March is upon us.

It is cold, but come the weekend, we will be in the 70s.

70s!

But there’s a problem. If it gets too warm, the daffodils will be injured.

Bryan is driving us to the Gaithersburg store. I haven’t been for a while. Mostly due to my hamstring injury. It only hurts a little to sit on the van’s passenger seat. They aren’t designed for comfort.

It was a stressful weekend. Being blindsided by a landlord problem makes you feel helpless. All you can do is get a lawyer.

Crazy business.

I don’t know if I can deal with a sudden move. 2025 was so busy with the Gaithersburg store expansion and renovation. That was fun though. New territory. The game was afoot!

Do I want to spend another year evolving a new book space?

I may not have a choice.

When you have a gun to your head, you do what you have to do.

I sent an old friend her annual happy birthday email. A milestone year:

So strange. The Class of 72.

Was winter dreadful on your lake? Or were you in the city?

I’m wondering what is next or if this is it.

Looking about I realize I haven’t done what I planned, what I hoped.

I guess there’s always next time.

Two warm dogs sleep next to me. They are getting so old.

That’s dreary!

…

Here’s to spring and the first daffodils!

Chuck

I seem to live in the night
The dark wee hours
When all is silent
Except incoming breaths
And exhaling sighs
At night I can dream awake
Remember faces and places
If I listen closely
Silent voices speak in my mind
Do I remember?
Of course I do
Please don’t go
I want to hear more
No? Now it is
Just my breaths
In then out
I empty my chest
My shoulders relax
And wonder if e’er
I’ll be merry again

My mother was an Alabama girl. Orphaned by the Spanish Flu. Raised in an Oddfellow’s orphanage until a foster mother took her in. A woman named Glaze.

My mother would make cornbread in a black cast-iron skillet that long pre-dated me. The edges would be dark brown and crispy. Hot from the oven, she would cut a slice and place a pat of butter atop. I would watch the butter melt into the yellow-brown cake. If only I could taste that heaven again. Proust had his Madelines. For me, it is my mother’s cornbread. I have never had the like. For herself, she would fill a tall glass halfway with buttermilk. Broken chunks of cornbread were then submerged in the liquid, and she would eat and drink the cool bread and buttermilk stew. I have never been able to abide the concoction. Perhaps I should try again. I have made cornbread on many frigid nights this winter. Tried numerous mixes, but none came close. But then I do not have her seasoned spider. She called that skillet a spider.

This night is white with snow. A full moon will rise just before the sun.

Tuesday morning, I awoke to a world of fresh ice and snow.

Again?!

Yep.

I called to cancel my 7 a.m. physical therapy. Too risky. The forecast said things would warm up. I had to wait it out before I felt comfortable descending the ski jump in the pickup.

Is it over? Finally?

This winter has battered me.

Physically.

Mentally.

Spiritually.

Is the forecast brazenly lying yet again? Or will it truly be bright and warm and alive beginning tomorrow?

Rather, today.

For it is just past midnight. I let the two aged wheezing dogs out after they woke me. When they come in, they will go to the pen. I want to sleep uninterrupted tonight. For I am battered and need to recuperate.

Giles, the tall white lean hound, will come to bed with me. In the silent blackness, I can reach out to him and bury my hand in his soft living fur.

Work has battered me as well.

Battered at home and away.

February, with all its weather tortures, was incomprehensibly successful.

Books by the Foot shattered its all-time record. In February?

I am in negotiations for 100,000, 500,000, 4 million books. An order dropped in for 38,000. Can we squeeze it in on top of the regular torrents?

We have to. We accepted it.

I went to the Frederick store today; I am not sure if I have been there since New Year’s. (That was ages ago—60 days.) There were ambulances and a fire truck outside. Problem? No. 8 or 10 emergency services guys were inside shopping. Each had a bright lime-green radio swinging at his hip.

I was there with Bryan to pull orders for Books by the Foot. I began in England because it was overcrowded. Across the main aisle in Music, there was a woman with a young service dog. “Down,” she would say softly every few minutes. She had filled two of our little yellow shopping carts with books.

“Thump! Thump! SLAP!” I dropped the softcover books into plastic tubs on the floor. (The black and white 12-inch square tiled checkerboard floor I installed there 36 years ago.) I was looking for dupes and titles with old date codes. Nowadays, and for this purpose, old are books that came in 2024 and before. My toils opened slots for fresh stock. The tubs of culls will go to the warehouse to be boxed for someone who wants “Shelf Filler.” That translates to nice decent cheap books to make empty shelves somewhere full. Several thousand are wanted. Win-win.

