Monday, October 23, 2006

A Finger in Every Frittata

Today Swee'pea and I went to the grocery store. I couldn't procrastinate any longer since I used up the last of Swee'pea's cereal at breakfast. We went to the big box style grocery store on the edge of town, rather than our usual one. I do this occasionally because they have a better selection of organic produce for Swee'pea. I've only gone there a handful of times so it's still disorienting, because although the same company owns both stores, they've set them up completely differently.

Some observations:
  • why do they put the specialty or deli cheeses on the completely other side of the store from the common or garden cheese in the dairy section? In as cavernous a store as this one, you can end up walking an extra half a kilometre at least if you forget.
  • why don't they have strategically placed mirrors at the ends of the aisles to prevent shopping cart carnage? You know, the kind of mirrors you see in factories where people drive fork lifts? Twice someone nearly careened into us after turning a corner at speed... this may not be such a big deal to other people but when your cart is also carrying your BABY, it matters!
  • I'd heard of white asparagus before but today I actually got a pretty good look at it, and who would seriously want to eat that??? Never mind that it probably has less than half the nutrients of green asparagus, but they look like some archaic, albino, eyeless snake that just got pulled out of a completely lightless cave... seriously creepy.
  • Not only am I obsessed with efficiency while driving but also while waiting in line at the grocery store and stacking my groceries onto the conveyor belt. Luckily Swee'pea keeps me company so I'm not so neurotic about constantly watching all the lines and jumping ship as soon as I think one could be going slightly faster than mine or have slightly fewer items ahead of them. So today I could put all my neurotic energy into making sure I used every available inch of space on the conveyor as soon as it became available. It's like tetris.
  • I saw my former manager using the self-serve checkout.
  • The cashier was really good at bagging the groceries. She kept all the diary items together (unlike the store), all the cans together, and all the produce together, even putting the heavy uncrushable cauliflower and broccoli at the bottom, and the light, crushable produce like spinach and jalapenos on top.
  • A very nice young man (god, I'm so old) helped us get our groceries to the car. I noticed his hair was styled in what I believe is called a fauxhawk. Or at least that's what the hairdresser at First Choice called it when she gave Sugar Daddy one against his will last summer. Poor Sugar Daddy said no thanks a number of times, but apparently that just wasn't enough protest for her to pay attention. And I couldn't help but notice that every single male dancer in the top 20 on So You Think You Can Dance had one... wazzup widdat? Oh - except Ben. Ben didn't have a fauxhawk.
  • It all seemed great until we got to the car and I discovered our honking great big ATV of a BROKEN stroller taking up most of the trunk. Oh yeah, I put it there instead of letting it fill our front hall and block our front door, because why have a BROKEN stroller taking up space in your house. Yes, much better to have it taking up space in your car. You can see the logic that has resulted in our house being overrun with clutter. Luckily, the nice young man managed to slot the grocery bags around the stroller, also like tetris.
  • Altogether, a much more successful trip than last time.
  • When I got home, I discovered that someone found my blog while searching for "zooper stroller falling apart broken." Yep, they came to the right place for that. I'm even ranked #2 for that search. Glad to know we're not alone.
  • After I checked my stats, I started making a frittata and roasted potatoes while Sugar Daddy did the dishes and Swee'pea played in his exersaucer. I sliced into my thumb while slicing up some onion. Just before I cut myself, I was watching my knife move, thinking, "Boy I hope Sugar Daddy is watching my slicing technique because he'd be impressed. Yep, what great technique I learned from Jamie Oliver."
  • Sugar Daddy made me wash the cut and get a bandaid. When I came back into the kitchen, I checked the onion for blood (there was none), and Sugar Daddy replied with some relief, "Oh, so there's no finger in the frittata."

* * *
A few housekeeping items:

This weekend I went looking for the floppy disk I used in my last semester of uni. I didn't find it but I did find a letter I wrote to Dave during one of our knock-down drag-out nearly-break-up fights about making a commitment. The letter was dated just over a year before our wedding. At the end of it: "I drew a rune, hoping for clarity ["Should I stay or should I go now?"]. As usual, it only confused me." I drew Inguz, and these were notes I made:
  • fertility, new beginnings
  • embodies the need to share, the yearning to be desired
  • preparation for change
  • requires completion
  • may involve getting out of a rut or relationship
  • from closed chrysalis to opened state
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight we moved the vcr to the top of the tv so that Swee'pea will stop trying to pull it on top of his head. We also moved the videos, including the wet video head cleaner. Which reminded me of the time my mother-in-law caught sight of it. She asked Sugar Daddy, "Is that some kind of porn?" (I cringe at the google searches that will lead people here now.)

4 comments:

Girlplustwo said...

i seriously want to go shopping with you. you called it on the white asparagus...and the whole check out thing. hilarious, girl.

oh, and hey, about the other...i went back again to Mad's meme...and I swear to god, I can't come up w/ anything witty. but i offer you a peace offering. ask me a new question, and I promise i'll answer it. i'll even pinky swear you.

Beck said...

I have no idea why they put the Expensive cheese several MILES away from the People's Cheese. Is it so I don't get cooties from accidentally touching some Crackerbarrell* cheese?
*I totally buy the cheap cheese. I have three kids.

cinnamon gurl said...

I have a great recipe involving asiago, red peppers, spinach, chick peas and pasta... and they never seem to have a People's asiago.

Hee hee... one time my brother-in-law went grocery shopping with Sugar Daddy... when they got to the cheese, SD announced, "I'm kinda particular about my cheese," and reached for the no name old white cheddar. BIL was like, "That's particular?" SD doesn't like orange cheese... he only eats the white stuff. Does that make him racist? ;)

Bea said...

I love that you compare buying groceries to playing tetris.