Shopping in a Bookstore: Lesson #1

I understand there are a lot of perfectly nice folks out there who like visiting and shopping in bookstores but wonder to themselves, "Am I doing this right? What IS the proper way to shop in a bookstore?"

Good news: I have all the answers to all the questions people didn't even know they were asking.

Bad news: Some of these lessons will be difficult to learn. But I'm confident that with time and effort, anyone can become an efficient and effective book shopper loved by bookstore employees everywhere!

Let's start with a big one. My number one cardinal rule of book browsing.

Do. Not. Put. The. Books. Back. Incorrectly.

This is basically the worst thing you can do. Okay, so maybe shoving 10 DVDs in your coat and making a break for the door is worse. And I suppose if you dumped your coffee all over an entire stack of books that would also be worse. But by far the most common offender is the person who puts the book back in the wrong place. Let me explain why this drives us booksellers CRA-zy.

If you come in looking for a book, I am going to look it up in the computer, see what it says we have and where, and then we'll go look for it together. Let's pretend that the computer says yes, we have one copy of Secrets of the Ultimate Husband Hunter (this is an actual title someone asked me for) by Nancy Nichols. Then we're going to head over to Self-Improvement (a treasure trove of ridiculously titled tomes) and make a beeline for the "N"s.


Now this may come as a surprise to some, but in the bookstore, we use something called "alphabetizing" to keep the books in order. What is alphabetizing? Well, it's just a handy little system in which the books are lined up according to the author's last name. So you and I are walking over to the shelf with the "N" authors, headed to get you some help with that wild sport of Husband Hunting, but upon arrival, we find no Nichols between Neighbors and Nim. Little do you know, and little do I know, that last week somebody else picked up that book, carried it around a bit, and then slid it back onto a shelf... in Fantasy. Which is perhaps a good place for a person who looks at the act of entering a relationship as "husband hunting" but that is an argument for another time and place. What matters is, that until someone is organizing the fantasy shelves and realizes that the Ultimate Husband Hunter is in the wrong place, nobody is finding and nobody is buying that book. So now the person who randomly tossed the book back on a shelve has made it so you can't get your book and we can't make a sale. You are frustrated at me for saying it looked like we had a copy (which it did) and I am frustrated because I can't find something our system says we should have (which we do).

What about people who put it back in the general area they found it? If Nancy Nichols, for example, gets put on the shelve right above or below, chances are that in looking in the "N" section we'll probably run across it. Plus we know that happens so we're in the habit of looking in the area before we call it quits. This is the least offensive, but still annoying, way that people put things back wrong.

Bumping it up several notches on the no-no scale is setting the wrong book in front of a face-out. I can hear you protesting: "What kind of crazy bookseller lingo are you using now, Amy?!" It's like this. Despite the old adage "not to judge a book by its cover," we all do it. Covers of books are prettier than spines, and people like looking at them. A "face-out" is when we take all the copies of a certain book on a shelf, and face them cover-out. This is nice to look at, helps us keep large quantities of certain books without taking up as much space, and fills out the full shelf. Example:



So now let's say there isn't one but four copies of Ultimate Husband Hunter and they are faced-out where they are supposed to be on the shelve but someone set another book down, faced out, right in front of them. If it is a random, not even remotely in the section book, we usually figure that one out pretty quickly. But let's say it is another self-help book, or even worse, another "N" author self-help book. You can see how we might easily be fooled by this face-out fake-out. And you can imagine how infuriating it is to realize later that the book you were looking for was right there the whole time.

But you want to be helpful! But you want to do the right thing! Here's the truth. I would rather put your book away for you than not be able to find it because you, even with the best of intentions, put it away wrong. So unless you really and truly know where your book goes, just bring it to someone who works there. Leave it on the info desk. Bring it up to the register and say you don't want it.

