My mom is obviously enjoying the hell out of life since she got out of the dementia facility. Most people leave that place under a more terminal form of discharge. I hear there was a little confusion, as they're not used to discharging via the front door.
There is an oft-repeated phrase about weather forecasters: they're the only people who get paid for being wrong all the time. You may not believe this, but there's a close tie-in between weather and parents. We wanted to take them out on a people-watching excursion that involved indoor and outdoor parts, so we needed half decent weather. Earlier in the week, the forecast for Saturday was 80 and sunny. The weather app on my phone appeared to be off, as it said every day for the next week was 60 and rainy/cloudy/humid. The weather app on my tv wanted to keep the weather a secret and wouldn't advance to Saturday.
So naturally, it rained on Saturday, postponing our trip til Sunday.
At 6am, the weather forecaster on live news said about 80 and sunny. It should be painfully obvious that I would not know this information. It came from the wife, who has the Mother of All Sleep Disorders. When she's not practicing not sleeping, Marshall has trained her to get up whenever he pops up to feed him. This can happen five times per night. He has trained her well. We got the smart cocker.
So naturally, it was positively miserable on Sunday. The forecast did say the clouds and junk were going to burn off, leaving it 80 and sunny. When I checked my phone app, it must've been afraid to be wrong, so it told me it couldn't hit the server. Way to play it, phone app.
It was so miserable outside as to land in the category Philly Miserable. Philly Miserable is its own category of weather, as well as its own category of miserable. The sky is a dark gray, or as we say, not a sun in the sky. It's either raining or so close as to be indistinguishable from rain. I asked if there was any way possible to get a little more humidity and was met with a rousing NO. It was probably close to 105% humidity. Paper wilted and fell over. Asthmatics had trouble breathing. Obese people heeded the Fat Warning and stayed inside with their air conditioners turned up to Siberia. No problem, though... it would burn off.
Off we went, way too early in the morning. I only have two days to sleep late, and they happen to happen on the weekend. Thus I was foiled both days. But I got even by going back to sleep Saturday, til 2pm. When I got up, I was more tired than when I went to bed. Perhaps I should just sleep four hours and be down with it.
A while later, we arrived at our destination, Q-Mart, or the Quakertown Market. It features an outdoor flea market and an indoor... ummmm... huge building with... umm... retail stalls. It was still miserable outside, possibly having created an entire category of misery by itself: static rain. It's 100% humidity and it's not actually raining, but it feels kinda like it. What happens is that the rain freezes in place wherever it is, so you're walking among raindrops but they're not falling from above. I'm sorry, this is the best I can make up while I'm typing this. But it's ok, it's going to burn off and hit 80.
Quakertown Mart is a venue and an experience unto itself. It is only within the last few years that smoking has been stopped indoors. Quakertown is far enough removed from Philadelphia as to be a different place, and takes full advantage of this opportunity. It's an interesting place to people watch, but not for extended periods of time, lest you start to look and act like them. For a while, people looked like mountain men (even the women). This has changed, ever so subtly, to a more modern (for them) bipedal life form, looking more and more like regular humans as the years pass. This version of humanity has a problem with the local water supply, which has turned everyone's hair different colors. So in essence, you get one or two degrees more hick than The City (as they refer to any far off, wondrous place with a population larger than 1,000), with colored hair. And I'm talking grandmas too. It's a good thing the parents didn't drink anything local, lest their hair become full of color too. I can't see my mom with purple streaks, although my dad might look good in blue. He's color blind, so he won't notice.
Very interesting was the housing development that had sprung up next door. I'm having trouble figuring out how they sold more than three of these $500,000 houses, with a huge Mart next door. The answer is obviously that people who live in $500,000 houses love a good schlocky bargain, like the rest of us.
The outside flea market is open whenever people want to rent tables, including mid-winter, during the snow. I have not checked out whether this happens, as I don't drive a snow plow, don't have four wheel drive, and the helicopter's in the shop again. That thing cannot keep a cyclonic blowshaft for more than 1,000 miles to save its own life. So there we were. For whatever reason there weren't as many tables, but we got to lookin' immediately. We refer to it as the greatest collection of schlock (junk) ever assembled for sale, possibly in the country. Today was a new breed of interesting. We found cases of 8track tapes (remember those?). In case you were wondering what you'd ever do with a case of 8track tapes, you could probably get the seller to throw them in with the complete stereo with the 8track player. Tell them what they won, Johnny! YES, YOU'VE WON A BRAND NEW STEREO SYSTEM [audience applauds loudly]. YES, A MAGNAVOX ALL-IN-ONE STEREO SYSTEM WITH EXTERNAL SPEAKERS, A RECORD PLAYER AND AN 8TRACK TAPE PLAYER [audience screams and passes out]. Thanks for watching Match Game 1973!
If you are not up for the more modern 8track, why not pick up a reel-to-reel player? Yes, an ancient home reel-to-reel combination stereo. No, this is not your standalone tape player - this is part of the integrated, up to date, modern stereo (and of the 70's). It matches that huge piece of furniture you call a television, which takes up most of your living room, with a display that was two feet thick. Hey kids - did you know there was a time when you turned on the tv and had to wait a minute or two for the tv to warm up? Yes, it was the Dark Ages.
Uh-oh, that was the 1st table. Better hurry this up.
Further we went, past the records, 40 year old pot holders, non-functional appliances, discount dish soap, cameras manufactured before the 1970's, old silverware, older tools, and fabric pumpkins. Walking further, we came upon a stereo repair shop, with tons of 1970's and later all in one stereos, piled all the way up. The same with computers, also stacked up.
Unable to contain our excitement anymore, we extricated ourselves from the out of doors and moved to the in of doors. The mart proper is a humongous building, divided into rather a lot of stalls. Each stall is occupied by what one would technically call a business. The sheer range of businesses strains the bounds of believability. For instance, you're probably wondering where you can get your sewing machine repaired. And while you're getting your sewing machine repaired, maybe you could get your vacuum repaired too. At the same shop! Or buy some bags for it. Or purchase a refurbished canister vacuum, made long before you were born.
There's a video store. It's actually a really good video store. It's so good that after an hour or two, my wife has to be physically carried out (if I'm not asleep on the bench outside). They have LOTS of movies. The best part was the sign on the outside that said "Buy 1 VHS tape, get 20 free". Wife left with several movies, including Return of the Son of Cousin Three Times Removed Bride of Reanimator 5, Again (This Time It's Just A Sequel).
The parents were full of observing and observances. There were Amish butchers and Asian produce salespeople. Did you know there is a pork steak? A donut that's sliced in half with mounds of cream in the middle? A donut so big, you can slice it like a cake and feed your whole family dessert? Donuts are fun, so we got some. Mom spent several moments looking at the huge variety and driving the staff nuts. The lady asked what she wanted and Mom looked up and said blueberry. Then only problem was there were no blueberry donuts. Perhaps she was shopping at a different donut place. It took all I had not to order an oregano donut. To get to a dozen required the on-staff dentist to come out and pull some teeth.
After all the bizarrity, we had one stop left. No, not the Gas Station Sushi. The seafood store. In this strange assemblage of retail and not quite city folk is one of the best fish places we've been to. Everything is fresh. Several fishy purchases later and we were in the car, being careful of the small lakes that had appeared in the parking lot, one immediately behind the car, requiring waders to open the trunk.
And as we closed the car doors, the wife looked up and said, "HEY - this isn't 80 and sunny."
No comments:
Post a Comment