a tiny bit of the public square
Apr. 3rd, 2025 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffloWent to the post office this afternoon to return the too-big swim bottoms; hoping the replacements will come in time for my next swim class. Yeah, I'm an old, impaired lady taking a swim class, but I'm happy to say that this one's been really good, if a challenge, and a workout, and rather a lot of hullaballoo to go through, for a person who rather likes less hullaballoo in her weekday evenings these days. Seems I've finally worn out both my pairs of TomboyX swim shorts, so I'm going for one tight stretchy one again, but also this "board short":
It's the print that seduced me, but the too-big ones have me psyched for getting a pair that fits.
So there I was in the post office, and a guy three sets of people ahead of me had a pile of boxes to mail, on the bottom of which was a pretty big box. The wait was a little longer than usual, as some hullaballoo was happening at the desk, and at some point the folks two sets in front of me asked him about it, and he explained how it's hard to describe but it's a work of art that's been passed around among family members, tho not his family, and the person who had it most recently (sister of the artist?) has died, so he's sending it to another relative of the artist who's now in the south of Spain, where he and his partner have retired to. They're English, and they sold a little place and got enough money to buy a nice place in Spain, with land and olive trees, and no need to work any more. Package guy called it their Florida.
So then there was some joking about how the woman in the pair of people in front of me would fit inside the package, and we were joking about it being a cheap mode of travel but they might get suspicious with the air holes, etc., and by this point I was ancillarily in the convo too. I'd donned my colorful poncho for this errand, so was feeling like I had a presence in public, to some extent, as someone not hiding nor sort of invisible.
At some point the guy got called up and we wished him luck, and I turned around to see how many folks had gotten in line behind me, and initially was talking to them about the hullaballoo, and how I didn't know what it was about, it'd be going on the whole time I was there, and they were like "At least everyone's cheerful" and I agreed. And then I told them about the package going to Spain, and found out that the woman right behind me had been to Spain a few years ago, and could really see retiring there, and then we were talking about Portugal, which I'd heard ex-pats are digging, and we talked about someone she knows who'll be there for a month this summer to see if it's what it's cracked up to be. And then pretty soon I got to send off the too-big swim trunks.
As I drove home I thought what a throwback it felt like, that bit of talking to strangers who happened to be in public doing a thing people do, and have done for a long time.
There had been one comment while we were there about concerns for the P.O. Those f-ers are going after pretty much everything good in the public sphere.
There was a thing on TV the other night about private equity groups owning hospitals. Lots of hospitals. And ruining them. As if they weren't already in bad enough shape with all the profit taking that has to happen with insurance companies.
It was nice the way all of us in line at the P.O. assumed, and apparently correctly so, that all of us in the line at the P.O. agreed about it being fucked up, what's happening.
But also I just liked the whole many-patron sharing of the mildly interesting story of the have-to-imagine-it art work in the big box and its going to the south of Spain.
I also picked up a passport application, even though I know you can get it online. They've added a bench for passport applicants, and a sign directing such people to the bench.
It's the print that seduced me, but the too-big ones have me psyched for getting a pair that fits.
So there I was in the post office, and a guy three sets of people ahead of me had a pile of boxes to mail, on the bottom of which was a pretty big box. The wait was a little longer than usual, as some hullaballoo was happening at the desk, and at some point the folks two sets in front of me asked him about it, and he explained how it's hard to describe but it's a work of art that's been passed around among family members, tho not his family, and the person who had it most recently (sister of the artist?) has died, so he's sending it to another relative of the artist who's now in the south of Spain, where he and his partner have retired to. They're English, and they sold a little place and got enough money to buy a nice place in Spain, with land and olive trees, and no need to work any more. Package guy called it their Florida.
So then there was some joking about how the woman in the pair of people in front of me would fit inside the package, and we were joking about it being a cheap mode of travel but they might get suspicious with the air holes, etc., and by this point I was ancillarily in the convo too. I'd donned my colorful poncho for this errand, so was feeling like I had a presence in public, to some extent, as someone not hiding nor sort of invisible.
At some point the guy got called up and we wished him luck, and I turned around to see how many folks had gotten in line behind me, and initially was talking to them about the hullaballoo, and how I didn't know what it was about, it'd be going on the whole time I was there, and they were like "At least everyone's cheerful" and I agreed. And then I told them about the package going to Spain, and found out that the woman right behind me had been to Spain a few years ago, and could really see retiring there, and then we were talking about Portugal, which I'd heard ex-pats are digging, and we talked about someone she knows who'll be there for a month this summer to see if it's what it's cracked up to be. And then pretty soon I got to send off the too-big swim trunks.
As I drove home I thought what a throwback it felt like, that bit of talking to strangers who happened to be in public doing a thing people do, and have done for a long time.
There had been one comment while we were there about concerns for the P.O. Those f-ers are going after pretty much everything good in the public sphere.
There was a thing on TV the other night about private equity groups owning hospitals. Lots of hospitals. And ruining them. As if they weren't already in bad enough shape with all the profit taking that has to happen with insurance companies.
It was nice the way all of us in line at the P.O. assumed, and apparently correctly so, that all of us in the line at the P.O. agreed about it being fucked up, what's happening.
But also I just liked the whole many-patron sharing of the mildly interesting story of the have-to-imagine-it art work in the big box and its going to the south of Spain.
I also picked up a passport application, even though I know you can get it online. They've added a bench for passport applicants, and a sign directing such people to the bench.
