Jaci Dawn

Something you’ve always loved is coming to a close unexpectedly… What is it? Why is it important to you? And how do you convince someone to drop everything and go with you in a short time frame?

The End of the World’s Largest Independent Bookseller

Powell’s City of Books? Closing? Forever? The iconic, three-level, largest bookstore on the West Coast – closing its doors? Suddenly, with no explanation? Can you hear every librarian, teacher, bibliophile west of the Mississippi screaming a collective, “Nooooooooo!”??

There it was: headlines on the evening news: all the books to be sold at a fraction of their ISBN code price. The retail and resell book seller was going out of business, permanently. All locations, but you know the one set between NW 10th and 11th, facing West Burnside has always been the best one: the new location out in Beaverton doesn’t have that musty old book smell to it, but smells like a Barnes and Noble store, with a Starbucks kiosk and nice carpeting.

I picked up my phone: who to call? Who would want to go downtown with me, armed with bags and a credit card? Who did I know in real life that is as rabid a bibliophile as I am? It’s not like I actually have any more room for books, but just the thought of all those books… The originals. The classics. The poetries. The plays. Children’s books. Novels and novellas. Mysteries. Science fiction, fantasy, historical fictions, histories, biographies, and controversial writings.

It didn’t take much arguing to convince Mary that we needed to go. The history of Powell’s Books was enough to convince her that this was a last minute, last moment of our life time. Audio books, how to books, crafting books. Old and new books. Antique books. We knew time was of the essence, before other collectors depleted the massive store’s supplies. We also knew that we were the only two suited for the long lines, the impatient jostling, the reaching-over-your-shoulder-book-grabbing madness that we were about the descend into…

When I turn ninety, I expect a party. I want costumes and music and dancing. We’ll tell jokes and funny stories and embarrass each other royally. I want every generation  living to come and spend the day with me, and some not so living (ghosts will be welcome).

When I turn ninety, the menu will be lasagna, and cake, and ice cream.

When I turn ninety, I want you to rent a horse so I can go for a ride.

When I turn ninety, I want to give away all my books to all my guests.

I want to wear toe socks and my very best hat that doesn’t match anything I own.

When I turn ninety, I may not have all my faculties – or even all my teeth – so treat me kindly, and make me laugh.

When I turn ninety, I want hugs from everyone – just don’t spill my wine. It’s probably the only glass of wine I’ll get in my nineties!

When I turn ninety, I want Hallowe’en candy and Christmas decorations and all the fine china set out (and who cares if a piece gets broken?).

When I turn ninety, I expect a party. I want costumes and music and dancing.

When I turn ninety.

“What do you see out your window?”

I see a boring view of a suburban street canting downhill at an angle. There’s a dead lodgepole pine in the center of the view, with an empty bird feeder hanging from a limb and three empty suet feeders hanging from nails in the trunk. I didn’t put the nails there: they came with the tree, which came with the house. The tree wasn’t dead when it came with the house, but died in increments of some mysterious fungal disease or bug infestation. There’s a large hydrangea planted under the tree, I planced it there so the roots would be in acidic soil and the flowers on the hydrangea would be a deep teal blue-green.

Beyond the tree, beyond the short retaining wall, there is the street and mailboxes. In mid-summer, just in front of the retaining wall, the bright orange day lilies bloom for weeks. In the winter, the street looks like a creek as water from the rains wash down it and swirl out onto the cross street and down.

Suburban ranch style homes built in the 1950’s line the south side of the street, with their little rectangle front lawns and requisite azalea and rhododendron bushes. A row of Douglas fir trees line the north side, their branches trimmed up so that I can see the traffic coming and going. These are not my trees, but belong to the neighbor in the green house directly opposite us. A bright orange fire hydrant marks the sharp corner to our street, and the corner of the neighbor’s yard.

I have hummingbird feeders hanging from the eave of the small porch roof. I can watch the Anna’s hummingbird all year, and the rufous-sided hummingbird in the summer. Red breasted nuthatches and black-capped chickadees drink from the ant moat (an inverted bowl of water hanging above the hummer feeders, designed to keep sugar ants out of the feeders). Chestnut-sided chickadees, bushtits, and white-breasted nuthatches utilize the dead lodgepole. I bird watch through this window.

It’s a boring view, an ordinary view, a view that is most often wet and dreary throughout the long rainy season. It is a perfect view of changing seasons, migrating birds, and the various nattering squirrels who come to depend on the bird feeder being filled all through the winter. It is my view.

This *is* a challenge: “Write five or six different emotions on little slips of paper and put them in a bowl. Draw one at random. Write a review of a recent movie or TV show you’ve seen using only the one emotion you drew.”

Can I redraw?

JOY

I have had Arthur and the Invisibles on my Netflix queue for quite some time now. My husband slides right over it on those nights when I get to choose the movie we watch. Last night, I had the television to myself, so I poured a glass of wine and turned on the movie of my choice. It was everything it promised to be.

I wasn’t prepared for the animation or for Arthur to shrink (I thought he stayed a regular boy and found the Invisibles living in the grass, or something along that line). I certainly wasn’t prepared for the large Masai-styled warriors, complete with shields and primitive costumes (but who spoke perfect American-English). In fact, the movie has quite a few surprises in it!

The tale is wrapped around a classic plot of evil-developer-out-to-steal-poor-woman’s-country-acreage-to-put-up-a-mall, and you know from the very beginning that the story is going to have a classic happy ending, but how the tale gets from A to B is where the meat of the tale is: and it is an amusing, happy tale where Good triumphs over Bad, and you even half-way like the Bad guy (The Evil M).

The story is dorky, quirky, funny, and perfect for a Home Alone movie for a 60 year old woman who doesn’t want to think. It made me smile.

Best of all is the joy it will bring me when I make my husband watch it. He will have to watch it. David Bowie is the voice of The Evil M, and the character even looks a tad bit like the late rock star – one of my husband’s favorite musicians.

~The End~