Today's · memoirs

Farmer's Market on Saturday. As I was selecting some tomatoes I got a whiff of actual tomato plant, which won't make any sense to you if you've never grown your own tomatoes. It's a musky and distinctive smell that is washed off commercially grown 'maters, but still clung to these being sold by two Thai teenage boys. Though it's not a particularly appetizing smell, it kicked in the Proustian memory effect: no Madelines here, just a vision of hot sun and dirt and water, and the stickiness of the plants, and warm red tomatoes in my hands.

On a more modern and prosaic note, I went to Macy's and tried on swimsuits - always a traumatizing experience - to see which ones fit me, then went home and found the exact same suits on eBay and Amazon for a third of Macy's sale price. Saved about sixty bucks right there.

At the Grocery Outlet I found canned pitted sweet cherries for 79 cents. I bought two flats of them: cherry pie all winter. Also found the coolest gift bags, with '30's travel poster designs from Italy and France on them (supermatt41, I'm giving you a tip here).

I may have to give in and buy a new deep freezer: the old one is running erractically, as it has for some months now. I defrosted it yesterday - or attempted to, anyway; it ran all the time I had it turned off - and it buzzed angrily at me when I tried adjusting the thermostat.

I ran into my sister-in-law at the post office. Her son Joe (my nephew) is on the road with the Vans Warped Tour (not as a musician; he's the roadie for Broadway Calls). He phoned from Cincinnati the other night: he'd been put in charge of a booth selling Gatorade and bottled water for two nights and had made over $300 in tips. The drinks cost $4 each (yow!); when someone paid with a five dollar bill, he'd get their change and then ask if they wanted the $1 to go in the tip jar. Most of the time they said, "Yeah, OK." He told his mom he's saving for his next tattoo. "Well, as long as he's got his priorities in order, " I said.

Current Mood:

lethargic