Sunday’s Activities

In addition to randomly coming across an Indy car in a parking lot on Sunday, here are a few other things we did along with even more pictures.

We love thrift shops and in particular, a chain called Savers. There used to be a few of them locally but unfortunately, they both closed so now we are reserved to traveling to the Anaheim location which considering we can hear the Disneyland fireworks from home, isn’t too far for us.

While we went for clothes, it’s always joy to meander through the store and check out shelf after shelf of useless and useful crap, oddities, trinkets, etc. You might even find a nice bike there if you’re lucky. But recently the crapfest hasn’t been as intriguing as it has been in the past so I’ve taken to looking at the books.

And here’s the kicker – I hate reading. Seriously, I do. Something has to be extremely interesting to make me sit and read it and for the most part, nothing does it. This is why Ann often doubts that I read the entire Lord of the Rings series in my younger years.

LOTR aside, novels don’t do it for me. I can’t stand them. This is why I thought this book might be an interesting read:

Come on, you know…Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass and all that. I thumbed through it and while interesting, I guess I’m not all that enthralled with the man to even put down the couple of bucks they were asking for the 43-year-old book (hey, the same age as me). It was just letters he wrote to people. Interesting but…not enough for me.

I kept looking and found this one that was just the opposite:

How to Be Pope is written in the style of an instruction manual detailing how your life would be as pope: the people who work for you, the significance of the vestments, where you can dine, etc. It’s chock full of facts about Vatican City, a place that despite my leaving the Catholic church has always been a place I’d like to visit. For example, did you know there’s a gas station and railroad within the City? Sure, the rail system is only 2,600 feet but it’s there. I’m halfway through it and it has brought back memories of how elegant and time-honored Catholic mass truly is and I’d be remiss to say that at times, I do miss the elegance of the mass. It’s all so beautiful and, well, holy. It was the church’s politics that made me leave but there’s still a place in my heart for the grandeur of the mass. Pope John Paul II was awesome.

I had to pick this up. New season, new hat. #ItsTimeForDodgerBaseball!

Next to Savers is Vallarta Supermarket (or supermercado) which is, as if the name wasn’t a big enough indication, a Mexican market. It’s relatively new and is one of the most well-stocked, clean, and friendly mercados I’ve been to.

You name it, the have it: carniceria (meat market) with prepared and unprepared meats of every variety, panaderia (bakery) with Mexican bread and tortillas made fresh, and even a restaurant that serves up some fantastic food at decent prices.

The bakery had all sorts of goodies on display including these, which were two Mexican sugar cookies with frosting between them and an Oreo stuffed inside. You probably wouldn’t want to know the number of calories, grams of sugar, or lard in these things but you probably wouldn’t care once you took a bite.

This right here? This is what Heaven smells like and believe it or not, this is not even the entire row of pan dulce. This was all that would fit in the frame of my phone’s camera. We ended up buying about three bags of pan because hey, at 5 for $2, you would have, too.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the rainstorm that moved through our area which at times was a torrential downpour.

And doing tons of laundry.

By the way, the smell of a panaderia should be made into a chemical form and turned into a car air freshener, both spray and embedded into a little dangly thing in the shape of a piece of bread.

And if I were pope, you bet my Popemobile would have one – or several.