It's day 2 of "hotpocalypse" here. And we have the added feature of dust from the Sahara blowing in, and they've warned that people with respiratory issues (like asthmatics) may have problems.
I can't tell if it was power-of-suggestion or actual (I run an airconditioner nearly 24/7 so you'd think it would filter out the dust) but I had a tough time getting through the workout this morning.
And I found out from my mom a couple of businesses up there that I liked and patronized have closed, or are closing - Murray's Shoes, which is where I bought my shoes for years and years. They tried to find a buyer but no one bit, I guess. The thing is, they sold nicer shoes that were better for your feet, so their town (like the areas around me) are mostly left with either the super-cheap shoe warehouse type places where people like me have to be *very* careful about shoes (and also - they fall apart easily, that's my experience with the cheap shoes. I don't want to have to replace them after a few wearings) or the few, high-end places (and in my area, I think you have to go to Dallas for that). So I don't know what people who are willing to spend a *bit* more but aren't quite ready for $400 shoes are going to do....especially me. I know, mail order - but I have hard to fit feet (narrow heel and I get blisters like nobody's business if the shoes are at all loose in the heels) and for dress shoes - to be worn with hose or with no stockings - fit is even more crucial.
Also the Fresh Market is going. I'm not entirely surprised, I knew the company as a whole was in trouble but it still makes me sad. It was one grocery store that was pleasant to go to - no harsh lighting, it was quiet, the shelves weren't just metal bolted together. They carried things other places did not.
Here, we have Green Spray, which as I've said is nice enough for what they carry but they tend to have limited stock and are pretty "basic." And Pruett's is nice but again, it's a little too brightly-lit in most of the store for my taste, and while they have become my go-to for produce and meat (because theirs is the best in town), they still don't carry everything I need. So that means I wind up going to...wal-mart (dun dun dun). I've complained at length about wal-mart before - it's loud, because it has high ceilings that echo like crazy, and it's overly lit with fluorescent lights. And the aisles - when they redid the place, they widened the aisles, but then they put "special offers" standing in the middle of some of them and that just narrows them again so only one cart can get through....and a lot of my problems with wal-mart is the way lots of people in it behave; people are pushy or loud or fight with their families. On a crowded day it's a misery to go there, and I admit if I need something and it's something only the wal-mart has, I change my meals for that day not to include it, if it's a busy day (like a Friday afternoon). And they're *terrible* these days about restocking - I went in on Saturday and there were huge swathes of empty shelves (luckily, nothing I needed). And some sections wind up in chaos (their toy section, especially) because they lack the paid staff to tidy.
(And frankly? I kind of hate having to go to multiple stores to get what I need. Pruett's is not so bad because they are kind of on my way home from work and they're rarely as horribly slammed as the wal-mart - though they ARE pretty busy on Payday Fridays - and the cashiers are less surly, which tells me they're probably better-treated)
And so, I don't know. I get that the Fresh Market is very much an upscale phenomenon, and we live (seemingly) in a world where people with Fresh Market money are fewer and fewer, and so the rest of us wind up with the Wal-mart or dollar stores, and because those stores keep their budgets down (and pay staff badly, and have inadequate staff), the experience is just kind of horrible. My usual Wal-mart feeling is "I want to get in, get the stuff I need, pay with a minimum of fuss, and scram." I don't want to browse, especially, or loiter. (And I think the wal-mart knows that, and their habit of randomly rearranging sections is a way of forcing people to browse longer in the hopes they'll find something else to buy).
And yes. I realize how effete it is to complain about how "unaesthetic" the wal-mart experience is, but some weeks, except for work and church, that's the ONLY place I go and....I tend to suffer a bit, emotionally, from a lack of pleasant "third places" in my life.
But then again: as an introvert, and someone who has a strong dislike of noise and chaos, maybe it's not so effete to want a place that doesn't feel overwhelming on a busy day? (How do people with autism manage grocery shopping? I am not but I do have the sometimes-easily-sensorily-overwhelmed-when-it's-too-loud-too-bright-and-too-hot tendencies)
(I wish we had an Aldi. It would probably do well here and people who have them tell me the prices are competitive with wal-mart, but the quality is generally better. But again: you can't always find everything you want)
The Bergner's up in my parents' town is closing, too. (I don't remember if the Sears is, but if it is - that means the one remaining enclosed mall has gone from five anchor stores: JC Penny, Sears, Bergner's, Kohl's, and Famous-Barr/Macy's, to one (Kohl's).
I know the mall nearest me - the Midway Mall, which I've not been in in years - has a Dillard's left, but that's about it.
And, I don't know. Maybe I'm being a little "tinfoil hattie" here but I feel like this is just another part of what I've referred to as the "hollowing out of the middle" - where it seems for those of us who are ostensibly middle-class (and actually, except for some of the medical professionals and maybe the high mucky-mucks in the casino, I'm probably one of the richer people in town, with my roughly-$60K-a-year income) don't really have options left - we can save our money for months upon months and maybe mail-order something from Nordstrom's*, or we can go buy cheap crud at the wal-mart that falls apart after a few washings (or, if you're like me, and you have the skill - and the time, which I don't often have - you make your own clothes. Yup, that's partly why I do it - I know I can get a better made product when I do it myself. I'm not quite there with jeans and trousers yet because I do find that Lee's fit me acceptably, but when I want a dress or skirt, it's frankly simpler to buy fabric and grab one of my favorite patterns....)
