This won't be a very scintillating post. I was up most of the night with my wasp-damaged hand paining and itching. Surly today. Surly Mills. My right hand swelled up like a football; it's reacting much worse this time than it did with the first sting. Three fingers unmovable.

There was no way I could resume painting today in this condition, so I dove into the deceptively vast mountain of back-room boxes and shelved (left-handed) every book that I'm comfortable selling at used- or remainder-book prices, just to see how many and what exactly I have. I found I have enough volumes to fill 3/4 of the shelves in the front room of the store, and with no books left over for backstock. I have a half-dozen boxes of "sale table" (50-cent) books in reserve, and another box or two of unsalvageable compost (tomorrow is dump day).

This is good to know.

So it appears the best course is to finish gussying up the front part of the store and ignore the back room for now, and then grow into it slowly (I hope not too slowly). This gives me time to track down and install the carpet I need in there, and to paint and insulate it. It would be good if I could have both rooms ready by grand opening mid-November. And several boxes of remainders and eBay bulk lots are en route as we speak. If I can keep several boxes coming in like that every week I should be fully stocked and with a cushion of extras by the end of the year, I'd think, even if sales are steady (I will not guffaw).

I still have to catalog every book, and clean up the used ones. The jacket covers I ordered should arrive tomorrow, so I'll be sleeving dust jackets, too. I plan to open the door to incidental business on Wednesday, but I won't advertise until just before the week of the full moon (November 16-ish), for the grand opening.

It was cold and rainy today, so I fired up that ancient space heater, and the fumes nearly did me in, and the few folks who stopped in stepped right back out. This is not a pleasant browsing environment. I'll offer to pay for half the cost of a Rinnai or other replacement with a temporary rent increase over six months, but it absolutely must be replaced. I'll switch to electric space heat for now; at least it's only the front room.

We're getting there. Lots of detours, a few compromises, but we'll be OK.

Driving home late this afternoon with my stupid hand, and nauseated from fumes, having lost my temper with my brother and feeling like a very poor excuse for a human being, I spotted a large herd of pronghorns, must have been 50 or 60 of them, grazing near the highway. The clouds were just breaking up after a 24-hour drench, and the yellow light of the low sun lit up the animals in the field, brilliant on their snow-white rumps, and behind them, still under blue-black clouds, rolled the snow-sugared tops of the Warner Mountains. Later, approaching home on our meandering old dirt road, I stopped the car to get out and take some pictures. The damp-juniper scent was a medicine in the clean, cold air.

The world hereabouts was very beautiful today. I'll have a lot to show you tomorrow.