I must be feeling better today because I thought about writing a blog post in the, "What do I want to write about today?" way instead of the "ugh, I'd better go write a quick post so I can go back to sleep" way. But either way, today is a better day than yesterday and to top it off, the weather is splendid: playing outdoors-type of weather, swinging in swings and driving plastic cars all around the street type of day.
My father has been plagued with this winter nastiness for the past week, but he must be feeling better today too, because he went to the Flea Market. He's been going all my life, and I've gone with him many many times over the years. Most of the vendors and inventory doesn't change much, but there are new finds and some can be quite valuable, or in my case, memorable.
When I was young, I'm guessing late elementary school, I was with my father on one of those Saturday Flea Market trips and I saw him pick up a green plastic pitcher with something in it. He asked the man what the contents were. He was told they were glass jars with cork stoppers that a watchmaker used to store the various gears and screws and springs and other what not that goes in a watch.
My father asked him how much he'd take the pitcher for, I'm sure there was negotiating while my father acted disinterested and then my father closed the deal for somewhat less than he was willing to pay.
On the way home I held the pitcher and marveled at the tiny tiny glass jars. The majority of them were a centimeter in diameter and about two centimeters in height. There were some bigger ones at about four times the volume, and they all had tiny cork stoppers. "Daddy, what are you going to do with these bottles?", I asked. He said he didn't have any particular plan for them. I asked him if I could please play with them, and he said yes. Oh, how excited I was.
Because I had plans for them. I was going to put the best, the brightest, the most precious, the most rare, the most unusual, the most delicious...well, you name it, I was going to put it in those vials. And that plan involved my best friend from across the street, Jenny.
She and I were going to open our own drug store. We were going to sell salves to cure what ails you. We were going to preserve things you didn't want lost. We were going to do so right from my bedroom and our storefront was going to be the second shelf from the top of my book case. This was top priority, I cleared that whole shelf of everything else to make way for our inventory.
We did make salves: which consisted mostly of petroleum jelly and grenadine syrup. We decided we had found our calling in lip balm and we made all manner of varieties involving both petroleum jelly and grenadine syrup. They all tasted rather the same, and yet, wow, were our lips moist! Such a great idea.
On the preservation front, I cut myself at one point and made sure to put some of the blood in one of the vials. Then I watched as it turned much darker as the cells died. I carefully preserved a single sunflower seed, it being hard to find animals to preserve and I wasn't really into bugs, because, eww. There were several vials I don't know what we put in at the start, but when we opened them later, it was clearly something that had decayed. Lesson learned.
Did we make great money selling our amazing lip balms and super salves and happy creams? I don't recollect ever selling a single concoction. I think we were too proud of our creations. I have no idea what ever happened to those vials. I don't remember getting rid of them. AsI got older I moved on to more fun pursuits, most likely with another Flea Market find of my father's.
The Big Boy Update: Daddy's Mackamuck. He is determined that a motorcycle is, in fact, a "mackamuck." Today, he got to watch as daddy drove beside us and in front of us as we relocated daddy's motorcycle from storage at my parents back to home here now that our garage addition is drawing to a close.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Running Nose. It's going to run away with her if it doesn't let up soon. She's had several days of excessive-runny-nose syndrome. I hope tomorrow is a drier day for her.
Someone Once Said: It’s never too late for grief.
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