I know. I said I was gonna move. Hosts, that is. I can’t say I haven’t had time. I have. Last weekend. The truth is that I’m a little daunted by the process. I’ve done it before. But. Anyway, I got home from work this afternoon and faarrrrred up my white computer and went out to my site and all was fine. And then. I hit the admin button to go to the back country where I actually *write* my blahg and the whole thing just blew away. For an hour or so. They can email me about all the wonderful enhancements they’re making. Why can’t they email about service issues. My email was apparently still working through all of this. Anyway…

Obviously, I found the fabric. Actually, judging by the fact that it was sitting right out in plain sight, I think it might’ve been, um, returned. Love you anyway, Mouse. I think it’s beautiful. Obviously, this isn’t how most black American women dress nowadays and it might be degrading to many African-American women who have worked very hard to overcome a lot of hardships and difficulties. I still dunno. The fabric sort of almost reminds me of my female relatives and friends meeting up on Fin Family Moominbeach. We are all white and quite a few of us are blonde. We have our own style of clothing, in my case, mostly tattered. But we do what these women are apparently doing, talk and gossip about life and our work and bringing up our kids. I’ll quit on that now. I’m a computer type person. I’ll let the anthropologists comment if they so desire. I just dunno.

So there’s a lot of other stuff I could blahg about but I won’t. It was an interesting and fun week at work and we have some interesting things to do this weekend. I won’t say much about my work but I will probably blahg about the weekend.

Love y’all, KW.

I have this gorgeous piece of African fabric of my own that I got at Joann’s about a gazillion years ago. Yes, I think it was imported from Africa. I bought extra because I thought one of the loopy/uptight denizens typical of the Planet Ann Arbor might see it and get their underwear in a bunch about how politically incorrect it was and then it would get pulled from the shelves. Think stylized African women with hoop earrings and turbans and big lips. Of all things, it’s the one piece of fabric out of about a squillion or so that I can’t find.

So, I was reading the Snooze tonight and it was the usual boring stuff about people who can’t seem to keep their pants on, Kwame and that guy in New York or wherever. I don’t know. I’m working now nad and Diane Rehm’s voice doesn’t grate on in the background of my life any more, analyzing every bit of news to absolute death warmed over. Don’t get me wrong, I like Diane, but. Ho hum and “stick it” as Grandroobly would say about most politicians. Anyway, there was a Snooze article about a woman who was *arrested* for leaving her SLEEPING baby in a warm, LOCKED, car while she and her older kids walked TEN YARDS away through SLEET to put some money that the older kids had diligently scavenged into a Salvation Army bucket. And then she was arrested. By some two-bit Walmart security person who sounds like she (?) might have been off her (?) psychotropic meds for just a tad too long. Eventually the mom was locked into a squad car and jailed. Meanwhile, the police managed to forget about the eight and nine-year-old (or whatever) siblings and *they* ended up walking home. Alone.

Kee-reist! I honestly don’t know if this is a true story or urban legend or what. I’m too tired to do the research. Knock yourselves out. Unfortunately, it’s believable. People, it is HARD to schlep little kids around all the time. There’s always somebody who is just not with the program. Sometimes it’s mom! You can’t just throw your kids into the car any more. They have to be strapped and belted in within an inch of their lives. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I KNOW that it has saved many babies’ lives. But, it makes for a *lot* of stress for everyone involved. Heck, when I was a kid back in the Jurassic age, you just plain GOT IN THE CAR! Fer Kee-reist! I have done what that woman did. I love my kids to distraction. I was terrified when they were babies that if I turned my back for one blasted second, they would be stolen or stomped by a tyrannosaur or whatever. Heck, back when *I* had babies, you still had to go *inside* to pay for self-serve gas! So, what do you do? Do you unbuckle everybody and drag them 10 yards or whatever into the gas station? Or do you lock the car and set the alarm (what alarm? when I had Lizard, I was driving a 1980 Ford Fiesta) and run over there to pay your gas? Waiting nervously while some nincompoop in front of you debates the price of cigarettes for five minutes. Um, I have KIDS in my CAR! OUT THERE! Sheesh! I was SO HAPPY when I first encountered a pay-at-the-pump gas station. Unfortunately, that was long after my kids were toddlers.

