Cheers To The Silver Lining

Yesterday was a nightmare... and a miracle... in one fell swoop. It was my very first hands-on, no-one-but-myself-to-blame-should-anything-fuck-up event for the brands I'm handling and although it was far from perfect from the backroom perspective, it's face-value execution was a major improvement from the event we participated in last January.

Okay, fine, so I was also in-charge of January event but I felt no connection to the work then. It didn't feel like mine. But yesterday's hell was all on me, and I'm relieved that on the outside, it seemed like a calm and well-collected project. Let me tell you now, the backstage view was crap!

Or maybe I'm just being too hard on myself. My booth was better. My stocks were spot-on. My sellers were amazing. And tiny heaven-sent gifts made managing the booth so much lighter. I guess the ultra late nights and crazy early mornings were worth the effort, just to have this thing push thru, and push thru well. I also realized that I'm good at what I do and I do even a notch higher above average when under pressure. No such thing as grace anywhere, though, you won't find a drop of that in me, but I suppose that's mea culpa for not knowing how to delegate. (I'd scream, "But who do you delegate to?" at this point but my boss is probably reading this entry, so I won't go there. Haha!)

However, yesterday's twenty hour "endeavor" had one real silver lining. It was the only time in the day I truly felt happy, giddy and screechy like a schoolgirl: the (approx.) 15 minutes I spent in Fully Booked Powerplant.

Yes, you should've known this would be another book entry. I just love long and unconnected intros. :))

You see, my copy of Mistborn: The Final Empire has been lonely in my library for too long. This Sam Green-illustrated copy was gifted to me two Christmases ago, ergo the mission to complete the trilogy has been going on for a while. Only Fully Booked had record of ever carrying them on shelf but they were always out of stock. Until last week!

When I bought my Temeraire series from FB Rockwell, I inquired about The Mistborn Series as well. Elly, the BEST customer service person EVER, said that their branch only had the boxed set. When he brought it out, I realized they carried only the Tor publishing versions of the books. Not ideal since I like my book collections to match, but beggars can't be picky! I was too desperate read what happens next to Vin, Elend and the rest of Luthadel after the death of Kelsier and the fall of the Lord Ruler to be picky. Thankfully I was also in the right mind to say no to a boxed set worth PHP999.00 with a book I already had. So Elly offered to bring in solo copies of books 2 and 3 for me from their other branches. I readily said yes to the reservation, knowing well that I'd be back seven days after anyway for the danged event.

So yesterday happens, and I was too busy during the event proper to check back with Elly. I was thankfully able to steal away for a few minutes for myself after the event, so I ran to Fully Booked and headed straight for customer service. Elly recognized me and said, with an earnest frown, that he was only able to get copies of my Mistborn books by a different publisher. Then he brings them out...Sam Green-illustrated, Gollancz published crisp copies. THEY MATCHED MY FIRST BOOK! I was over the moon. I am now the proud owner of Brandon Sanderson's complete Mistborn Trilogy, UK version. I swear to you, all the nightmares of the day melted away. My focal point was the fact that I finally have my books and they're the right kind. Happiness is!!!

Don't you just love happy endings? I do. Cheers to silver-lined miracles that bless my hell days.