The crusty old Red Apple in Eugene's seediest neighborhood is the best little grocery store. There's always something on the shelves I've never seen before, or can't get at any other store, and usually they have the best prices, too. I stopped there after work trying to get inspired about what to do for dinner, and there in the meat section were what I thought at first to be crawdads, but which were in fact whole sweet shrimp, packed up with legs, antennas, heads. I wanted to buy them not only because I thought it would please S, who likes to know what he's eating, but also I admit because I wanted to examine the creepy crawly things. They're strange blue bug-like things, with bulging eyes and super-long spidery legs. Their claws are long and thin and have a strange rubbery exterior on the tips, probably for clinging to slippery rocks or pulling edible slime from the crevises of the tide pools. They have a big hooked horn rising from the center of their carapace. S tested this horn like it was a knife blade and marvelled at its sharp serrated edge.

After I cut the heads from the tails, he chased his cat around with the long-antenna'd blue-legged "monster" head, but cat was uninterested.

I used butter and garlic and made scampi, which we ate with fresh corn and an avocado. The shrimp were delicious-- tasted like little lobsters. The best meals are totally impromptu, and cost less than $4.

After dinner I got S to stretch with me; all his muscles were tight from stress and from moving big boxes of books all day long. I finally made him lie down on the floor and roll around until he could move without groaning. Rubbed his back and neck and told him to relax his self, which is often easier said than done.

Closing the business is difficult, as is the knowledge that we have to be out of the building in a week from Sunday, and that everything in the shop has to fit into our house and garage. We don't have a very big house. We're talking floor to ceiling bookshelves in every room except the kitchen and bathroom. I'm still incredulous about all the people who had walked into the shop and said in that rude Eugene I-need-an-enema voice, "Oh, you don't have very many books. I have more books than this at home." Oh, really? If that's truly the case then maybe they wouldn't mind helping me move...