Annnnnd... It's Still There.

Had a day out with my wife and her Dad, but it was the third stop that inspired this post. We started at the local town farmer's market. Strawberries are just coming into season here in Kommiecticut, and my wife was looking for some fresh and local to make strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream. It was kinda drizzly out and there were only a few vendors at the market. No strawberries but she did pickup a block of fresh sharp cheddar cheese.

Next was on to the flea market held every Sunday at the Mansfield Drive-In. My wife was looking for a couple of more plants for her seasonal floral setup on the back deck, and she said the flea market is a great place to get plants at a discount over the greenhouses. I wandered around looking at lots of junk. An item that caught my eye early on was on the table along with some other assorted tube powered electronics; a CRT pattern generator in a carrying case with a mirror in the lid. The guy didn't know or care what it was, he just said "ten bucks." I documented my use of these 40+ years ago in this post where I detailed my work in a TV repair shop doing 25" picture tube replacements in console TV's. While a neat thing to have, I am not going to start an electronics collectible display in my house so I just walked away. There is a building on the property that was once a huge chicken coop, but is now the indoor portion of the flea market. Most of the spaces inside are permanently occupied by vendors with large assortments of stuff like at a tag sale. One guy had quite the display of knives and swords, along with models, train sets, and other high end toys, so I spent a little extra time in there. I was tempted to buy a modern kukri that had a kydex sheath and a composite handle. It was $30 and I definitely would have bought it, except it was made in CHY-NAH. I'll pass, even though the real ones would be made in Nepal which China likes to think it rules. Anyway, my wife found a nice full geranium for her welded tricycle plant stand on the deck and we left to go get lunch.

I suggested we go to the Willimantic Brewing Co otherwise known as WilliBrew for burgers and a beer which was only about 10 minutes away and my wife and her Dad were good with it. We were last there a little over a year ago, and in this post I wrote about the mentally ill freak on the waitstaff. I was hoping that with either the passing of a year, or the shortage of help in the restaurant business these days, it had moved on elsewhere or at least wasn't working there today. The parking lot was full but the restaurant was not, in a case of every single patron driving their own car? Who knows, we got seated right away at a table that gave me a good tactical advantage and ability to see everything in my A.O. I look up and what do I see? Yup, the freak from last year is still there and was working today. Dammit, now I am hoping it does not come our way to be our server because if it does, I am moving or leaving. Nope, it was working the other end of the restaurant, while we had a very nice and kinda cute 100% real woman waitress not suffering from gender confusion due to mental illness. The freak stayed far away and we had an enjoyable meal. I had a "build your own" burger and a dark lager, my wife had a lobster roll and Diet Coke, and my father-in-law had a Reuben and a lager. My FIL and I both dislike IPA's, and really can't stand the double and triple IPA's. But it seems that what most breweries specialize in, so you have to really peruse the beer menu to find something else.

When we left, we made a quick stop at BJ's in Willimantic. We picked up a few of our regular sundries and my wife got an angel food cake and some heavy cream for whipping but passed up on the strawberries from out west or down south. When we were leaving BJ's, I suggested stopping at Stearn's Farm Stand high up on the hill in Mansfield to see if they had any. Bingo! She came out of the store with 2 quart containers of local strawberries. OMG were they delicious, just sliced up on their own. The fresh angel food cake and her homemade whipped cream made a complete tasty treat. My chickens got the strawberry tops for an afternoon treat of their own.