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Jul. 21st, 2019 10:27 amOn Friday, I played hooky from work - shh, don't tell! - and went on a mini-roadtrip up to Bellingham. Because sometimes one needs a break from routine and also from doing any sort of emotional labor whatever, so one drives a couple hours away and stays in a hotel overnight and does nothing that one doesn't immediately want to.
Things about this trip:
- Just outside Mount Vernon, right off 1-5, there is an unmanned apple cider stand. You pull into a gravel parking lot - on one side, there's a vast field of corn and on the other, there's a barn with the door open. Inside the barn, it looks like this:
( Nothing creepy about this at all! )
Yeah, that's a barn that's empty of all things except a box for money, a sign with prices, a fridge full of apple cider, and a scarecrow pointing ominously at the fridge, all alone in an empty corn field. There is nothing to stop you stealing the cider, except your own moral code and the certain knowledge that the scarecrow would murder you if you didn't pay.
It was very good cider.
- Because there was no need to while I was in college, I had never previously driven in downtown Bellingham before. And gods willing, I never will again. Driving in cities - even small cities - is terrible, and Bellingham has excellent buses. Lesson learned!
- I went by the library (because of course I did) and my favorite used bookstore (because of course I did). The library has been rearranged quite a lot inside, which was disorienting but professionally, I approve. (Especially because they've done away with the absurd holds system they had when I lived there. Used to be, if you put items on hold, they were held behind the desk alphabetically by title. Why would anyone invent such a terrible system?)
Henderson's, on the other hand, has changed not at all. It is my favorite used bookstore ever and I'm terribly glad it's still exactly as I remember it: a bewildering labyrinth of 7-foot tall shelves festooned with not-very-helpful directional signage, a pervasive smell of old paper and time, a sense of hush so heavy that I've never heard anyone inside speak above a murmur. Plus staff members who clearly don't really want you to be in there at all, but will deign to let you pay for your weirdass sci-fi paperbacks if you wait patiently enough. It's perfect. I hope it never changes.
( A picture from the sci-fi section )
Things about this trip:
- Just outside Mount Vernon, right off 1-5, there is an unmanned apple cider stand. You pull into a gravel parking lot - on one side, there's a vast field of corn and on the other, there's a barn with the door open. Inside the barn, it looks like this:
( Nothing creepy about this at all! )Yeah, that's a barn that's empty of all things except a box for money, a sign with prices, a fridge full of apple cider, and a scarecrow pointing ominously at the fridge, all alone in an empty corn field. There is nothing to stop you stealing the cider, except your own moral code and the certain knowledge that the scarecrow would murder you if you didn't pay.
It was very good cider.
- Because there was no need to while I was in college, I had never previously driven in downtown Bellingham before. And gods willing, I never will again. Driving in cities - even small cities - is terrible, and Bellingham has excellent buses. Lesson learned!
- I went by the library (because of course I did) and my favorite used bookstore (because of course I did). The library has been rearranged quite a lot inside, which was disorienting but professionally, I approve. (Especially because they've done away with the absurd holds system they had when I lived there. Used to be, if you put items on hold, they were held behind the desk alphabetically by title. Why would anyone invent such a terrible system?)
Henderson's, on the other hand, has changed not at all. It is my favorite used bookstore ever and I'm terribly glad it's still exactly as I remember it: a bewildering labyrinth of 7-foot tall shelves festooned with not-very-helpful directional signage, a pervasive smell of old paper and time, a sense of hush so heavy that I've never heard anyone inside speak above a murmur. Plus staff members who clearly don't really want you to be in there at all, but will deign to let you pay for your weirdass sci-fi paperbacks if you wait patiently enough. It's perfect. I hope it never changes.
( A picture from the sci-fi section )
