Indulge Me

Sometimes this blog feels like a shop window where I arrange pretty stuff -- put a pink felt hat with a big plume on a wooden mannequin head, right up front next to the glass -- or other stuff for all to see. Or set out something lovely and lush -- a little diarama of Hawaiian hula girls dancing under breezy palm trees, fronds flopping -- for others to notice as they pass by on the busy thoroughfare outside.

And other times I want to say -- SHOP CLOSED -- and I pull down the blinds and go off for the day on some private adventure -- maybe to the Zoo, maybe strolling on a faraway beach in a dreamy way, maybe off to track down a long lost button to put on an unusual and impatient coat, maybe to see a not very popular, but very interesting French film at the artsy theatre around the corner with a girlfriend who I talk into ditching work. We eat red licorice.

And lately, I've felt like that, and even more private and quiet, pulling down all the blinds and cleaning out the back storeroom, doing inventory, sweeping, restocking the shelves, so I ask if you would please indulge me as I put my shop in order. I expect a GRAND RE-OPENING any minute, as spring is finally beginning in these parts. I feel a wonderful rumble of spring flowers poking their heads out of their beds in the windowbox, just watch.