Bookstores and Libraries

This was perhaps the hardest three miles I have run since I have been here; cloudless sky, fierce wind - when I turned back after a mile or so it was like being pistol-whipped (too much police drama!)   I struggled to remember my Shakespeare - this was not flattery but counsel!

The icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity.

I returned to the condo, shivering and grateful to be indoors, before Martha had left for Anytime Fitness, where she has a trainer working with her twice a week; I went grocery shopping while she was working out, and then we stopped at a bookstore on the way back home.  I had been so enthralled with Into the Woods that I reviewed the New Yorker story from last fall and discovered the titles to the next two books in the series, The Likeness and Faithful Place.  But we came up empty, and it was the same at three other bookstores I called.  Finally, at Martha's suggestion, I called the most reliable place of all for books:  the library.  A young woman at Webb Memorial Library in Morehead City said, of course, they had both books! 

What a charming old building the library proved to be, up and down stairs, winding around corners, everywhere little nooks of books.  I will have to return here again.  But the embarrassed young librarian apologized - they did have the book, but it was checked out.

I suppose it is good that I have to wait two more days (until the first bookstore we checked could get the book in) because we spent the day catching up on house-keeping (these big sliding glass doors require weekly applications of Windex to let in all that bright sky) and blog-keeping.  And now I am caught up.