People, young mothers need our help these days. Believe me, they are NERVOUS enough about their kids’ safety without having to worry about being arrested for being careful. The rules aren’t clear any more. [deleted long stuff about hiring and training Walmart-type security guards.] USE COMMON SENSE, people. Parents, educators, health professionals, police-like people. C’mon. Give the mom a break. It ain’t easy.

Oh, Mouse? Mouse is doing fine and wonderful! That’s her in the pic, sometime in 1988. Back in the day when I had to schlep her in and out of the grocery store — oooh, definitely not always happy at all — and figger out what to do with her when I needed to go inside the gas station to pay. Somehow, she survived my imperfect “parenting.” [a word that didn’t exist — that I know of — when I had my first child]. And she has just left for the grocery store herself this minute, under her own power and dealing with the culture shock of American grocery stores after living in Africa for six months.

Love y’all, Kayak Woman

First of all, there are no teenagers here but that’s okay, I get the point. I can’t remember the last time I got a message from Visabuxx saying that Mouse had used that card. Visabuxx is a plastic credit card-like beast that you can get for your teenagers. You load it with money and they spend it. Or they can load it with money. If they have a job or another independent source of income. In our household, it was me who did the money loading. It’s okay. It’s a pretty convenient way to give your kids money without feeling like an automated teller machine. You know how that is. They insert a little card into your mouth and you grab it with your teeth and suck it in and your poor, tired, overworked brain does a calculation and directs your hand to dredge into your ski jacket pocket to extricate some cash. Visabuxx takes your body out of the equation. And it sends you an email when your kid has used the card to buy something. Or take money out of an automated teller machine. The non-flesh-and-blood kind. You can follow a link and log in to find out what they spent and where they spent it. I have to say, my kids were so responsible with money that after about the first few of those notifications, the curiosity that killed the cat wore off and I just deleted them. Kee-reist, my kids are more responsible with money than *I* am! Nevertheless, when I got that message today, I followed the link. Seven dollars and some odd change at Amer’s Deli. It’s been a while. I don’t think her card worked in Africa. But I didn’t follow that link because I cared how much money was spent or where. I can’t explain why I followed the link. My “baby” was home here on the Planet Ann Arbor, her first home but not her only home. She used her card today. I was at work and I wanted to know what she was doing but I didn’t want to disturb her if she was trying to sleep after 31 hours of travel et al. This is a pretty stupid thing to get sentimental about. But, love you Mouse. Glad you’re home.

Oh, do we have African fabric? Yes, I think we have African fabric.

September 10, 2007, O’Hare Airport, Senegal bound. March 10, 2008, Daytwa Metro. That’s Amanda on the left, longtime friend. Home again, home again, jiggity jig and on to the next episode.

Hanging out. That was pretty much what this weekend was all about. I knew I’d go stir crazy if were hanging out here on The Planet with people doing the taxes (yes, still) and all of that stuff. So, yes, we were at Houghton Lake and y’all already know that. I’m repeating myself and I don’t care. Instead of trying to ski today, we took advantage of the thick ice covering the lake and did an interesting hike. We walked across the north bay and then connected up with the scenic trails. Note to self: you need to get *serious* about buying new boots next year. These ones are shot! (Yes, I know I just said, “these ones.”) Traversing the bay made for interesting walking. Snowmobiles are good for something. They make easy tracks to walk in. But they tend to mainly circumnavigate along the perimeter. Out there in the middle, there is just a lot of ice. Or stuff that looks like snow but is actually as hard as a rock and slippery. I’m okay with ice that I can see. It’s the surprise ice that I get upset with. But I still have to watch each step. A tiring business. And then there’s the little business about getting vertigo in open spaces with big skies. I mean kee-reist. At the most we *might* have been a mile from shore. I doubt I’d make it in the Arctic. The second half of the hike was through the Scenic Trails, beautiful but uneventful. That was another hour and then we realized we had probably a third hour of hoofing it back to the cabin along the roads. Not a pleasant hike and we needed time to pack up, etc. So, The Beautiful Gay, whose favorite forms of exercise do not include hiking, came and picked us up. And she had cleaned the group home within an inch of its life and cooked us a wonderful brunch! Love you, sis-in-law! Home now. Work tomorrow. And then. Click here or on the pic for ice-hike pics.

