Monthly Archives: August 2017

Seeking a Home for Hadley

Posted on by
3

Windsome hadleyWith determination, bittersweet sadness, and love, we are seeking a new home for our little Hadley Marie Hemingway.

After two years of being staff cat in a foster family, she is not thriving in this environment. She does fine when it’s “just us” but each time newcomers arrive, she exhibits angry behavior. Hadley is also fine with dogs and cats who remain in her life, just not good at the railway station traffic.

Nike, her friend and companion here, is optional to rehome with her. If you have wanted to have SPECIAL cats in your life, these two are da bomb. Nike is supersmart, kind as cats go, and beautiful in long silky fur that almost looks like feathers. She grooms Hadley and coaches her in “new situations.” Hadley knows three constants in life: this is where I eat, this is where I poop, and Nike. We worry a little bit about rehoming her without her cat mom, because Hadley doesn’t learn new things quickly.

 

 

Born with literal brain damage (her birth sac didn’t get ripped open in time to prevent her losing a few cells to oxygen deprivation, is our vet’s assesesment) Hadley can use the box (unless she’s angry) and is cuddlesome when it’s her idea. She has an unhealthy interest in matches and we suggest you keep her far from them, and blowtorches and dragons. There’s no telling what kind of plans her strange little mind would make.

December folder 047We have loved Hadley dearly since the Halloween afternoon our friend Tabitha rescued her from the side of a mountain. Rehoming her is what’s best for her, not us. Accustomed to her idiosyncrasies, we’ve come to realize they are caused by stress. Which is not good for her. She needs a quieter place than this, a bookstore with heavy foot and paw traffic.

So if you have been a Hadley fan, or seek an adult cat (preferably two) to brighten your life, send us any questions you may have about Hadley and Nike. You are welcome to use the bookstore email at jbeck69087@aol.com or FB message Jack or Wendy. The home will be vetted. We want what’s best for our special fur baby.hadley

And here’s a link to the blog Hadley wrote for the Jungle Red Writers (crime fiction) about her life in the bookstore.

 

Organizing the Westerns

Posted on by
3

westernAbout a week ago I realized that our Mancave needed cleaning. We call this the Guys with Big Guns sections, housing Westerns and War novels. It was dusty and hadn’t been culled or realphabzetized in some time.

Dealing with Guys with Big Guns is not something we as Quakers want to spend our time doing.  Although we don’t read these genres, we certainly sell a lot of them, so last Saturday, there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and move in.

It’s enough to make a bookslinger cynical, I tell ya. First of all, the  expressions on the faces of the cover art guys are the same (grimacing with determination). Also their posture: they lean into the action but slightly away from the gun. Yes, they’re all holding guns, but here’s where it differs. Western guys hold six-shooters (I think) while the War people vary: post-apocalytpic weapon of choice is a Bazooka. Go figger. The spy guy  ranges from little pistol-ma-bobs to those huge rifle-esque guns you see flashed from the backs of Toyotas in countries where things are not going well.

Guns I don’t know much about; the alphabet I can handle. That’s what I was trying to do, organizing them by author. Some, like Terry or William Johnston(e) or good ol’ Louis L’Amour, move fast. Others go at about the speed of cattle crossing the Great Plains. So it’s important to keep them sorted, but at a certain point, whether First-time Author Hoping to Break Into the Genre or whoever is covering L’Amour these days wrote Shootout at Wherever gets old. Did you know that about half of all Western titles start with Shootout, Gunfight, or Crossing? Go ahead, check it out.

It seems to me that Westerns are Romance for Men. In fact, I once put a bunch of Native American romances back there in the mancave, mixed in with the other Shooters, and sure enough, they got scooped up. A word to whoever is designing the covers: a girl with big heaving bosoms and a guy with gritty determination in his eyes will do; you really don’t have to worry about anything else. Near as I can tell, in the Westerns she heaves in the background as the guy covers her with his big gun, while in the Romances she heaves in the foreground as the guy, again…. Anyway, you get the (cover) picture.

It took several hours, but our Westerns and War sections are now relatively dust-free. Jack did suggest I leave a bit, for atmosphere. “Guys want a little True Grit,” said my husband.