…not quite while the cement is being poured, but at least while the walls are being painted, half the shelves are up, and the books are in boxes awaiting shelving. We have moved in the cash register and programmed it. We have carpet. We have posters on the walls. We don’t quite have the annex (Cafe Press) up and going—plastic sheeting over that entry…
We have you guys helping, which is marvelous. We think we’ve got all the structure now, and will be providing, we hope, things to keep everybody happy. We hope you’ve enjoyed that first download, despite its first-book problems. We are learning from it and hope that the presses in the back room will run more smoothly now thanks to your input. And no small thanks to those of you still scanning to keep those presses fed.
We’ve been working literally from 5 am until 10 pm daily to get the doors open. We’re so tired we’re punchy, so if we sound a little spaced and frayed, we are. I’m taking time to keep the Foreigner book going—we’re at 105000 words now…and I’m maintaining my focus somehow. We did take yesterday evening off to take Jane to her birthday gift: The Lion King is in town, and she did enjoy it tremendously. Probably her page will have something about that soon.
It’s getting cold: 17 degrees. The pond is frozen, except for an area by the pond heater, and—a nice side benefit—the neighborhood birds have an open, safe water source, of which they are taking full advantage.
We are so close to the opening we can taste it. I don’t know how much we’ve got in us, but I have blistered my mousing finger: that’s how things are going. 😉
Thanks, everybody.
well, I am very excited about it.
We went to the Lion King about 9 months ago. It was AWESOME. the best thing I’ve seen in years. I was with two 7 year olds and their sense of wonder was contagious, but i didn’t need it to be beside myself. The South African music was transporting, and the puppetry was magic. I hope you loved it as much as we did!
Tell OSG she should go see it when she is with us next week, if she didn’t go with you there.
Those of us scanning are pleased to be able to help with something, since we can’t actually paint or install shelves!
Ah, Kokipy — I finally found your comment. Will connect w/ you soon about the Lion King! I *tried* to attend here yesterday but The Fates conspired against it! 🙂
My stupidity conspired against it: I thought I was getting evening tix and got matinee by mistake. OSG was very generously non-phased about it, but I felt very bad and very stupid.
Our skating coach, however, was quite happy to go with us.
I don’t see how you’re getting any writing done. I guess that you can find the psychic space even with all the other stresses/chaos (even positive stress is distracting).
looking forward to more Bren.
By chance, I’m editing a journal article my wife wrote on the use of interpreters and translator’s in social service settings. I wish I could bring in examples from fictional characters, But I’m sure that CJs life experience must parallel mine and especially my wife’s in many respects along these lines.
Also, I had relatives from Chile visiting New York and drove them to Cleveland (don’t ask, shall we say that they got confused about KM and miles). They essentially spoke no English, though I speak broken, but almost fluent, effective enough for many purposes, Spanish. That night in Cleveland, I found myself dreaming in broken Spanish! I felt for Bren most (and I DID think of him) when it came to translating menus. Baby back pork ribs St Louis style? I had never heard of St. Louis style myself–actually I ordered them and they were quite good. But churrasco isn’t quite right and… well you get the idea. And then there was chicken fried steak at Cracker Barrel (a dish I make myself redolent of an Arkansas childhood), much less trying to translate “cracker barrel” I was able to point to a barrel, but cracker? I found out later that the words for cookie and cracker were the same, but only after we got back.
Then while recounting our adventures to my son, the two of us tried to explain the subtext to “cracker” in “cracker barrel” in the context of the rural South. He also knows enough Spanish to survive in Chile. Shall we say we lacked total success in communication the sociological nuances of the word “cracker.” Which just brings home to me just how much of the Spanish I’m missing when I don’t have my wife as a cultural translator. And she complains how difficult it can be to function professionally in Spanish, having been schooled in the U.S. Enough of my maunderings, and back to the proper use of interpreters in interventions.
😆
17º? Fahrenheit?! And I thought 38º F was nippy! We have sun outside (a lovely change from several days of a kind of omnipresent fog-cap), it’s almost 2:00 pm, and it’s 38º in the shade. On the bright side, with no rain for a while, I’ve been wearing the raspberry wool coat my mom (and I, a bit) made last winter, along with various hats and a darling magenta scarf with fringe and beaded/embroidered peacock-feather motif (I love that thing; got it for absurdly cheap second-hand). Non-rainy winter is lovely, even with pea-soup fog!
Hope your mousing finger gets better, and good luck on shelf putting-up (none from Ikea, I hope!), painting of walls, et cetera!
Oh, we’re headed for 8. Fahrenheit. The one thing we don’t get is much snow on this pass: it’s going for Montana, where cold and our recent rain are going to coincide.
We’re going to really watch the koi, to be sure they’re ok in their pond. If need be, and oh, we don’t want to, we’ll run a rescue to the basement. But we’re seeing a nice melted spot in the pond ice despite the cold—our surface heater. And it’s warm enough there the birds are all coming and bathing like lunatics in that spot.