Category Archives: home improvements

March of the Scissors

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scissorsAs bookshop owners, Jack and I have noticed a phenomenon over the years that other managers say is common to their shop as well. Even some domestic households report it.

The March of the Scissors.

We cannot keep a pair of those sodding things around for love nor money. In the blue basket near our cashbox, we try to have at least one pair among the pencils and sales receipt books. Yet every couple of days, one of us calls out, “Honey have you seen the–?”

Jack says, at night while we sleep, the scissors creep from the handy storage spaces where we stash them, and meet at a central location, where they hide, a nest of blades and handles, until we open a door, lift a blanket, and viola! Like a mouse’s nest, there are the scissors–usually less one pair.

They get redistributed – the kitchen drawer, the blue basket, my yarn corner, the tin under the stairs: we like to have them handy for the many jobs that arise.

You may be wondering, of what need are scissors in a bookstore? Becalm yourself; we are not cutting up Patricia Cornwells. Yet. We use them to open boxes, cut off credit slips for customers, get goop off hardbacks. (Don’t try that last one at home; we’re professionals.)

In a fit of manly rage that he couldn’t find any when he needed them, the Master of the House (Jack) bought seven pairs of solid steel scissors in one go, and double-distributed the sneaky implements to all our hiding spots.

Three weeks later, he stormed through the house, screaming, “Not a single pairrrrrrr!”

You haven’t lived until you’ve watched a Scotsman rant about “S-iz-orrrrrrrrrs.” That adorable rolled r AND a glottal stop…. be still my heart.

We found them–six pair, anyway–under the sink this time, in a shameless tangled conflagration of open blades. The least they could do is make safety scissor babies.

The scissors are back in their hiding place, minus the one that got away. We can only assume that escaped scissors join the socks that found the wormhole in the back of the dryer, and are whooping it up out there somewhere in the Netherworld. An odd combination, to be sure, but then every relationship needs a softie and a sharp one, doesn’t it?

We hope they will be very happy together.

♪ Ponies in Sweaters ♪ and Sheep with bright Fleeces ♪

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Jack’s weekly guest blog (the ponies below are Shetlands in Fair Isle sweaters, promoting Scottish tourism. Jack suggests we all go there now, because it’s warmer.)

shetlands in sweatersAs I write this, the temperature outside is zero degrees F. That’s thirty two degrees below freezing for us Europeans! Our heat pump is going flat out and just managing to hold 68 degrees in the bookstore. On days like this we don’t expect many customers. Everyone is huddled inside, the local schools and colleges closed because of the ice rinks that used to be roads.

Wendy and I have moved our center of today’s operations upstairs to the Second Story Cafe where it’s just a bit warmer (two degrees, to be precise). She is writing in the guest room and I am running the bookstore from a cafe table.

Locals tell us that the last few weeks are the coldest they can remember for a long time and I believe it. Even for a weathered Scotsman like me, this is freakishly cold.

Winters in Scotland…. ah, I thought I’d left them behind. I often tell folk that summers here are considerably warmer, but winters are much the same. This is not what I’m used to. Also, these really cold spells seem worse because the summers are so hot to me, creating more of a contrast. Then, too, the bookstore is in a big old house with drafty windows and doors. In Scotland, I believe the houses were better equipped to handle cold weather.

On the other hand, I may have just worn more appropriate clothing! Americans don’t work so much with wool as we do back on the Isles. And of course, your sheep aren’t as cute, either.sheep

Amidst the polar vortex onslaught, this place still manages to be an oasis (or perhaps an arctic camp) for some of our hardier customers. Our excellent chef Kelley has slept in the guest room these past two nights, to be sure of opening for hot breakfasts, and people are showing up, cold, wet and hungry for these and her bowls of warming lunch soups. Even our defiantly outdoor cat Beulah has given in and taken up residence (also in the guest room, fighting for bed space with Kelley) until things improve.

So we wait, hopefully and patiently, for the promised return more normal temperatures by the end of the weekend, and–less hopefully–for our January power bill. But I do think about grabbing Wendy and making a trip to Scotland soon, just to warm up. It might prove cheaper than heating the bookstore.