photo copyright Suto Norbert/Dreamstime

Today was opening day at the local farmers market, and a more blustery day there could not be. Jars of golden honey in bear-pots were available, making me wish I hadn’t bought that large bottle on sale at the grocery store last year. I may buy a jar anyway. That’s what my market does, make me feel wealthy and happy. The only produce I bought was spinach and young garlic. I spent all my money before I could take home succulent, tender chard, or fresh pale blue-white, brown, and warm white eggs. What I bought was lovely long just-dried pasta, orzo, a packet of pre-seasoned quinoa . A bag of velvety oyster mushrooms, and for fun,my head in the clouds,a small packet of coconut caramels. I passed on the nasturtiums ready to plant, the lavender and thyme needing a home. I’ll plant when it’s warmer. This year, I’ll grow an herb garden, eat lots of vegetables from my favorite purveyors, and live the good life, even as I shiver typing these pages.

The heater works but blasts an ear-drum hurting cacophony of rattle–think the blades of a thick metal fan spinning against a thin sheet of metal and increase the volume, and there you have the heater. The sound dies down, after I escape to the porch, where I can still hear it. I think the whole street can hear it.

But I am happier shivering, knowing that the market’s started. Spinach and mushrooms, with orzo ought to do it. There goes the wind. Will it bring down trees, cables? I’m going to plug in my mini-portable heater, and think of dinner. Or coffee.

I always add the quarter when the washing machine requests it. It blinks at me, and in goes the coin, making two and a half loads an even three dollars. I’m not sure what the extra quarter does–an extra rinse? An extra spin? I’ve never found out.

Usually I wash on Monday or Tuesday, forgetting the nursery rhyme which goes, Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday, Bake on Wednesday, Brew on Thursday, Churn on Friday, Mend on Saturday, Go to meeting on Sunday. According the website I got this from, the first thing the women did after deboarding the Mayflower was the wash. But what did they brew on Thursday? Cider? Beer? Tea, with their feet up, aprons and caps off?
The laundromat I go to is a relatively quiet one–no pingpong or TV no popcorn. I sometimes pop next door to the bakery during the dryer and grab a cappuccino. Yes, I do. It’s a bit glam, but not as if I were in black evening wear as a friend of mine used to don during her wash day, as all her day clothes were in the machine. I could get dressed up a bit more, because who knows who you will meet? But I slip outside, and grab the capp, check my watch and see I have another half-hour. I go the grocery store, beg some quarter change just in case, and find I’m late anyway. Only on rare occasions is the mean woman there, the one glares because she was just about to dump your clothes out. If you are really lucky, you won’t be holding the capp at this point, looking like a complete airhead. It’s amazing how quickly glam disappears.

Outside, sun.