We are here at the Group Home. We’re biding time. At least I’m biding time. I’m not sure about anyone else. The idea was to ski. We brought our skis up. It was low single-digit cold this morning (Fahrenheit, that is) and we dragged you-know-what all morning. It hasn’t snowed much lately so the snow is kind of crusty and icy and it’s getting to be that time of year when whatever leaves still remain fall into the trail and they have a way of stopping you dead in your tracks. Not fun and I just don’t like to ski in that kind of snow. So, I didn’t. I was feeling exercise guilt about this. Why? I dunno. I walked this morning. And then I took an hour and a half jaunt out on the ice this afternoon. The UU and The Beautiful Gay did finally go out and ski in the late afternoon. They say it was fast and icy. Not great when you have groomed trails. The kind where you are stuck in the ruts that you can’t exit if you need to. And so sometimes you crash. I love the Ski Ranch but my favorite skiing is in deeper snow. Breaking trail? Bring it on.

We’ve had a few snow-mos go by throughout the day but not as many as back when I first knew the GG and started coming up here. They were noisier back then too. Even though I grew up in the Yoop where you could drive your snow-mo in the streets, my family was never firmly into the craze. I was thinking about this today. In a way, it seems incongruous that a guy like my dad was not interested in snowmobiles. He loved to drive things. He was a top-notch automobile driver and pilot. But other than the little putt-putt motorboat that we didn’t get out last summer, he wasn’t much into any motorized beasts beyond cars and airplanes. I’m sure there are complicated reasons for that but over all, my dad was more about motion than the means for achieving it. You need an airplane to fly and if you want to traverse the country like my dad did, you have to drive. And he liked to do those things partly just because they were fun. I know about this. I think I’ve inherited his love of driving and at least some of his talent for it. But I also think that Grandroobly liked to approach the wilderness under his own steam. Cross-country skiing. Canoeing. He was a runner as a young man and in later life he walked miles every day. Until the day he fell and couldn’t walk any more. He never had any of the fancy equipment that everybody has to have now. He would just get out there and go.

We did have a snow-mo for a while though. My bro’ was even more entranced with motorized vee-hickles than the old coot was. By the time The Old Boy was maybe three years old, he could identify various vee-hickle makes and models. Once during elementary school, when the parents were taking a trip to Detroit without us, I can remember him explicitly instructing them to *notify* him if they saw a Corvette with it’s lights, um, opened, or closed, or whatever. I can’t remember. Anyway, The Old Boy *had* to have a snow-mo. So we got one. I can’t remember if the old coot ever drove it or not. I *tried* driving it once or twice. The Old Boy went on to have his own little fleet of snow-mos as an adult. And a few fancy boats. And many automotive vee-hickles. Just ask Webmomster. On the other hand, I still miss the days when we’d be up here and he’d randomly show up at the Ski Ranch. And he was the one who bought the first kayak. I can still remember being scared to try that out.

I’m biding time this weekend. It’s better to be here than home, with or without skiing. Last weekend I was Mom Alone and it was wonderful and I was still in a life-as-usual mode. Now I am biding time. I loved being on the ice today. That is all. Click here or on the pic for random slides.

