All this sewing means lots of indoor and sedentary time, so now I’m trying to get out and about for some vitamin D and exercise. Luckily, we are having a most unusual spring here in Seattle. It’s full of sunshine and twittering birds (of the real variety) and people wearing shorts. And what could be sunnier than a mandarin orange? These are called Gold Nugget Mandarins, and are incredibly tasty.

Before K was born, M and I used to live in downtown Seattle and every weekend, I would walk six blocks over to Pike Place Market to do my grocery shopping. I would start with the bread shop, then meander over to the cheese shop, perhaps pop over to the tea shop for Earl Grey loose leaf, and occasionally purchase a bit of salmon from the fish shop. The Italian deli was the place for tomato sauce and thin-sliced ham and cannoli. And so on. I would carry my tourist-y canvas tote with the illustration of Pike Place Market and savor the hefty weight as I added each item. It felt very European and ooh la la.

I got to know many of the shopkeepers and workers. The guy at the fish shop won a makeover on a TV Show (Queer Eye, maybe? I can’t remember now), his name submitted by his girlfriend. He shared snippets of it over a period of weeks as I pondered over Sockeye salmon (loved being on TV, hated the makeover, things got rocky with the girlfriend). The girl at the cheese shop had a crush on a boy at the tea shop. And at the Crumpet Shop, the owner was motherly and charming. Her son — who manned the shop most of the time and was equally charming — was a rapper by night. These little stories and incongruities are my favorite kinds.

I always made sure to make a final stop at the corner produce stand. The mandarins remind me of that produce stand and also make me think a little of ugli fruit (though the mandarins are far prettier). There was a wizened man with a bushy white ponytail who worked there, and he would always joke with me whenever ugli fruit were in season. “Ugly on the outside, sweet on the inside, just like me!” Then he would give me a slice of the fruit and chortle happily to himself. I loved that. When K was born, I strollered her to the produce stand when she was just a few weeks old and ugli fruit happened to be in season.

The old man was there and sliced up the fruit. “Ugly on the outside, sweet on the inside — not like you at all. You’re sweet all over!” he said with delight when he saw K.

The good old days in downtown…of course, I might be romanticizing things a bit since our apartment building did turn into a crack den and one time I found a woman passed out with a needle stuck in her arm in front of the laundry room (it wasn’t always that way but urban living can get dicey sometimes)…but let’s re-focus and train our thoughts on the idyllic quaintness of strolling through Pike Place Market and buying baguettes, shall we?

I’m sentimental. I love familiar jokes, routines, getting to know people’s quirks and habits. I have saved all my letters, most of my emails, pictures taken with non-digital cameras. I hoard memories and interesting encounters. I think we may all have something that feels ugly on the outside, but we all most certainly have sweetness and goodness inside. At least that’s what I hope K will always believe about her innate self and others.

Oh, and I recently discovered these dehydrated mandarins at Trader Joe’s and though they’re shriveled and look like some kind of science experiment, they taste like candy! I love them!