Category Archives: Life reflections

Beth and That Nice Boy got Married

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beth hoodOur foster kittens’ pediatrician is a sweetheart of a woman named Beth (that’s her on the left, channeling an inner fairy tale character). Beth got married this past Saturday, her wedding a welcome respite for Jack and me amidst three intense days of hard labor setting up the bookstore cafe.

Likely it seemed less relaxing to Beth than to us, but she looked pretty happy, so we figure she enjoyed it all the same.

beth happyBeth provides a lot of freebie and reduced cost care for our bookstore fosters. She saved staff cat Owen Meany’s life when he had a virus we didn’t notice, and she made house calls for Hazel, the 20-year-old cat who landed in the shelter amid cries of outrage. (Queen Hazel is now living a life of luxury in North Carolina; Clan Hazel is her facebook page, if you want to see how Her Majesty is doing.)

beth hair and dressbeths dressSpeaking of majesty, check out Beth’s gorgeous hairdo and dress. The dress is one of the nicest stories from her wedding. Beth was engaged once, several years ago, and bought her dress before discovering the guy wasn’t worth wearing it for. So she ditched him but kept it–Beth is a sensible girl–until she found someone worthy of her.

“It’s a redemption dress,” she told me over lunch in the bookstore. “Been returned to its rightful purpose in life, just like us.” (Beth and I share Christian beliefs in the redemptive power of Jesus.)

beth sabersSo Beth married That Nice Boy, and an opera singer gave a heartfelt rendition of “Someday my Prince will Come” at the ceremony. Beth’s dog was one of the groomsmen, and he approved this match. You could tell Maverick thought Brandon smelled reliable.

Brandon is a prince of a guy, and we admit we’re bad friends for not trying harder, but we call him “That Nice Boy.” It used to be “That Nice Boy Beth’s Marrying” but that got too long. We actually referred to him, as we walked to the church three blocks away, as “TNB,” which came out “Tenbee.”

It’s all over once you get a nickname in a small town.

“Dr. Brandon Tester, Chiropractor” has set up business in Wise with a brand new office. We’ll just try not to call him Tenbee in professional settings. We can’t call him Brandon because I have a friend who is married to Brett, and her brother is Brent, and she’s best friends with another friend of mine, married to a guy named Brad. And I have a friend named Brian married to a lady named Beth. So sorry, Beth and Tenbee, but we just can’t.

beth glam shots

But we do love you both, and wish you well! It was a grand wedding, and we have high hopes for your mixed marriage. (The cakes and flowers were bright orange for the bride’s University of Tennessee background and deep blue in honor of the groom’s University of Kentucky roots. That’s pretty much Capulet/Montague around here.)

beth dragBut there’s only that one wedding photo in which it looks like TNB is dragging Beth around against her will, so it’s all good. In fact, it’s great. A quote in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd  sums up a good marriage: “And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be – and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

beth and brandonYep.

Retirement, my Arse

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Jack’s guest blog on the loneliness of the overworked bookseller

When I joke about there being no such thing as retirement I mostly am really just joking. Except this week…..

We’d only just got through getting Wendy’s new book into a formal proposal and out the door (a process that involves Wendy disappearing into the basement for hours on end while I cope with a list of chores not limited to but dominated by laundry, food services, bookstore management, and dog/cat care) when it was straight into the Celtic Festival with all its associated hair-tearing last minute complications. (Our favorite “least favorite” festival moment: 10:45 a.m. I go out to start my little red ’62 MG to carry Lady Big Stone in the parade, and the engine won’t turn over. Started at 11:02 for the 11:15 parade. I’m too old for that kind of excitement.)

I will add that Big Stone Celtic this year surpassed itself: lovely attendance, lovely weather, lovely performers, lovely vendors, lovely feel to the whole two days. It was delightful.

The day after that loveliness, all the signs and banners had to be taken down and stowed. One of the reasons we had such good attendance is that our friend Elissa headed up publicity; she thought of places to put those signs and banners that defy description.

On Monday we basked in the glow of photographs and comments on the Big Stone Celtic Day’s facebook page, and on the bookstore’s. We must have basked for twenty full minutes before it was time to turn our attention to the SECOND STORY CAFE–opening Oct. 8–and the health inspector’s visit to approve it. Bruce, the inspector, is coming tomorrow, but Rick, the heat and air guy, is still installing the new heat pump in the attic: estimated completion Friday.

Oh, and our friend Gayle Ross will be telling at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, so she’s coming up to do a house concert on Monday, Oct. 7. Quick and intensive advertising to be done.

Surely there can’t be anything else?

Well, we decided to empty the ‘love shack’ and shift all the romances from there into the shop since it’s not a great space for retail in winter. We’re creating a couches-and-coffee room upstairs next door to the main dining room, lining its walls with shelves, and bringing up the classics and poetry; the romances will go where those used to be on the bookshop’s main floor. Unfortunately, we can’t move them yet because first the kitchen has to be ready for Bruce to inspect Thursday and then the room clear for Rick on Friday and then Saturday we’re moving the couches into the coffee shop room so I’ve got to get the shelves built soon.

Did I mention that Adrianna Trigiani’s novel about Big Stone Gap is being filmed here in town starting in two weeks? One of the film crew was in yesterday asking if the restaurant would open while they’re here. I said, “God knows, because I’ve got to put a bathroom in our basement this month or Wendy will kill me.” (We moved into our basement to clear space for the cafe, but women’s bladders are small and my wife has grown tired of making the midnight trek to the toilet one flight up.)

What was that dear? Shelves? What shelves?