Saipua is closed today, Friday, July 11.

Sob story of the day is that after work I tried to visit Saipua in Red Hook, with a dead phone and asking directions many times along the way, but it was closed and locked. The only sign I was in the right place was a hellebore drying on the sidewalk by the door and a faint smell of herbal soap.

Two good things happened along the way, though. The first was that I stopped in to an antiques & collectibles store in Carroll Gardens and I found these things.

I've wanted a little clock for a long time & the Muji ones seem to get pricier the smaller they get...?

This one has a nice, streamlined "pull out & turn to set time, push in & turn to set alarm" feature. Not sure what the alarm sounds like yet but assuming it's sort of classically unpleasant. It has a half-glow, which I hope is a sweet night-light, and it PLUGS IN via a long cord.

It reminds me of a grandfather.
That there behind it is a BOOK.

Next up is this tiny shaded clip-on lamp. I can't believe I found it. I have one very modern one that I bought from A.I. Friedman, which I LOVE, but the bulb died & since it's sort of a special bulb it probably means I'll never use the damn lamp again.

I've clipped it onto our spice rack in what's at once our kitchen and the hallway to our bathroom.

The second good thing I mentioned that happened was this. In our neighborhood, a block or so away, lives the owner of a very nice, shiny, cream-colored SUV (do people even say that anymore?) with a grinning orange creature airbrush-painted on the side of it, ostensibly WHIZZING through space as shown by its cometlike streak of a body. It's super odd-looking because of what a nice car it is otherwise. As I stood outside Saipua moping, I noticed in no less than shock that THERE WAS THE CAR, parked right there in front of the shop, all the way out in Red Hook. How great. It's times like this I wish I had an aerial map to see how two people went about their day to end up in the same place, knowingly or otherwise.