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akirluThe Friday after Thanksgiving is infamously the big shopping day of the year in the US, as everyone overcomes their tryptophan stupor and goes forth at ungodly hours to begin Christmas shopping in earnest at the Day After Thanksgiving Day sales. Normally, I do not do this. It isn't so much a conscious observance of National Buy Nothing Day as that, for years, Thanksgiving weekend was occupied by a combination of a road trip to Midland School for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
libertango's annual high school reunion, grudge-match soccer game, and turkee feed (and, not coincindentally, to celebrate our anniversary), and having things to be doing at Loscon. But after an uninterrupted run of twenty Loscons, the bloom had gone off the rose a little. So we haven't been back since moving up to Seattle.
Which is part of howmarykaykare and I had settled on yesterday for an expedition to Two Big Blondes, a local consignment store dealing exclusively in large sizes. Several folks at janehawkins and holyoutlaw's Thanksgiving expressed horror of the idea of flinging ourselves out into the shop-mad hordes, but I was confident that a fat ladies' consignment store was not going to be where the big shopping action would concentrate. I was righter than I guessed. They were closed. Hey, that's the downside to small, individually owned businesses - when they want to take a family holiday off, they have to be closed.
We wandered around the outside a bit, looking in the windows at what little could be seen, and then shrugged our shoulders and went off to City People's Nursery because Mary Kay wanted to start the process of looking for a Christmas tree and I had been pondering spring bulbs. I had better luck than Mary Kay, finding a couple of particolored tulip cultivars, some pale lavender cluster-growing crocus, and an amazing, deep-magenta hyacinth. And they were all on sale, because, as usual, I'm getting down to poking the bulbs into the earth a bit late. (Indeed, looking out at the patch today, I see that several of last years tulips are already peeking up their first shoots.) The Christmas trees, on the other hand, were still being released from their nylon transport bonds and set up in the lot, and not yet fit to be seen. On yet another hand, Mary Kay found a couple of lengths of sparkly garland, and some very pretty velvet-on-matte-glass ornaments (in purple, need I mention?) to feed her bottomless jones for Xmas Stuff, so I think we both came away pleased with our respective hauls.
Since we were already well on our way there, we drove the rest of the way down Madison to Madison Park, to allow Sarah-the-wonder-mutt to drag me around the park a few laps. Sarah ricocheted about at the end of her lead, admiring the squirrels and the lakeshore, the grass and the other dogs, with the sort of kinetic enthusiasm that Sarah embodies so perfectly. The small and exclusive boutiques near the park did not seem overburdened with business, any more than Two Big Blondes or City People had. (Though City People did have its usual pair of large, comfortable premise cats disporting themselves on the check-out counter.) We paused to admire Christmas cat plates and floral teapots in the hardware store window. Well, Mary Kay and I paused. Sarah did her interpretation of an electron probability cloud around us.
After I dropped MK off, I went to the Third Place Books in Bellevue to pick up a copy of Loreena McKennit's A Winter Garden ep, they having had it in the used bins, and me having confirmed that I did not own it already.
Come back to find, today, that Our Lady of the Blessed Links (note the new URL and update your Favorites likewise) is pointing to a suggestion that rather than avoid shopping entirely, one should avoid the large chains, in favor of small, local businesses in order to put money back into the community. It's nice to know I was with the program before I even realized there was one. And it's good advice to go forth and do likewise. If my experience was anything to go by, the small local businesses are under-patronized and largely trouble-free shopping locales, as everyone else thunders off to the Mega Mall. They need your business, and spending your money there does more political good anyhow.
