I had to go to Murfreesboro for something this afternoon, and while I was in town I paid my first visit to The Avenue, a huge new shopping center there. It’s a little like some of the open-air malls my brother and sister-in-law have taken me to in California — certainly the same type of merchants — except that in this one, the streets and parking spaces run right through the middle of the promenade. You can park on the “outside” and treat it like a shopping mall, or you can look for a space on the “inside” in front of your selected store.

The Avenue is singularly responsible for a shortage of ampersands in Rutherford County, as all of them have been confiscated for various stores:

Barnes & Noble
Bath & Body Works
Crabtree & Evelyn
Harry & David
New York & Company

I almost added Linens & Things, but it turns out it’s Linens ‘n Things. Who knew?