Shiny things on rainy days always bring me up

It’s been a mon­soon week­end in New Eng­land, spurts of mis­er­able driz­zle inter­spersed with lash­ings of rain.  We went to brunch yes­ter­day morn­ing, despon­dent at the idea of con­sum­ing less than a thou­sand calo­ries for break­fast at home, and mean­dered our way back, after­ward, stop­ping for presents (I’m going to be an aunt!) and acci­dent reports at the police sta­tion.  On what the zon­ing board geek in me calls a mixed commercial-industrial use sec­tion of the street where we were walk­ing, our eyes spied a truck from the restau­rant we’d just eaten at.  It was parked out­side a restau­rant and party sup­ply place, set back from the street, that nei­ther of us had ever really reg­is­tered before.

Restau­rant and kitchen sup­ply stores are right up there with book­stores and sta­tionery stores as caves of won­der for me, and the sheer amount of shiny stain­less steel makes the Bet­ter Half’s eyes glaze over, too.  We didn’t buy any­thing, just tooled up and down the aisles admir­ing five-gallon vats of mus­tard and olives, and pre­tend­ing like we had a use for ten gal­lon stock­pots.  It’s nice, the sur­prises you find in what you thought were famil­iar places.