Day Trip

It is warm and it is raining and Kathleen and I are going to Apalachicola for the day. She went over there a few weeks ago when her friend Vicki was here and she left a bag of things she'd bought in a shop and they still have it and we're going to retrieve it.
That's the short story, of course.
Mr. Moon trembles a bit when he knows I'm going to get anywhere near Apalach without him. It's the shops. They have some of the best shopping in the great Northwest (of Florida) there. There's one shop in particular which strikes the fear in his heart. It's called River Lily and I have seen women almost swoon in ecstasy when they walk in the purple doors of that particular establishment. The jewelry, the body care products, the rugs and lamps and pictures and cards and clothes and doo-dads and incense and candles and purses and, and, and....

Men walk in and look around with a face full of bewilderment and often turn around and go right back out. Luckily for all concerned, there is a fine drinking establishment not twenty feet away. The men can go fortify themselves there while the women have their way with the credit card in River Lily. The numbing effect of the alcohol is a good thing in this instance and when the women join them after their shopping with armsful of purple bags, the men are less apt to lose their shit.

But Kathleen and I are flying solo today. Neither one of us is a huge shopper. Kathleen is more likely to buy gifts for others and I am more likely to look, admire, and realize that I really do not need whatever it is I am looking at. One never knows though...

Anyway, that's where I'll be today as the rain falls down on us and the frogs have thawed out here in Lloyd and are making little trilling noises and the roosters crow to get their hens out of bed and the birds are calling and it's not spring. No, certainly not spring. But it is not freezing and we can pretend and no matter how we look at it, spring will come and the world, not unlike River Lily, is filled with jewels and pretty things for us to admire if we just get out and find them.