What was *that*?!?? It was 0-dark-30, and brilliant flashes of light were coming from the bathroom. It was another restless night around the Landfill and it was that batscope time of the night. The usual skulkers had been up and down and doing their thing in their great, gray, green, greasy, limpopo underwear. That’s typical and I was trying to ignore it. Bright flashing lights in the bathroom are a little harder to ignore. The flashing stopped and I attained enough consciousness to figure out that it wasn’t a fire or something. But what? I got up and met the skulker in the living room. What on *earth* is going on? The surprising answer was that the *police* were out in back shining their flashlights around and jumping fences and stuff. They took pictures of something in the back corner of Joan’s yard. And then they were gone. Oh well. Went back to sleep. Dunno what was going on. Chasing someone? I doubt if it had to do with the bomb on the fence back there. Burke’s bomb. I think the Planet’s Finest probably already know about that. They’ve been called about it enough times. Everything was pretty normal in the morning. The skulker found footsteps at the back of the landfill lot. They went behind the shed. There was a sock on *top* of the snow on the other side of the fence. And for once, the Duke of Perrynet didn’t know a thing. He had actually slept through a neighborhood event. Oh, and the GG couldn’t ask what was going on because he wasn’t, er, properly attired for a meeting with the police.

That was how it all started. Now we’re at the end of the day. It was a long day and I think I actually sorta almost semi earned my keep today. Don’t worry, I’ll probably want to *beat* myself for saying that on Monday. And then, since the eight more inches of snow or whatever it was they were predicting didn’t happen today, we drove up here to The Group Home. I usually like to drive but I was too twitchy to drive after working all day. And I was twitchy all the way up. Trying not to count the miles or look at the blasted clock. This will take some getting used to. Having technology in the car helps a bit. I can’t get online in the car with the laptop. At least not yet. Unless we’re sitting somewhere outside a venue with wifi. But I can at least type or process photos. And I *can* check my email and surf the web on my iPhone.

This place is spotless! Lizard Breath (my sis-in-law) gets the kudos for that since she was most recently up here. Er, not that I have the expertise or authority to be handing out awards for housecleaning. And The UU and The Beautiful Gay have just called from a gas station asking if we need anything. Well, lemme see. The sun is well over the yardarm and there’s liqwire here so I think we’ll live until tomorrow.

Blahrglargl, Good night! –Your favorite blahgger, Kayak Woman

Give a mad scientist a three-question list, starting with one and ending with three, I mean, how *else* do you start and end a three-question list, and he has to add a zero to the whole thing. Okay, Zero the Hero. I didn’t ask anything about your phone so I’m not sure why you added that item. And I didn’t *call* you. I *emailed* you. Duuuuuhhhhh!

So, question one was “If you get home before me, could you please wheel — or drag or schlep or whatever you can manage to do — our Super Duper Planet Ann Arbor Garbage Cart out to the curb snowbank? Those are approximate words. I wrote the original email on my iPhone so I don’t have it on my MacBook and I’m too lazy to go over there and find it on my iPhone. Actually, I should probably go over there and get my iPhone out and change it from vibrate to sound. Anyway. We normally park two vee-hickles in the driveway and one in the street. If there are two vee-hickles in the driveway, even on a nice dry summer day, it’s hard to maneuver the blasted garbage cart around the second vee-hickle down to the street, especially with that huge mess of cracked concrete next to the old tree. The tree whose top third crashed through our roof and crunched up the POC during a thunderstorm in May 2000. When the driveway is filled with a few inches of snow along with various flavors of ice, boilerplate or whatever, it gets to be kind of like, well, hmmm, I can’t think of a good analogy. It just gets hard. Especially when you are so tired of your blasted beat up snow boots that you’re wearing your Chacos.

