Re-uniting with Aunt Dorothy

I woke up early this morning so I could go to the Santa Barbara farmer’s market. I was still fairly stocked up from shopping a few days ago in Pacifica, but my Aunt Dorothy wanted to take me, so I thought I could get a few things but mainly go for the experience. She was going to take an exercise class and then meet me afterwards.

So I drove into Santa Barbara and saw the “No Dogs Allowed” signs at the market. I hate that. Why can’t farmers markets just be farmers markets? Why do they have to sell lasagna and candles and baskets like an arts and crafts show? I just go to support the farmers and buy their produce. I could go to a supermarket and pay a bit less, but I like to support the farmers. But when the farmers markets get too fancy, we’re not allowed to bring dogs and the point of the whole thing is gone. I say if you want to have an art and craft fair or a food fair, go for it, but don’t call it a farmers market if more than half of the things being sold aren’t grown on farms.

Anyway....

So it turned out that my Aunt slept in instead of going to her exercise class, so I just went back to my motel room and made my breakfast.

But shortly after that, I went back to Santa Barbara and spent the day with my aunt and my cousin. We talked about old times and deceased relatives. We looked at pictures, went on walks through the old neighborhood and ate some homemade enchiladas and banana bread.

River was mostly well behaved and kept the house totally cat-free the whole time we were there. At one point, one tried to sneak in, but River spotted him and spooked him away.  Strangely, though, he did growl at my cousin at one point. Jonathan was with us all day and River loved him enough to want to sleep on his feet, but after dinner, Jonathan took a shower and changed his clothes and when he came back out, River didn’t recognize him and growled as if a stranger had infiltrated our little party. Even when Jonathan held out his hand for River to sniff, he still wasn’t too happy about it, but finally relented.

By the time we all piled into the car to head to the beach, River was cool again.

As any good aunt would do, Dorothy sent me off with plenty of leftovers. It turns out to be a good thing I didn’t get the chance to buy any food from the farmers market or I wouldn’t have had room in my cooler for all of it, and probably wouldn’t have been able to eat it all before it went bad.

So now, I’m stocked up with some enchiladas and rice and beans and a whole loaf of banana bread (minus the two pieces I just ate). She also gave me a baggie full of carrots for River, because she was so tickled that my dog loved eating his vegetables. And my cousin is a commercial fisherman, so he added a jar of home caught and home canned tuna fish to the bounty. I have food for days!

And I just got a call from my Uncle Tommy, who also lives in Santa Barbara. He couldn’t come meet us tonight as he had previous plans, but he wanted to see me so he invited me over for dinner tomorrow night!

I had a feeling, even though I was going to be in Santa Barbara for four days with hardly any plans, that I would find plenty to do.


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