Straight out of central casting...

...must be where they found the sweet little old lady selling "Vt Garlic" at the farmer's market today. She was seated by herself next to the info booth, wearing a straw hat with bright flowers on it, and a flowery dress topped with, you guessed it, a flowery apron. What little garlic she had left by the time I got there--at 12:55, and the market opened at noon--was in a big basket in her lap. "Seventy-five cents each," she replied in her sweet-little-old-lady warble when I asked her the price. "Northeast Kingdom" was her warbled response to my question about what part of the state she was from.

I dug three quarters out of my change purse and plopped them in her outstretched hand, then grabbed a dusty bulb from her basket and headed home. What I really wanted to do was hitch a ride with her so I could sit on the swing on her sleeping porch eating cookies off mismatched chipped porcelain plates and drinking milk from a glass bottle while she told me stories about the good old days. I sort of wanted to gobble her up, and I hightailed it out of there so as not to freak her out with my I-wish-my-great-aunt-Eileen-was-still-alive-longing. Because that's who she reminded me of and all my memories of great-aunt Eileen are sweet.