And I know all of this because I *did* arrive home first (yay!) even after a run through the Westgate Kroger uscan (see, I still shop there) and, therefore, *I* dragged/schlepped the garbage cart out there. Through the snow. In Chaco sandals. My issue is not that I have to do the chore. I actually like garbage duty. It is that it’s a lot easier to *do* garbage duty when there isn’t a blasted vee-hickle in the way. And we won’t even talk about how precariously the garbage cart is perched out there today on top of the snowbank that the plow left when it plowed The Indefatigable in. Again. Because nobody drives it any more. Kevin? Kevin? Keeevvvviiiinnn????

Oh. Questions two and three? Believe me, you don’t care.

I dunno. I think it’s obvious that NP Jane has found her jigger. You go girl is about all I have to say. It’s me who is having trouble finding my blasted jigger. I came home from work today. I put gas ($40?!!!) in the Dhoga on the way. When I got home, the Clbhcwtbfitb was already in the driveway. Say what? What are you doing home? I am happiest when I can chill when I get home from work. Not today. The GG was already home. And he was IN MY SPACE. The space where my laptop uually sits, at the right end of the kitchen counter. All kinds of tools and sensors were there too. And whatever. You have to know that the GG is a mad scientist. And he was USING MY JIGGER! Kee-reist! You want me to make you a ‘hattan and you are using my jigger? For what? Testing electrofragmathermoglobulators? G’night, Kayak Woman. Love you, Jane.

Nope. No bombs here. Not today. Just a long dark slither home through blowing snow. That’s all okay. I’m glad I got home without anybody slamming into me and I am *really* glad not to be blown up. I’m not sure I could drive with all those body parts strewn everywhere. But I have had it. I am just about at the end of my rope here. So, whether or not I can manage to move my whole blahg in a nice, smooth, elegant manner, I am going to switch hosts. At long last. I guesstimate it’ll be about a two week process. Right now, I am in the beginning stage of backing up all the files on my server. Even those that have been out there since, oh about 2001 or whatever. I don’t even know what’s *in* some of those files or why I (or whoever) put them out there in the first place and I don’t remember what fizzled-out grand scheme they are part of. I am just sick of the fact that my host can’t seem to let me traverse my blahg without waiting forever for each page to loooooaaaaaadddd……….. I don’t know exactly what the problem is but we’ve been down this road before and it has something to do with the server(s?) they use for mysql, which is the database that stores all the stuff on my blahg (yes, even the comments, someone asked me that the other day) and all other WordPress-driven blahgs. I am sick of waiting.* I am not going to bother with the futile exercise of contacting customer support. I’m gonna move. I may have to just sort of go on into the future for the time being and try to add the archives back in bit by bit. We’ll see. I’m not sure anyone but me much cares to read through all that crap anyway. And actually, there are a couple of traveling funeral years that I don’t even want to go back and read about right now. I know I will later.

So, y’all are might be wondering, “why do I care about this?” The answer is complicated. Isn’t it always? If you have somehow managed to surf here by entering “main water supply” on The Google, then you are definitely scratching your head. I don’t sell plumbing supplies but thanks for stopping by and please have a nice life! At the other extreme, The Commander will definitely wonder what rabbit hole I’ve dropped into if she faaaaaarrrrs up ol’ Faaaarrrrfox and good ol’ ababsurdo doesn’t show up. And when my body is dragged up out of that rabbit hole, she’ll be indignantly informing all of her octo-crones, “Well!!! If she had only followed my advice and worn some decent shoes!” Roight. So. There’ll be days when ababsurdo looks about like it always does. There might be moments when all that shows up is a blank page. Or a sorta-ababsurdo-looking page with a stupid search box in the middle and a message saying something like, “sorry, what you are looking for is not there.” Helpful, eh? I don’t expect these conditions to occur frequently. It is more likely that you’ll encounter them on weekends, ’cause that’s when I have time to fiddle around with stuff like this. Patience, please.

