The Happy Woman Store

So, what is there for one to do in Traverse City, on a Wednesday evening in late July? First, a lovely meal at Red Ginger (I had the Vietnamese Shrimp….yummy. More shrimp than I could ever eat in a spicy sweet barbecue sauce.) and then a movie premiere! This week, the Traverse City Filmfest is in town and our small, sweet town is full of movie hungry tourists. We saw the world premiere of The Youngest Candidate, a documentary by former Michael Moore assistant, Jason Pollock. It follows the lives of 4 teenagers running for office in various parts of the country and it was funny and honest and completely entertaining.

The movie was packed and right before it started, Christine Lahti snuck into a seat a few rows behind us. Yes, THAT Christine Lahti. After the movie, Michael Moore and Jason Pollock talked about the film and to our surprise, two of the candidates from the film were in the audience seeing the film for the first time, too. They were invited onto the stage for questions and answers. And, since we’d just seen them in the movie, it was like seeing movie stars. All in all, one divine summer evening in Traverse City.

The other day while I was playing in the front yard with Coco, I stumbled upon a drama across the street. Our neighbor was having a 3 thousand foot tree cut down. I found it fascinating, primarily because I’ve never seen it done and always kind of thought it was accomplished with a hatchet and somebody shouting TIMBER! (ala any Saturday morning cartoon featuring a rabbit as the star). Actually, it is done in stages with small sections of the tree being cut away and then hauled down with a rope.

I have to admit that I watched this drama unfold with the enthusiasm of a seven year old. The big log on the ground kinda sorta fell by mistake (I know this because the guy up in the tree said a very bad word when it happened) and made this huge THUD which caused our neighbor to come scurrying out of his house.

Finally, after a very long time (during which I should have been contemplating getting a life, but was instead watching with avid fascination), the tree was gone.

And just to show you that I wasn’t kidding about that 3 thousand foot part, here is a picture of some of our trees (which, God forbid, we should ever have to chop down).