(no subject)

[mrissa]

So. Freakin'. Tired.

timprov actually has a post about the doctor visit of this morning. We've been playing phone tag trying to get his next appointment set up (different doctor). We classify this as progress. (Umm. As I was writing this, the person called back to schedule the next appointment, and the first opening she had was late June. So we're going to call around to see if we can get something better than that, because...no. Not okay, really.)

markgritter also actually has a post about how he's doing. So really, I'm not in charge of telling you people for once.

I adore Byerly's so much. Sometimes I think I should use the line from War for the Oaks in my lj bio: "'I have it on good authority that anything that can be got at all can be got at Byerly's.'" Yah. For true. And for important, too. I now have things for tonight dinner and tomorrow dinner, and they can be lovely and tasty and at least moderately healthy. And I'm even a little excited about them, even as tired as I am, because they will be so good. Ohhhhh, Byerly's goodness.

I went and poked around until I found the old journal entry with that quote in it, "In Which We House Hunt With the Not-Dead Ghost of Emma Bull." You know what? The people who told me to prepare to be disappointed moving back here were wrong. It is, in fact, all that, plus whatever groceries you like. It is all that and a bag of chips purchased at Byerly's. Go read that entry if you want more Mrissa Story right now. I'll try to come back with what I promised jmeadows I'd tell tonight, but right now I'm just ready to lie down and stare at the ceiling for awhile. I probably won't. But I'm ready to.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Speaking of people moving, Emma Bull is. (Will Shetterly is moving too, obivously. I like his stuff also, but Emma is one of my All-Time Faves, for both War for the Oaks and Freedom and Necessity.) They're going to be moving from about a four-hour drive from me (Bisbee) to about 1.5 - 2 hours away, depending where in Tucson they move to.

Not that it really makes any difference, since I'm not planning to go knock on their front door (singing Richard Thompson and Boiled in Lead tunes to establish credibility, naturally -- but not Prince, no matter *what* she wrote about him in the 1980s) or even go to one of their writing workshops. But it seems like a cool thing somehow, that they're moving so close.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Having nifty people nearby is a good thing. Especially when they do things such that you might meet them without knocking on their door bellowing, "Rah, rah, Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen!" Not that that's a bad thing, but maybe a bad ice-breaker.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

Late June is NOT, in fact, AT ALL acceptable.

For god's sake.

*grumbles and chews on things*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad to hear you say that, hon. If you'd said, "No, that's the way it has to be with the resources they have," it'd be discouraging. More on e-mail.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

*adds Byerly's to the things-for-Peg-to-visit-in-Minnesota list*

(I keep meaning to tell you, my sibs-in-law just moved to Bayport.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's lovely lovely lovely. Lund's will also do, owned by the same people. You should probably make them take you to the Ridgedale one if they're comfortable in the Cities. The clerks at my Byerly's tell me it makes the rest of them look like Food 4 Less-es. (Foods 4 Less?)

If you get to town to see them, let us know and we'll have you for dinner or meet you somewhere or something.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"'I have it on good authority that anything that can be got at all can be got at Byerly's.' Yah. For true."

Not even close. For that you have to go to a Japanese department store.

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Japanese department stores carry lefse???

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

They carry cantaloupes that cost one hundred dollars and they carry tombstones, so there's no reason the think they don't carry lefse.

K.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The $150 musk melon. And the artisinal sakes, of course.

It's where I bought my totoro tie, and my totoro dishes.

I've bought the neatest travel shogi set I've ever seen at one of them.

And lots of Japanese paper.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You don't understand. They sell tombstones. They sell life insurance, and vacations. They have enormous grocery stores that have lots of Western foods -- I'll ask about the lefse next time I'm there. They have beautiful bowls that cost tens of thousands of dollars. They have huge bookstores. They have more Japanese toys than you can possibly imagine. You can buy automobile tires, and probably even automobiles. In the basement they sell all sorts of prepared foods to bring home, and on the top floor there are a dozen different restaurants. The large ones take up two city blocks -- with walkways across the street -- and are eight stories tall.

I suppose you can't buy real estate at one, but maybe you can.

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In fact, I did understand that. The lefse was a non-random choice.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I guessed that. But I didn't understand the choice. If the point is that you can buy anything at Byerly's, then an obvious speciality of a traditional ethnicity in the area Byerly's services is hardly a good illustration of that point. You'd expect Byerly's to carry lefse, just as you'd expect a Mexican grocery story to carry tamarinds.

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Okay, so the point in the entry itself:

--I am glad to be home.
--There is an extremely comfy-to-me store in my home that carries things that cater specifically to my wants, needs, and tastes.
--I am willing to quote other people's obvious hyperbole to join in their praise of that store. (At least, I thought it was obvious that it was hyperbole, both within the context of the original book and within the context of this journal entry. You know and I know that Byerly's does not sell even close to everything one could want or even everything I personally could want. Books and women's clothing are both conspicuously absent, without even resorting to life insurance. So the idea that this would be taken so literally did not occur to me.)

Then the point of lefse as an example, keeping the above in mind:
--Other places in the world certainly have things that this store does not -- and in some cases certainly have more things than this store has -- but they are not necessarily my things, and some of the places with larger total selection will omit things that rate fairly highly on my personal scale of what is and is not important. Lefse is an example of something disproportionately important to me, available at Byerly's, and fairly likely not to be available in a Japanese department store.