Won’t you join us for some junking in Kansas City?

(The one on the right is my little sis.)

First, we’ll have some fortification. How about a mess of Ethiopian food?

Nothing like njera bloat to raise your game. Luckily, you’re with the Rudder sisters. We can scour an antique mall dragging our broken legs behind us and still come away with an unnecessary bargain or ten. It’s in our blood.

I love the randomness of crap. For instance, the sacred heart of eat-a-snax:

And this wall of tribal masks, which may be the raddest thing I’ve ever seen (and you must imagine me with my tongue out, throwing rock and roll devil horns, as I type that):

Speaking of horns, I was tempted by El Toro and his manly places:

His name is Chuck. As in the roast, I’m guessing:

Somehow mamacita here seems incomplete. Let’s see…beach hat, on. Lipstick, applied. Joey, enpouched. But where is her cigarette?

Perhaps it’s in her pocketbook.

How’d you like to share your bedroom with this happy couple? Brrrr:

Speaking of bedrooms, that’s for private time when the door is closed, you naughty, naughty monkey:

Archie gets a less jowly version of this look, where his forehead gets all pleated:

Movie tie-in! I found a wild thing, or maybe it’s Ferdinand the lonely bull:

The mall has three massive floors with a pretty good dreck-to-acceptable ratio. While it’s mostly filled with unwantables, there are a good number of modern oddments and midcentury delectables, with enough quirk to send me shivering. The upper floors are, ah, rustic, though, and the flooring’s a little airy for my taste:

That’s the first floor, as seen from the second floor, by the way…

Whew, quite an adventure, and we escaped for less than ten bucks each. Now we just need to make a quick stop here before we put our pajamas on:

Thanks for shopping!

I’d spare us all this one, but a deal is a deal and a goal is a goal and if I offer my dad five (count ‘em, FIVE) American dollars, do you suppose he’d ferry the mutts down here for me, so we could commence with the entangled cuddlement of return?

Today began at the hour of the sparrow’s fart, and involved:

A shuttle ride through Denver dawn with a group of older execs from big pharma, who ambled through the do you know who-and-ifs and have you seen thus-and-suches, while I took sunrise snapshots on my phone through the chiaroscuro of grime on the windows.

By the time we were approaching the airport, talk had turned to family. One father bitched gently about kids today, with their outscale expectations, saying, “Back then, I had a Doberman and a dirtbike, and life was good.”

The cattle-prod whateverdom of modern flight, with the airport security lines and the moving walkways and your fellow passengers, all fetal with sleepiness. The flight was fine, no drama until the end when the snotbag flight attendant insisted on walking me through the iphone shut-down process, as if I were thick, and not merely resistant. And now, of course, my phone is fritzy, caught in a cycle where every button I push makes it take a picture of itself. If I can get it to reboot, I will have many shots of the homescreen (I am death on the iphones; must be all that personal magnetism.)

A three hour drive from the Kansas City airport, which was unremarkable except for the blinky-starey exhaustion I felt and all the cheek-slapping I did to keep myself awake and on the road. I did make a detour through an antique mall in St. Joe, overstuffed with the sort of vintage horrors that make me want to purge everything, become a minimalist, a stuff-anorexic. Give me a white room with a white bed, and a white table with three grey rocks arranged artfully on top.

An epic nap from which I could barely awaken; one of those overtaking numbers that make you feel weighted, medicated, dopily underwater. I’m still coming out of that, in fact, and I am sad to say it’s already dark o’clock, which makes me think I won’t stray much from this place tonight. Maybe as far as the bathtub, then back here for more lounging in my own bed. The best part of being away is coming home to what’s yours (even if that’s just three grey rocks, or two small dogs, or one well-slept bed).