One exception to the don't-put-it-back-yourself rule: If you get a large stack of books from the same very small, very specialized section, put them back yourself. I'm serious. Do not pull out fifteen books on birdwatching and then leave them in a pile by the chairs in religion. You probably picked up every birdwatching book we have and you totally know where they go. Put them back or at least have the courtesy to bring them to the info desk and look apologetic about it. Did you pull out six books on Oracle SQL Programming? If you're smart enough to know what the heck that is, you're smart enough to put those books back where you found them. Leaving giant stacks of books by, in, and near the browsing chairs is super annoying. But we're veering into lesson two, to be continued at another time.

I hope you've enjoyed lesson one of shopping in a bookstore! Stay tuned for upcoming lessons, including:

• how to ask for help
• why we can't find "that one book about that guy" without more information
• my children's section is not a drop-off zone,
• why are books so expensive,
• why you can't return without a receipt
• stealing is a no-no,
• and so much more!

Sports Ramblings: Draft Day

If you've ever read this blog before, you know how I love sports. But on a 1 to 10 interest level scale, with 1 being golf and 11 being baseball, professional football only ranks about a 5. I do take a particular interest in certain players, and there was a time when being a St. Louis Rams' fan was pretty darn exciting. Like in 1999.

Once we moved to Nashville, I really felt out of the NFL loop, although in the past couple years I've felt moderately more interested in the Titans. But overall, pro football isn't really my thing.

College football, however, I love. Being a Sooner fan is always pretty sweet. My happiest time of the year is those few weeks in the fall where the end of baseball season overlaps with the start of NCAA football. All this to say that my affection for college football makes me slightly more interested in the most ridiculous part of NFL football: the draft.

It's a total circus, this year being blown up into a three day primetime event. But I am interested, at least for the first couple rounds, because some of the most interesting and talented players of the last four years of college football will be on the board. While I'm especially invested in seeing where the Sooners land, I think EVERYONE is at least a little curious as to what will happen to Tim Tebow. I also want to see Texas' Colt McCoy taken in the first round. I think he's probably the most underrated of the many big name quarterbacks in this draft. And who will pick Jimmy Clausen, the little guy from Notre Dame? And what about all those other position players that no one really cares about? C'mon, it's true!

But back to the Sooners... or in reference to the draft I suppose I should say THE Sooner that's on everyone's mind. Will Sam Bradford be the number one pick by the Rams? (This is the advantage of having your NFL team totally suck; they get first dibs next time around.) Having released Mark Bulger last month, they certainly seem primed to pick a quarterback of some kind. As one of many increasingly disinterested Rams fans, I can certainly see the appeal of a big name "franchise" quarterback pick. I don't really know enough about the NFL to know if it is a good decision otherwise. Of course, as a Sam Bradford fan, I'd love it if I could cheer for him AND the Rams at the same time. Especially if they started to actually be, you know, good.

And now, just because he's awesome, a picture of Sam Bradford:


Bonus shout out: to Nebraska's Ndamukong Suh, for having the most fun name in the draft pool by FAR.

Remembering

Fifteen years ago today, Oklahoma City experienced the worst attack of domestic terrorism in this country's history. The bomb tore through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building right in the heart of downtown, killing 168 people. This included 19 children in the building's daycare center.

I was in middle school at the time, and we had just moved from OKC to St. Louis two years earlier. I remember when my mom picked me up from school that day and explained to me what had happened. She let me watch the television coverage when we got home. It was surreal; my dad pointed out the building just two buildings over, which held the offices where he had worked for Southwestern Bell. All the windows were blown in. Watching the burning wreckage, and hearing the heroic stories of rescue, I still felt like an Okie. I always do on this day.

Someday I hope to visit the beautiful memorial that was erected where the building once stood. There's an eighty-year-old elm that somehow managed to withstand the blast, called the Survivor Tree. You can read about it here.

I hope you'll join me in remembering this event and honoring the survivors, and all the people of Oklahoma City, who refused to let tragedy and despair define their future.

A Haiku

Bangs: I'm not sure why
I get them cut each time then
Pin them back daily.

Laundry.

I have most of this day off, just working an evening shift from 5-9:30. This means I have a nice, uninterrupted span of time in which I should be getting lots of housework done. And yet, it's 10:45 and so far my only accomplishment is taking a shower. A good accomplishment, to be sure, but my day hasn't been booming with productivity.

