Darling Daughter sent me to the farmers' market a.k.a. Aquidneck Growers' Market just before closing time yesterday with instructions to get some sort of grainy bread and fresh greens. She and a friend were planning dinner ... for the grown-ups, too.
It's not uncommon, actually — the kids, when they're home, running the show when it comes to dinner — as I've gotten dreadfully negligent (lazy??) about such things. Someone will ask that age-old, ultra-important, perfectly-logical question at some point toward the end of the day, that question I've heard I-don't-know-how-many-times over the years: "What's for dinner??"
And my typical response is: "I have no idea."
Case in point: Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Betty and I sat outside on the patio, where we'd been sent to shuck corn, and watched as Super Son and a bunch of friends talked and laughed (and drank) and prepared dinner ... in our kitchen. We were watching through our own windows. It was weird.
Isn't it the kids who were always sent outside to shuck corn??
Anyway, on my way home from the farmers' market yesterday, where I'd gotten everything my daughter requested and more, I was walking back through the dappled light along that wide recently-reconcreted sidewalk under the trees along Memorial, and I passed a woman seated on a bench.
She asked, "Do you have a dime?"
"Sorry," I said, though I hate saying that. Of course I had a dime — several dimes, most likely. Dimes are always hanging out in the bottom of my dirty catch-all bag/pocketbook (that word makes no sense: "pocketbook") waiting to be dredged up for something very important like a cup of coffee. But I had no intention of stopping and sharing. Furthermore, I was carrying too many things: the bread, the greens, some great-looking peaches, some seriously-ugly heirloom tomatoes (the uglier the better), a corn-and-pesto covered pizza, not to mention the dirty catch-all pocketbook. It's impossible not to buy more than one sets out to buy at the farmers' market — and the same goes for Saturdays, when it takes place in Middletown, out by Chaves and Newport Vineyards. In other words, my biggest problem/excuse with respect to the woman in need of a dime was that my arms/hands were too busy carrying stuff to stop and dig one out of my bag. I gave her a shrug to go with the "sorry" (she could see the problem, couldn't she??) and kept walking.
But I'd gotten no more than twenty-or-so steps — treading upon two-or-three of those huge sadly-new concrete pads (don't step on a crack, or you'll break your mother's back; what sense does that make??) — when I started wondering why she wanted a dime. What can one buy with a dime?? The notion of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" is hopelessly outdated ... when considered literally, anyway. There's no food or drink to be procured with a dime. One can't make a phone call with a dime. Do phone booths even exist anymore?? And penny candy?? Those were the days ...
That's when I realized I'd misunderstood. She'd asked for the time. Now I really felt like a jerk. No doubt this woman thought I was so uncaring and self-absorbed that I couldn't twist my wrist forty-five degrees to read the watch so clearly visible on my arm and do her that one small all-important (assuming time is important) favor.
So I turned around, headed back to the woman's bench, tried to explain/excuse myself — though, really, there's no excuse — and told her it was six o'clock ...
Come to think of it, I found a dime on a Newport sidewalk once (ten times the luck??), but that was Broadway, not Memorial ...
Yes, I know: that clock's in Bristol. I do get out of Newport on occasion ...
We did have fish for dinner, but not that fish ...
And those leftovers are even farther up the bay in Barrington, where certain docks (as everywhere, for legitimate reasons) have limited access ...
