Off day

I had today off.

You're probably thinking, "Of course you had today off. It is Saturday, after all." However, between volunteering at the aquarium and working at the winery, I haven't had a Saturday off (when not on vacation for a holiday) in months.  Don't get me wrong - I love the aquarium and my second job. But when then winery offered me the chance to switch to working Sundays (more hours and Noe plays tennis on Sunday, so more time to spend with him) I jumped at the chance. Today was my first Saturday sans winery or aquarium.

Noe and I wanted to do SOMETHING now that we had a whole day to spend together; we just didn't know what. Luckily, our good friend Dr. Scott called us up. Dr. Scott often has his kids on the weekends, which rules out things like going to bars or R-rated movies. However, Scott and the kids love books, museums, parks, and the outdoors - in other words, a perfect match for me and Noe. Since we lucked out with unseasonably warm weather (about 55 degrees), we decided to spend some serious time outside.

We first hit the Book Barn, a fantastic used book store in Niantic. Scott, his daughter Fiachra, and I browsed the various buildings for books while Noe and Colm (Scott's son) hunted down cats, pet the great dane and mastiff puppies, and fed the goats (the Book Barn seemingly doubles as a petting zoo). After making our purchases, we headed down I-95 to Mystic (to the tune of Kenny Rogers - Scott's kids love "The Gambler" and "Coward of the County") where we ate lunch at Friendly's and then headed over to Mystic Seaport.

 

Fiachra, Scott, Colm, and Noe in the sun at Mystic Seaport

Noe and I have been meaning to get to the Seaport for awhile, but had just never made it there. Going with Scott and the kids was awesome. They had a family membership plus a guest, so Noe and I split the cost of a ticket. We headed first to the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship built in the 1840's. The Morgan is currently out the water for some restoration, but you can still go up a staircase and into the ship. We explored the cabins and the blubber room - Fiachra proved more knowledgeable than the museum staff.

 The Charles W. Morgan

 

Scott and I "steering" the Morgan 

 

Noe trying out one of the ship's bunks

After checking out the nooks and crannies of the Morgan, we headed over to the restoration exhibit in the shipyard. Theoretically, this was so Colm and Fiachra could do the "hands-on activities" but, truth be told, the adults all got a little too involved boring holes in a piece of plywood with an auger (Scott had to be told to stop boring before he bored through the table). We then headed over to some of the exhibits. Fiachra managed to make quite a splash at the cooperage (the barrel maker) before we made our way to the shipsmith.

 

Colm and I drilling holes  

 Fia in a barrel in the cooperage

Noe and I in front of the L.A. Dunton

All in all, we had a great day. The weather was beautiful and we all had a little cabin fever - the minute we got out of the car, all of us - adults and kids - were off and running. We basked in the sun, ran around on the grass, and strolled by the water. Along the way we picked up a few books and learned some fun facts about whaling ships. It may not have been a big party or a huge night out, but we considered it a Saturday well-spent just the same.

Colm with his "souvenir" from the cooperage

Library Love

I haven't checked a book out of a library since I was at least 13 years old. I never once checked a book out of my high school or college libraries - although my college did have an absolutely beautiful library completed only a year or two before I started there.

It's not that I was anti-library; I used to check out quite a few books as a kid. However, the Ypsi library's rather poor selection (this was pre-brand new Ypsi Township library, by the way) combined with the fact that I read more and faster than the average person made the library sort of an inefficient option. Plus, I generally like to re-read my books.

Lately though, I noticed I was spending a LOT of money on books. Like, as much as I used to spend when I worked at the Earle and went to Border's every Sunday (and the Border's Rewards program not only gave coupons but holiday savings bucks. Probably the reason they don't do that anymore is because I got almost seventy dollars worth of free books between Thanksgiving and New Years.) Even the discovery of the Book Barn wasn't helping much because I was seeking out specific books and they were not necessarily available in used form.

So I turned to a solution that at the time seemed quite desperate: the New London Public Library.

To be honest, the only reason I even gave the library a chance was because it is a block away from work, meaning I can walk there, browse the books, and walk back on the average half-hour lunch break. Also, I was reading the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books and had not yet decided if I liked them enough to buy all eight, and no way was I buying just one.

I wasn't expecting much from the New London Library, and my expectations were met. It is somewhat small and most of the books are old. They often have the middle of a series but not the beginning or end. I was about to give up without ever checking anything out until my coworker told me about what I considered to be the library's redeeming feature (besides proximity to work).