The main thing I need to do is laundry. This is good: I love laundry. It's my favorite chore. I love sorting things into piles, which is the first step of laundry. Without kids and with a husband who has an "indoor" job, most of our laundry isn't that dirty or smelly, so nothing to bother me in the washing step. I love everything about the dryer phase, especially how everything comes out in a big warm Bounce-smelling pile. I like to sit on the couch and sort and fold while I watch TV. I love laundry.

But.

The trouble with laundry is that it leads to two of my least favorite activities: ironing and putting things away. I don't mind ironing in theory, but my ironing board is a drop down from my bathroom door, so I have to stand in the bathroom to do this chore. Also pretty much the only clothes I get to iron are Ben's long-sleeved button down shirts, aka the least fun things to iron. After 5 years of it I'm still not entirely sure how I'm supposed to iron the sleeves. Mostly I just try to avoid this step and sometimes that means Ben looks a little wrinkly. Good thing he works in the music business where that is encouraged. So ironing, not that fun.

The least fun part of laundry, however, is that after all the fun of washing and drying and folding, I'm supposed to get up and put all these clothes away. I might not dislike this step as much if we had more closet and dresser space. But since we're tight on both those things, I dread the process of finding hangers, hanging things up, trying to shove the hanger onto the already jam-packed rack in a way that doesn't knock anything else off, and so on. Same goes for folded clothes in drawers. I'm not sure how, but no matter how much laundry I do, when I go to put it away, the drawers are already full. This has led me to the very bad habit of just sitting the piles of clean clothes on top of my dresser, or more accurately, on top of other piles of clean clothes on top of my dresser. Hang-up clothes get draped in a hopefully non-wrinkling way over a pile of other hang-up clothes over the suitcase I haven't fully unpacked from New Zealand. Okay, now I've revealed too much.

What are your favorite and least favorite chores?

My Apologies

I have to apologize to you fine people for a couple things. First, it has been way too long since I blogged. Every time I sat down to write something I either a) realized I was late for work or b) found I didn't really have anything to say. Both of those things are still true right now, but I am sorry anyway! I did post an awesome video that they played at church on Easter, but that's kind of a cheat way to blog.

My second apology is that for a long, long time, my blog has been seriously ugly. Plain and boring. However, despite what people might think due to my fondness for online social media, I'm not really all that technologically savvy. I don't really know how to make my blog look awesome, and I don't even know if Blogger is the best blogging platform to be using. Still, no excuse for a fugly old blog that even I don't like looking at. So I'm trying a downloaded template that I kind of liked. We'll see if it makes the cut after a few days. If you like/dislike it or have any other suggestions I'm happy to hear them!

I hope everyone had an awesome, blessed Easter and I promise to try to do more regular blogging in the future. I do have an inspiring topic, as BASEBALL starts again today!!! Wooo!!!

Do You Know Him?

Oscars 2010 Fashion Round-Up

Hi everyone! Did you all watch the Oscars last night? Thoughts? I thought the show seemed a little stale at times, although there were some enjoyable moments. There are some more movies I need to add to my to-watch list, at the very least.

And of course, there was fashion! I don't know if I was just not feeling it, but I felt like as a whole the ladies didn't BRING IT. Lots of pretty but uninteresting dresses, lots of gold and sparkles. There are a handful of dresses that stand out in my memory but as a whole I was a little underwhelmed. Another contributing factor to my "meh"ness may be that there were several dresses about which I just couldn't make up my mind. Let's start with those first, in a category I like to call:

I like it! Wait, no, ugh, not up close. Well, okay, in this picture, maybe. I don't know... yes. Or not.


J-Lo's dress was a LOT of dress, and one of those where I think just one less element might have helped. This dress has an interesting fabric AND an interesting sculpted neckline AND an interesting (and voluminous) hip poof AND that's a lot for me to be interested in all at once. While I really love the subtlety of having a textured fabric, in this case I wonder if it might have been a little less complicated with a simpler, smoother fabric. So, to conclude, I don't know. I'm leaning towards yes. Also I like her hairdo, which looks kinda messy in this picture but was very lovely in person. Of course, by "in person" I mean on TV. Which is as "in person" to J-Lo as I'll ever be.



