Out of business

Spring Run Natural Foods, the health-food store in the Phillips Place cluster of stores on East Baltimore Pike  near Longwood, has closed its doors. I drove past this evening and the shop is completely vacant, with the fixtures and shelving removed. A broom was leaning against a wall. There's a sign on the window giving the new address of the chiropractor, Bob Sybesma, who maintained an office inside the store. The store owner was Art Paviglianiti.

What a card

Looking for a Valentine's Day card? I stopped in this evening at Equinox, the gift store in the Shoppes at Longwood Village, and was delighted to find a wonderful and diverse selection of very appealing cards ranging from the sentimental to the silly. I was laughing aloud as I read some of them and had trouble selecting mine. Go before the supply is depleted!
I was telling the pleasant clerk what great cards the shop stocked and another customer chimed in, seconding that opinion.
(They also have terrific birthday and other cards and even a very funny post-breakup card informing the recipient that the sender had never liked the ex, anyway.)
I told a friend to check out their Valentine's Day cards and she reminded me how good the card selection also is at the two local Pack-N-Ship stores (one is in the same shopping center as Equinox; the other is in Jennersville, both conveniently near Starbuckses). She also praised their assortment of books about rural life, gardening, animals and horses -- not standard fare at a mailing outlet!

On the clock

Those few extra minutes of daylight are starting to add up! When I left for the gym yesterday it was actually light out. Yeah, okay, the thermometer read 4 degrees, but at least the sun was above the horizon.
Another sign of approaching spring: the 69th Cheshire Point-to-Point is set for March 30.

Door #1 or Door #2?

Last year some Unionville friends of mine went to the wrong church in New Jersey for a relative's wedding. They realized their error when (a) they recognized no one in the church and (b) they received an anxious text asking where they were. (They claim there are two churches in the town named after the same saint.)
But I'm seeing a pattern here. The other night the same family went to the movies intending to see "American Hustler" but instead walked into the auditorium where "Wolf of Wall Street" was showing. The raunchy opening scene (the first of very many) clued them in to their mistake. Though they were fairly disgusted by the lurid depiction of the characters' bad behavior ("10 years ago this would've been considered porn!"), they stayed until the end anyway. The following night they went back to see "American Hustler" -- and made sure they chose the right venue.

Panto

We got our full year's worth of silliness in just a few hours Saturday night at "A Midsummer Night's Tail," the annual pantomime "in the British tradition" presented by the Kennett Amateur Theatrical Society. This year's play, directed by Chris Ramsey, was a mashup of Shakespeare, "Star Wars," Robin Hood and "The Great Gatsby." As always, there was much audience participation: booing and hissing whenever the villain appeared, singing and clapping to the "Silly Song," and greeting the Dame when she appeared.
The most groan-inducing moment for me (an old English major) came when two characters were discussing a new game involving knocking down small pyramids with Frisbees. Its name? "Pyramids and Frisbees."
At one point Puck declared that she would "girdle the Earth" to find a love potion for the Fairy Queen Titania. One of the fairies wondered whether this would involve a trip to the ends of the world -- even as far as Unionville!
I thought the costumes this year were magnificent. I especially liked the Dame's pinup-boy apron, Puck's leafy tunic, and the evil Van Driver's blindingly pin-striped zoot suit. The kids portraying robins and fairies were utterly adorable. We loved the kid who doffed her robin headdress while taking her bows!
At the door we were greeted by the tuxedo-clad Gary Smith and Steve Warner, two of the founders of the now-13-year-old KATS troupe.
"I can't think of anyplace else I'd rather be on a snowy January night in Kennett Square than in that auditorium," proclaimed my theater companion, who sang, booed and laughed as lustily as anyone in the place.

Perpendicular

The owners of Hood's should've set up a camera at the front door this weekend. They decided to move the counter 90 degrees (back to an earlier configuration), disorienting breakfast patrons who were already in need of caffeine. The double-takes were pretty amusing to watch!

Township meeting

Shake off those winter doldrums by attending the monthly meeting of the West Marlborough Township planning commission and supervisors. The fun starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, in the township garage in the village of Doe Run.