off duty and busted

one of the senior women in the Programs offered to take me to hear the Cincinnati Pops at Riverbend. so last night, i met her at her lovely home and we proceeded to hear a selection of Tchaikovsky outdoors along the river between KY and OH.

i drove to her house first. she and her husband live in a lovely house along a rural road. they have returned the entire property to native species and reintroduced the stream and a small pond to the front yard. it is gorgeous. she thinks it is a little wild -- and it is -- but my kind of wild. this move -- from manicured lawn to xeriscape nature preserve has invited all manner of fauna to return. so there are all kinds of birds and butterflies and bees and dragonflies at the home. and they placed it under conservancy with the three valley trust. it is grand.

the music was great! you know of my enthusiasm for live performances so i was especially happy to be outside. the built environment of riverbend is a little tired, but it was grand. nature provided her own tympani as a storm rolled in offering a score of dramatic thunder and bright flashes of lightening.

as we wheeled out of her driveway, however, in her handmedownfromherparents totally lux mercedes, she brought up wal-mart. i swear i cannot recall how it came up, but it did. she boasted how she has never been into the supercenter near my place and she speculated that she never will. she made a vow at christmas 2006 to shop for gifts only at the uptown stores. she so enjoyed that experience that she resolved never to shop at bigbox retailers again.

nervously, i fingered my new treasure, a pleasing pink faded glory tee-shirt sundress and congratulated her on her fortitude. at the end of the drive, i inquired about purple coneflowers.