busy

After weeks traveling, visiting, hosting, and doing, I finally got a weekend to stay home and relax. First, we had the wonderful trip to Illinois, then Pedal to Pints, then my physical, then St. Croix, then visitors, and then finally a day to myself. Oh, my. But then Lucy got sick. Normally, we would go together to do errands on Saturday: go to the library, the farmer's market, and the supermarket. But Lucy wanted to stay home. I decided that, since Lucy didn't want to go, I would just go to the supermarket and get ingredients to make chili. I mentioned to Alisa that she might want to go to the farmer's market to get the stuff that Lucy would normally get, so she got up and went with me. Well, normally, I'm pretty goal directed about running errands: I go to get specific things and, if I see something else, well OK then. But I don't wander up and down and up and down looking at every single thing several times. But that's just how Alisa rolls. Eventually, we finish up at the farmer's market and Alisa says she wants to go to Maple Farm Foods. I'm like "Where?" I mean, I've seen it before -- it's near the bike trail -- but I've never been inside there. "You mean that ice-cream place?" She's like, "Wut?"

When we get there, I head for the front door and she's all "I didn't even know they *had* this door!" And we get inside and I'm like, "Wow! There's like a whole grocery store in here!" Well, sorta. It's an odd, eclectic mix with a bit of everything: ice-cream and candy, hot food, deli, salad bar, produce, beer, wine, and lots of weird ethnic foods.

They were doing an open house with a bunch of demos and samples and were just getting set up. We walked through once and then again. After the third time, I was starting to flip out. And then I realized what it really was: the place had narrow aisles and had become stuffed with people. I can only take being crowded in with a lot of people for a few minutes before I need to get out. Once I realized that, was what it was I went outside and sat calmly in the shade while Alisa made her purchases. There are lovely Rose of Charon bushes all around the front of the building that I could sit and look at.

In the end, however, I never got to the store to buy ingredients for chili -- the one thing I had wanted to get done. But Alisa got to buy random weird stuff -- her favorite thing! And I went to the store on Sunday morning to get fixings for chili. Problem solved.