Just got back from a vacation with Team Future In-Law. Future BIL lives in Portland, OR and we all converged there for a few days. The highlight of my trip was, of course, our visit to Powell's book store. What word lover wouldn't enjoy a four story, city block sized building brimming with books?
As we ran from the trolley car into the entrance and formed our game plan, meeting place, and bartered on the length of our visit, I realized I was born into the wrong family. My "birth" family doesn't really like to read very much. It makes me sad, like I have to look over both shoulders to make sure they aren't around and whisper "They aren't book people."
Two hours after team FIL entered the Mecca, we staggered out under the weight of our combined purchases, wondering if we were going to have to ship things home. We showed off our new titles, got excited for each other's new reading adventures. My current family would have dropped me off in the book store for the day and gone somewhere else, sending my little sister in later to excavate me to go get dinner.
This is not to say there isn't reading material in my native home. We have magazines and newspapers sprawled everywhere and every blue moon there's a book that gets my mom and little sister into the mood I'm in daily. But Corey's family is like Anne Fadiman's family. Each room of their house has tall built-in bookshelves and piles of books in various states of being read. We go out to eat together and scan the menu for typos. We have fiery discussions about books and then we all go away to our comfortable positions and read. It's wonderful.
If I can't have been born into book people, I guess it's a good thing I am marrying into them.
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4 comments:
Ok- so Powells- awesome books store but the one thing I don't like about it is there's no where to sit as you page through books decideding what to buy.
~Val
No need to be so hard on the Martin Drive crew. It's okay. I grew up in that house, too, and I still read and joke about it with your mom. Hannah has been reveling (sp?) in this weather because she can sit and re-read Harry Potter all day to the sound of raindrops. And Meredith...we talk about books all the time. She just finished one she will get to me this weekend, and she began reading Time Traveller's Wife, which I just gave to her. There is always someone to share a book with; we build our lives that way.
well being part of the extended martin drive family i could take offense and think that you don't love us any more. but in all my wisdom i think of all the things that we have passed on to you over the years.....dinking a cube of beer is important to show that you can hang with the big dogs. you should always drain the water off of the potatoes before mashing...it is possible to pass water on the beach....and never forget that you are a goddess and you two mothers have passed on the really important things.....
well being part of the extended martin drive family i could take offense and think that you don't love us any more. but in all my wisdom i think of all the things that we have passed on to you over the years.....dinking a cube of beer is important to show that you can hang with the big dogs. you should always drain the water off of the potatoes before mashing...it is possible to pass water on the beach....and never forget that you are a goddess and you two mothers have passed on the really important things.....
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