England was conquered from one end to the other. I went to the sales counter to get the bathroom key. The woman and her dog were there. She was asking about larger quantities of music books for a library she is helping to create for some organization whose name I did not catch.

“Try Books by the Foot.” I gave her the email address to contact Designer Services.

Back to the stacks. I spent the next couple of hours in General Fiction and Mystery, dropping trade paperbacks into plastic tubs on the black and white checkerboard floor.

“Thump! Thump! SLAP!”

Bryan had been in the vinyl bins, culling for a massive order. We are backordered for 11 Gaylords of LPs.

Amazing. Not that long ago, we had to landfill them after trying (and failing) to get a dollar for them. How did I find that market?

Perseverance.

When he appeared, I sent Bryan to the Z’s of General Fiction.

“Work your way backward, and we will meet in the middle.”

We filled all the big plastic tubs we’d brought. 40 something. The tubs filled the van to the roof. And so we took the books back whence they had come in ’24 or before.

Thursday morning. 44. Rainy, but at least it is not snowing.

Up early, as there’s a therapy appointment at 7.

The temperature will be in the 60s unless the phone is lying. I’ll let the fire go out.

I’ll go to Rockville to look at a possible store location.

The lawyer wants to discuss a new NDA with me.

I imagine the mega-customers will be reaching out to cut deals for vast quantities of books.

The landlord who was going to cause trouble seems to have cooled off some. THEY can’t find the problem they think is there from 6 years ago. Still, the sword of Damocles hangs above me, and I need to make plans. All those years, and not a word of complaint. Then “BOOM”, they gobsmacked me in the face last Thursday. I’ve only been a tenant there for 21 years… Craziness.

We met about February sales yesterday. All three stores were up over last February—but not by much. Maybe the weather?

On Tuesday, I gave a tour to the Frederick landlord. We’ve been tenants of his family since they bought the shopping center. (We moved in under a different owner in 1990.) He was very nice and a book lover. He brought me a gift!

An Assouline book cradle!

I’ve wanted a good book cradle for many years.

He said “wow” at the usual stops on the warehouse tour and took pictures.

I felt proud that my little business could impress someone who has very, very many properties.

Now to shower and go down and stretch.

The therapy went well. My thigh was kneaded like bread dough. No pain. No gain.

The early morning appointment got me to work early.

The mega-orders keep pouring in. 38,000 books. 50,000 books. A weekly order of 6000 + books—many over $100. It looks like one of them wants 40 pallets we’ve been storing in the trailers.

40,000 books.

Books are a hot commodity right now.

And regular trade with individual consumers has not been affected.

Our LOI* (letter of intent) was accepted for a new building. (Actually, a very old building.) Now begins the due diligence to make sure we’re not trying to buy a white elephant.

So, I’m spinning in circles. I feel like one of those plate spinners trying to keep them all in the air lest they come crashing to the floor.

It is Friday. There’s a thick fog outside.

When I got home last night, I had enough energy to go around pruning—mostly baby redbud trees. It is much easier to prune before the branches leaf out.

Everywhere daffodils are pushing up through the mulch.

I’ll let the fire go out again.

(That’s a dog coughing in the background.)

In a month, the beds will be filled with thousands of flowers.

It will be my own version of Wordsworths’ Grasmere. That was a wonderful trip. Will my Egypt trip get canceled by war?

My buddy Chris got stymied on his round the world adventure. He got stuck in Morocco, having to cancel Cairo and Dubai (for the camel races—really!) I suggested diverting to Malta or Gibraltar or Tangier.

He replied simply, “Phuket.”

(That’s a city in Thailand, not an expletive.)

I bought a book at the California Book Fair last weekend. I had a friend send me some pictures.

“Once upon a midnight dreary…”

Sometimes I feel as moody and brooding as Poe.

Wait! Is that the first blooming hellebore I see from my bedroom window?

There are hundreds up here. Mostly volunteers I’ve transplanted over the years. They can be so shy—bending their flowers downward.

A bonus on my trip to Rockville was a stop at Stella’s Bakery. I went a little crazy—but a lot of the stuff went to coworkers.

My dinner last night was pies.

Oh my. Kingly fare!

With all the distractions, I’ve fallen behind even more than usual on books I need to review.

The corral is getting packed with carts.

And we are running low on raw books. It’s that time of year.

Time to get creative…