We’re Still Here. But: Books!
So, we’re still in California. Our best-laid plans were derailed on Friday, when our certainty that returning East was the right thing to do soon gave way to an equally firm decision that staying in California for a few more weeks was best. It came down to the idea of the simple solution being the best. Leaving today meant several flights (CA—FL—NYC), a flight back to CA for Andrew, several days of me and Lucia alone, my parents coming up for a weekend, an entire week alone, another cross-country flight for Andrew for the weekend, and possibly yet one more week alone. It just seemed…complex. Staying here involves just doing what we’ve been doing, with a flight back to NYC in mid-December. We can all stay together. Andrew has to be here for now, and so Lucia and I will be here too.
Though we’re very sad to be missing Thanksgiving in Jacksonville, truth be told, it feels fine to be staying on. We’re going to buy some more clothes and toys. We’ll join Beth and Nate in Napa for Thanksgiving. Lucia and I have been going to a wonderful weekly music/reading event at the library. We have familiar faces we see at the playground. And though it’s been rainy and cold, there are lots of places we can drive to when we just need to get out of the house.
It was strange to wake up this morning still here, when as late as Friday night we’d planned to leave, but we managed to distract ourselves today with the best book sale ever. The library—right across the street from us—had a book sale this weekend, and all told we made three trips and brought home 55 books for a total of around $35.
We went on Saturday, and I got Lucia a few new children’s books, and Andrew bought a few collectible-type old books (total for the trip: $23). The children’s books were priced at 50 cents an inch—when I went to pay, they just stacked up the books and measured them with a ruler. I had three inches’ worth. This was fun. But the absolute best part was today. I made a trip this morning—I couldn’t help myself; I could see the sign from our living room window; it was beckoning me—and got a few books for Lucia and for me ($6). Then we all went again later in the afternoon for their final-day sale of sales: you could fill an entire brown-paper grocery bag full of whatever books you found and pay only $3. There was a line, which we joined, and we each were given a bag. When the clock hit two o’clock, the start time of the $3-a-bag hoopla, the line swarmed into the rather small library garage, and people began stuffing their bags with books.
This wasn’t actually as insane as it might have been. It was crowded, but you could still get to the books, and since we had to be somewhat mindful of having to get these books home, we found we could actually browse and take our time and select thoughtfully (though there were people who were absolutely maniacally scooping books into their bags—many of them resellers, certainly). Because yesterday and this morning had been rainy, tons of great books were still around, and Andrew and I got just a wonderful assortment, including novels, a first edition Betty Crocker’s Guide to Easy Entertaining published in 1959, a Michelin guidebook to France from 1956, and a few ideal volumes that are going to be part of a Christmas project I’m not yet at liberty to reveal.
These pictures do not include the secret Christmas-project books, and this is only a sampling, not all the books we bought. And it strikes me suddenly as funny that this is our version of “moderation.” How on earth are we going to get these back to Brooklyn?
Anyway, to a bookish person like me, it was pretty thrilling today to be handed a bag and told to fill it with anything I wanted. I could have stayed there all afternoon, but, you know, Lucia needed a snack etc. At any rate, this was a very nice Mountain View day, and I’m sure the next few weeks will go quickly.
Though we’re very sad to be missing Thanksgiving in Jacksonville, truth be told, it feels fine to be staying on. We’re going to buy some more clothes and toys. We’ll join Beth and Nate in Napa for Thanksgiving. Lucia and I have been going to a wonderful weekly music/reading event at the library. We have familiar faces we see at the playground. And though it’s been rainy and cold, there are lots of places we can drive to when we just need to get out of the house.
It was strange to wake up this morning still here, when as late as Friday night we’d planned to leave, but we managed to distract ourselves today with the best book sale ever. The library—right across the street from us—had a book sale this weekend, and all told we made three trips and brought home 55 books for a total of around $35.
We went on Saturday, and I got Lucia a few new children’s books, and Andrew bought a few collectible-type old books (total for the trip: $23). The children’s books were priced at 50 cents an inch—when I went to pay, they just stacked up the books and measured them with a ruler. I had three inches’ worth. This was fun. But the absolute best part was today. I made a trip this morning—I couldn’t help myself; I could see the sign from our living room window; it was beckoning me—and got a few books for Lucia and for me ($6). Then we all went again later in the afternoon for their final-day sale of sales: you could fill an entire brown-paper grocery bag full of whatever books you found and pay only $3. There was a line, which we joined, and we each were given a bag. When the clock hit two o’clock, the start time of the $3-a-bag hoopla, the line swarmed into the rather small library garage, and people began stuffing their bags with books.
This wasn’t actually as insane as it might have been. It was crowded, but you could still get to the books, and since we had to be somewhat mindful of having to get these books home, we found we could actually browse and take our time and select thoughtfully (though there were people who were absolutely maniacally scooping books into their bags—many of them resellers, certainly). Because yesterday and this morning had been rainy, tons of great books were still around, and Andrew and I got just a wonderful assortment, including novels, a first edition Betty Crocker’s Guide to Easy Entertaining published in 1959, a Michelin guidebook to France from 1956, and a few ideal volumes that are going to be part of a Christmas project I’m not yet at liberty to reveal.
These pictures do not include the secret Christmas-project books, and this is only a sampling, not all the books we bought. And it strikes me suddenly as funny that this is our version of “moderation.” How on earth are we going to get these back to Brooklyn?
Anyway, to a bookish person like me, it was pretty thrilling today to be handed a bag and told to fill it with anything I wanted. I could have stayed there all afternoon, but, you know, Lucia needed a snack etc. At any rate, this was a very nice Mountain View day, and I’m sure the next few weeks will go quickly.
Comments
we've also loved the spanish/english I Went Walking book.