I quite like Maggie Gyllenhaal. In other news, I spelled that right on the first try without consulting Google. Anyway, I like her. Mmmmmbut I don't know about this. I like the shape of it, mostly, although this silhouette is rapidly becoming her M.O. I am waffling on the print. It's just so close to... tropical. Like that skirt could be repurposed after this event as a sarong-style bathing suit cover up. Couldn't it?

Sandra "Sandy" Bullock looked very pretty. I liked her smooth and shiny hair. On TV, I also liked this dress. But as I experience it the day after, I find myself kind of uninterested. The sequins of the skirt are so tiny that it almost looks as if the fabric is lamé. And my friends, there is a big, classy difference between sequined and lamé.

Aren't you bored already? Me too. Let's move on to the fun part.


Oh this is not good.


This dress worn by SJP is seriously fugly. A yellow sack with a chestplate and other accents that appear to have been sculpted from duct tape, all held up by a really weird neck strap? Did I cover everything? No? Oh yes. And a gigaaaaantic bun last seen on the business end of a showhorse.



Zoe Saldana looks stunning from the ribcage up. Unfortunately, from the ribcage down she's being slowly and quietly consumed by a gigantic drag-queen's eyelid. Seriously, look again. The black layer is the long feathery eyelashes.


Charlize Theron's mauve bridesmaid's dress is moving forward with a lawsuit, pressing charges of sexual harrassment against a different purple bridesmaid's dress. The first dress claims the second snuck up from behind and grabbed her, making us all feel uncomfortable. I don't think "rose boobs" is the first and last thing you want people to think when they see your Oscars dress. But, what do I know. I'm not an actress.


Here's what I think happened. Diane Kruger woke up on Oscar morning realizing, "No one will want to take my picture tonight since Pacey, I mean my boyfriend Joshua Jackson, won't be able to hit the red carpet with me. I have to think of some way to stand out. Desperate times call for desperate measures." That's what I imagine happened. Because what I CAN'T imagine is that a smart girl like Diane (and you know she's smart locking down the most adorable and (who would've imagined it) most successful of the D. Creek alumni) tried on this crazy Big Bird Couture number and thought it looked good. Because it doesn't. And of course her face still looks flawless, but you can't just scrape by with that, Diane, because it isn't fair. Prancing around in ugly dresses and knowing you still manage to look hot is just salt in the wound for the rest of us. And now I've gotten all flustered and we have to move on.


I see your effort and quietly compliment you.


I think this was a real improvement for Anna Kendrick over her ruffled Golden Globes dress. Because she's a brunette, the look avoids the dreaded hair/skin/dress unicolor trifecta that unfairly plagues blondes. Poor little blondes. Anyway, this dress is very soft and very romantic and very sweet. I think the fit is flawless, making her look tiny but still womanly. While I'm not in love with the lace edging the leg slit and I can't tell for sure but the shoes might be unattractive, as a whole I think job well done for Ms. Kendrick's first Oscars.



I think grey can be such a flattering color on pale blondes, and Elizabeth Banks is showcasing that effect in this elaborate dress. This style of dress I think is, for the next decade at least, always going to invite comparison to THE Penelope Cruz dress of 2007, no matter what color it is. I do like Elizabeth's version, though, even if the dress is a little bit wearing her as opposed to the other way around. I like the way the pleating of the bodice becomes the loose waves of the skirt.



I don't really have a personal opinion on the person of Miley Cyrus, although I know many people do and that may automatically prevent them from liking this look. Which I totally understand. However, if you'll just put your thumb over her face, I think you might find that this is quite a nice and still mostly age-appropriate dress for a 17-year-old. Sure, the bodice could be a hair less tight and yes, I certainly wish she'd stand up straight. But overall, a classy but still fun look for her.

And without further ado, my favorites from the night!

Yes! Also, call me, let's be friends!



