Blondie stopped to make some cold-calls for her employer, the small company who installs permanent shade structures, on our way back from the bank this morning. She initially wanted to stop at a Dairy Queen on Thousand Oaks who had an outdoor patio without a shred of shade to it… really, why would someone want to sit on a hard metal or concrete bench and eat their burgers, fries and slurpee out in the broiling hot sun? And there were trees all around all the other shops in this particular little strip mall… so why wouldn’t they consider investing in a permanent metal structure holding a stout and colorful weather-proof canvas shade over the patio area.

The middle of this parking lot was like a pocket park in a European city; fenced off with that fancy metal fence, shaded with lots of trees and a little pavilion in the middle, which had one particularly Texas element to it. It had one of those misters all around the edge of the roof – it’s supposed to make it a little cooler, sitting underneath. I guess it’s just dry enough here to evaporate the mist and make it seem cooler. But it’s not really a park for humans – it’s for dogs. Actually, the place is a dog day-care center. And to judge by all the dogs who were romping in it, it seems to be pretty popular. Anything to keep a large pet from getting bored, neurotic and destructive, I guess. The Lesser Weevil wreaked a path of destruction during that time that I had to leave her to go out to a regular job. I guess taking them to doggie day care is still less expensive than having them shred the back yard and eat the porch furniture

But this place had another delight – a grocery/deli/meat market specializing in Middle Eastern foods. Blondie was ecstatic, and I was pretty impressed – here’s were I would go if I really wanted large quantities of Indian spices, and things like lavash bread and pickled garlic. They had huge bricks of Bulgarian feta cheese and all sorts of wonderful foods, breads and candies that we hadn’t seen in simply ages, imported from Greece, Bulgaria, Syria, India and Pakistan.

Like Kinder-Eggs. Blondie loved them, when her best friend in Spain – whose family had previously been stationed in Germany – fell on them in the little San Lamberto candy store with cries of happy delight. It was the only kind of chocolate that Blondie really liked. Kinder-Eggs are sort of the German version of Cracker-Jack, only the toys are a whole heck of a lot nicer and you aren’t picking out popcorn hulls from between your teeth. For those who have never encountered them, they are a foil-wrapped chocolate confection the size and shape of a jumbo hens’ egg – a thin milk chocolate layer with a very thin pseudo white-chocolate layer inside… and inside the hollow chocolate eggshell is a plastic capsule about an inch and a half long and an inch in diameter with a small toy of some kind inside – which usually has to be assembled. Blondie bought a pair, which we ate in the parking lot. She says they tasted as good as ever. Her toy was a little squid, which once assembled, squirts about a teaspoon of water. The store was deserted; we were the only shoppers. The owner says this is his slow time, when all of his customers go home to wherever for the summer. But he says things will pick up in the fall. I hope so – it’s a dandy specialty grocery store. It’s called the Taj Mahal. Can’t miss it, as it’s right behind the dog park.

Not a bad way to spend a Thursday morning, actually.