The lower GI troubles reoccurred throughout the week. It was bad enough when it happened on Tuesday—I had to transport James to Urgent Care with a severe pain in his hip; after x-rays determined there was nothing wrong, they sent him home with pain meds and a referral, and I was so upset by thinking it might be something horrible (like appendicitis) that I worked my way into constant toilet trips (in fact, I was in there so long I managed to finish all of Alan Shayne/Norman Sunshine's book Double Life)—but it happened again on Thursday, which means we didn't get to start grocery shopping until after noon, by which time it had become hellishly hot. (I think I had some sort of low-level stomach virus. It could have been triggered by the heat; I tend to get sick when it's hot anyway. Or it could have been the lamb stew, which also gave James grief on Monday.) So we only went to Lidl and then were going to the Publix on Floyd Road, but they were out of handicapped access carts, so we ended up in Smyrna anyway, with me finding it extremely painful to sit.

On Friday, we needed to pick up what prescriptions James didn't corral at Town Center on Tuesday. Because he was picking up insulin, the pharmacy clerk (our favorite lady) at the Cumberland office gave us this big "icepack," so we were safe stopping at Sprouts for some fruits and veg before going on to Patak's butcher shop. We have only been here on the first Saturday of the month, the only weekend day they are open, so used today as an opportunity. To our relief, they have remodeled. Now you get to line up inside instead of outside, which is very helpful on a day like today. The smell in that place is incredible! If we brought Tucker here he would pass out from sensory overload. So we got a pound of fresh mortadella (half the price of Publix), some pastrami for James, fresh chicken wings (not as cheap as Nam Dae Mun, but larger), Italian sausage, kielbasa, and a pound of lovely stew beef (seriously, I need to come here for stew beef; Patak's price is what Sprouts has for a sale price).

We dropped this off at home and I put the insulin in the fridge and left the icepack out. We then had lunch at a new pizza place at Belmont Plaza in Smyrna, Your Pie. The place is nice, but the ceilings are high, meaning the acoustics suck, especially when they have background music. Had trouble communicating with the lady making my pizza because the echo was so bad. Pizza was okay. It had a crispy crust, and the service was quick. However, the crust is nowhere as tasty as Uncle Maddios. It kind of has this bland cracker taste. And somewhere either in the crust or the marinara sauce there is more stupid pepper! James also noted that, while he liked it, the Italian sausage is very spicy! He got the wheat crust and also found it pretty bland.

Finally we went to Barnes & Noble. I feel bad for the people working at the Akers Mill store: it is bloody hot in there! No air moving at all. Found Time's Convert out in paperback and discounted already, so used my coupons on Don't Make Me Pull Over ("an informal history of family road trips"), also finally in paperback, and a nifty graphic novel version of the story of the moon landing, Moonbound.

Remember those fresh chicken wings? We had them for supper. Yumm!

So we ran around for two days and discovered we had still forgotten enough stuff to occupy this morning. We had to go to Costco to fill up the truck, then stop at Petsmart for birdseed (bojemoi! big bag of seed now $19!), and I nipped into Titan Comics to see if they had any recent copies of the "Rivers of London" comics. Alas, just old ones. We had also made a brief stop at the Spring Road branch of Nam Dae Mun in search of the elusive TVP, which they call "soya." Found enough bags of it to make a small store again, including some with caramel coloring that will make the pale ground turkey meat James uses in his breakfasts look more brown and appetizing.

In the meantime, we continue to enjoy more of season one of Perry Mason and A Taste of History. I didn't know the latter was originally a PBS program.

Labels: books, food, illness, pets, restaurants, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:44:00 PM

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