The Berkeley Bowl

Last Friday I took Sam to the Berkeley Bowl— this is a market that at first reminded me of Whole Foods in Charlottesville. Nice breads, great selection of cheeses, bulk grains and beans, and outstanding produce. I have finally smelled a Meyer lemon. We tried a Persian cucumber. And there were more heirloom tomatoes than there are heirlooms in your great aunt’s attic. We also saw:

a woman with a beard (a goatee actually, that looked carefully cultivated)

an enormous man riding a mechanized wheelchair, with a blue parrot on his shoulder, and

a guy out front with an old manual typewriter in a cardboard box on his lap. He had a cardboard sign that read “Free Poetry.” As Sam and I walked past, a girl of about 6 or 7, asked him to write a poem about water.

(This is the moment where I could have said to my daughter, “Honey, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” but I was too busy enjoying myself.)