Yesterday was perfect.

Finding ourselves on a kidless Saturday with no prior engagements, Jen and I decided to head down to the Little Italy Farmer’s Market.

We walked through the stalls of books and crafts holding hands, Jen looked at jewelry, there was a sense of community as merchants and market-goers exchanged kindness and compliments, amongst a menagerie of amazing smells and friendly dogs saying hello.

We fell in love with a beautiful handmade countertop cutting board made from African, American and Canadian woods, but it was $450, so we decided that might be a nice Christmas present for each other if we can save up for a few months.

We found some festive pumpkins, plants, and fun signs to photo op.

We picked up a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers and got a few bags of local coffee for the week.

We sampled a capri panini and some live music alongside grateful parents and happy dancing kiddos.

An older man approached us with a handful of cash while we sat and asked us if we could use a spare dollar or two to buy ourselves some coffee or a snack.

We declined, feeling so blessed to just be there enjoying the day, wanting for nothing, but found watching him make the rounds through the crowd absolutely fascinating.

Here’s this guy offering money, but everyone he approached seemed caught off guard and protective of their personal space, in the same “no thanks” way many folks respond when someone is asking for money. Almost everyone declined, except for the dancing little girl in front of us, who happily took a free dollar and, after realizing nobody else was taking the money, her dad told her to go put it in the tip jar of the performing musician.

What was this Free Money Jesus doing at the farmers market? How many people took his cash? The affluent crowd spending $450 on cutting boards, procuring expensive cheeses, artisan breads, and handmade beeswax body chapstick didn’t seem to need the money. How would it have been different if he’d been a few blocks over at one of the local homeless encampments?

We decided it’d be cool to pick up dinner stuff while we’re out, so we grabbed some sourdough olive bread, stracciatella cheese (the spreadable goo of burrata), mozzarella “sushi”, drunken goat cheese, sweet Japanese grapes, green olives, and Cherokee purple tomatoes for a very delicious, very demure charcuterie board.

After the market, we threw our booty in a cooler bag and stopped for a little nibble and afternoon cocktail in the gayborhood. The bartender was working on his signature churro espresso martini for the upcoming fall weather, so we were happy to be his guinea pigs for a shared sample.

We talked over sips about expanding consciousness and what we do to get in our own ways sometimes.

We also talked about Free Money Jesus.

We wondered about it as a social experiment, approaching strangers, offering money instead of asking for it. How come when we ran into Free Money Jesus later, he still had a handful of cash? How much did he start with?

What a beautiful and generous way to spend a Saturday. What an affirmation of humanity, that those who feel they have enough don’t ask for more. It made us wanna try it sometime…but Jen’s science brain insisted we must have a hypothesis before conducting a social experiment.

Stay tuned, we’re working on it.

There was a classic car meetup on the walk back to the parking lot so we stuck our noses in each of the cars to get nostalgic smells of different decades. The Volvo brought us both back to our memories of the 1980s, the station wagon smelled like the 70s, the VW bus smelled like the cars our parents had from the 60s, and we imagined the sniffs of the wood interior Rolls Royce must’ve smelled like the 1920s…old and unfamiliar and kinda haunted.

As we were heading to the freeway towards home, we saw signs for an open house in a favorite neighborhood known for charming old houses. We’ve learned that following signs leads us to unimaginable treasures…and found ourselves at a corner property we just had to see for ourselves.

We toured the house and the grounds, finding our favorite room upstairs overlooking the street. Lots of natural light and a southern view of the park. We dared to dream…if we win the lottery, we could run this place as a bed and breakfast.

We chatted with the realtor about the depersonalization of homebuying in the current market, how LLCs are buying and flipping everything, how it’s hard these days to get a bid on a home as a regular person when there’s companies that have so much money to outbid and pay cash up front.

He said this home was way overpriced at $1.9 million with a possible cracked foundation. The place felt like a team of people looking to flip it just rushed the design decisions to put it on the market and make a few bucks. The flippers of this house cleaned out a lot of the potential charm we imagined for the space.

We had such a nice chat with the realtor, he told us about his girlfriend, asked me about the state of education from a teachers perspective, and then he said he enjoyed talking so much and would we reach out to him sometime to meet up for coffee.

Human connection is undeniably still the most powerful antidote in a world becoming more and more consumed with impersonal online transactions. The more people I meet, the more I realize just how much we’re all starving for it.

So, then we came home, walked around our block a few times, chatted up our neighbors for a bit, turned on Depeche Mode radio, opened a bottle of wine we got in Sedona a few months back and sang along to “Policy of Truth” while grazing on our fresh and beautiful snack board.

Days like today are good reminders that you don’t have to go far or spend a lot of money trying to find distraction from the world on a free day. I feel more full of love and more fantastically human when I’m plugging in with other humans. And all of it is just that much more *chefs kiss* walking through the world with my person…ending the day with a sampling of really damn good cheese.