Oh and by the way. If you have surfed here by entering something like, “dumb blahgger looking for new host service” on The Google, don’t bother commenting about your wonderful host service. I am pretty sure I know where I’m moving. Actually, I actively administer three other sites on a better host than the one I’m using for ababsurdo and, even though I am satisfied with that host, I might put ababsurdo on another one. I am scoping it out. I’ll blahg more about why ababsurdo is where it is in a future installment, after I’ve successfully established it elsewhere. You know, for those who are interested bored enough already.

Watch for the next installment of “Bombs Away” in a future post!

* Actually, it’s pretty fast tonight but every weekend it seems to slow down to a snail’s pace.

In case no one could guess, I was moom alone for the weekend while the GG visited our baby elegant 23-year-old daughter out in California. Bay area. I dropped him off at Metro on Thursday morning. His flight left literally to the minute that mine did one year ago. February 28, 2007. I couldn’t go this year. I am working now (still blinking my eyes about that) and I don’t have any vacation time built up. You know the drill.

Was I sad? You bet. But it was okay. My trip last year was a dream trip. It was my first visit to California. I was one heck of a rubber-necking fudgie, digital camera at the ready everywhere we went. I loved every thing we did. There was the Point Reyes Pacific coast, which was so like my own beach on Gitchee Gumee, or maybe more like Twelve Mile Beach over there west of Grand Marais. It was still so much bigger. And it was dangerous with sharks and sneaker waves. And there were COWS! Actually, there are cows not too far away from Fin Family Moominbeach too. But there are swamps and forests between the farms and the beach. And walking the city of San Francisco, walking miles. The Wharf, Chinatown, the Mission, Golden Gate park. And just hanging out in Berkeley, Liz’s comfortable apartment, walking around, hanging out at Internet cafes watching west coast bums wake up and arrange their belongings for the day.

What did I do at home? Hmmmm… Worked. Cleaned. Did laundry. Shopped. Walked. Fell on ice. Mobilized a salt patrol. Shoveled snow. Called my own Moom (“where the hell’ve’ya been?” asked the Comm, after she’d turned down the boob tube enough to actually hear me). It was okay. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Nobody to answer to. Nobody hanging around doing the blasted taxes. But there were moments. The GG called late Saturday night to report that they had been on the Pacific Coast somewhere or other. I didn’t listen. I saw red. Sheesh, do I still have that many hormones? I guess so. When I got off the phone, I went outside and shoveled the heck out of the snow here and walked around the neighborhood. Crashed out easily that night. Then again, I was bored enough on Sunday morning that I took a river ride.

I dunno. To an extent, I like to travel with the GG. We kind of grew up together by traveling. I think *mostly* we get along the best when we’re on the road. But that’s by car. Houghton Lake and back, Siberia and back, whatever. I loved traveling to California by myself, dealing with the flights and finding the BART and entertaining myself *alone* when I was up three hours earlier than my daughter or walking around or hanging out in an Internet cafe while she worked. It was *my* vacation and I loved it.

You guys, this was just a ramble. In one week, Mouse will be home from Africa and I will have another baby elegant daughter to deal with right here at home.

Oh, by the way, there’s no liq-wire in that glass. It was water. Well before the yardarm.

Okay, enough kvetchin’! Don’t be fooled, my life was really not that bad this week. So, how ’bout a grokkery store list? Since I spend so much time haunting grokkery stores. gro kgrokgork grok! First, though, a little message from the sponsor of the month (not the DOGHA, it’s just there to provide a reference):

Now for the list. In *very* rough chronological order, actually, it’s pretty hard to do it chronologically with my shopping habits. A flowchart might work better. Hmmm… Anyway, here are a few of the grokkery stores I’ve been attached to in my life:

