At home in Ballard

Late this afternoon, I spent an hour in downtown Ballard, looking for an orange rhinestone brooch to match a holiday outfit I'm trying to put together.

As I scurried down Market Street I encountered a fellow I'd met at a dinner meeting of the local the P.G. Wodehouse society. We had a brief chat, then I headed up to the offices of the neighborhood newspaper to drop off a disk with a digital photo a friend will be using for her Christmas column. Then it was into a consignment shop (no brooch), a new boutique (no brooch), and a frou-frou store that had a burnt-orange Christmas tree ornament I bought to use as a brooch. I also stopped at a shop where I saw the owner wearing a purple-and-burgundy scarf that looked very familiar.

"Do you shop at Classic Consignment?" I asked her. Yes, she said, that's where she'd gotten the scarf.

And where I'd consigned it.

You really belong to the neighborhood when you see people wearing your clothes!