Five Minute Friday :: Mall

• Five Minute Friday :: Mall Linkup at Andrew's Place

Such a nostalgic topic! I've mentioned malls so many times in this blog, mall needs to be a keyword. Here's Last Call, Last Mall inspired by the title of a song by Steely Dan.

My header pic is the Dead Cottonwood Mall I wrote about in the three part reflection I linked to. I featured it because I really like my photoshopping on the picture.

What's on today's mall docket? Long gone are the days of active, buzzing malls where teens hung out, retirees power walked, and the whole family sometimes shopped and dreamed, sometimes shopped and bought. Southern California has many dead indoor and open air malls. Between online merchandising and purchasing and the fallout from Covid, it's an understatement to say some that still are open have taken a huge hit. Ya know what? As much as I enjoy shopping of all kinds, I no longer much care for those big malls that have a national anchor like JC Penney or Macy's. That also can read that had a major anchor.

We have open air shopping centers around here; I call them Shopping Sprawls. I think they may function more or less as successors to malls.

Is it because of my interests in economics, lifestyle, and culture that I see a dozen articles every day about changing consumer habits, stores closing, brands merging, or is because those interest everyone? People source home furnishings far differently than in those olden days. Fast fashion still is a thing, though the trend is slowing down for a plethora of mostly positive reasons. If too many dollars don't keep chasing too few products, goods, and bads, does that mean people want less stuff and crave more experiences?

Where do we go from here? I enjoy most kinds of shopping. At the supermarket or the dollar store, I like to choose what I need, and I like to see what's new, check out colors and styles and possibilities. But I can't think of a mall I'd be willing to frequent in its present state of decline and sometimes disrepair.

Two days ago on my day off Tuesday I went to The Grove open air mall to see the holiday decorations. Although I wouldn't call it crowded, it didn't lack for people, but there's no way to know how many were actual customers and consumers. However, regular people don't shop at any of those stores or eat at those restaurants. It has a GAP, but I'm a Gap Factory person. It has Barnes & Noble. Sigh.

The farmer's market is an all around exciting shopping option, sometimes even offering local crafts. Does the decline of The North American Mall signal the return of profitable small shops? Let's keep waiting and hoping.

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Fashion Valley, San Diego, California

The Grove, Los Angeles, California

Square One Saugus Massachusetts Mall by John Phelan,
who says we can edit if we give him credit, so I did.

Andrew's mall picture

Sylvia

02 Named Acknowledged

What needs to be named or acknowledged this year?

Intro

During fall 2024 I attended a workshop with journaling mentor and coach Joelle. You can follow her substack at Reconnect and Befriend; her Instagram is Reconnect and Befriend Coach.

To help conclude this year (that wraps up a quarter of the twenty-first century), Joelle's recent substack offered three questions – with three lively illustrations – to answer as we anticipate a bright 2026. My second reflection is about named or acknowledged.


What needs to be named or acknowledged this year?

This is another old one for me because "you can't change what you don't acknowledge." Particularly since Covid was pandemic, I've looked around and seen how many are struggling with finances, housing, career, mental and emotional health, social well-being. What's on your list?

You know the adage about women settling for too little. However you identify, you've probably been so overwhelmed, disappointed, and snowed under that you've truthfully admitted almost everything is pretty bad, not what you expected, far from what you ultimately need, but when you scarcely can breathe or take another step, you still admit "at least" I have a roof. "At least" I have some income. At least I don't quite hate my job(s). I'm "even" doing better in some ways than I was in and when…[name the place and/or name the time].

But it's not only naming the situation that's never objective because it involves living breathing people. It's acknowledging the sorrow, grief, and devastation. Most of us are doing whatever possible to alter our current circumstances, because so few are in anything better than passable. Amidst all that, naming where I am today professionally and residentially is easy and I've been doing it out loud, on paper, and online.

Like almost everyone I know, I'm working on updating my living and career situations. I've been taking action, however sporadically, imperfectly, and otherly. What I want is simple. How to achieve it isn't simple; that I know because I can't count the dead ends and roadblocks.

I need to name and acknowledge the grief, the loss, the shattered minimal expectations. The emotions!

Someone in a past life told me their physiological reactions usually were vascular. Mine are visceral, so my gut takes a whole lot of the impact. For physical health at least as much as for my mental and emotional well-being, I need to name and acknowledge the grief, the loss, the shattered minimal expectations. The emotions! Out loud (on paper, and online) now.

It's hard because we do need to tough things out some extent. Everything cannot become a major crisis, or even a crisis saved for later when I have time for it.

That's my word of acknowledgment today. Because I can't change my reactive gut until I admit to it.

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01 Expectations

What expectations can I quietly let go of?

During fall 2024 I attended a workshop with journaling mentor and coach Joelle. You can follow her substack at Reconnect and Befriend; her Instagram is Reconnect and Befriend Coach.

To help conclude this year (that wraps up a quarter of the twenty-first century), Joelle's recent substack offered three questions – with three lively illustrations – to answer as we anticipate a bright 2026. Today I'll write to expectations because it's alphabetically first.


What expectations can I quietly let go of?

But why? Wouldn't that be quitting my dreams? Is dream and expectation the same, or is a dream more ethereal and sometimes ephemeral? An expectation more concrete and—expected?!

