As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I thought I would share as filler, what it is like when we do errands, as I sort of doubt it is like your experiences.
See in the brier patch, it is a different world, a world that disappeared from New York City where old women used to sit on porch steps and talk to each other and yell at children playing in the street, as each child had 100 mothers beating on them daily.
In our grocery store, we do not just get groceries, as there is a ritual.
Today we were talking to Barb. Barb is the wife of Bugsy. Bugsy is our old neighbor from when I was a child of 4 years old when they moved "away". Away constitutes around 8 miles from here, so they are not neighbor neighbors, but are still family neighbors.
Bugsy was weed eater weeds today, not in the garden or hedge, as what the hell would you do that for, as Bugsy was busy doing it for the fence, as keeping cows in the pasture is what matters.
See people used to build fences, of barbwire, but that is expensive and about kills you, so most things are electric fences inside old sagging barbwire fences.
Sorry, I was delayed in writing this as the Puntz was in the porch cat calling, thinking I went outside, and was lonesome for me. I simply say her name and she goes quiet, as why come and find me........oh she just appeared and is now happy, as she bounded away from me, and is sitting on the couch arm, looking at me out of reach, as that is what a cat does.
It is nice to be loved, at least in cat love of, I love you, but I never want you to know it, so that is why I bite and scratch you.
Anyway, Bugsy was chopping weeds so he could get a good spark, as weeds short out fences. We got a fencer several years ago that looks like a welder arc when it cracks. I have no idea the punch of it as I have not been stupid enough to touch it. I just know the old one felt like George Foreman hit me, so this one must be ok, as the cows have stayed in.
So Barb could not talk today as she had to pick up the kid from school, as her son was helping Bugsy with the fence, as this was great pleasure for them in being together. See quality time in the brier patch is usually doing some work where you pretend you are having fun.
That is the thing about grocery shopping in most days, we end up talking to at least 3 people so it takes 45 minutes to get groceries. The clerks, people we know, and sometimes people we do not know, stop and talk for quite awhile about absolutely nothing, but it is the way we herd together and learn things.
At check out, Lorie was my usual favorite in she gets to us, and she talks a great deal, and I am amused as people behind us just listen as no one gets checked out, and no one says a thing.
Her dad thought he had cancer, but it was just a bad hip that ached all through his body. He takes like 13 pills at one setting and was overjoyed he was just old and not cancerous.
Today Lorie was saying she had been to the doctor, her daughters. She does not have insurance, like most people in the brier patch, and thank you Donald Trump for breaking your promise on that in continuing Obama rationed death for all of us, after we worked for you and believed you.
Anyway she has really bad pain in her hands. Her feet are tingling from standing on them, and she is sure she has diabetes. I told her she was going to be fine as it was probably what ails me in that damn Monsanto corn syrup. She was crying in saying she had to be there for her kids, and really did not give a care about things, since her ex husband died.
TL said we would pray for her, and I said to TL afterwards what a little Mary Sunshine I was in ask a question and the checker ends up bawling.
See that is what I reside in, is a community. Sure we got the zombie pricks galore and more move in, but for the most part you can talk to people, be nice to them, and they will tell you their personal stories as they just have to talk to someone.
A few weeks ago we ran into a woman with Parkinsons, who was moving to be with her daughter who lived in Minnesota. She was telling us everything about her life, and I thought, "Lady you should not be telling people you got antiques up the wazoo", but that is what she is as that is the brier patch.
The brier patch is a place where you have not seen someone for 20 years, as my brother had not seen Lorie for that long, and she of course remembered him, that it was all smiles and chatter too, as he was part of the community in knowing their own.
I noticed when I was with TL in the metro that most people do not talk. Some did, in my engaging them, but it takes some effort as everyone is such a prick in not caring. That is what shopping or doing errands is about mostly is not the getting things, but listening to others. I think a third of people's days in this part of the world is listening to other people politely and just caring about them.
It surprises me when the town had a hail storm, and some old women from a nearby metro got caught in it, because they drove over for a nice day of shopping. Shopping????? Ok we have two groceries or one and a half, one Dollar Store, one hardware store, one furniture shop and one retail thing. There really is not any shopping in town, compared to Walmart, Target, Kmart and a ten dozen other stores in the metro, but that is not what the people are doing coming to town. They are coming to town to talk, about absolutely nothing, and be with strangers who treat them like they know them.
I remember a guy from Alaska who moved in a few years ago, when I asked him what the heck he was doing moving to the brier patch. He said, "I want to live in a town where I can leave my wallet on the car on the street, and come back a week later and it is still there".
That is about the extent of it or it is 9 out of 10 days of the week here. Now Barb and Lorie I knew from Church as a child, in both are Lutherans, but for the most part I don't know most of these people I do talk with, and for the most part they moved in, and they are pretty good people.
I am not saying everyone here is worth a damn, but like the Negroid who moved in, he soon enough was discovered to have kiddie porn, and they shipped him off to prison before any real harm was done, as everyone here knows what the hell you are doing before you do it.
That is errands for TL and me. I get a week's worth of it in one day, and start to stop of it, after getting unloaded, is about 4 hours. That would be an hour of driving, thirty minutes of shopping and 2 and a half hours of talking.
It is why I never stopped and talked to old farmers when I was a kid. I would never have got anything done as it would be two hours bullshitting, and it gets that way with TL and I on walks sometimes when we get stopped by people driving by.
It certainly makes life full. It is the way America used to be, most of Canada and Australia, but it is disappearing. You just bullshit people and they bullshit you back. It is my one moment of gregariousness where someone says Happy Birthday as she remembered it from when I was a kid or someone needs to unload and I tell them it will be ok.
That is what our errand days are like.
agtG
