The Book Bin

Hello, my friends. Welcome to 2021.

I don't know if you are aware, but my human and I are currently living in Roseburg, Oregon. Roseburg, like Portland, lies between The Cascades and The Coastal Mountain Ranges in western Oregon. These two mountain ranges protect the valleys between them and lend to milder winters. The winters might be milder in temperature, but there is still plenty of perception! Rain, 🌂rain, ☂️rain☔!!! This leads to many weekends that are too wet to get out of doors. Sooo.... some times we have to get creative in our adventures. This week I'm sharing with you one of those rainy day adventures.

On some adventures, you can get up and go somewhere. But if the weather won't allow it, there is another way to escape. BOOKS!📚 Yes, you can escape by reading a great story. Where do you get such a great escape apparatus? Well, you can get one at the library, but you can also get many great books at the bookstore. If you know my human, you know a good bookstore is one of her favorite places. (Truly. She gets giddy!) Well, we visited a wonderful independent book store in Corvallis, Oregon called The Book Bin.

Now one reason we visited The Book Bin is that they have a shop cat; that is, a cat in residence. Her name is Tess.

My human and I were excited to get to meet her. However, she must have been deep in a book somewhere because we never saw her. We looked everywhere.

                             Is she to the right?

                           Is she to the left?

                            Is she in here?

                    Where, oh where could she be?

 Oh well. At least they were cool with me walking about. 

We explored the whole store, walking through all the different sections, checking out the different types of books.

We especially noticed books about cats (the greatest topic you could find). There were stories about cats,

a book about shop cats in New York City

(it seems lots of people like having their cats with them at work) and even a kids book about cats.That was my favorite. 

                          Read it again!

 I mean, I am still technically a kid, so a kids book would appeal to me.

They also had other fun things besides books. The had many different puzzles

(lots of people are doing puzzles now because of COVID). Some looked quite interesting, but my human wouldn't buy one. She said I would just scatter the pieces everywhere. Isn't that what they are for? Why else would you cut up a perfectly good picture unless you wanted to play "Find the Pieces"? I'm confused.

They had many calendars as well, especially cat calenders.

One had my doppelgangers.

They looked just like me. I've been wondering what became of my brothers. Now I know they have gone into modeling. Good for them. We ARE all handsome cats!!!

We found a couple of other interesting things. First, in the art section, someone had taken a book on middle eastern art, folded the pages, and made a beautiful piece of art from it. Just look at it. Lovely.

Second, something my human was quite excited about, WE FOUND THE TARDIS!

Now for those of you who don't know, the Tardis is a time and space machine. It can take you anywhere in time and space. If you want to visit 1850 Scotland, the Tardis can take you there. If you want to visit a planet in a completely different galaxy, the Tardis can take you there. It can even take you to that planet in 1850, or even 3050 if you want. It is the ultimate ship! It was made famous on the show Doctor Who and originated on the planet Gallifrey. How can a ship do all that you ask? Well, it was built with Time Lord technology. I don't understand it, but I don't understand how cars work either. You may notice that it looks a lot like a police phone box from 1960's London. That's because it is programmed to blend into its surroundings. The Doctor (the owner of this particular Tardis) visited London in the 60's, the Tardis took the look of the police box, and then got stuck. Now it always looks like that. But don't worry. It's bigger on the inside (Time Lord technology). The book store said it was there because it can transport you anywhere in time and space, just like a book. My human and I don't buy it. We think the Doctor was there updating the Tardis library. That, or defending us from some alien threat! If that was the case, he must have succeeded, because we are still here! No alien overlords! Of course he could have done both. That's where my money is!

Our time in the store was fun. Really. Even for me. I didn't want to leave.

                      Don't make me go yet!

(That may have been because it was raining outside, but I'll just say it was because we both loved all the books!)

Till next time, turn any day into an adventure and keep wandering my friends. Keep wandering!