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It could have been the interrupted sleep cycle, or it might have been the pissy weather. Something put me in a cranky mood that stayed with me all day. I was even more impatient than usual with the idiots and maniacs driving around the rain-slicked streets of Santa Rosa. And why would I pick this day to go to K-Mart? That's almost never a pleasant experience, and a rainy Saturday is possibly the worst time to try to fight through the narrow aisles and schlocky crap (or is that crappy schlock?)
 That's the one place I went today where I didn't find anything. I picked up Mom and she rode up the hill to the new Yardbirds with me to get the lamp that had been out of stock last week. I wanted something comfortable to sit in on my patio, should the real summer ever get to California and stay here where it belongs. Nothing appealed to my finely honed tastes at the first three places, but I hit paydirt at Raley's.
Yes, you can have your home improvement centers, I'll take the local supermarket. I'm more at ease shopping there, although it's mildly embarrassing to stand in the same line with people buying cartloads of essential comestibles, when all you're carrying is bulky component patio furniture.
There are times in my life when I would have meekly returned the items to the shelf, hoping no one noticed, and bought a carton of milk and a loaf of bread, just for show. Somehow I thought that if anyone noticed me doing something that no one else was doing, I would be singled out for derision. In fact, a lot of the time, I was arrogant enough to believe that people were looking at me.
I'm older now, and I've picked up a modest amount of wisdom, along with a wise measure of modesty. I still won't make a deliberate spectacle of myself, but at least I'll go through the motions of doing what needs to be done without undue regard for the opinions of people who aren't looking past their own grocery carts anyway.
Besides, by this time I really wanted this particular lounge chair. And someday, the sun will shine and I'll be stretched out on my patio reading Emily Dickinson, or the new Entertainment Weekly. It's now the most comfortable chair I own. Really, though, it's for outside, but not until I get a little table to set my Long Island iced tea on.
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