Now that James has been cut down to thirty hours a week, our weekend now starts on Wednesday. As I so irritatedly indicated in the previous entry, James was required to go to a podiatrist appointment Wednesday, but it was a good thing, because it turned out he had two ingrown toenails that he couldn't feel at all due to diminished feeling in his feet because of diabetes. So I am now playing nurse again for a week, anointing one toe with generic betadyne (I didn't realize that was just an iodine solution) and bandaging it after he has his shower.

Thursday I couldn't stand not having any bread in the house anymore and went to Lidl. They don't allow you to buy "by the each" at the bakery right now so I had to buy four dinner rolls (they haven't had them for two weeks, so I'm happy about that) instead of two, so will have to eat them promptly. (Oh, twist my arm. Make me eat bread. I'm Italian. It's a main food group.) Also got a baguette because we were having the rest of the chicken cacciatore for dinner and what use is cacciatore without bread to "zoop" in the sauce? Picked up cheese rolls, shredded cheese, and ground turkey for James, grabbed another gallon of purified water for the C-PAP machine, and also bought another gallon of milk, onions, and potatoes.

On the way home I stopped at the City Farmer's Market in a fruitless search for wipes or alcohol. They didn't have any of the former, and they don't carry drugstore products; like Nam Dae Mun, it's simply a grocery store. It's also the only place I know in town where you can get unfrosted brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts. (My opinion of icing/frosting ranks almost up with child molesters.) Couldn't find sesame oil, did find "stellini" pasta to go into chicken soup.

(During the afternoon I finished the taxes and paid them off with my credit card. It cost me an extra fee, but then I'll get points on my Amazon credit card for next month. Also paid the exterminator, TruGreen, the water bill, and this month's car insurance bill. And James finally got the unemployment payment his boss put in for. This meant we had grocery money for Thursday. And of course I played "The Tech Guy" for Snowy.)

Today we did one of my favorite things: getting in and out of grocery stores in a minimum amount of time. We did three stores in two hours and ten minutes, but to get out that quickly and that early, we had to forego breakfast for a single Belvita oats and chocolate chip breakfast bar. (Needless to say, we were starving when we got home.) We started at Costco, which was remarkably un-crowded for a Friday morning. Unlike our last visit, they just had pallets keeping the outgoing crowd and the incoming crowd apart, no Disneyland-like winding line to get inside. Alas, still no wipes or alcohol, but we were surprised to see pallets and pallets of two different kinds of toilet paper and big 12-packs of Bounty paper towels in the middle of the main aisle. We needed neither; we were there for "plastic cheese," what James calls single slice American cheese. And while we were there, we finally found mandarin orange cups, which James uses in his morning juice slushie. For the last two weeks he's had to make due with pineapple (which he loves) and mixed fruit (which he said was "okay"). We also picked up cranberry juice, cashews, another bag of Skinny Pop, the cheese of course, and Erik Larson's new book. (I may have to go back for the Native American book—a state-to-state and province-to-province guide of each of the tribes; I was quite taken with it.)

Then we turned back toward home and the stop at Publix. James went to the deli for more low-sodium ham and no-sodium-added turkey while I picked up yogurt, and I finally found, after a month, the Publix-brand 100-percent whole wheat bread which is the lowest sodium and carb bread there. I was afraid they had stopped making it! Also picked up eggs (they had none at Lidl), low-sodium Pringles, some herbal tea.

Finally we hit Nam Dae Mun for sugar-free cookies, the TVP James uses to stretch out his ground meat (it's called "soya" there), and sesame oil.

After that we could finally get home and get some lunch! I had a nice drippy leftover turkey sandwich, did some computer junk, and took Tucker out for his delayed long walk. We met one of the folks that live around the corner from the development entry, a house surrounded by a little bit of land that has been here for a while; they have a big gear wheel or some kind of tractor wheel on either side of their driveway, and about a half-dozen cars, including what looks like an old 1930s job. It was an older gentleman wearing a farmer's cap, long-sleeved shirt, and overalls, just like he came out of "Country" magazine, walking their dog, a black-and-tan "Chiweenie" (chihuahua/dachshund). The dogs got to sniff each other while we social distanced at the ends of both extendable leashes. He said she (the dog) sees us go by every day taking a walk and sits on the back of the sofa barking at us!

Also listened to a "Travel With Rick Steves" podcast and two episodes of "A Way With Words."

Labels: books, food, health, money, podcasts, shopping, work

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:33:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment