Chess and Shopping
Yesterday, on (one of) the biggest shopping days of the year, I went… shopping. Insane, I know. Oddly enough, it was not a disaster. After an hour or so the headache that usually develops (when I have to make so many decisions over prices and items of clothing and so forth) began to approach, but that was largely due to the barrage of Christmas Carols. I eventually found a way to see the humour in just how dreadful some of the treatments of various songs can be, and that kept me going a bit longer. The Mel Torme (“the velvet fog”) version of “Chestnuts Roasting on an…” (whatever it’s really called) has sunken to a new unanticipated low by having had a strangely irrelevant and mood-altering backbeat added to it for part of the song. I heard this in the Gap, which meant that I left rather hurriedly without buying anything because I was laughing too much. After three hours of this sort of activity in several stores, I came away with essentially one item. One. Sigh.
Anyway, where was I going with this? Well, nowhere in particular, but I thought I’d share my lunch scene with you. I was at Santa Monica for the shopping you see, and part of my agenda was to make the shopping bearable by having a late lunch down at the beach.
I’d packed a sandwich, brought a book and an apple, and everything. On my way, I stopped at a store I regularly stop at to get the best deal in Santa Monica – the aforementioned simple jam tarts. A dollar apiece. I got two. Dessert, you see. They packed them into the usual pink box, and after getting a cup of coffee next door I wandered down to the pier, past the pier, and walked toward the area where all the chess tables are set up. Chess players were there, including many of the regulars I’ve […] Click to continue reading this post
