I think I've mentioned that I love my town. Yesterday I took a long walk through it. It wasn't long in distance; it allowed itself to be stretched over hours by the beguiling loveliness of the day and by various diversions I encountered on the way. I had meant to just run to the frighteningly posh convenience store a block away for hand soap and sweat absorbers. They didn't have the sweat absorbers I wanted, and this left me with extra cash and no excuse not to keep walking.
I wandered through neighborhoods of Victorian and older houses. I saw green maple blossoms and the bright yellow flames of forsythia in full flower. I saw bees! I spoke to the bees, telling them how happy I was to see them. The guy behind the wheel of the parked delivery truck near the convenience store politely pretended not to notice.
The barrow at Barrow Books snared me with a $4.50 copy of In Patagonia. I wandered over to The Famous Concord Shop to see if I could find interesting and inexpensive candy molds for my coming experiments with resin, which you'll be able to see and buy (among other trinkets) at my coming Etsy shop. I idled my way through The Toy Shop of Concord for a little blob of Sculpey to make more shapes to mold. I meandered through another neighborhood, noting the progress of other gardens, then back down Middle Street where I paid a quarter for a splat of lemonade in a plastic cup at the neatly labeled Sophie's Lemonade Stand, ably served by the proprietress, age approximately four, her younger sister, and (mostly) their mother, who reminded us all to say "thank you" at just the right time. It was good lemonade, made with real lemons, not some nasty mix.
The warm sun drove me to Bedford Farms for a malted frappé made with coffee ice cream (I know, after lemonade, but it was still delicious, and absolutely called for). Then right before heading home to sit on the front steps slurping my malted and blowing soap bubbles under evergreen boughs full of chattering birds and squirrels, I remembered something I'd passed on the way to town, and detoured back across the street to take this picture:
I love my town.
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