The Book-buyer's Weekend that Wasn't

This last Saturday morning, I walked down to Manchester's book store with an hour to spare. [I took the camera and posted some photographs below.] The last time I was in there, their philosophy section was overflowing with stacks on the floor and on top of the shelves. My plan was to go through them with great care in hopes of discovering a (cheap) book by the French phenomenologist, Henri Bergson. No luck there. I did talk myself out of a good $20 in books. It was a trend that would be repeated an hour or so later at the CBD booksale.

Why they don't make booksales better for children, I don't know. As it is, Kara wasn't there five seconds before she was melting down. Lynn-nore, too, started feeling contractions the moment her feet touched that concrete floor. I had a list of books that my Dad and some friends had asked me to pick up, as well as a keen interest in finding a copy of Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek. Alas, no luck on that: out of print. There were at least a dozen scratch n dent's that were purchase-temptations, but, yet again, I talked myself out of all but one.

One thing that did happen at the sale. I ran into Allan Emory, Hendrickson's Old Testament editor. He and I chatted for a few minutes, I introducing myself and talking about the position, and him giving me some back-story. Turns out, Hendrickson has been overwhelmed with applications for the position. They've had CV's from overseas! Allan thought it would be another month before they could begin to think about second-tier interviews. Had this news come a few weeks ago, I'd have been a wreck. But come Friday, I really had given it over to the Lord. It is really up to him, after all. I'd been struggling to do it the entire month, and he finally took the burden of worrying about it from me on Friday. So, when Allan was telling me about this, I took it in, but it didn't tempt me to despair.

Everyone at church on Sunday was so concerned about Lynn-nore, with offers to help and concerned comments, etc. How do people get along without a church family? Lynn-nore herself is feeling contractions every day, but they are safe enough as long as she tries to rest and not over-exert herself. She has been very good about taking a nap each day (something that would come easy for me, but isn't so easy for her - she is such a "doer.")

Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth were over last night to hang out, eat and watch the Acadamy Awards. Sir Walter had this great idea of printing ballots off the web, which we did, and so had a good time scoring it and then seeing how many we guessed correctly. I actually won, with 8 correct guesses! Lynn-nore said, "How did you get so many right with your head always stuck in a book?" Even with the ballots, it is an exercise in toleration to watch celebrities. The older I get, the more I really cannot stand celebrity, celebrities and anything to do with them. The self-congratulation, the "we're famous so we must know everything" do-gooding, political sideshowing for the left, and, let's face it, the amount of money those people bring down for learning a few lines and being born beautiful. I'm quite curmudgeonly about it, and so had best stop myself now.