I was accused of being a “slug” today. Ohhh noooo noooo noooo noooo! I did NOT get up quiiiite as early as usual (more on that later) but when I did get up, I did NOT slug! I was up and engaged in food gathering! It may have been a Couch Potato version of food gathering but still.

So, in the last couple weeks, I have managed to schedule ONE successful curbside grocery pickup. That was at Kroger. It was a week ago and I had to schedule it three days ahead of time and they were out of a couple things on my list. The next time I tried to schedule a pickup, there were NO times available at all. I now have accounts with Instacart and Shipt. I have a small scheduled delivery from Instacart tomorrow to test it out but can’t seem to get any traction with Shipt. I do not fault these services or even the grocery stores they are associated with. I tend to shop small but I also love the large grocery stores and I think they were blindsided by panic buying and are not able to “turn on a dime” so to speak, to re-orient their business models.

Not the same thing for some of my fave small businesses. Several of them have, in the last few days, “turned on a dime” and, while they are still open for in-store shopping, they are now doing CURBSIDE PICKUP. I tried out two of these services today: Sparrow Market down in Kerrytown and A&L Wine Castle on Stadium across from Westgate. I ordered in the late morning and had picked up my groceries, etc., and returned home within about an hour.

Sparrow specializes in meat but it is also a comprehensive upscale specialty market with produce and all kinds of stuff. We don’t usually buy produce there because when we are down there (buying meat), we are buying produce from the adjacent (temporarily closed) farmers market. Today I bought all produce plus a few “pantry” items. The only thing they were out of was guacamole, which didn’t surprise me. Also, when I made my order I made sure to stress that I was NOT picky about brands, etc. Whatever you have! We are all in this together!

Since this morning, I have learned that Knight’s Market (mainly meat, I think) is also doing curbside pickup, as is Monahan’s Seafood, which is in the same space as Sparrow. Then, as I was driving the “back way” over to A&L Wine Castle (weird traffic pattern, don’t ask), I passed HOMES Brewery and they were selling their beer from a tent in the parking lot and that looked like drive-through too. Last but not least, Argus Farm Stop is committed to selling food from local farmers – the farmers that are USUALLY at the farmers market. It looks like they are still figuring out how to make it work so pickup seems to be available most days but delivery is still in the works.

Caveat: these stores do not carry toilet paper!

Slugging? Nope. But I did get up 45 minutes (or so) late this AM. Why? A beautiful thunderstorm rolled through around the time I usually get up. I do NOT walk in lightning and so I hung out for a while. No tornado sirens. No trees falling on The Landfill or exploding in the woods and sending shrapnel all over the neighborhood. Just regular old thunder and lightning.

The pics? First one is flooding at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti, a mouse pic posted without permission. The second is flooding in the Landfill backyard. Minor but has caused a bit of a trickle in the Dungeon. I also received a beautiful pic of a mouse and raccoon walking around in face masks 🐸.

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