For the downtown narrative: Rosemary and I last evening ate supper at the Viet-Thai Restaurant across from City Hall. At 6.30-7 pm, there were 30 people in the place. We had cashew chicken and shrimp pad thai with spring rolls to start. Everything very good and modestly priced (appetizer: $3). Earlier in the day I spent a little money at the CD and LP sale at Dave Perry’s Vinyl Destination record shop in Mill No. 5. Dave had a stream of customers, young and older. That end of Jackson and Middlesex streets had an upbeat vibe with the new pavement, overflowing green garden from Mill City Grows, and busy buzz of people around Appleton Mills. Every parking space was taken. People coming and going.

An additional note about going out for supper. We parked the car on Cardinal O’Connell Parkway, where the landscaped median features day lilies still blooming in yellow and orange, splashy piles of hosta in different varieties, and bunches of brown-eyed/black-eyed susans or rudbeckia. Good work on the plantings near City Hall.