Late winter gray

Today I went uptown to do some shopping. It is a gray day. A typical late winter day. The sky is a featureless solid gray. If one did not know that the sky is blue, one would think that gray is the color of the sky. Ugh.

The only thing good about the sky here in North Dakota is that there are no mountains limiting the view of the large sky. That would enhance the dull depressing impact of the sky's lack of color and light. The larger sky at least gave the feeling of more light. The bad thing is there are no mountains to look at.

People mention that either Spring, Summer, or Fall is their favorite time of the year. This time of year - late winter - is no one's favorite time of year. How could it be so? Gray featureless skies, leafless colorless trees, brown grass, dirty gray snow. It is not very cold, nor is it warming up. One feels like they are in limbo.

While out and about shopping, I decided to visit the local mall. I haven't visited the mall since I came here in December. Not even for Christmas shopping. This is a mall I worked on as a construction laborer many years - decades - ago when I was young.

It was morning when I visited the mall, and a Friday, so I didn't expect many people to be there. There weren't. Most people here work and don't have time to spend a weekday shopping. Minot is a small city in North Dakota. There are not enough people out of the mainstream here to be out and about shopping to give the impression that visiting the mall on a Friday morning is a common or exciting thing to do. At the mall there were probably as many employees as shoppers. The shoppers for the most part either were teenagers or college students, or old and retired people. Excitement was not in the air.

Comparing to my visit last year I noticed many stores were still there, a number were not. The music store was gone. That makes sense in this digital age of music.

I wandered through a few other stores but absolutely nothing interested me to purchase. I half hearted wandered through a few book stores but I have tons of books already yet to read.

I noticed the mall's video arcade has shrunk. No one was there. The games inside looked dull. Decades ago the video games were exciting, now days the better games are on a person's home computer or gameboy.

The novelty store looked tired and repetitive. The merchandice many be new or interesting to teenagers and young people, but I've seen similar stuff before. Been there, done that.

The art/poster gallery seemed to have the same old prints. Some are classic, but I've seen them over and over before. The new stuff seemed to be uninspired. The abstract horse print I saw there last year was gone. Just as well as I still do not have wall space for such a large print.

Wandering through stores seems to be such a pointless exercise when I have no desire or need to buy anything. I have what I need and most everything else just seems to be a waste of effort. Just another item to store, move, dust, etc.

I can't wait until Spring and green grass and color.