• The A&P: my first grocery store. I liked going there with my grandma the best because she would cheerfully buy me whatever I wanted. Actually, The Comm probably did too albeit not as cheerfully. Just to keep things interesting, we sometimes varied the routine and went to the Red Owl or the Piggly Wiggly.
• Aunt Marion’s: the neighborhood store where Laurie and I went to buy candy and popsicles and stuff. Her family owned it and, while there was a really sweet elderly aunt that worked there a lot, occasionally we’d have to put up with her crotchety old uncle Angie, who hated kids. And probably everybody for all I know. That wasn’t usually where we (i.e., my family) bought our *groceries* except for one winter when it snowed endlessly and the city didn’t plow the alleys and we couldn’t get any vee-hickles out for weeks and The Comm hauled a sled over there a couple of times. One of those old wooden sleds with the metal runners. Bet those are illegal these days.
• The J&K Market (Aunt Jane’s, What a Pickle): candy and meat up on Six Mile in the summer (I’m talking about Six Mile in Da Yoop, not Daytwa). There was also that ratty old store over in Brimley, Neville’s or whatever. Booze runs, primarily, I’ll wager. There’s a res-owned British Petroleum thing there now.
• Yeah. Not Neville’s. Not in Brimley anyway. Because Neville’s was (is?) on Ashmun hill and I should remember that because it’s where The Commander once sent me to buy some Jim Crow. Just try to buy Jim Crow. It’s a kind of bourbon, you know. Or not.
• The Westgate Kroger! Yay! I probably have the longest relationship with the Westgate Kroger. What can I say? I’ve shopped there through a store move, a strike (or two?), and I forget how many remodelings. Actually, I didn’t shop there during the strike unless it was an emergency, like if we were totally out of diapers at midnight or something. It was the first to get Uscans and there are cashiers that have been working there the whole time I’ve been shopping there. Getting close to 30 years! And it can be just about the best theatre in town.
• Meijer Shifty Takers Cubed: Count ’em! Way back when, I would actually schlep all the way over to Carpenter Road from North Seventh Street if I wanted to make a Meijer run. Then the Saline Road Meijer opened up. And finally we got one over here on Jackson Road.
• Glen’s: northern superstore. Sault Ste. Siberia, Houghton Lake, Gaylord, Grayling. I’ve shopped ’em all. I once lost Grandroobly in the Siberia Glen’s during a POC repair/booze run. And the old coot would NOT have anything to do with the credit card swiper. Kee-reist. Went and stood over by the door. “Didn’t your mother give you any money?” Um, I haven’t asked my mommy for money in years. But that little expotition is a whole nother story for a whole nother day. Love you, Old Coot. You guys have fun wherever it is you are!
• Super Valu: what my old A&P is now named. Good for a quick zip down the escarpment from The Commander’s Other House, the Real House, Where She Lives Some of the Days. If you’re there on the right day, you can get beef filet for like six bucks a pound.
• Walmart: Houghton Lake. Occasionally we go there when we need a few dog Halloween costumes along with our groceries.
• Four Seasons Squared: “the candy store” down the road at Houghton Lake. Also known as the “park store” a couple miles up the road from Fin Family Moominbeach, a newly expanded and pretty darn comprehensive little grokkery store.
• Best Choice Market! Clang, clang, clang! An upscale market at Houghton Lake. Friendly staff with all the latest local news. Feta spread? Bring it on!
• Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s: fun stuff but not on my regular beat. But……
• Plum Market is!!! An upscale grocery on the west side! We’ve arrived. Walking distance! And hey! My Jewish buddies’ take is that the kosher chicken is cheaper than Hiller’s.
• The Berkeley Bowl! A fellow customer: “Excuse me, ma’am do you know where the [insert exotic produce item I’ve never heard of here] is?” Zombie Woman: “Uh, I dunno, sorry. I bet one o’ these people that work here know.” Thinking: “Sorry sir, but I just got off the plane from Daytwa Metro this afternoon. I’ve been up since two AM Cali time and I’m a Zombie.” And then. Zombie Woman: “Hey, oh, here it is!” Yes, I found the exotic produce item. My friends told me I’d fit right in out in Berkeley and I did. Wish the Berkeley Bowl was on my beat a little more often.