libertango's annual high school reunion, grudge-match soccer game, and turkee feed (and, not coincindentally, to celebrate our anniversary), and having things to be doing at Loscon. But after an uninterrupted run of twenty Loscons, the bloom had gone off the rose a little. So we haven't been back since moving up to Seattle.Which is part of how
marykaykare and I had settled on yesterday for an expedition to Two Big Blondes, a local consignment store dealing exclusively in large sizes. Several folks at janehawkins and holyoutlaw's Thanksgiving expressed horror of the idea of flinging ourselves out into the shop-mad hordes, but I was confident that a fat ladies' consignment store was not going to be where the big shopping action would concentrate. I was righter than I guessed. They were closed. Hey, that's the downside to small, individually owned businesses - when they want to take a family holiday off, they have to be closed. We wandered around the outside a bit, looking in the windows at what little could be seen, and then shrugged our shoulders and went off to City People's Nursery because Mary Kay wanted to start the process of looking for a Christmas tree and I had been pondering spring bulbs. I had better luck than Mary Kay, finding a couple of particolored tulip cultivars, some pale lavender cluster-growing crocus, and an amazing, deep-magenta hyacinth. And they were all on sale, because, as usual, I'm getting down to poking the bulbs into the earth a bit late. (Indeed, looking out at the patch today, I see that several of last years tulips are already peeking up their first shoots.) The Christmas trees, on the other hand, were still being released from their nylon transport bonds and set up in the lot, and not yet fit to be seen. On yet another hand, Mary Kay found a couple of lengths of sparkly garland, and some very pretty velvet-on-matte-glass ornaments (in purple, need I mention?) to feed her bottomless jones for Xmas Stuff, so I think we both came away pleased with our respective hauls.
Since we were already well on our way there, we drove the rest of the way down Madison to Madison Park, to allow Sarah-the-wonder-mutt to drag me around the park a few laps. Sarah ricocheted about at the end of her lead, admiring the squirrels and the lakeshore, the grass and the other dogs, with the sort of kinetic enthusiasm that Sarah embodies so perfectly. The small and exclusive boutiques near the park did not seem overburdened with business, any more than Two Big Blondes or City People had. (Though City People did have its usual pair of large, comfortable premise cats disporting themselves on the check-out counter.) We paused to admire Christmas cat plates and floral teapots in the hardware store window. Well, Mary Kay and I paused. Sarah did her interpretation of an electron probability cloud around us.
After I dropped MK off, I went to the Third Place Books in Bellevue to pick up a copy of Loreena McKennit's A Winter Garden ep, they having had it in the used bins, and me having confirmed that I did not own it already.
Come back to find, today, that Our Lady of the Blessed Links (note the new URL and update your Favorites likewise) is pointing to a suggestion that rather than avoid shopping entirely, one should avoid the large chains, in favor of small, local businesses in order to put money back into the community. It's nice to know I was with the program before I even realized there was one. And it's good advice to go forth and do likewise. If my experience was anything to go by, the small local businesses are under-patronized and largely trouble-free shopping locales, as everyone else thunders off to the Mega Mall. They need your business, and spending your money there does more political good anyhow.
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Date: 2004-11-27 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-27 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 09:22 pm (UTC)I was bemused to find out, as we were making the final turns, that we spent this weekend not more then 20 minutes (if that) from Midland. Many oaks, and virtue was contemplated. Regrettably we didn't get any Danish from Solvang.
On the other hand, I did frequent a local (to you, relative to me) shop on Friday, as I bought a new camera from Robi's in Lakeview) business, even if it was for an international product.
Which I will use to provide middleman business to local printers (and one can only hope, galleries).
TK
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Date: 2004-11-30 12:21 pm (UTC)I remember when "Buy American!" was a slogan that seemed to belong on a big Detroit gas guzzler with "Re-elect Nixon" and "America: Love it or Leave it" bumper stickers, driven by some narrow-minded xenophobe. Now...I'm looking for "Made in USA" on my underwear, my office supplies, my kitchen things, and pleased & surprised when I find it.
Meanwhile ordering hand-embroidered clothes from a fair-trade cooperative in India and hunting for Czech pottery on eBay. Hmm. Well. It's all complex. But I KNOW I don't need bell peppers badly enough to ship them here from Israel!!