(*Or, I suppose, go into debt up to one's eyeballs, but I was not raised that way, so I'm left saving my pennies to be able to pay cash. I am the child of Depression-baby, Silent-Generation parents who themselves came from frugal families...)
I've also heard some people lately saying it's even hard to find decent clothes shopping online....which makes me kind of sad.
(Although, then again: I've had good luck with Vermont Country Store. So maybe what we have to do is seek out the "little guys" like them, and patronize them. I've been v. happy with the M.Mac dress I bought from them, and I keep thinking I should get another in a different style: I really like the Morning Glory dress, but again, $75 for a dress, while it's easily worth that (and I bet the people who made it are decently treated - it is made in the US), that's a fair amount of money for me, and I'd have to think about it and probably budget for it. But maybe eventually I will get one, or will ask for one for Christmas....)
I think of a joke (except it's not really a joke) my grandmother used to tell, about a girl getting ready to go out to a dance, and she says, "Should I wear my newest dress, my blue dress, or the one I wore before?" and the punchline is they are all the same dress....and yes, that's how people in my family lived up to my generation, and so I still have some of those attitudes. Someone complimented me the other day on a dress (one I had made) and I was literally "You know....this is like 20 years old!" And it was. I try to take care of my clothes - treat stains when they happen, wash them gently, hang them up. I've gotten better at changing into really OLD things for hard work (I have a designated pair of khakis and shirt - though those khakis are close to failing utterly, they either blow out in the thighs or get worn through in the knees) and saving my good clothes, but I know my mom used to gripe a little at my dad about going out to clean the garage in a dress shirt (but she also recognized that behavior's origin: my paternal grandmother complained about how my grandfather would change the oil in good pants and a white dress shirt...)
But yeah. I wonder if we are headed back for a time when a lot of people have relatively few clothes and have to care for them (as a rebellion against the "cheap couture" of poorly-made stuff that is probably made under not-very-nice conditions for the makers). Or maybe we're heading for some kind of bimodal culture, where there are some people who are willing to pay more and have less stuff, but have it be better-made stuff that lasts (that would be me: I'd rather pay twice as much for a skirt and have it last 10 years than get some inexpensive thing that only lasts 4) and another group who still wants the "fast couture" or whatever it's called. (If you're in the first group, you either look for "classic" designs or don't mind dressing a little idiosyncratically. And anyway, if stuff looks dated fast, it more commonly is that fast-couture stuff. And one trend I'd like to see die? The "cold shoulders" look where there are cutouts on the shoulders of a top.)
I was talking the other night about all the repairs I did. At one point I looked at the yellow fingerless mitts (they were the worst, and are the ones I found a couple of holes in AFTER washing after I thought I'd repaired them) and wondered: "You have a lot of fingerless mitts. Why not just trash this pair?" But I remember the work that went into them, and also I *like* that pair. And I have the yarn and the skill and the time, so why NOT fix them?
And maybe that's a little difference people learn, when they have the chance to make stuff? They know the work that goes into it, and maybe value it a bit more? I don't know. I know I have gotten very fussy about food in certain ways, with knowing how to cook: I find a lot of pre-prepared commercial stuff tastes a lot worse than it looks, and in a lot of cases I wind up going, "Wow, I could make that better and cheaper at home"
(One exception: barbecue. It is almost impossible to make proper barbecue at home unless you own a smoker. So that's why, if I'm going out to eat and I am choosing the place, I almost always choose barbecue. I figure: if you're going to a restaurant, get something you CAN'T make at home, or that they can make better than you can. Though maybe I'm a better cook than most people, I don't know)
But I suppose this is me, a not-quite-old-yet woman yelling at a cloud, but: it does seem that the world is changing in a lot of ways for the worse. Fewer small local stores where the owners/buyers for the store knew what local tastes and interests were, fewer places that sell really good quality stuff knowing that people won't necessarily be back in six weeks (and that people seem to TOLERATE that stuff is poorly made and is designed to be replaced on a regular basis**), stores that are nice to go into instead of loud and bright and chaotic....and yes, it does drive me more and more to look online for things, because going out sometimes feels like too much...
(**I wonder also if this is something that feeds the constant yard sales you see - one thing I've noticed is that some people change their home decor extremely frequently....they buy the various gew-gaws that places like Bed, Bath, and Beyond sells, and then tire of them, and replace them with new in six months....but something must be done with the old ones, so, yard sale. And yeah, that's their right to do that but that's just so different from how I operate - I took part in a few yard sales in my life and MAN that is a hard way to either get rid of stuff or raise money, and also, I get attached to the various decorative stuff I have (much of it bought from antiques shops or inherited through family) and I want to keep it forever, never mind that my house decor doesn't change over time. I do have some "seasonal" stuff I put out, especially at Christmas, but that's different from going to, say "nautical theme" and then changing that out for "Asian-inspired decor" and then going to, I don't know "Nature neutrals" or some such. And I shouldn't judge, it's just....to me it seems tedious to have to constantly update and then DEAL with the leftover old stuff.
But I'm the kind of person who can cry over a broken tea mug - "because I LIKED it!" - so what do I know)
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