Serendipitous Saturday

Sometimes I get kind of selfish with my time. Sometimes one more request for fishy crackers a mere 15 minutes before dinner is enough to push me to the edge: “Have I ever failed to feed you?”

I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s brittle and rough, a little like a cuticle that’s been dehydrated by too many sinks full of dishes followed by too many small jeans to fold. It finally tears jagged and I look at my fingers and think about that manicure/pedicure gift certificate my husband gave me two Mothers Day years ago, and I can’t think of where it is because I’ve saved every Wednesday Notice and Weekend Journal and Timed Multiplication Test and I’m buried in the double jeopardy paper piles of public school and private education.

Then I dreamthink about my apartment in college and how the yogurt used to skitter around in the refrigerator alone. I'd just open the fridge, take the cover off of a Yoplait, and dinner was done. How peaceful, really.

I wish that I had more patience. I wish that the last child’s request of the day were not emotionally draining on me any more so than the first sweet “Good Morning.”

So... yesterday I had a serendipitous day out that soothed the chapped patience more than a little.





My friend KL and I had to run an errand to H&E Feed. The nice boy who loaded our 50-pound bags of feed said, "Are you heading out West for the 55-mile garage sale?"

We said, "of course!"

Well, first we checked our husbands' schedules and got our Dutch Brothers mochas and stopped for directions to the fabled country road trip that's annually chockablock with bargains and treasures. A couple of years ago a woman reportedly bought an antique toaster on this same stretch of rural highway and ended up selling it on Ebay for thousands. Of dollars.


It took a few miles of chatting, but we finally saw a garage sale sign. Notice we had to turn off of Bramble onto Paradise. I crack myself up.

Then we drove a long, long way. Much more than a mile. We saw a lot of abandoned tractors and decrepit barns and stopped at a sale, only to find that the legendary 55-mile sale is not until next weekend.

Oh, well. It was a nice drive.

And once again, it was so nice to come home.