Let me go ask. He goes off to find a clerk.
My daughter and I wander up and down grocery aisles, looking for nothing in particular. Dinner is half done – I started it before the movie we'd just seen. We’re now walking back (via the grocery store), picking up Clif bars for my daughter and cheep Cheerios for Ed.
Five minutes later I ask the grocery clerk who is passing through the same Cheerio aisle, looking at the same empty shelf – are you checking for the cheap Cheerios at the bequest of the tall guy? No, not really. He’s out back in the store room, hoping to find them there.
My daughter and I continue to stroll down the aisles. I’ll miss her arm in mine when she leaves tomorrow.
Back at home now. Ed and my daughter are dueling with country music on their computers. Cole Miner’s Daughter trumps the Six Days on the Road. Tomatoes, pre-cut early, are bubbling away for the risotto.
Earlier, we pass a car in the grocery store lot. The car had ducks on it. Lots of them. I think about writing a duck post.
But we’re listening to country now and I am cooking dinner and my older daughter (who, unfortunately is not here tonight) loves country and life is very intertwined that way. Ducks are so yesterday.
In the movie (you’ll guess which one if you’ve seen it), there is a character who is hopelessly romantic and one who is cautiously pessimistic and I try to fit myself and my world into one of these two spheres, but of course, it doesn’t work. What a surprise. Even as I like the movie, because everyone else’s romantic problems seem so beautifully young.
It’s almost fall. I know it. Asters. Cool rains. Emails from incoming students. Tomorrow I’ll make sure my daughter gets on the bus to O’Hare. And then I’ll go to my moonlighting shop. And return home late to a very very quiet place.
