Research & Films
Saturday, January 14, 2012
It was time for a little research. The Barnes & Noble was just the right place to conduct and piece together a proper competitive analysis. First, though, in order: 4:30 headache, Ibuprofen, wake late to sleep it off, breakfast prepared by OLeif, papers, write a letter (on blue paper), deliver Tasha’s mail (back from Illinois and still sick), and out the door by somewhere before eleven. There was still some snow left on the ground. Although the temperatures were back above freezing again.
Barnes & Noble was hopping. As much as a bookstore could hop. Collette made a beeline for the fiction departments. However, three seconds of Amish-Detective-Western-Romance later, she gave up on the “Christian Fiction” scene and returned to “Literature & Fiction”, where research was more promising. But not even most of those titles were appealing. Something about New England witch hunts, little Irish village doctors, Chinese living, etc. Those were kind of interesting. But there was still a heavy air of thick, cheap paperbacks that smacked of Medieval-romance. Ug. But then there was the redemption of imported journals, as she waited for OLeif at the front window: thick leather bindings out of a Medieval crypt, silver owl medallions, rich Italian red leather, all kinds of colors and textures and copies worthy of Colonial libraries…
OLeif joined her later, having delivered Puck to the Silverspoon’s, and to pick up the bake-it-yourself plumply fat meat-pizza-inside-a-meat-pizza from Papa Murphy’s, while Collette waited in the car. She still felt the need to stretch after an hour and 24 minutes of shelf-gutting. The keys clacked in the ignition while she read the ingredients on OLeif’s stocking stuffer Old Spice Fiji body wash, also printed in French.
Izzy was back with photos to edit, and Theodore from the office. And OLeif doctored photos and prepped further web work for Theodore’s business site.
As the afternoon passed on, somewhat dimly and pallid yellow-gray, OLeif joined Theodore for a 3:30 meeting at the office regarding website matters. Despicable Me was also ready on Netflix for the winter-bound four year-old. And Collette caught up on more work. She was going to have a lot of reading to do… A pack of cold juicy strawberries for the little rambunctious fellow, who was always finding new ways to collect loot…
“But anyway, Izzy. I don’t have you all the time. So could I have this picture of you?”
“You want to play tea set with me, Nana?” he asked next, as Gloria prepared to purchase his Christmas tennis shoes.
“Sure. Let’s play tea.”
“Actually, Nana… you don’t really need a tea set, right?”
“It’s yours, honey. But it’s kind of fun for you to leave it here to play with.”
“Yeah… But. I’m going to save this for my kids.”
“Your kids? How many are you going to have?”
Consistent as usual, Puck replied, “Two.”
“And what will you name them?”
“One’s going to be Jeff. And one’s going to Smacker.”
He hadn’t changed his mind about those names, apparently…
Collette wrapped up her work around five, tracked a shipment from China, ordered a small passel of books to skim from the library to complete her competitive analysis, knocked back a few glasses of filtered water that always seemed residually sweet, and realized that it was just about already dark for the evening. Puck had a trail of Jenga blocks trained up in the living room before Collette served him the remainder of his monster pizza for lunch, which still waited for him on the hefty red plastic plate on the kitchen table…
“Is eating food just a life-long chore for you?” Gloria asked him.
Puck seemed not to have considered this yet. He was also caught belching in the presence of ladies.
“Puck,” OLeif said to him seriously. “Next time, when you think about doing that, you should think to yourself first, ‘Is this spurious behavior beneficial for the circumstances?’… Are you crossing your eyes at me?”
For the rest of the night, a little cash was picked up from the bank. Collette rarely carried green, except by accident. This would be used for parking at the Winter Warm-Up the following afternoon. And any other necessary item while in the city. Moneyball.