While I sat a little while in my Saturn's nook at the Governor's mansion grounds--thinking that such places can gather hypethral shakti in outdoor feng shui to become vessels for thought, as that one was becoming, and that my best thoughts have come to me outdoors--I was reading interviews with Henry Miller who said that he always wrote in a room and if there was a view he turned the chair around, I'll tell you that my happiness returned on a July day in my forties. A Friday, which is no small frame for happiness in a puritan city. Friday Dionysus appears in town as a consumerist hireling, invites the worker to spend money. Hustle for joy! Try to catch up.

Annette, in a bad mood, driving, out with us after Steve, out with me for our usual happy morning coffee, brought her a Starbucks decaff to make up for earlier grouchiness, dropped Steve at his request downtown to get a haircut (he would catch the bus home later), and chauffeured us to Oxford Foods on lower Cook.

I had $50 in bills from a recent check, a loony, and 47 cents, I think, of your money, and after the Chinese woman cashier who greeted me, despite the day's scruffiness, with a businesslike "friendliness" which as a citizen (shopper) it was good to get, she agreed to watch out if the tab ran up to $50. It rang through at $51.45! I showed the lady behind me my 2 pennies, though somehow I ended up with another 4 cents or so. As she rang stuff through, she asked if my collection of rye-crisp packages were all the same and I told her one was different and 10¢ more, but that package wasn't among them so I apologized; then it showed up under other stuff. A few days before, an equally friendly woman (not the young beauty, though the beauties are also friendly enough), but one of the little mothers who work there, asked me what number from the bulk bins for the popcorn, and I went and returned with the wrong number, which turned out to be a more expensive item--these reveal me as an absent minded male rather than a potential shoplifter which through years of trying no clever stock boy has caught me at because I don't do it--which released me a bit from old lousy roles of construed shadow-figures appearing guilty while committing no crime--a leftover from my complex childhood.

I rolled the cart out to the parking lot before Annette limped out on her swollen ankle with her groceries. She handed me the keys when she came out, to get in via the front door while she loaded their groceries in the trunk. A nice looking blond woman in a hot car made sure I saw her smile at me--a benediction as always.

I bought ground-up mammals--humans for all I know: lean and medium ground beef, wieners on sale, 6 beef sausages, and beef liver to freeze, carrots from some farm ground and Spartan apples from some orchard and Wasa rye crisps from some waving autumn field and big factory; a dozen chicken embryos and a litre of Best Foods mayonnaise for breast milk. A kilo of frozen Valley Farms corn on sale, and one of frozen mixed vegetables, a little high in price. Onions for sharp and salt focus, and my staple, lots of broccoli @ 59¢ lb. Not the large American perfect-looking stuff which worries me but smaller, darker green with smaller stems. Two heads of raw green cabbage, not so cheap. Also a box of Nabob orange pekoe tea bags for my precious hours in Saturn's nooks. My plan was to set up my 20-litre stainless steel stock pot to put some of this stuff, specifically wieners, sausage and ground beef, broccoli, onions, and frozen vegetables, into a soup based on jasmine rice*, of which I still had a large amount in a sack, which Steve drove me to Chinatown to buy after the cutbacks. *Which I did--filling the cauldron and lots of stuff left over. Some work to make and transfer to plastic containers to freeze, then I had delicious soup for quite a few days.

Got a good deal on Admiral canned salmon at London Drugs a few days before, as well as Queen of the Ocean chunk light tuna.

I arrived home in bliss as once more the gods of abundance delivered manna, and stayed in bliss predominately for three days. Not, of course, just because of the food.