We bought some things and found more outrageous prices, like the mug I just bought at 4 times the price. It's a chain reaction. Artifical subsidies disappear; low cost producers survive and hold on, hoping prices will go up. But they don't, not fast enough. More people stop producing. The only other option is to resell someone else's product. Prices have gone up so quickly that people pay, in shock. When the money runs out, the middlemen, having bled everyone dry, will retire to their summer homes. The rest, to the poor house. Before independence, my Aunt Laura would have retired comfortably. Inflation and devaluation have decimated her savings. No one is immune.

On a happier note, we pause under a tree in full autumn color. My mom posed me by the post office where she once worked. Opposite, a panorama of the flea market, such as it has become.