Salvation Army fun :)

I thrifted today for several hours. I woke up, got myself together, and got out the door. I had several packages to drop off at the post office, then got some pan dulce for a ridiculous $1.20. One of the stores smelled a little ripe, so I was hesitant to hang around too long. Smells mess me up. I can't handle bad smells. I spent a week at a landfill in Mexico when I was a kid, and I'll never forget it.

I wanted to see some jewelry at the Salvation Army, so I asked the lady next to me if I could look in front of her. She was a large woman, and she and her cart were blocking the whole case. Also, she isn't looking at anything. She's just standing there. So I ask politely, she replies "yes", and returns to staring blankly straight ahead. "Hm, okay", I say, and walk away. "I'm looking!", she shouts. Really, I didn't have it in me to deal with that kind of crazy this morning. I almost cried when I saw a guy, and I was trying pretty hard to act normal.

Last week, at another Salvation Army across town, there were two men in a dressing room at the front of the store. It was early in the morning, but no employees were around. One man was trying on clothing and the other man was making commentary. The door was wide open. An employee walked the thirty yards from the back of the store straight to the man and said, "Sir, you need to close the door." He didn't. "You need to close the door right now." He did. I tried to smile at her, but she's not much of a connector with customers.

Final winner of the week is the eighty-year-old woman trying on a string bikini over her clothing in the aisles at the first Salvation Army. I wished I could have documented that moment and then asked her for an interview. No shame.

Mexican bread :)

Who this is, where it came from, I don't know.

When I was a kid, my stepdad occasionally brought home Mexican bread from work. I only remember the ones with pink and yellow stuff on top. His coworkers gave him food, he would bring it home, and it would get eaten by someone, usually. All I remember is how dry and crumbly they were, and I decided that for the rest of my life, I would eschew Mexican breads of all kind.

Fast-forward to today, and I have discovered that I love Mexican bread. I have to keep myself from going to the panaderia every day. It's on my way to work, and it's only a couple blocks away from my house, and it's always soft and fresh. I can't get enough of it. I'm always the whitest person in the place, and the only one speaking English, but I don't care. I want the bread! It's my newest coping mechanism. I got coffee there once, but it wasn't worth it. Most people don't drink coffee there anyway. They get champurrado, which is excessive to my anti-dairy palette.

If I go at 9, it's less fresh. If I go before 7, it's the best: light and airy and a little warm. Ahhhh... Just thinking about it makes me feel happy and peaceful :)