The Big Bad Bookstore

 Last week I visited the Barnes and Noble in West Des Moines, the one on University Avenue (4550 University Avenue), the one that is not at Jordan Creek Mall.  It was only by chance that I came to know this store existed because I was invited to a coffee clache for Red Cross volunteers that met at the Starbucks cafe located in that Barnes and Noble.  I was a little starry-eyed on that visit because I didn't know any of the bookstores in Des Moines were big enough to have an escalator.

I found that the bus stopped only a block away!  I was delighted.  I made it a day.  I went in with enough money to buy a couple of books and sit and have breakfast.  It was an early Christmas present to myself.  

The Starbucks Cafe is situated so you see it right when you enter the store.  It has a large picture window that allows you to look out over the parking lot and a gigantic store called...

  They only offered a couple of herbal teas so I went with this black tea cinnamon blend which turned out to be quite tasty.  Be forewarned that Starbucks no matter which one you go to, or what beverage you order, heats your beverage to SCALDING and you will injure your mouth if you do not let it set for a good 15 minutes.  

That said, I enjoyed my cooled-down tea, and the quiche was adequate.  Not all the Starbucks offer quiche and I could not pass up the opportunity to have a meatless meal.  The Starbucks located in the Target Store at Southridge Mall offers sandwiches and pastries but no quiche.   Through the display window, the spinach quiche had not looked terribly fresh, and it indeed tasted a day or two old.  Yet, I still enjoyed it and it was surely healthier for me than any of the pastries. 

While munching on the quiche and tea, I watched You-tube on my phone.  I listened to Kay Ryan reading some of her poetry.  I did not realize how close the two tables were behind me, occupied by people close enough to receive some unsolicited entertainment from my smartphone. My apologies.

After breakfast I braced myself for wandering the great store.  I had just watched You've Got Mail for the umpteenth time and couldn't help recalling what Tom Hanks was saying about the new FOX bookstore he and his father had just opened in midtown Manhattan.  They were bragging that they were the Big Bad Wolf and would run the small private bookstores out of business with their low prices and fancy cappuccinos.  I was living the movie.  I found three books I couldn't pass up because they were so cheap.  And, yes, I had a fancy Starbucks beverage.  

One of the three books was a blank book called ME!  that allowed you to enter your various thoughts, favorite foods, fond experiences, and all details of your life that make you you.  It looked like such fun and I thought about buying a couple copies for friends and family.  The 2nd book was the I-Ching in a beautiful cover with many beautiful color illustrations. The third book was a poetry collection edited by one of my favorite people, Garrison Keillor.  Garrison Keillor is the guy from Minnesota who had a show on Minnesota Public Radio for many years.

After checking out the whole store including the toy section upstairs, I headed for the cash register counter with my three books.  But alas, there was a line of about six people and two cashiers.   And the line was not moving so well.  I immediately shed myself of a couple of the books.  

It is my philosophy that I am not going to be made to stand around to pay for something.  If  a store wants my money they ought to hire enough people to take it and not make me spend several minutes of my precious life standing around doing nothing while they save money by hiring less help. 

It is my policy to reduce my purchases one item for every couple minutes I'm made to wait in a frigging line.  If I am still in the line after ten minutes, I walk out with nothing left in my hands.  It's an excellent exercise in "letting go."  It ever so slightly counterbalances the programming we receive to grasp everything in sight.  Another upside is that you save the money you would have spent, plus the time you would have wasted waiting in line.   

Thus, I left with one instead of three books and I am better off for it I am sure.  I am thoroughly enjoying the book.  Garrison Keillor writes in the introduction that this is not a book intended for a college lit class.  It doesn't necessary have GREAT poetry but it has GOOD poetry.  It has the type of poetry that your everyday person might stop in the middle of cooking, eating, or gardening to stop and listen to because something about it touched their hearts.  

Visiting the B & N, West Des Moines was a fun way to spend the day.  And I came home with a book I am going to enjoy for awhile.

Home on the Range (Anonymous author)

There's a land in the West where nature is blessed

With a beauty so vast and austere

And though you have flown off to cities unknown,

Your memories bring you back here.  

Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play;
Where never is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Where the air is so pure and the zephyrs so free,
And the breezes so balmy and light;
That I would not exchange my home on the range
For all of the cities so bright.

How often at night, when the heavens are bright,
With the light from the glittering stars,
Have I stood there amazed, and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Where the teepees were raised in a cool shady place

By the rivers where sweet grasses grew

Where the bison was found on the great hunting ground

And fed all the nations of Sioux.

The canyons and buttes like old twisted roots

And the sandstone of ancient stream beds

In the sunset they rise to dazzle the eyes

With their lavenders, yellows, and reds.

Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Flows leisurely down to the stream;

Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along

Like a maid in a heavenly dream.

When it comes my time to leave this world behind

And fly off to regions unknown,

Please lay my remains on the great plains,

Out in my sweet prairie home.

Home, home on the plains

Here in the grass we will lie

When our day's work is done by the light of the sun

As it sets in the blue prairie sky.