Category Archives: VA

You are Invited….

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It’s that special time of year when tummy bugs, Celtic festivals, busy life syndrome and a host of last-minute “oh crap, is that due today” moments collide to produce….

exhaustionexhaustion. That’s me on the right, having just finished crocheting a pre-ordered SPAY AND NEUTER AFGHAN, a fundraising item to pay for – well, I guess you can guess what it pays for. See the rows of cat faces; that’s what you get if you don’t spay and neuter. (The cat face on top belongs to Owen Meany, who is quality testing.)

Elissa took this photo during the last Celtic festival meeting, held yesterday evening, just before the madness begins tonight at 7. And in the back of my mind as we discussed festival details and I put the last row on the blanket was “where can I get a birthday cake personalized first thing in the morning?” Friends-n-family thing we forgot to take care of.

Thing is, while I’d like to invite you to a pity party for five minutes of self-indulgent luxury, I know Jack and I are lucky to live in a community full of people willing to volunteer time and effort to run a Celtic festival. We’ve been fielding phone calls all week from Cincinnati, St. Louis, even El Paso, from Celti-philes coming to the event. It’s good for the town, it’s good for the musicians, it’s good fun.

(We’re also lucky to have friends who totally deserve really cool birthday cakes, and the fact that we forgot until last night is by no means a measure of our esteem for said friend…. you get that, Frank?)

And while no joint venture in a small town is without politics, if you just walk straight and keep your sense of humor, it doesn’t matter. Jack, Darinda, Elissa – all the members of the Celtic Festival committee – we know we’re having fun, and that other people will, too. So all those planning sessions (I think I crocheted that whole afghan at meetings in August and September alone) are worth it.

So is that look on my face. Go by, mad world. Actually, no: come here and share the mad gay whirl that is Big Stone Celtic. It’s gonna be a great two days.

bsc billboard

The Man from Malta

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Last Saturday a tall, serious-looking guy walked into the bookstore with his wife and introduced himself as a criminal lawyer. Then he said, in an ominous tone, “I’ve been here before, and I’ve been meaning to get back to see you for awhile.”

Yikes!!

It turns out he had been in the bookstore a couple of years ago, while conducting a case in the federal courthouse across the street. He had been so caught up in the case, he said, that he’d gone through our store in a daze and hadn’t been back since.

He also said that he wrote a weekly column for our biggest local newspaper and that was what had brought him back. In fact he is a member of the Quality Paperback Club, so had gotten a copy of Wendy’s book in the mail as QPC’s July selection–and loved it, so much so that he’d contacted his editor at The Kingsport Times-News to ask if they’d reviewed the book.

“We don’t do book reviews” came the reply. So D. Bruce Shine, criminal attorney, who “doesn’t normally write this kind of column,” decided that the time had come to change all that. He got some facts from me, sat with a kitten on his knee while his wife browsed, and said the column would be in next week.

I am currently teach a class every Tuesday morning at the Higher Ed Center in Abingdon, and Tuesday past I was met with a barrage of “have you seen the column about you?” from just about everyone in the class. Later we had loads of folk bring copies of the paper to us at the bookstore just in case we hadn’t gotten one.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were inundated with customers from the readership area  (three of whom were able to check out our disabled ramp and reported no difficulty– woohoo!). The customers, intrigued by our story as described by Mr. Shine, felt they just had to come and see for the themselves. Despite a miserable rainy day they drove for over an hour to get here and then spent lots of time exploring every nook and cranny of the store, all the time plying me with questions – “how long have you been here, what brought you here, where are you from originally?” And, of course, “where’s Wendy?”

Just when I think that the shine may be about to wear off this magical, fun experience that Wendy’s book has catapulted us into, someone else comes along and burnishes it again – Mr. Shine, the man from Malta.

Malta?

Mr. Shine is also the Honorary Consul General for Malta in the Commonwealth of Virginia. How cool is that?!

Thank you Honorary Consul General.