Yesterday my friend D and I went to the home and garden show. I’d never been to one before, but have been thinking about doing some stuff in my house (kitchen renovation, new front and back doors, insulation) and thought I might get some ideas there. Also, it was a way to get out of the house for a few hours when it’s still cold and there are piles of dirty snow everywhere and riding my bike or doing anything else outdoors is completely unappealing.
The booths were manned with all manner of aggressive sales people (mostly young men) trying to sell basement waterproofing, bathroom tile, and kitchen cabinets. Decades of introversion served me well as we made our way through the displays. Because I am a well-practiced introvert I am an expert at avoiding eye contact and in fact, pretending to not even see people. I can look right past them as if they did not exist, so none of those adorable young men could buttonhole us to give a sales pitch.
My friend spent almost $100, buying a garden tool, a tile cutter, and jewelry cleaner. (Yes, they were selling jewelry cleaner at a home show. Why? Because they could, I suppose. There were also booths selling baked goods, cinnamon almonds, ugly blown glass vases, and other things that didn’t seem to have much to do with home/garden.) I, on the other hand, bought nothing but got all excited about some beautiful composite countertops made out of recycled soda/beer/wine bottles.
On the way back, we stopped at the big Asian market near the expo center. A friend of mine has been raving about mochi for months now, so I decided I had to have some. Mochi is a sort of Japanese candy made out of glutinous rice flour. I got a package of mango and a package of strawberry. They also had green tea, red bean, sesame, and melon flavors, but those seemed a little hard-core to me.
We also had a good time wandering through the aisles and discovering stuff like red bean popsicles, frozen lemongrass, durian candy, rice cookers, guava paste, etc.
We cracked open the mango flavor mochi and tried it right there in the parking lot outside the market. We both liked it. It’s good, like a big soft overgrown gumdrop with fruit filling inside. Will try the strawberry flavor for dessert tonight.