Mother and baby

More leaves, both from a sycamore tree, one very old and battered and one little one.

Went to the supermarket today. I don't usually go in the afternoon because it's too busy, but for some stupid reason I went in the afternoon today. I hate the supermarket. There's always god-awful music playing (would it kill them to play classical music, or jazz, or something acoustic?). The music this afternoon was someone going Woooah! Wooah! over and over again. I wanted to leave so badly that I threw some stuff in the cart and left some of the non-essentials for another time. It reminded me of the time I had a panic attack at one of the malls (another slice of hell); the noise level was like being physically assaulted. Why? Why does everything have to be so BLOODY LOUD?
    The demographic in this area has changed too. I notice more and more people who look like trailer-trash from People of Wal-Mart. Everyone seems to look like they stepped out of "Deliverance". Baggy overalls, visor caps, baseball jerseys, and fat women who like to flaunt what they've got. I suppose it's now hip to look like poor Americans, some sort of reverse snobbery that I'm not up with. Everyone looks so down at heel, and miserable into the bargain. The best news lately is that the people who run the supermarket (very state of the art and posh) are now going to put in a liquor store right next door. Perhaps they've noticed the new demographic too. We have such a problem with alcohol in New Zealand, so of course the thing we really need is more liquor stores, particularly in an area inhabited by beneficiaries. They can drink themselves into a stupor, while the booze-barons make even more money, to spend on McMansions in gated communities where they can lock out the poor that they created in the first place. We live in a sick world.