Promenade

Four o’clock. I had a pleasant stroll over to the little store and back again, getting a good dose of people on the way. It was only 77 degrees outside: very clement, and the scene was blue and green and shady. I stopped in front of my house and talked with my neighbor Cherie for maybe fifteen minutes. Her parents bought a house on this street in 1961, when Silver Lea Elementary was a new school. She said she cried when it was torn down, and she snapped pictures before it could happen… At the market, Brandi cashiered for me. I bought just a Snapple tea and a treat for Aesop. I saw another customer purchase a truckload of beer, some microbrew with IPA hops in a green package. I think now that it’s no wonder I was always bankrupt when I used to drink: that stuff is ungodly expensive, and reserved for those who can afford it. I don’t think I’m really missing anything by not drinking these days… I said hi to Derek’s two girls on Fremont, Claire and Natalie, being watched by their grandmother. I can hear Cherie returning home from her dad’s house. He is 93 years old and a widower living with two cats, and by her report, doing very well. All of this to the tune of Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony, the second movement. 

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