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Mall Alone

Mall Alone

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Granted, I was there on an odd Thursday afternoon, but at first I was optimistic. There was a crowd outside the Cheesecake Factory, a post-graduation celebration from the looks of it. Maybe the mall would be bustling, as it used to be.

But once inside, my spirits sagged. It was the usual sparse crowd: a few mall walkers, some mothers and children, people marching determinedly from one store to the other, completing their errands with dispatch (one of them me).

So many mall memories: taking the girls there to buy summer play clothes, First Communion dresses, prom gowns. To have their ears pierced or celebrate with lunch on the last day of school.

I miss the girls’ young selves more at the mall than most places, which is strange because we often had battles there. I didn’t buy them skanky shorts and tops at Limited Too. I humiliated them when I asked the clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch to turn down the music. The mall was one of those places where we interacted with the world — and the world seemed to be winning.

Now the children are grown and the mall is empty. I know that these two states are linked mostly in my own mind, one truth personal, the other sociological. But it’s hard not to see a connection.

Old-Fashioned

Old-Fashioned

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On Friday, I ended up in an old-fashioned hardware store in a tony neighborhood closer to the city. I was there only as a browser, but even I, who can barely tell a Phillip’s head from a hex head, was asked if I could be helped a half-dozen times.

Moseying my way through the narrow aisles I found some fun non-hardware-store kinds of items, and even bought a couple of them, a heavy aluminum jellyroll pan and a roll of cellophane tape.

It was only after I saw the price tags on these items that it hit me. Old-fashioned customer service is comforting. You feel important. You feel seen. And more to the point, you might actually find what you’re looking for.

But it doesn’t come cheap. These days, old-fashioned service is mostly for the well-heeled. Once upon a time, though, it was for all of us.

Flower Shopping

Flower Shopping

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A trip to a garden shop yesterday put me much in mind of spring. Though it’s cloudy and rainy today, yesterday it was warm and sunny, and the shop had everything, it seemed, except the one plant I was looking for.

That would be a climbing rose. This old-fashioned beauty is no longer in favor, it seems. All eyes are on the knockout rose, its flashy second (or third?) cousin. 

Knockouts are beautiful, and easier to grow than most other varieties, but long ago I fell in love with climbers and am stuck with the attraction now. In a few weeks I’ll post a photo that will explain why. For now, though, a picture of some magenta phlox I spied on a walk the other day. They’re perfect enough to be in a garden shop themselves.

Ir As Compras*

Ir As Compras*

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A week ago we were just returning from Portugal. Since then I’ve been to three local grocery stores, an unusually high number — but necessary given there will be a crowd here on Sunday.

With every shop I visit there is one tugging at my memory. It’s Pingo Doce, the Portuguese supermercado chain that was so much fun to visit, it was almost not like grocery shopping at all. 

The first one we found was less than 10 minutes walk from our apartment in Funchal. There we bought milk, eggs, bread and vegetables. Another one, just slightly farther away, had delicious tangerines as well as prepared foods. 

On our second-to-last day in Madeira, we found the largest Pingo of all, in downtown Funchal. It was not unlike a Wegman’s in size and scope. I picked up Portuguese Easter treats for the kiddos there.

And finally, we discovered that the chain extended to (probably began in) Lisbon. We never visited the flagship store there, but did dip into a smaller market in Cais do Sodre. As with the others there were self-assured locals doing their weekly shop, confused tourists searching for toothpaste, and harried clerks trying to deal with it all. Life itself, in other words. 

(*”To go shopping” in Portuguese. Above, a Pingo shopper in Funchal, just back from a hike.)

Plodding

Plodding

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Over the weekend, I broke in a pair of hiking boots, my first ever. Though I’ve hiked plenty, I’ve always hiked in running shoes, which is pretty much what hiking boots look like these days. 

The clerk who helped me said that as long as I stay in the eastern half of the United States and don’t carry more than 15 pounds, I could get away with what he called trail runners. Trail runners look exactly like running shoes, so I passed on them. If I’m finally going to spring for a pair of hiking boots, I reasoned, I want them to resemble the real article at least slightly, meaning bulky, brown and many-laced.

