Tag Archives: bookstores

Schottland Mom Porn?!

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Today’s blog has been on my mind to write for some time. Let me start by apologizing in advance for any offense caused, or choking hazards if you drink liquids while reading it.

Because today we are introspectively rolling through the search terms by which people have found this blog. They are….. interesting.

owen and jackSome make sense, some are even quite complimentary–deliberately or not. There are multiple variations of “cute fuzzy kittens with big eyes.” Thank you; we accept full credit for creating the world’s most well-read adoptable cat ring by fostering shelter kitties here at the bookstore. (That’s Owen Meany in the infant stages, on the left there.)

And for complimentary, let’s try: nice little bookstore in the world; sweet little bookstore SW VA; well-managed bookstore; beautiful lil bookstore; famous people Big Stone Gap; and excellence bookshop management techniques. Aw shucks. We’d like to thank all the little search engines that made this moment possible.

From here the trail slips into some odd yet understandable sidebars–most of which can be laid at the feet of my sisters-in-crime, the Guerrilla Grammar Girls. (This is a quasi-spiritual organization of women determined to clean up poor grammar wherever we find it through the use of red felt-tip pins and copious amounts of alcohol.) They are the ones who outlined the body and posted the Rusell Crowe singing crap in my new basement writing retreat–instigating search terms “visiting crime scenes” and “hiding bodies in basement” and even “creative uses for cornstarch.” Thanks, gal pals! crime scene 016Elissa, the photographer and dachshund rescuer among us, can claim “paraplegic dog cart races,”  while “her and her grammar” credit is mutual to the gang. All quite understandable if somewhat garbled connections, and tres amusant, as we say in Big Stone.

But then…. oh, then:

redhead Wendy porn Murfreesboro? (I deny EVERYTHING!)

Preorder jug puppy ??!!

Burtnti big ass?????!!!!!!!

Games of nooking down trees (I suppose trees would support nooks as opposed to printed books, if one thinks about it)

I met a sweet lady from course (Wendy glowers darkly)

don’t worry pee books

megalomania (harumph)

female Santa with gun (Dafuq?)

old but not valuable (Jack says this is about him and he resents it)

armatures sexo

gap bunny slippers

two countries divided by a single stone (Oh, right; Wise and Big Stone Gap)

Wendy Welch nose

and about 50 different searches for “fulton ave books, Evansville, Indiana” (Those of you who have read Little Bookstore or the blog’s “Booking Down the Road Trip” will get that one.)

Words fail me. Apparently, search engines also fail us. Imagine the disappointment of all those gentleman callers to Fulton Ave when their search pulls up this blog full of cute kitties.

Yes, from here we could devolve into a pun war that would set search engines ringing across the country, but let’s just leave it with one final picture–also taken, by Elissa–and have a good Friday, all.

crotch kitten

Honey Do – Right Now!

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Jack’s weekly guest post

Husbands of a practical turn who live in old rambling houses will be very familiar with the ongoing list of tasks to be accomplished just to keep everything ship-shape, far less the more extensive jobs needed for renovations.

Some four years ago we applied for a license to serve food in the bookstore and this turned up the need for an additional sink in the kitchen area. Assembling all the needed plumbing requirements, I practiced a few essential curses, then set to with a will. Several bashed knuckles and contortions later, it was finished – – almost – –

A drawer unit had been where the new sink was installed, so now the space where the drawer had opened out had no room for the actual drawer. The obvious answer was to take the front off the drawer and fit it as a dummy over the space. Much easier said than done! Eventually a temporary fix was accomplished that worked so long as no one tried to open it. From then on we got used to the sound of the drawer front falling on the floor fairly regularly and I got used to adjusting the not very effective method of holding it in place.

My long-suffering wife regularly asked me to do something permanent about it and just as regularly I promised I would.

Last night was our weekly Needlework Night (AKA ‘Stitch N’ Bitch’)and as I passed briefly through the all female company I heard the familiar sound of the drawer front hitting the floor. Wendy appeared with an expression of determination on her face, saying “WILL you fix that thing properly?”

“Of course dear,” I said, and continued with what I was doing.

Shortly I heard a sound – rrriiipppp, it went – rrriiipppp again, and again. The needleworkers fell silent, eyes fixed on their work. I looked toward the sink area —

–where Wendy was just finishing putting the drawer front very inelegantly but quite firmly in its place. With brown packaging tape.

Maybe you'll fix the darned thing now?

Maybe you’ll fix the darned thing now?

My mother had a favorite story she told me often in her later years:  apparently she, my dad (a house-painter with his own decorating business) and we very young children would visit his widowed mother on Sunday afternoons. On occasion she got up from the table, dipped her finger in the jam-jar, walked over to a piece of loose wallpaper she had been complaining about for ages and stuck it down with jam. Not a word did she say!

It must run in the family (although the drawer front is now firmly and permanently fixed by me, I hasten to add). Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. . .