Cameron Diaz has had a wide range of looks on the red carpet, often trending toward something high-fashion, but while trying to also keep her sunny, surfer-girl look. I think mostly she hasn't been that successful. Which is why when I saw her appear on my TV last night, I was really impressed. This dress isn't reinventing the wheel by any means, but along with her hair and makeup it might be the best I've seen her look. I love everything about the dress - color, shape, fit, and the beautiful distribution of beading that is creating such texture. Her hair looks both washed AND combed, and finally her pension for candy-red lipstick is working in her favor. She still looks like herself, but extra awesome. Very nice.


Queen Latifah is consistently looking awesome every time she shows up at one of these things. I love her confidence and how crazy beautiful she is just being herself. The color of this dress is delicious and I love the bejeweled strap which continues across her back. If I ever had to attend one of these formal affairs I'd want to wear exactly this. Big girls of the world take note - Queen Latifah is getting. it. done.



And finally, my favorite of the night. I'll go ahead and admit, I like Rachel McAdams so much she could show up in... well, Diane Kruger's dress, and I'd probably be trying to find some way to compliment it. However, my personal bias aside, I really think this dress is awesome. I liked it when I just thought it was a blue/tan ombre, but against all odds I like it even MORE now seeing it is actual an oversized floral print. That could be a recipe for weird and tacky but instead it is soft and unique. The overall effect is of a watercolor painting, very fluid and romantic. I love it!

That's all for this year! Awards season is over, so now back to my other favorite thing to blog about: pictures of baked goods. Bye!

Hiking Fox Glacier (Or, The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done)

For the purposes of this story, it doesn't matter what you do or don't believe about climate change and global warming: whatever the reasons, glaciers around the world are receding. These ancient remnants of the planet's last Ice Age are tucked away in the steep valleys of mountain chains or stretching in ice sheets of the polar seas.

In New Zealand, the really cool thing is that the proximity of the Southern Alps mountains to the country's western coast means that a few of its remaining glaciers are no more than 15 miles offshore, and are only 250-300 meters above sea level. This makes them quite possibly the most accessible glaciers in the world... Which means that people who aren't skilled mountain climbers and hikers can visit them. Good thing I fit that bill!

There are two main glaciers in the area that are toured by visitors. Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier are snuggled right along the northwestern side of New Zealand's tallest mountains, descending from those peaks and ending amidst temperate rainforest. That's another unique feature of these glaciers, and it means that visitors are comfortable hiking to the glaciers in shorts and t-shirts.

Which is a good thing, because you're going to get warm hiking to Fox Glacier. Why, you might ask? Well, friends, that's because you're going to have to hike up 800 stairs. EIGHT. HUNDRED. STAIRS.

Quick, stair comparison stats! The Empire State Building has 1576 stairs. So, you know, I did the equivalent of half the climb of arguably the world's most famous flight of stairs.

I believe my previous stair accomplishment was climbing the 320 steps up to the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I didn't remember this number before I started the Fox Glacier hike. So when I heard "800 steps" I assumed, true to my complete lack of spacial awareness, that it probably wasn't that much different than St. Peter's. And hey, at least walking the stairs to the glacier wouldn't be like a claustrophobic fun house:

Climbing to the St. Peter's Cupola

Besides, here was the fitness/activity level information suggested by the brochure: Moderate fitness and agility is required. Involves steady, well-graded uphill walking for 45 minutes.

Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not in great shape. I don't do a lot of exercising. I could stand to lose some poundage. But still, to my ears, "moderate fitness" means, okay, I don't weigh 300 pounds, I'm not a grandma. (Though as it turned out there was a grandma on our hike and she was in way better shape than me.) But I'm 26. I'm young. I'm on the vacation of my life, and I'm certainly not going to let a little "uphill walking" stop me from the experience of climbing on a glacier. Sign me up! 800 stairs, what is that, like... well, whatever I can do it.

Off we go!


Start of the hike, and hey, we're actually going downhill. Thumbs up for that.


I didn't get many pictures while I was on the stairs, because I was more concerned with not dying/passing out/crying/being laughed at by fit Europeans, but here's one we snapped from nearer to the top.


