so long, saint louis...and stop being clingy.

photo by reverend aitor

today we left our saint louis family with many hugs, plans for crafty exchanges and a strange smell emanating from the car (but more on that later).

we stopped in on circa, belleville illinois' best boutique as far as i am concerned. sorry, other shops, but andria is the only one who carries my stuff in town. why do i never take pictures there? i honestly do not know. it is quite a lovely shop with an equally attractive and charming owner.

after departing belleville, we drove into the big city and stopped to visit cranky yellow, a shop run by some excitable artists we met last year at strange folk. their store and gallery spaces occupy a very specific and loud aesthectic of plastics, kitch, humour, eyeballs and crochet afghans...and more. or, as the title of their current window display expresses so pointedly "crap glued to other crap." there is no slight in this. it works. and i was very happy to add a collection of sweetie pie press commissioned artist sets to the miasma of colour.

angelo pointed out how well my outfit morphed into the store as a whole. he also said i looked like the mayor of papertown. fair. and flattering.

i was also lucky enough to be entirely bought out of loose buttons (once again) by avalon exchange (formerly rag-o-rama) in university city.

if only my mayoral magic could have prevented my alternator from dying as we alighted hopefully onto route 66. but luck and trouble always seem to run in a tight circle for me. we made it as far as a walmart parking lot in sullivan, missouri. i never thought i would sing the praises of a big box store, but ridiculously late hours on the eve of a civic holiday sure served us well in locating a mechanic who seemed optimistic about his ability to get us rolling again on the fourth of july.

now we sleep in a fancier hotel than we should be in (read: can really afford) with hopes that this year's breakdown will end better than last year's canada day debacle.