This is my second weekend in a row in Chico and I feel myself getting restless. Sometimes I love it, but it's been crazy-hot and this delicate flower is wilting. On a more shallow note, the shopping options are not doing it for me. Mama needs some black boots and my favorite shoe store closed, which meant a trip to the dreaded Chico Mall which meant I wanted to open a vein after about five minutes. But I didn't.
But then there's the fantastic part of small-town life. Like running into my friend Mandy at her booth at the farmer's market and getting all kinds of free samples. Free CHEESE samples. Yeah, you heard me. When you live in Chico your friends own dairy farms and almond orchards and you get to "test out" the merchandise. Of course I wanted to buy some and she was all, "Oh, you let me borrow your notes in a class that one time, consider it a 'welcome back' gift." Since she and her boyfriend are planning a trip to a Slow Food convention in Italy, I insisted on paying and told her to keep on making awesome stuff and keeping her family's business running.
While wandering around downtown later I bumped into a friend from work. His wife and daughters were off doing girl stuff so he was passing the time walking the dog and enjoying the sunshine. We sat down and talked about his daughters, my move back, people-watched and had a nice visit. That kind of thing didn't happen to me much in San Francisco. Even if I did bump into a friend, he or she would have been on the way to some event or in a rush to run an errand. Random leisurely visits were not the norm. It was such a pleasant surprise and made me want to give Chico a little kiss on the cheek for being so sweet today.
Still, I'm looking forward to getting out of town next weekend. It's nice to switch it up.
In other news, we have an Obama/Biden sign on our lawn. I'm taking bets on how many of the neighbors stop speaking to us.
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3 comments:
wow, that didn't happen to you in SF? i feel like this is the city of serendipitous run-ins...
only instead of owning dairies and but-farms, my friends are club promoters, bartenders, work in cafes or own tech companies :)
i might add that it didn't help so much that you lived way-the-heck out-there (in city terms) and never had a housewarming party....
anyway, it's all good. i'm glad Chico's giving you that warm, homey feeling!
No, I did run into people, but there wasn't that "Hey, let's sit here and hang out and catch up for an hour" thing. And I spent time in lots of different neighborhoods, which increased the odds of serendipitous run-ins. It was more the type of exchange that resulted from the unexpected run-in that struck me as more Chico-esque.
I'm still an SF girl at heart, don't worry.
I definitely need to make it out to California one of these days. Finally read the about you on your blog, I think we would get along well. You sound awesome!
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