The ones I finally settled on (and I mean finally — I tried on six pairs) look sturdier than tennis shoes but less daunting than I originally imagined. The difference lies in the gait they enforce. One is not fleet of foot in a pair of hiking boots; one plods. But plodding isn’t so bad, I’ve discovered.

Wreathed in Fog

Wreathed in Fog

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A soft fog last night as I drove to a meeting. A fog that made the lighted trees and homes send halo-like rainbows into the gloom. 

Our house is finally among the decorated, with candles in the windows and lights along the roof and a big old wreath that I bought as a splurge because it smells so much nicer than the artificial one — and also because it was made by Bradley’s mother. 

That would be Bradley from Whitetop Mountain, Virginia, the same fellow we bought from last year. He apologized that the trees cost more this December and said he would “work with us” on the price. I bought the wreath to up the total. Bradley and his family could use it, I imagine. 

And now the wreath and the lights are shaking their fists at the darkness. In less than two weeks, the days start growing longer. 

Malls of America

Malls of America

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Darkened storefronts, sparse merchandise, even the busy Apple store was quiet yesterday at the mall. True, it was a rainy Tuesday more than two weeks away from the big day, but even a few years ago it would have been bustling. Not for the first time I ask myself … where have all the people gone? 

They’re in their homes, collecting Amazon deliveries. While in the sad cavernous halls poor souls wander, looking for candles or purses or calendars, strolling through clouds of perfume and the scent of cinnamon rolls, listening to yet another rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”.

I’ve never been a mall lover, always held them responsible for the death of downtowns, but yesterday’s trip made me feel sorry for them — and for us.

Buying Local

Buying Local

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This year’s tree came did not grow on a sloping hillside in the richest county in the United States. We did not wait in line 30 minutes to be allowed the pleasure of cutting it down.

This year’s tree was not bought from Vale United Methodist Church, the white building at an ancient crossroads like a picture postcard with each purchase contributing to a fund to end hunger.

This year’s tree came from a small lot I noticed on the way out of town, a beaten-earth parking lot with a big tacky Santa Claus and a string of simple lights. On our first trip there, we met Bradley from Whitetop Mountain, down near the Tennessee and North Carolina border. His family has been selling trees on this spot for decades, he said.

Bradley apologized. The trees had been picked over, he said, but he was expecting a shipment that very evening. If we liked, he would take our number and let us know when the shipment arrived. I didn’t think we would hear from him, I figured the tree shortage had caught up with us, that we’d have to pay hundreds of dollars for a scrawny spruce.

But by noon last Friday, Bradley texted: the new shipment was in. We hurried over and found a full and fragrant Frasier fir. It now sits proudly in our living room. This year we bought local by necessity. Next year, we’ll buy local by choice.

The DNA of Shopping

The DNA of Shopping

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My Christmas list has morphed from one that was always on paper, even just a few years ago, to one that’s mostly in the notes section of my phone. 

This parallels my shopping, which has evolved from mostly brick-and-mortar to well over half online. 

I still scrawl gift ideas on slips of paper which I then tuck into my purse. And I still like to go shopping, to physically enter a store, even if I have to wait a few minutes in line or spend more time than I’d like looking for a price tag.

It’s part of the eternal give-and-take of hunting and gathering, a proclivity that I’m convinced is buried deep somewhere in our DNA.

(Not a shopping list, but a shopping district … this one in Lexington, Kentucky.)

Shopping Online

Shopping Online

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I did my best to pretend that yesterday wasn’t Black Friday, but by the end of the day I caved and went online. And yes, there was the hysteria I remember from years gone by, or at least a virtual version of it made possible by pop-ups, reminders that there are “only five left … order soon!” and countdown clocks.

It’s the clocks that affected me most, their hours, minutes and seconds all winding down to midnight. Perhaps because I’m time-sensitive, accustomed to packing as much as I can into whatever time I have. Why should shopping be any different?

Well … because it should, that’s why. It should be a deliberative process — not the digital equivalent of pawing through lingerie in Macy’s basement. 

But darned if the online marketers didn’t figure out a way to make us care … and rush. 

Black Friday — it runs through Sunday, from what I hear.

(A real shopping experience, complete with masks.)