BUBBLES!

Apparently the young Captain Midnight was a dead ringer for this child.
However, his parents rarely dressed him like Little Lord Fauntleroy, which is probably just as well.

Yes, it's time again to get giddy over blowing bubbles like a little kid!

While doing an Epic Late-Night Grocery Run tonight, I noticed one of those majestic mondo bubble wands they have for sale this time of year. It cost less than a dollar. Thereafter followed one of those mental calculus moments: well, I could be evil and buy a chocolate bar that's bad for my blood sugar, or I could pick up one of these things instead and be goofily enchanted by blowing bubbles for some time to come.

It was a no-brainer.

Off to blow bubbles in the yard! (Doing it in the house scares Roxy.)

Sometimes I forget

It's just another cool and perfect spring night, and I've finished another Epic Late-Night Grocery Run. I'm leaving the Safeway, pushing a little half-sized shopping cart, and I can't help but smile as I look up at a beautiful blue-white full moon glowing through a lace web of cloud, on my way out to my car.

And between the door and my car, in the parking lot, is a large SUV with the windows down, and in the driver's seat of the SUV is a man. I don't know whether he's simply upset, off his regular medication, or both, but he is spitting and foaming out a ranting running commentary, fuming and rocking so hard the car is bouncing on its wheels, his profanity frequent and incandescent and barking out like bullets through an unsuspecting crowd.

I keep walking, trying to maintain a normal pace; wait until I'm next to the car to unlock the trunk; try to put the groceries away at regular speed. Panic attracts attention. And all the while the yelling and swearing -- and now, because I'm close enough to hear it -- the shouted threats against this man's unknown, perhaps invisible assailant continue to escalate.

It's not a phone conversation, because he never stops. He doesn't even pause.

I consider ditching the shopping cart, but decide to scoot it into a corral instead, mentally trying to formulate a plan in case he gets out of the SUV. When I turn, his car is rocking violently, and I make myself walk, not run, back to my car and unlock it. The minute I'm inside, I surreptitiously lock all the doors and drive off in a different direction from home, until I'm sure he hasn't decided to follow me.

Since I'm a night owl, I run most of my errands after dark, and most of the time I don't feel unsafe. But when occasions like this crop up, as they do -- well, Miss V has a perfect phrase for it: "Sometimes I forget that I'm a girl."

Writing

ELL, trying to write, anyway. Not really pleased with the way it's going. I may have to put this thing on hold for a while and execute an Epic Late-Night Grocery Run instead.

ETA (11:15 p.m.): Better! Hah! Take that, stupid writer's block. Plus we have milk for strategic breakfast purposes, and now the Chocolate Ambulance is stocked up for all your emergency chocolate needs. Just FYI.

Grocery run

HE fog is out tonight.  It settles over the Puget Sound in slow waves and veils, swirling into strange torn strands as cars slice through, then leisurely pouring back to fill in the wake of their passing.  An articulated bus in front of me turns right onto a side street and serenely dissolves into mist.

This is not the kind of fog that makes you think of living in a cloud.  It's no soft, light muting of the world.  This is a stalking fog.  It's the kind of fog you can walk in for twenty minutes because it waits, following, never drawing attention to itself, until suddenly it embraces you and you find yourself chilled to the bone, with wringing-wet hair.

On the way back from the grocery, the fixed yellow lights along the highway are sharply spaced pins holding this reality in place, anchoring it against the breathing swells of movement in the fog.

Where would it take us if we came undone?

Highlights from the Late-Night Grocery Run

No, this particular grocery run wasn't epic. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.

 For one thing, there were flowers tonight.

A lot of flowers, in fact.

I loved the color of the irises in particular...

...but my favorites of the bunch were the peonies.

Proof that you can be both zaftig and beautiful.

Speaking of zaftig, there was also chocolate, but I didn't feel like doing the full-on photo shoot in the chocolate aisle.  "Come on, Theo, work with me, work with me!  Oooh, you're so naughty!  Pout, honey, pout!  Let's see some orange peel!"  ...nah, not tonight.

Why I love the Epic Late-Night Grocery Run

ou hear funny things in the grocery store late at night.

Tonight there was a feisty old broad in front of me complaining roundly about the use of customer discount cards at grocery stores. "I hate these things," she muttered loudly as the clerk rang up her items. "Why can't the store just give us all the same discount without having to use one of these stupid things? But no, they have to track us. See what groceries we're buying. It's all about numbers. Social Security number, bank number, PIN number, member number... they're turning everyone into numbers!"

"Twenty-three ninety-seven," said the clerk.





Hey, I thought it was funny.

