NOW AND THEN

NOW:
We've been texting this morning. To give you an idea of our exchange....

Off to the shower....
                                                                Think of me.

All ways...I am still basking in
the afterglow of yesterday.
All nite w/o oxygen. 94%
this morning.
                                                               Good for you, Bob!
                                                               Susie & Bill visiting today.
                                                              Look your best!
Lookingforwardtoit...I miss
hitting the space bar so much
that it takes all my time going
back to correct. What time will
they arrive?
                                                                They haven't let me know
                                                                yet. Don't worry about the
                                                                space bar when you're
                                                                writing to me. I pretty much
                                                                understand you.
That brings a smile to my face
that can be seen and amuck bigger
one on my heart that only I can feel
and see.
                ¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

THEN:

BIG DECISIONS
Monday, June 25, 2007

"A person buying ordinary products in a supermarket is in touch
with his deepest emotions."
                                     ~John Kenneth Galbraith

A signal that my social life needs a boost is when I get excited at the prospect of going to the supermarket. Really, the range of possible buying choices is phenomenal. Have you ever stopped to consider how many products you've never tried or even thought about buying? I'm one who likes to get my recommendations from friends or other real people rather than by chance, and am not above asking other shoppers about their selections. I've discovered a lot that way. I'm a peeping Tom when it comes to other people's shopping carts.

I once knew a man, a poet, who loved making a daily trip to the supermarket, reveling in the idea that he could afford any item on the shelves. Mr. Bob often tries to convince me that we should go to the store every day rather than shopping ahead and his point is well taken when I have to discard things that I purchased and didn't use before the expiration date. I'm bad about that. On a shopping trip, I always manage to see something out of the corner of my eye that we really should have and the cart does fill up quickly and expensively.

Time was, Mr. Bob did the marketing because he could be relied upon to buy exactly what was on my list.......no creative shopping for that man! Grocery shopping was much less costly if didn't go.



Of late, I hear from him such statements as, "Von's doesn't carry pickled beets" or "Ralph's has discontinued pinto beans", none of which is the case, so generally we make it a joint outing. Mr. B. insists on being the one to push the shopping cart.........I finally figured out that he's using it as a sort of walker and when I get my own cart to push, for the same reason, I keep wandering off and forgetting it, so that plan doesn't work out very well.

Almost any time we go to a local market, there's the added bonus of crossing paths with people we knew as customers when we had the bookstore and then a few minutes of happy catching up. Recently I ran into a woman who had first come to our shop as an adolescent. She said she was just back from taking her second child to visit college campuses........where did the time go?

Now there's talk of another supermarket strike. The last time the picket lines marched for months before a solution was found. If this comes to pass, our social life will take a turn as we seek out alternative shopping options, but we'll rise to the challenge and who knows? A blog entry might come out of it.

"You've got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in 7-Eleven."
                                                          ~Dennis Miller

AFTERWORD:

Fast forward four years to the present and the "too much food" argument continues. It's because of our differing philosophies; one of us living to eat, the other eating to live, so nothing much has changed there. Tim, under protest for he doesn't like warehouse stores, takes me to Costco once in a while where I load up on some staples. The other evening, my electric cart stalled midway through shopping and Tim came up with a solution.

This makes a terribly long entry. Whaddya think? Should I continue a while with this "now and then" approach? Otherwise, some days there's just not a whole lot about which to write.