Another farmer's market

This one gets a green thumbs up.
This morning Kenneth woke up at the b. crack of dawn to convince Mama/Grammy (with much arm-twisting) that today was not, in fact, Clean House Day. Today was actually Go To The Santa Monica Farmer's Market Before All The Good Produce Is Gone Day. So after much arm-pulling and hem-hawing and a walk around the block and a lemme-take-a-shower and i have to feed the baby, we went. Grampa drove Grammy's car, which is mercifully equipped with oh-shit handles by all of the seats, even in back. I knitted for most of the drive in order to keep my eyes and mind off of the road.
We parked on level seven of a parking garage and waited a very long time for the elevator. Long enough to enjoy the beach view, and to play "Find the Fake Owl on the Building Across the Street." When the elevator finally came, we crowded in and went down to level four to pick up a couple of guys, then the elevator doors opened onto level six where we picked up a woman and her mother, then down to the second floor, and by the time we escaped on ground level, we were a crowded elevator, indeed.
We walked down the block, over, and over some more to find the farmer's market. Every stand had a sample table, with crispy, sweet watermelon, green "rocky mountain" cantaloupe, ripe strawberries that tasted like real strawberries, lush heirloom tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, and plums. We picked up a couple of green plums, a bunch of beets, fresh basil, purple fingerling potatoes that really looked like fingers, a flat of strawberries, a tiny green melon and the perfect watermelon. My only complaint? Again, with the bags. Plastic bags were flying everywhere and when I told Grandpa that he didn't need a bag for his tomatoes he made the point that they needed it to weigh the produce. So then I started thinking that since they have reusable shopping bags, there should also be reusable produce bags. They could fold up real small, and a person could carry a dozen produce bags with them to the farmer's market. Feel free to steal the idea for your own farmer's market, but I'm taking it to the Santa Monica Promenade. We'll sew up some reusable produce bags out of something light and water resistant like nylon, and sell them at the entrance to the farmer's market.

Anyways, we walked around Santa Monica for a bit and had some delicious brunch. When we got back to the house, Kenneth's aunts Sharon and Doreen came over with his Grandpa (Grandpa's Daddy - and they're all named Daddy - Kenneth, Eric, and William Jr, so he is Edie's Daddy's Daddy's Daddy) and cousin Daryl. We had spaghetti outside and it was delicious. Grandpa Daddy and his kids (Sharon, Doreen, and Eric) told some old family stories and they were also delicious ("She flipped the boiling water on me so I threw a fork and it stuck in her behind" kind of stories). I laughed until I cried. They grew up in a 10-kid household, so things must have been pretty chaotic most of the time. They have some delicious stories. Edie practiced her wave on everybody. She fingered Great-Grandpa's elbow wrinkles and grabbed Daryl's nose. Even when it was time to lay down and nap a while in our bedroom, she could hear the voices in the other room and kept waving for a while. She might have been waving to the ceiling fan. She's always loved those.