And one of our awesome guide Cole looking, well, awesome.


There's one section that involves creeping around the edge of a bluff, at which point we were sternly instructed to put our cameras away because it was too dangerous. I did some Google Image searching and found this one that someone took despite the warnings:


Do you see that chain the guy is holding? You have to hold that while you climb the rocks because if you let go and you fall you're going over 100 meters straight down. To your death.

There were times I thought I was not going to make it. I was reciting scripture in my head about the weary renewing their strength and soaring like eagles! And Ben didn't let me give up and somehow by the grace of God I did it! It wasn't fun. But it was rewarding.

This is the face of someone who WORKED for it!

And our reward was walking on a glacier, which has got to go down as one of the ultimate experiences of my life.

Crampons, which are metal spikes you strap to your boots for ice-walking.

Looking down a moulin in the glacier surface where water trickles down to the river some 150 meters below.

So the moral of the story is... for about $100 more a person you can take a scenic helicopter ride and get dropped off on the top of the glacier and then hike around it and there are no stairs involved. I'm just saying.

Driving in Middle Earth

We opted to rent a car and drive our way through New Zealand. This is hands-down what I would recommend for anyone going on a trip here, especially for a first time. The country is compact, so most driving distances between major highlights are easily done in a few hours. Plus, as Ben accurately put it, the scenery you pass is a destination in itself. There was literally not one moment (except if it was dark out) that you couldn't be happy and usually awed just looking out at the countryside flying by. In fact we took a lot of our photos either out the window of the moving vehicle, or by pulling over every five minutes at some insanely gorgeous lookout.

Ben used Google Maps when we got back to calculate the total travel distance. Including the ferry ride between islands (which we technically didn't drive) and the trip out to Milford (which we didn't drive ourselves but rode with our kayaking group), we went over 3000 kilometers! This equates to about 1900 miles, or the distance from Los Angeles to St. Louis. Either way you put it, we covered a lot of ground! Here's our trip map:


View Larger Map

Though we had a blast in our cheap little rental cars, a word of warning! Driving in New Zealand is not for the faint of heart... and probably also not for the easily-carsick-ed.

First of all, though major cities Auckland and Wellington have short sections of multi-lane interstates (motorways, as they call 'em) surrounding the urban area, almost all other "major" roads are little more than a two-lane country road. In fact, go but a little further off the beaten path and you'll quickly find yourself on a gravel lane!

Glenorchy

Then there's the driving on the other side of the road (from the other side of the car). This is actually pretty easy on the open road. In towns it just means double checking each time you make a turn! The most annoying part was that the blinkers and windshield wipers were on reverse sides of the steering wheel! Probably every single time I went to make a turn I first turned on the wipers.

But more challenging than the opposite-side stuff is the fact that a LOT of New Zealand is mountainous. So sometimes you're driving on straight roads beside the mountains.

Near Punakaiki, facing the Southern Alps

But a lot of times you're driving on curvy roads through the mountains.

Coromandel Peninsula

Sometimes really REALLY curvy roads.

Road to Queenstown from Wanaka

Also, New Zealand is crazy about the one-lane bridge. They'll put 'em anywhere! And sometimes they are long!


When you encounter a one-way bridge, you get a helpful "give-way" sign. A red arrow means your direction has to wait for oncoming traffic to clear. A black arrow in your direction means you have the right-of-way... or maybe in this country it is the left-of-way?!


Don't forget that New Zealand (like everywhere else except here) is on the metric system. This means you drive in kilometers not miles! On city roads the speed limit is almost always 50, which translates to about 30 mph. On the open road, the speed limit is almost always 100, which translates to about 60 mph. But you try going 100 kph on hairpin turns around the side of the mountain. Actually, don't. It's impossible.

There's lots of road construction so be sure to follow those signs too... like this one, where apparently you can choose your own speed.


So there's some challenges to driving in New Zealand. But it really was an amazing way to see the country. And the very best part? Even a wrong turn ends in reward.

The end of a wrong turn, somewhere in the North Island