Author Archives: wendywelch

New Year Resolutions Bookslingers Tend not to Make

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1. This year, I resolve to keep my manicure perfect. No more scraping off old price stickers, lifting bits of unidentified goo from covers, picking off bits of melted candy from the children’s books. I will not allow them to get dirt trapped beneath from the books. Lovely fingernails will be my priority.

2. Be nicer when people start haggling with me over prices. After all, it’s a terrible economy, and that dollar for the pristine copy of “The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig” could be all that stands between this well-dressed, hair-highlighted woman with the perfect manicure and her last six packages of Raman Noodles. I can eat mac and cheese again tonight.

3. Exercise more. Tonight when the shop closes I’ll get on the treadmill, since the eight miles I covered walking the shop floor today isn’t really exercise. Nor is that “bend from the waist, pick up the stack of hardbacks, back and forth to the shelves as fast as I can go; repeat” thing that comprises about 2 hours of my day. And I have to work off those cheese-covered carbs, because I sold “Three Little Wolves” for 50 cents.

4. Get out there and find authors or artists to support with great in-store publicity and shelving displays at my own expense. I need to help develop single-person-focused events that build ego rather than community, because artists with unrealistic expectations of their place in the world are truly hard to find. I must beat the bushes, and devote more resources to this field of endeavor.*

5. Drink less coffee/tea/vodka. I don’t need it to get myself awake Saturday at 7 a.m. so I can get the shop floor cleared of books by opening time and make that cute display for the upcoming author signing. I don’t need it to make the customer who came in and needs to talk feel welcome and like I have time to listen to her at 11 a.m. I don’t need it to wake myself up at 3 p.m. after a vigorous physical day during which I stuffed a fiber bar in my mouth at lunch because the place was mobbed and my part-time student help didn’t show. And I don’t need it to stay awake at 7 p.m. during the author event, because this paranormal romance is well-edited and has such an innovative plot that I’m fascinated, despite that carb-heavy meal of mac and cheese I wolfed down from 6:32-6:34 p.m.

6. Spend more time in my shop. Ten hours a day six days a week really isn’t enough to get the feel of the place. I must make an effort to be there more often and take a livelier interest in its day-to-day workings.

*Authors and artists, don’t take personal offense. The world needs you! Many wise and wonderful creators understand what’s realistic and what isn’t — like Lisa Pell and Heather Volk and others who have been a pleasure to work with. But, as one small bookstore owner and I discussed recently, we average five people per week asking to do signings or display items. Not all of them are cued up–or polite.

Senile, My Ar(hem)

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For the past year Jack and I have tiptoed around our CEO. Our oldest cat ValKyttie is Scottish, 17, and senile; since our opening she has ruled the roost with an iron paw, demanding wet cat food, specially purchased Catsip milk, and obsequious obedience from the foster cats.

She, who used to jump from six-foot bookshelves, now rubs my ankles to be picked up and nestled in my lap. Dr. Beth says her hips are “delicate.”

In her senility, she chases Beulah–her sister for the past eight years–from the shop with hisses, flattened ears, and extended claws. She swipes at any dog silly enough to get within range. She tolerates young Owen, the newest staff kitten, because he does obeisance before approaching, and cuddles her as he takes nips from whatever delicacy she’s getting that the others are not.

It’s good to have a boy toy. Owen has great muscle structure.

When she wants to be held, I stop writing. The other day I was sitting in the wing chair working on a laptop balanced on my knees, and she rubbed my ankles. I explained the geometry to her, and she rubbed my ankles again. With one hand, I gently scooped her around the middle and swung her into the chair next to me, warning her away from my fully-occupied lap. She put out one delicate paw and with surprising strength shoved the laptop sideways, sauntered into the space, and sat, her head resting just under my chin, leaning against my chest and purring.

What could I say, except, “Well-played, Madam.”

Jack got it before I did. As we chased her down one evening, snatching her up just before she slashed Beulah through the cat flap into the snowstorm outside, Jack said, “She’s Great-aunt Ada.”

Those of you who saw my essay in December on NPR Books (3 Great Small Town Reads) will recall that Cold Comfort Farm is one of my favorites. In it, Great-aunt Ada lives a life of reclusive luxury upstairs, waited on hand and foot because, as a child, she “saw something nasty in the woodshed.”

“ValKyttie’s not senile at all,” Jack persisted. “And she’s not delicate. See how fast she moves when she’s chasing Beulah. Look at that jump she just made to the dresser. If this cat’s confused, I’m a Marx Brother.”

“Cut it out, Harpo,” I said, scooping ValKyttie against my shoulder, where she snuggled down and purred. “You know she’s 17 and fragile.”

“And getting her every whim catered to,” he said. “You hold her if she so much as mews. She gets a heating pad to sleep on, carried everywhere she wants to go. Look,” he said suddenly, turning me toward the bedroom vanity’s three-sided mirror so I could see ValKyttie’s face over my shoulder.

Gosh darn it, she was smirking.