Assigment Day Eight: Go to a local café, park, or public place and report on what you see. Get detailed: leave no nuance behind. Twist of the day: don’t use adverbs.
It’s Wednesday.
Hump day, as some people call it.
For me, that means something different: Wednesday is Farmer’s Market Day.
On this day of the week, two parking lots in the downtown area are repurposed to accommodate small, medium and bigger stands laden with fresh, local produce. Most of the fruit, vegetables, herbs, and other delicacies is organic, so the joy of browsing, touching, smelling and in the end tasting is a wise choice for your health and for your conscience. Double-Yay!
Summer is approaching fast, and with this bountiful season come stone fruit, berries, greens, flowers, and so much more.
Today’s weather is gloomy. It is overcast, a layer of fog and clouds covers the city. A breeze is stirring, this time not bringing warm pre-summer winds but a chill. My habit is to take what I need when I go to the market: cash in the pocket, bags in the hand, nothing useless or unnecessary. Today, my sweater accompanies me in addition to these items. This is unusual for me, but the weather of the last few days often gave me the shivers. It has been a while since my sweater “saw” the market surroundings. I think he liked the outing…
The smell of fresh red strawberries wafts over me upon arrival. Their vivid red color seems to shout “Buy me, take me home!”, their juicy smell supports the enticing offer and makes my brain think of shortcakes, jam and berry yogurt. Today, I stay adamant and resist. I have a basket of strawberries and raspberries in the fridge, and don’t want them to spoil because I couldn’t withstand the temptation.
I succumb to another one. Fuzzy soft skin catches my eye, I see soft pink flesh sitting in a sample container. Peaches. They will come home with me, no questions asked. The friendly guy at the stone fruit stands hands me half a doughnut peach to taste it. Heaven. A handful of summer, hitting my tastebuds like a pinball. Juice sticks to my fingers, but I don’t care. Delicious stickiness that I don’t mind on this early afternoon.
To make the transition into my bag easier for the peach, I add some of his buddies: tree ripe apricots which hung on a tree not too long ago. Their velvety skin caresses my fingers. Nectarines, the smooth-skinned cousins of the peaches. Green and dark violet pluots, shiny, firm, juicy. In the bag they go, and I can see death in their near future. A family tragedy, that is.
Lush green leaves top red radish heads in various shades. Their green competes with tiny salad heads, broccoli, romanesco. Next to them, tiny yellow pattypan squash, shaped like UFOs, let the sun shine on the table, amidst other summer squash in emerald green hues. White onions offer a stark contrast to orange baby carrots, and some artichokes and butterball potatoes mediate with softer tones of green and creamy beige. Some of it wanders into my bag.
Fruit was what I had in mind when I left the house on this gloomy Wednesday. The market with the omnipresent colors of fruit and vegetables and flowers and all the people lifts my spirits, makes the clouds and the grey dullness disappear for some time. Apart from the olfactory and gustatory perks of the outing, I love the atmosphere itself. It cheers me up. Buzzing like a beehive, the sound of people talking and inquiring about this and that, meeting friends, stopping for a chat with someone they have not seen for ages or days. It’s a feeling of community, and I cherish this feeling and take it home with me. It is easy to forget that the sun does not shine on a daily basis in California, no matter what. And it is good to remember that stimuli appealing to all senses like the ones on the Farmer’s Market are there to fight the dreariness and the “fog blues”.
Adverbs. I use more of them than I thought. Tough exercise. Hope I didn’t miss any. 🙂
The challenge and the original assignment can be found here: Writing 101 – Day Eight
hubilicious 
Nicely written! Very evocative of a place very different to where I am. (And I know what you mean about adverbs…)
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You are excellent. I love your site.
Much Respect
Ronovan
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Thank you @ronovan. That is something you definitely do not hear every day, and coming from a fellow blogger that I just discovered over the last few days during this challenge, but already appreciate very much, that means a lot. THANKS!
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