In this primarily bilingual (multicultural, multilingual) megalopolis, I often consider the triple meaning of esperar: expect; hope; wait. Most days it feels as if my life has been an expect – hope – wait marathon. How about yours?

As I've silently obsessed, not infrequently journaled, and occasionally blogged, my current situation, with current encompassing most of the last decade is "so far afield of the minimum I'd anticipated by now," it feels as if "anticipate" sleekly combines hope and expect. Expect because with my careful extensive preparation, I knew it would happen. The best way to predict the future is to create the future. Amirite?

We're late in the season of Advent, that wintry time that overflows with hope.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what they already see or have? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:24-25

You know the context! Creation waits for us to fully claim our divine natures so the new creation itself will flourish:

Romans 8:18-25

Digression: To nudge my sense of expectation, I hope to present my Theology of the New Creation discussion during Epiphany, but it needs tweaking because I planned the original version for the Season of Creation.

Back on topic: Joelle asked if I can let go of any expectations—plural more than one. How about just one? She asked if we can release them quietly. We're not talking hoping or waiting, although how can they not be factors? Expectations feels more vibrant and alive, as if it's growing wings and ready to fly. In most cases that wouldn't be a quiet event!

What are my primary expectations? A life of participation in and contribution to church and world. Still. That's so generic it feels easy to achieve, but it hasn't happened. Will I let it go? Will I release it? No! I won't give it up because that would be quitting.

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Five Minute Friday :: Sale

• Five Minute Friday :: Sale linkup at Andrew's Place. Andrew hosting while Kate heals has been such fun, especially with Sylvia joining in!


For Sale. Not for Sale. There's the basic you can purchase this item or this service because it's for sale on the retail market; then there's you can get it at a lower price because it's not only for sale—it's on sale.

What are my favorite things for sale and on sale?

I love to shop. Any kind of retail therapy! I love thrift stores. I especially love yard sales / garage sales, though recent ones haven't been as enticing as they were in the BCE (Before Covid Era) olden days. I usually say "yard sale" and I've read about tag sales, but I've never called them that. The terminology must be regional.My plants header is from our church yard sale three years ago in October 2022. For some reason, churches usually talk about their rummage sales. What's rummage? Is it what you find when you're rummaging around?

I enjoy eBay, where I've bought a whole lot of books and a lot of clothes. I often wonder if I'd have discovered it if my cousin hadn't introduced me to eBay on her long ago visit to San Diego.

As much as I like Target with its sometime clean spare mid-century Scandinavian vibe, Dollar Tree is my favorite sale venue of any time, any where. I love its practical everyday items and the many surprise treasures I never planned to buy and couldn't have planned because I never knew such a thing existed.

What for sale and sales have I left out? Given that food is my love language, I need to mention seasonal fruits and veggies. Subway meal of the day. My faves are Chicken Teriyaki on Tuesdays and Tuna on Fridays.

What sale stuff do you hanker after?

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Tuesday Trip to the Getty Center

• Premonstratensian Canon, possibly after Hans Holbein the younger, Swiss about 1250

The description tells us this depicts a canon or professed religious of the Premonstratensian [or Norbertian] order. Google says they adopted the Latin Rite after Vatican II, but retained some distinctive liturgical practices.

• Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1889

• Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Apples, 1893-1894

• Edouard Manet, The Rue Mosmer with Flags, 1878

• Alfred Sisley, The Road from Versailles to Saint-Germain, 1875

• Claude Monet, Sunrise, 1873

• James Enser, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1869, 1888-1890

• Joseph Wright of Derby, Two Boys with a Bladder, about 1769-1770

• Museum store with books

• Museum store corner with a David Hockney print and black Getty shirt

• Los Angeles panorama

December Menu

Five Minute Friday :: Christmas Sweater

• Five Minute Friday :: Christmas Sweater linkup at Andrew's place

This week Andrew wrote – "penned" with quill – another sonnet, after all.

The way people pick up on trends, phrases, and preferences without a thought bothers me a lot. For example, the idea of an ugly Christmas Sweater makes rounds every year, yet when you look at those various jacquard, fair isle, reindeer, tartan, snoopy, and nativity bear sweaters, very few are objectively "ugly" at all. The adorable sweater illustration Andrew provided is an example, as are the bear and horse in sweaters I got on Creative Market a few years ago.

Though even in this era of covid-tinged casual I'd be hard put to wear one to work, to Sunday church, or to a professional networking event, Christmas sweaters belong around the fireplace, out caroling, at Christmas dinner where they enhance the ambiance and remind everyone not to take themselves so seriously so much of the time.

What else bothers me this time of year? The way people in the global north often get mired in mild to moderate to severe Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD, which is a real thing. It's such a reality that very few people can avoid at least a touch of it when shorter days deprive them of necessary sunlight. But getting consumed by SAD and ignoring the hope Advent brings? Even denying the Light of the World Nativity offers?

Oh, I know. Everything gets too overwhelming, so let's remind each other. Do you have a testimony of light in the darkness? Do you have words about new life from the apparent hopelessness of loss and death? When the days are shortest, nights are longest?

Happy Christmas Sweater time!

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December Brunch

Another Santa Monica special, this time on Tuesday of Advent 1. The fabulous food in these pictures plus a surprise a cappella concert of holiday music by The Oceanaires.