Never Was Into the Whole Mass Consumption Thing

I never understood the appeal of overconsumption. The whole idea of getting up at 2AM in order to queue up in front of a store before engaging in a melee/feeding frenzy repulses me (and, for the record, I am often up at 2AM, and I actually enjoy fighting). I sat out Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, and will take a pass on Cyber Monday. Rather than brave the traffic near the malls, I headed over to the Hudson River for a walk before heading to work. The wind has been ferocious, with sustained speeds of thirty miles per hour, so the day felt a lot colder than the mercury would indicate. The wind raised whitecaps on the water's surface, and whipped spray over the seawall. The afternoon sun slanting through a break in the clouds suffused the gray waters with a faint golden hue:





The picture really doesn't do justice to the color of the water- it was an enchanting gray/gold (I am thinking of a non-existent poem now, Nothing Gray Can Stay- Borges would have handled this sort of thing with much more aplomb than I). Miraculously, I found some Concord grapes still clinging tenaciously to the vine, their faint sweetness combining with the cold ambient temperature to create a delicious effect.

I'll trade whitecaps on the Hudson for Black Friday in the mall anyday.