No. A thousand voices scream out at once. No. The voices were all kids and kids-at-heart. No one is ready to see hints of fall. The left, logical, side of the brain says: Squash. The right, intuitive, side screams: Autumn!
And that, in mid-August, is not cool. There will be a time for it, late September, perhaps. That day is not now.
This was at the locally grown, artisanal vegetable place where we purchase an exceedingly abundant basket of vegetables each week. Fresh food, charming people, delightfully disorganized basket procurement process.
That was our last stop of the day. We bought gas, which is riveting. Riveting!
We shop at Sam’s for gas as often as not. They’ve reduced the entire petroleum purchase experience entire an almost sterile environment. Sterile for stone, cement and gas, at least.
There are eight pumps, allowing for 16 customers at a time. There is no store, no cash, no distraction. You focus entirely on the task of purchasing the cheapest gas in town. (Only the prices are going back up again. Cheap is relative.) They have one person staffed there, presumably in case something catches fire.
It is interesting how you can grow so accustomed to the absence of that interaction. The pay-at-the-pump model has removed every human interaction from fueling your car. At Sam’s they’ve stripped it down to solitude. One nice lady, unlike the rest of her colleagues who just stand around, actually mingles with the customers. The first time she does it can take you by surprise. In the last two years, though, I’ve been learning about her life in 15 second increments. I’ll have to start writing that down.
We visited the pharmacy to pick up new medication. We drove through the worst traffic in town. Three of the biggest intersections downtown had no power. Also this is the first week of the semester crush — too many extra families and too freshmen who are still learning their way around town, when to drive and when to lose their keys — that overburdens the local roads.
Police officers were directing traffic. You wonder how long they spend on that at the academy. Do some of the cadets adapt to it better than others? Is there a special commendation? When the intersection goes dark do the dispatchers call him in to run the show?
Does he then think “And I really wanted to take a nap under the overpass today!”?
We visited the meat lab. You buy select cuts from the university at big discounts. It gives you the feeling of living in an old-time company town, spending your income at the company store. But who cares? We bought two New York Strips and four pork loins for 20 bucks.
If only there was a charcoal lab on campus. We’d probably grill every night.
The next, and last stop, was to the market for the vegetables and seeing the squash above.
This, believe it or not, was a big day out. (I can’t complain because, you know, summer … ) Sitting inside for more than a month now hasn’t been ideal, but I’m bouncing back. I wasn’t exhausted when we got home. But I was sore.
I blame the vegetables.
Those baskets are heavy.
Later: Grilled the steaks in a mild, moist August evening. Put on just enough charcoal to kiss the meat, we had okra and mashed potatoes, both from the vegetable basket. Everything but the seasoning was raised nearby. I feel like I need an imported dessert, just to throw things off.