The Epic Late-Night Grocery Run

Just a few of the many wondrous things espied in the hallowed aisles of Safeway at 2 a.m.

Hmm. Looks like there's no cruising the state highway for me tonight.

Clearly it's time for AN EPIC LATE-NIGHT GROCERY RUN!

Behold our destination, and the focus of this evening's shenanigans.

As Hemingway might have put it, a keen well-lighted place.

Regular ol' chorizo sorta skeeves me (good luck finding "salivary glands" and "lymph nodes" elsewhere in the butcher block), but soyrizo is pretty darn high on the o_O scale.

Durnit, Ma! Dracula's been and got at the carrots agin.

No offense meant -- I've had some of this stuff and it really is delicious -- but Giardiniera bottles always look like, "OK, whatever you empty outta the bottom of the crisper bin, it's gettin' pickled."

Ever wonder why they're called "jimmies?"

Come to think of it, I haven't heard from Jim lately.

Back to Nature vs. Bear Naked granola... how's a nudist hippie supposed to choose?

Mystery Meat Markdown, or as we called it back in high school, "the Used Food section."

That tears it, the economy is officially in the dumper.

I mean, I do like casseroles and make them occasionally, but an entire magazine dedicated to their creation? Seriously?

By the way, the genius who managed to get the phrase "Healthy hot forkfuls" onto the cover should be knighted forthwith.

"What did you have for breakfast, dear?"

"Oh, a big satisfying glass of Chocolate Nutritional Drink."

Then again, you could make far worse choices for breakfast.

Fine. I still say NO to celery. And vampire parsnips for that matter.

'80s-era Phil Collins, call your office; we have located your missing hobo gloves.

Why yes, I do live in the land of computer programmers. Why do you ask?

Jeez. Next they'll be peddling Espresso Eggnog and Pomegranate Eggnog and Eggnog Quiche and all manner of quasi-egg-based liquid holiday monstrosities. The madness stops here!

For friends in Utah: behold the aisle of hooch.

Not shown: the aisle of specialty coffee.

Also not shown: the in-store Starbucks and the three other Starbucks stores within a 500-yard radius of this supermarket. You think I'm joking, don't you.

Safeway's graphic designers have managed to create a store-brand soda logo that is an almost perfect variation of the Generic Soda logos usually seen in the movies. Kudos!

...and if there's anything left over after making giardiniera, toss it into the mortadella!

Aw, look, it's a Japanese capsule hotel.

And of course, no trip would be complete without the purchase of VITAMINS!

Late-night wonders

In the past I've mentioned some of the odd things one sees when one is out late at night. Many an Epic Late Night Grocery Run has been punctuated by an odd sighting or two... such as the time I was leaving the Safeway parking lot and the car's headlights picked out a low, gray object about the size of a kitten, scuttling along the edge of a building (entirely too close to the entrance of a local restaurant, by the way). It was the biggest Norway rat I'd ever seen.

Then there was that incident the other night -- well, early morning, actually -- as I was tooling peacefully home along the city's main thoroughfare, which just happens to be a one-way street. Suddenly someone flew past me in the left lane. I'm guessing he was going so fast because he couldn't read the posted speed limit signs, driving as he was in the wrong direction. Gah!

So...

What wondrous oddities have you spied
when the garish lights of day have died?
Come, readers all, and here display
Your night-time tales of the weird or fey
To bring delight or cause dismay!

OK, so that was a long nap.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle now. (But refreshed! Very refreshed!)

Actually, my time in the last little while has been consumed with the business of moving. We are now partially ensconced in our new place in the Puget Sound area of Washington, with boxes yet to be unpacked -- but now that the computers are back in one piece and we have Internet access, HELLO WORLD! (It may or may not provide insight into our characters to note that, although we were wired up for Internet access as soon as possible, we won't actually get telephone service until early next week. Yep, we're geeks.)

This evening provided one of those small warm-fuzzy moments when I wandered into the local supermarket. As I strolled around looking for leeks and yogurt and hair conditioner, I began to notice that my fellow shoppers hailed from all over the world -- India, Mexico, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Korea and China; I counted at least five different languages other than English being spoken. The checker who helped me was fluent in both English and Spanish, and the teenager who bagged my groceries had originally come from Russia. It strongly reminded me of my childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there were so many people from so many different places, with so many different traditions and beliefs and creeds, that it was impossible to single anyone out for being "different." And yet we did have one thing in common -- whether by birth or by choice, we were all Americans.

It was beautiful out tonight -- cool, with a fine mist of rain falling. All the cherry trees are in bloom. There's nothing like the scent of a spring cherry tree in the midst of a rainy night.