they call him mr. buttons

saturday was a stay at home, be lazy and make pancakes for breakfast day. it was good and much needed. the week of heatwaves, moving boxes and fanless nights had taken a cumulative toll and it has been an extra long time since he and i have had time together when one or the other {or both} of us haven't been exhausted out of our minds and bodies.

so, we had a leisurely morning involving aforementioned pancakes and then we slowly meandered into closet cleaning. i put on an extended show and tell and he helped me get rid of a garbage bag full of clothing. sometimes a little encouragement goes a long way.

by 4pm i was getting a little stir crazy and sifted for some incentive to get out of the house that didn't require a copious {read: any} amount of money and landed on the easy, catch all solution: walk down to the antique store on the waterfront to go button shopping. at ten for a dollar i can splurge and only spend a few bucks, maybe five, so we put on our walking shoes and trekked down the hill.

despite running headlong into a wall of exhaustion about three blocks from my apartment {my adrenals were super taxed out during my time on the farm}, we made it down uneventfully, albeit a little too sunnily according to some people.

i walked back to the huge basin that holds the store's button collection only to find it almost entirely empty. even though i was glad to be out and moving around a bit, it was a sad sad day that i couldn't indulge my button collecting genes. after double checking the neighboring aisles to make sure the collection hadn't migrated to a new location, i took his very good advice and asked the people behind the counter if they knew what had happened to the buttons. true to my insticts, someone had swooped down on it, spent $120 and cleaned out the house.

but

he had a new supply in back. a tin he had recently purchased after a split second decision so i got to happily spend fifteen minutes of my life sifting through one handful at a time. the worker pointed out this button and that button, speculating one is from the 1920's and another is made of resin, or wood, or what have you. i kind of tuned out his helpful suggestions of what a cool button was since they tended to clash with my very particular aesthetic i can't put into words, and eventually he stopped trying to be helpful and let me sift and sort in peace.

it was a good trip, despite not living up the the big $17 haul i made shortly after finding this source. those buttons are the pinnacle of my collection, but i guess these little handfuls help flesh out the collection a little bit at a time. and there are some gems i nicked this time around and for a steal as well. i knew i had close to 40 buttons, but he kept on insisting it was about three dollars worth, so i accepted his deal, smiled and we headed back up the hill for a celebratory he's done moving dinner from a little tucked-away-to-the-point-of-near-invisibility fish 'n chips bar that opens at 5pm and obviously caters to the local bars' late night clientele. good food though. particularly eaten out in the park under the shady trees.

it wasn't till long after we got home again, probably some point after we watched coraline together on my bed {where buttons are featured rather prominently, coincidentally enough} that he told me about a little exchange that happened in the store. one of the workers {there were two of them bantering around} came up to him while i was happily pouring over the tin of buttons and had asked: "are you mr. buttons?" and he just smiled and nodded yes.

mr. buttons. i like it.

and it's a day later and it still makes me smile.