A surprise

I went to lunch with my wife today (had a wonderful time), but before we were both done, I was really uncomfortable: exhausted, joyless, and sitting on the metal chairs in the outside dining area was really making my legs hurt. She was having fun just being out with me (which we hadn't done for way too long) and she wanted to have just a little more fun before heading back home to work on our various projects, so I told her I could make it to one more stop. Getting into the A/C in the car and onto a softer seat made an immediate difference, but the "big tired" was really hitting me hard.

We went to a preserved-fruit shop she really likes--very sweet shopkeepers, they're very generous sharing samples of anything you're interested in trying, prices are quite good and we left with about a pound of various dried fruits. It was a nice shop, but I was still really tired, still moving very, very slowly.

And on the way back to the car, we ducked into a big Chinese supermarket.

And somehow, suddenly... walking through the aisles of sauces, and dried mushrooms, an amazingly stocked butcher's aisle (with ingredients like "pork bung"), and candies from Japan with puzzling names and graphics... I felt better. I actually felt better.

I wasn't filled with a desire to cook. Or to pick up multiple styles of soy sauce. (Because, of course, one is for sashimi, one is for cooking this, another is for cooking that...) But somehow, just seeing all those sauces, all those noodles, all that wild stuff... made me feel better.

Feeling "better" comes pretty rarely, nowadays.

It's so nice when it happens.