Last Saturday, at the end of a few hours in my fantasy home of Boulder City that included Goatfeathers Too (annex to the main, sprawling antique store across the street), Goatfeathers (the main store), lunch at Mel's Diner (a middle-of-my-best-list patty melt with onions and swiss cheese), lots of chocolate covered things ordered at Grandma Daisy's, and finding out that TuTu's Books was closed for maintenance until Tuesday, we stopped at the Boulder City Library, my temple, my sanctuary, possibly above all other libraries in this valley. I don't think other libraries to see in Henderson could possibly compare to this one, even though I'm fond of the tall bookcases at the James I. Gibson Library.
With no room on my library card, I used Meridith's for three books I wanted: Finding Casey by Jo-Ann Mapson, which I saw was set in New Mexico and wanted it right away; Father O'Brien and His Girls by David Chandler, set in Las Vegas, and which I found in the Nevada Room (I want to read all the books in there); and Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper by Traphes Bryant with Frances Spatz Leighton. Bryant was the White House electrician who was there from Truman through Nixon, but took up taking care of the First Dogs from Kennedy through Nixon.
Meridith checked out those three for me along with a few books to read to Tigger and Kitty, and then I spotted The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway, a novel about a regimented 36-year-old biology teacher who severe kidney ailments who's a rose breeder. I'm interested in flowers, but those other details seized my attention, because I am as regimented as her in my reading. Nothing can get between her and her roses (though that will likely change), and nothing can get between me and my books.
I decided that since three books from the Boulder City Library seemed like enough since I had all those other library books at home, and more books on hold to pick up the next day, I would put this one on hold and pick it up at the Whitney Library, my usual branch, the Sunday after the following one. I did, but after we got home from that day, which afterward included exploring the M Resort in Henderson, I wished that I had given that book to Meridith to check out as well. I badly wanted to read it, and that copy belonging to Boulder City, that should have been enough incentive for me since I prefer Boulder City copies of any books whenever possible.
But, as has been my experience in the past, there are times for certain books, and they may not be right away.
Take today. I picked up The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns at the Whitney Library, along with my other holds. I was finishing Finding Casey and determined that that would be the next book I started, since I had waited a week and couldn't stop thinking about it during that week.
It has been such a nice day today. Recently, I finally became accustomed to the slow rhythm of the desert, which merits its own post soon. I have learned to breathe slowly and really smell the desert around me, and I feel good. Finding Casey was a gentle, understated wave of a novel that made me more curious about the plants of New Mexico and its customs, and what better atmosphere in which to start The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns?
I am where I want to be, living a life that will soon be fully formed with the arrival of the job I want, and finished a novel that held such promise and delivered on it. And the middle of the afternoon was just as gentle as that novel, as the desert, unseasonably warm, but a welcome break from sweatshirts, which I don't like, having been born and raised and spectacularly spoiled in Florida. I'm now on chapter 4 of The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns, on page 40. So far, it has been worth the wait.
