The countdown continues...

Four work days left until I am supposed to wing my way airily down to Santa Monica.

First off -- My back is feeling better. Not completely, and strangely enough, it is worse at night, especially when I try to lay flat. But better is a good thing.

Second -- I've finally got some boxes of books packed for the fair. Eight boxes. Not what I NEED or what I'd like to have done by now, but better than the NONE I had three days ago.

Today was a non-starter for work. Sort of. Instead of doing data entry (which STILL needs to be done), I went and discussed a book for possible consignment. All I can say right now is that it went well.

It IS, however, the first time I've ever allowed myself to do a consignment type of arrangement and I'll have to see how things go. Normally I try to pay outright for stock as it makes life MUCH simpler. But...

Third -- I'm dreading taking the boxes (and right about now I'm estimating 25 or so boxes for this fair alone) from the house to the car. I'll do it, and I'll probably be sorry I did do it, but it has to be done. On the up side, when I get to the fair, there are wonderful helper guys who help unload for me.

And if you're wondering why my crew of menfolk here don't help -- My husband just recently RE-dislocated his shoulder and is forbidden from lifting heavy stuff (he lifted son number two, the feather weight and pulled it again), Son number one tried to lift a box -- picked it up -- and put it down two steps later. I'll have to start weight training on him (he can use partly filled boxes of books.... hey, there's an idea). As for son number two -- well, he weights about the same amount as some of the boxes and LESS than others.

For someone who's been noticing the bathroom scale inching up recently, having to hear him moan about the fact that he CAN'T even gain ONE pound (still stuck at 51 lbs and this is going on about a year now) makes me want to throw things (not at him).

So it's me and the boxes. And the dratted bookcases which weigh fifty pounds or so (wooden, four shelves), not to mention all the other sundry items that go along.

And then there's the drive down. Six+ hours sitting on my rump doesn't make my back feel much better. I do get out every two hours or so just to see if my legs will hold me up. That's fun to watch -- how many (mmph) year olds do you know who have to wildly grab for the door of the vehicle to hold themselves up when there legs decide NOT to work after a stint of driving?

Yeah, I'm going on a bit.

Yeah, I'll make it just fine.

But it's fun to complain about.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get more work done.

Maybe the boxes for the fair with magically fill themselves with priced, dust jacket covered, perfect books.

Maybe not -- FOUR MORE DAYS!


Tomorrow, the plight of the truly clothes-less person...

More Book Fair Stuff ... and the back

I went for the X-ray of my back. Doctor got the pic's and said, other than some scoliosis (which I THOUGHT I was luckily free of since I was checked almost every year since I was little -- does it suddenly appear?) which didn't mean much, I didn't have anything showing on the X-rays that would be bothering me.

Which means it's all soft tissue problems. So physical therapy is in order.

Not a bad answer, if you ask me. I'd rather have something that's fixable with work than something that is permanently disabling.

SO, since I was feeling marginally better yesterday, decided to go ahead and DO MY EXERCISES this morning.

Sure.

Remind me one of these days how DUMB that was.

Now It's going to take longer to get back to where I was because whatever I did (and by the way, the exercises this morning were mainly help for lower back problems) made me feel ever so much NOT better.

Great. Someone duct tape me to my chair so I don't do stupid things.

On other fronts -- I'm still working on getting my boxes of books ready for the two book fairs coming up.

Santa Monica is now just over two weeks away. Normally I'd have boxes already starting to form a wall in my front room (which makes the rest of the family and the cats rather growly at me as the boxes take up room to run...)

BUT - pain has slowed me down a bit.

AND I finally got my rear in gear and ordered dust jacket covers which didn't arrive until yesterday. So, knowing that they were coming, I PUT OFF boxing up books so I could cover them first.

Now I have to put in overtime getting the covers on and figuring out exactly which books might be of interest. AND which books to leave out for Sacramento (three weeks away) and not take to Santa Monica.

And remember I'm not supposed to be lifting boxes of books or even big stacks of them.

Right now, the pain is worst when I try to bend over and stay bent over to do something - like pick up books off the floor (where they NEVER are -- yeah right) or pet the cat, or pick up kid stuff...

And of course, baseball season hasn't exactly finished yet, but soccer season HAS started. Our weekly schedule now has something in the evening every day except Friday (and maybe will have something there too), with weekends being REALLY busy.

Plenty of time to get books covered and boxed up.

Yup.

As long as I don't really start to think about what's going on, I'm FINE.

FINE I SAY.

enjoy.

Santa Monica Book Fair... here's the link

It appears that tthe link is working again today. The show arrangers must have been working on it yesterday as it never seemed to do anything but spin and time out.

here's the link:

Santa Monica Book Fair


the lone link I could find for the Sacramento show is lame and mostly for dealers, so I'm not including that -- however, I will tell the organizer when I see him that he needs to add a webpage for the show. Gotta have one nowadays!

I've been entering data for the fair this week. In fact, the last couple of days made me feel like I might actually have some interesting stuff to take...

Can't tell you about it now, as I need to take it to the fair, but it's starting to feel good.

Last week I spent the week moaning to myself that I had NOTHING worth looking at.

NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING....

(this by the way, is every bookseller's lament when faced with a book fair looming. All of us seem to be easily cowed by the stock of others ... well, maybe not ALL, but many dealers). What can I say, unless you're constantly working with the public in an open shop (which many are NOT now), you end up by yourself facing a computer all day and don't feel like you do much but sit on your rear end. And some of us are less than hugely confident -- speaking of myself here.

I haven't gotten to the packing part yet -- that should be coming up this next week. And if it's not, I'm LATE!!!

Hopefully I'll be able to find something else to write about for the next week or so, but if not, bear with me.

Book Fair Schedule...

I finally got my rear in gear and decided (well, the economy helped too) to go ahead and exibit at two book fairs in September.

The first is the Santa Monica Book Fair (the link seems to be in the middle of an update today, so I'll get it for you when I can) on Sept. 12-13 in Santa Monica, CA (obviously...) It's a two day fair and is well attended by both dealers of all types and browsers / buyers (hopefully!)

The second is The Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair on Sept 19th at the Scottish Rite Temple in ... Sacramento, CA.

I'm hoping that both fairs will be AWESOME and that (crassly) people will be willing to buy things from me.

If you'd like a free pass to either, please email me and I'll send out something of have a pass waiting for you at the door.

I'm hoping that I can cram as much data entry into the next several weeks as I can -- if not, I'll even try to be less A/R then usual and actually take some stuff that isn't completely detailed in my computer before I go (GASP!)

If there's anything in particular you'd like to see there, let me know.

Oh, and there might be another book fair coming up in October for me. I'll let you know as I learn more.

Enjoy!