Farmer's Market

Today I dragged Jeffrey (and my friend Julie and her husband Jack) to one of Tucson's ephemeral farmers' markets.

They pop up on weekends and have confounding formulas about where they will be and when. Like, for example, the merchants will be there every third Sunday of the month if there is a full moon and it rains a 1/10 of an inch within two days of the scheduled appearance and the month has to have a E in it. Or some other confusing thing that makes it impossible for me to remember to go.

But the one at St. Philip's Plaza is every Sunday from 8-noon. I can remember that. Mostly because the swanky shoe place is there and they open at noon. 

So we popped over and meandered around, bought locally roasted coffee and bell peppers and sampled localish goat cheeses. 

Several things about this particular market stuck out for me: An inordinately large population of standard poodles and Italian greyhounds shopping around with their people, apparently people who like McCain were not invited (the parking lot, as Jeffrey pointed out, looked like that of an Obama rally) and rich people are not always really bright. I had the following conversation with a woman with a very expensive handbag at the goat cheese booth:

Me: "Man, I wish they'd brought the goats. I would have liked to have met them!" 

Rich Lady:  "But would you still be able to eat the cheese?" 

Me: "Why not? Um, I like goats!" 

Rich Lady: "Oh yeah. They don't have to kill them for cheese."

Me: "Nope. But that would suck if they did." Awkward silence. Then just crazy giggling from me and lady who then realized she should have paid attention in preschool. Sigh.

Then I had ANOTHER awkward conversation at said booth with ANOTHER fairly well-kept looking woman about goat's milk:

Me: "Yes, I have heard that people who are lactose intolerant to cow's milk can have goat products."

Woman: "It's more than just that. Insert Earth mother bullshit propaganda about cow's milk and digestions, etc."

Me: "Whatever. I can have cow's milk with no problem so I don't really care. I really like ice cream."

Woman: Dust cloud where woman was once standing leftover from her marching away in a huff... and I'm not really even sure why she was mad at me. I mean, I was BUYING goat cheese. 

Here's a picture of Julie and Jack enjoying goat cheese samples (from very happy alive goats) far away from crazy people. OK, chica in the blue tank top hangover combo might have been not normal ... but I guess Julie didn't get drawn into a convo with her ...

On Saturday Jeffrey and I did a little gardening and added spinach, sugar snap peas, cabbage, onions, cauliflower, lettuces, and some pansies to the garden row. We also ripped out the remaining tomato plant. Now that the weather is cooling down a bit we can plant more than squash. Hopefully it grows!