Winter, 2015

Starkle, Starkle, Little Twink
Who the Heck You Are, I Think

After fighting the building commission—and losing—for the better part of two years, I gave up on the idea of putting a second floor on the bookstore. I had long ago maxed out the available space, going from street to street, and if I crammed one more bookcase on the floor, the fire marshal would have my head on a stake—right after he padlocked the doors. So we (we!) opted for a second site.

It made sense. Powell's in Oregon had done it ages ago—granted, they were lucky enough to have a store across the street, so customers could just stroll from one to the other. We didn't do so well. But the Bookman's chain in Arizona had stores from one end of the state to the other and offered free transfer service by the next business day. The drive between DC and Virginia wasn't that bad; this was a doable plan.

While the property I chose wasn't perfect, it wasn't the fixer-upper that many first time homebuyers end up with. But I still gulped a little when I signed the loan papers; it had been a long time since I'd had a mortgage. This place was as big as the M street store, but on two levels—we could start off spread out and mush together at a later time (if need be).

I cast out lures for new employees and let everyone already on the payroll know that there would be a lot of extra hours available. I made an executive decision to become, well, an executive. Cassandra Talmadge-Mallard, General Manager, High Pooh-bah and Chief Bottle Washer. Valerie got boosted to manager of the M Street store, Chanda took over her spot as assistant manager and I started training Geoff to run the Mesa Verde Mall location. It was going to take a good three months to have the store ready to stock and open—which gave me three months to cull from M Street and go on back to back buying trips.

The bad news: this was taking palace during the last three months of the year and we wouldn't get any holiday sales at the new store.

The good news: we wouldn't have the chaos of trying to open a business in the middle of the holiday season; we could ease into the opening.

The bad news—the really bad news: I would be on the road in the middle of the holiday season and all the snow, slush, ice and rain of winter

Definitely good news? Ducky and Lexi frequently came with me on the weekend hops, se we had lots of mini vacations.

And with an able crew, clear blueprints and an awesome contractor in charge, I had no qualms about sailing out of town.

We only ran into a problem once. I made it to Maine and discovered an association of animal charities was throwing a week-long book sale starting the weekend before Thanksgiving. I took one look at the article in the paper, saw the pictures from the prior year of the tables filling two exhibit buildings at the state fairgrounds, realized I would never be able to fit things in the van and yelled for help. Ducky rented a U-haul and drove out with Evvie and for five days they helped me select, sort, bag and box the books. With the two of them helping, I more than tripled what I would have gotten on my own. Ev drove my van back with the dozen or so boxes she got, making a straight shot to get home by Thanksgiving. The U-haul, loaded to the brim (probably overloaded, to be honest) was going to be a slower trip.

I crowed about my score all the way home. The prices were a "ganga" deal, even before the half price slash of the last day. With what I had already bought and culled, this put me at 90% of what I needed for the new store. I wouldn't have to do oh-my-god stress trips over the next month and a half—and to make up for us skating in at the last second, Lily had taken over Thanksgiving dinner. It was a win all around.

It was a good thing I had a switch-hit driver. Immediately after Ev left, the roads from Maine to Virginia went to hell in a hand basket. The roads were a mess, white out conditions and pileups of ten, twenty, sixty cars all over the place. The main highways were all but shot. We chugged through little side towns at a slow but progressive 25 mph (at one point following the snow plow for close to ten miles). And it was fun in a way. Little towns have interesting junk stores and such; Ducky stumbled over a bunch of index card file boxes jammed full of old family recipes (some going back to the 1800s), and I found a trunk full of 60s dresses in metallic fabrics that might make up for us being gone for a week (Lexi is very fond of pop and mod clothing). We'd be back in time for leftovers, at least.

And small towns decorate for Christmas like nobody else can. The decorations are often decades old: great big colorful balls, swags as big around as a VW bug, miles of tinsel, lights, and Santa's sleigh flying over Main Street. They might add to the collection every year, but almost never discard anything.

"It's like a trip through time," Ducky mused. We were sitting at a stoplight in Winterhaven, Massachusetts (subtitled "Christmastown, USA" on their Welcome To sign). It may have been the stoplight, given the population. "Those angels have a definite Art Deco look to them."

"And that's a way-way-early Coca-Cola Santa."

"And look at the lights! They have more than we ever had," he laughed. "Green, red, yellow, blue—twinkling, flashing—what a kaleidoscope!"

"It's pretty impressive," I agreed. It reminded me of some of Lexi's artwork, before she learned restraint with the glitter tubes. Almost blinding. But pretty. "It would take hours to list everything up there—but we don't have hours to sit here and look," I nudged gently.

"True, true," he agreed. But we continued to sit at the intersection.

"So… why are we not moving?"

Ducky sighed and looked at me sheepishly. "I'm trying to figure out which one is the traffic light."

Yes, there will be another tale of just how Sandy ends up with the "new" store. No ETA for publication, it's still in the blocking stage.