dainty paws in disgust. November isn’t supposed to be this cold. Nighttime temperatures in the teens, and don't even say the words "wind chill"!

What next? Well, can any January, even January-in-November, be complete without a power outage? Our lights went out Tuesday morning at 6:15. I was up working so went right on task to light the candles, light the stove, and pour the coffee into an insulated carafe. David got up to install the heavy velvet drapery between dining and living room. It was getting light by then, and power was back on by afternoon, so we didn’t need to fill and light the kerosene lamps. Yet.

Inside My World of Books

We did get to Northport on Tuesday, where lights and furnaces were on everywhere, including up at school, and everything was business as usual. Okay, way slower than usual, but we were here, and again Wednesday, and I’m here again today. This week I’m impatiently awaiting a couple of book orders, one from a regular distributor and another from one of my favorite publishers, David R. Godine in Boston. Surely the big brown truck will stop today, and Dan will burst through the door with boxes for me.

On Wednesday I watched the snow through the front bookshop windows, snow flying horizontally up Waukazoo Street, and picked up and looked into various interesting volumes from the array of used books in front of me on the counter.

More Surprises On the Way to Northport

Besides new and used books on the counter and shelves and new books on the road to me this very minute, I have another happy bookstore surprise in the works. We will, after all, have another author event before the close of 2014. It will be sometime in December and will involve two guests -- but more than two titles by these two guests for customers to purchase and have signed.

These mystery-for-now guests have been to Dog Ears Books before and are always welcome, so stay tuned, because I’ll have names, titles, and time and date soon. We’re not going to drag out this mystery for very long....

As for right now? The sun has broken through! Spirits are soaring!

Look! Shadows!!!