It turns out that all the area libraries are linked up to one online database, which you can search not only from the library computers but also from your home computer. As long as the book you want is in that database, you can reserve it and select which library you want to pick it up and drop it off at. The library will then get it for you and call you when the book comes in.

I have now done this three times (all with Charlaine Harris books, no less) and am finding it an extremely agreeable system. And I have yet to wait more than a week for something that I have put on reserve. Plus, all that going back and forth to the library on my lunch hour resulted in me finding another redeeming quality: the kids section. Yes, most of those books are also old, but I want those books to be old because I want to find the ones I used to read...hence the fact that I re-read Bunnicula last week (hey, I had to check it out - Noe didn't believe that Bunnicula was a real book).

If you have given up on your local library, I am urging you to give it another chance. I know it is saving me money, which, let's face it, we can all use to do these days. Plus, some libraries have really great community programs, book discussion groups, or show neat movies. I know I'll never give up Border's and the Book Barn (or Amazon - damn internet) completely (or even really remotely, if we want to be honest) but for the books I am only going to read once or am not sure that I'll enjoy, the library is a fantastic option.

Heaven IS a place on earth...and that place is the Book Barn

Yesterday I was introduced to what is definitely the greatest place in Connecticut and more than likely in the running for greatest place on earth: The Book Barn.

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The Book Barn is a phenomenal used book store located down the road from New London in Niantic. The word 'barn' in the store name is somewhat misleading because it implies that all the books are contained in a barn. This is not the case.

The Book Barn has so many used books for sale that they don't even fit in one barn (and that barn has three floors, mind you!) They spill into four seperate structures, two sort of stands on the main barn poperty, and a downtown location as well.

Before you get overwhelmed, realize that there is a method to the madness - certain selections are housed in certain building. For instance, the Downtown Book Barn (our first stop) houses cookbooks, mythology, and nautical history, among other things.

The DBB also houses the fattest cat I have ever seen in my life. Frank (or "Frank the Tank" as Kevin Doyle has dubbed him) appears to have been inflated like a balloon. He has tiny legs and a tiny head and a gigantic middle. I attempted to photograph Frank with my camera phone; however, Frank was not very inclined to be photographed (I was ending up with a lot of nostril shots). This is probably OK seeing as how I have no idea how to get camera phone photos OFF of the camera phone anyway.

In addition to Frank, the DBB had a two guinea pigs and a tank full of turtles.

After scanning the DBB for awhile, we piled back in Doyle's Impala to traverse to the main Book Barn. We immediately headed to the farthest building to browse the fiction selection.

And what a selection it was! I have been to smaller used book stores where the fiction section is mostly comprised of the mystery, harlequin romance, and western sections with a few Oprah's Book Club selections from recent years thrown in. Not the Book Barn - although all three aforementioned genres were healthily represented, there were rows and rows and stacks and stacks of actual literature. Almost any book could be found -or at least any author - from the classics to the currents.

(I also like to see which books people do not consider 'keepers' - you know, the ones that there are like, a whole shelf of copies of? At the Book Barn, it appeared that no one really felt compelled to hang onto She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, but the real prize goes to The Red Badge of Courage - a shelf and a half!)

The only thing that I was specifically looking for that I did not find was a copy of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy - not really a big surprise seeing as how the movie has probably awakened interest in the book (we are seeing the movie this afternoon, by the way - I'll let you know how it is!) And I forgot to look for Into the Wild but it would probably have been the same situation.

I did, however, add to my classics collection with some Fitgerald (This Side of Paradise) and Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises) as well as some Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera).

After we finished in the fiction building we headed up to the main building. Along the way we passed a pen full of goats. And in the main building, there were at least four kitties roaming the premises or sleeping in corners. The Book Barn combines the best elements of a bookstore and petting zoo in to one experience. Also, the staff keeps a pot of coffee brewing and puts out plates of those little Hostess donuts and Cheez-Its for the guests to munch on.

We found a ton of stuff in the main building, mostly downstairs where the MASSIVE history collection is located. (Although there were no takers for any of the four copies of a promotional Pfizer book celebrating 25 years of R&D - or something to that effect - at the Groton site...go figure!)

Anyway, Amanda and I left with probably eight or nine books each and Doyle staggered to the cash register with about fifteen. In addition to the classics mentioned above, my purchases consisted of:

• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her by Melanie Rehak (hey, I used to love Nancy Drew)
  
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
  
• Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman (this is from the history section - NOT the erotica section located under the staircase)
  
• The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (I really loved Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, so I wanted to give him another try.)

And thus ended my first Book Barn experience. But trust me, there will be MANY more in the future!