None of the News is Fit to Print

Boy, I'll be glad to see the Laughter Yoga ladies walk through the door of Miss Prothero's Books. I need to shake off the day's frustrations as soon as possible. Problems with email have been the major obsession. I can receive all those lovely notes about the Angolan lottery, the magic fix my you-know-what size (I don't even have a you know what), and pleas for help from Outer Mongolia. However, I can't seem to send anything, not even replies to friends, not even a test email to myself. I have reported the problem, but it took me an hour or two to figure out how to report it. Technology ain't so grand. Or maybe it's just as stupid as its users. And some of us are just getting more and more stupid.

I did get to meet my new neighbors -- Starlight Colorado. They help kids and families who are trying the halls of a hospital and the horrors of serious illness. Someone from the neighborhood actually poked his head in the door and said thank you for my this-day-in-history sign. He didn't buy a book, but he said thank you. The sign is a heavy metal contraption which I update and haul out every day that Miss P's is open. I find a quote to put on one side, three or four history facts on the side. I see people read it all the time...but no one has ever thanked me for it.

AND tomorrow night, Peg Meagher and Kathy Adams will be having their First Friday opening. It should be fun. I hope you can come.

The Stuff of Stuff

I've been working at Toni's coffee cart to make ends. The contradiction is most apparent there. I have customers who tell me they don't want their credit card receipt. Trying to save a tree, they tell me as they rip open a packet of sugar, pour it into their Styrofoam coffee, and stir it with a disposable plastic stir stick.

I do see it at the bookstore, too. There was one gentleman who told me he wasn't buying any more books. He was "cutting back on things". The next time I saw him he was toting a box from Amazon. Guess what was in the box? Books. Lots of new books. On green living! He was going to hand them out as gifts. Granted, the books were printed on recycled paper. But they were shipped in a new cardboard box on a new plane or truck using several gallons of new fuel.

We are confused birds. I saw graffitti on the sidewalk that seems to sum it all up -- "Consume less. Create more." Never mind that creation is a very material thing, an act of destruction, revision, and consumption.

As a lover of art, it's always bothered me. Why do I need another image on the wall, another story on the shelf, another ring on my finger?

I don't know.

Maybe because it's beautiful. Because it feeds my heart and soul and spirit.

Miss Prothero's Books will be displaying some of that heart and soul and spirit stuff during the month of June. It's jewelry by Kathy Adams and watercolors by Peg Meagher. The opening night reception is June 6 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Hope you can come. Here are some samples of their beautiful work --

Lake Mc Cononaughy, Nebraska
by Peg Meagher

Pin
by Kathy Adams


Monassas Flowers
by Peg Meagher

Bracelet
by Kathy Adams