The coffee I had this morning is all that's keeping me awake right now. I am not moving much - typing is not an intensive exersize (sp?)(Learning French totally screwed me up on that word - I haven't been able to spell it in any language since I was eleven. My second grade teacher couldn't spell spaghetti. She was okay with it. She had a home and a family and a career. It didn't ruin her forever, it was just something she had to admit to herself and everyone else. Forever. I think she must have been happy when we all started eating pasta.).
I was not all that familiar with Crete when I lived here, oh, 9 years ago, but I did shop in town and go to the movie theatre (alone! shock of shocks!) and ate at the local diner (PK Bach's, no longer extant) and drove around a lot. I had a car back then. It's the only car I've ever owned. Someday I will have to remedy that.
9 years ago the downtown area was losing businesses left and right, there were more empty store fronts than not, and the little 'mall' across from the library was empty but for one take-out Chinese place that I never tried.
It was kind of depressing to drive through.
Now it is a different town. Every store front along the main street is filled, and almost every store front on the streets crossing that one is filled also. There are people downtown, driving and walking around. Which creates no end of chaos as there is one stop light with no turn arrow and one 4-way stop sign and the rest is pretty much luck of the draw. Glad it's not me driving.
My mother knows everyone who works anywhere that she and my father spend money. Everyone. She knows about their kids and their vacation plans. We went to breakfast at the 9th Street Grill (assuming it's on 9th street, although lately my assumptions have been way off, so who knows? I blame the drugs, and the tireds, etc.) and she knew who was working and who was on vacation and why. It was a beautiful thing. She was explaining to us why there were only 2 people on as my father went up to grab our menu. I don't think they would have batted an eye if he'd got my cup of coffee at the time, but I didn't say anything. Didn't want folks thinking I was desperate for it, even though it had been over 2 weeks.
Been 2 weeks since I smoked, as well. I'm healing. I haven't quit. Don't go there with me.
Shopping with my parents was more than entertaining. Particularly the parts that involved driving across the street to go to the Pamida (boycott Wal-Mart) and then driving across the street to go to the Sun-Mart. We repeated the less than a block long drive from the post office to the gas station (that one I get) to the library, which has redone itself in the last 9 years and is much less standoffish than the one that I remember. To be honest, I don't think I could've made it, not after all that food in the morning time and then missing my 11 o'clock nap.
The library did not have the Bourne Identity, though it did have the Bourne Supremacy, and as I am feeling the need for espionage/spy type stuff, I went for it. Diving into the Ludlum. Save me from Tristram Shandy for a few hours!
Crete wouldn't be a bad town to live in, really. Particularly if they can keep Wal-Mart at bay and on the outskirts and maybe even gone away for lack of profit. I hope that they can, it's a nice little town that seems to be taking care of itself.
It does need a coffee shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment