No rest for ponies
Oct. 6th, 2006 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoSo today was a zoo too. I guess it's the full moon. Door counter went over 900 at work. 'Nuff said right there.
The weekend looks so crowded with stuff that we went grocery shopping tonight after I got home from work. Normally I'd do that on Saturday morning. I got reminded of why I don't usually shop in the evening. Gary wanted ground beef to make something for tomorrow when he's inviting friends in for the afternoon. They had a sale on it, and the case was empty. The butcher had already gone for the day. So, I bought a chuck roast and ground it myself when we got home. That's enough to remind me why I prefer vegetarianism. Eew.
Other problems with evening grocery shopping... You get a trainee cashier who doesn't know what vegetables are. She didn't recognize the avocados, nor the canteloupe, nor even the ordinary head of cabbage. I'm sure you people who live outside the US will be amazed that anyone could reach the age of 18 to be a grocery store cashier and not know what basic food items are. I'll bet she knows the McDonald's menu by heart but can't cook an egg on her own.
The baggers are all busy joking with each other and flirting with the girls so you can bag your own groceries. Which would be fine, because I do a better job than they do. However, when we started that the cashier stopped us and ordered one of the boys to come do it, which he did.
The lady at the deli counter is grouchy because she gets to go home in an hour and wants to start cleaning stuff up, and there you are asking her to weigh out potato salad and cold cuts. The bakery goods are already nearly a day old. The dairy case has gaps in it where things have sold out and it hasn't been restocked because it's an hour to closing.
Really, to be fair, for a small community of only 3500 people or so, our supermarket doesn't do that badly. They have a better selection than I'd expect, and prices are usually reasonable if not rock bottom. Sale items are competitive with sales at the big chains farther away. Yes, I do read sale flyers. ;p
So Gary's in the kitchen making sloppy joes out of that poor cow I just mangled. Tomorrow he and our friend Rob do their Bear Creek thing at the Woodstock Farmer's Market in the morning. Normally we go to lunch after that, but since Rob is sticking around to play again with him for Marengo Settler's Days in the evening (a real paying gig, at union rates even) he and his wife Dawn are coming to the farm for the afternoon. That will be nice, but it's also why the early shopping trip and the advance luncheon food preparations.
Then on Sunday Gary has his church choir in the morning and in the afternoon we both have to be back at the gallery in Woodstock for the opening reception of the weavers' and spinners' guild show. He will be playing dulcimer, as he has done for the last three years now, and I'll be demonstrating spinning. That runs until 5 pm, when we'll have to rush home and do evening chores. And then it will be almost Monday. Sigh. This is almost the last flurry though before the real flurries. October is going to be busy, and then things should slow down until MFF at least.
The weekend looks so crowded with stuff that we went grocery shopping tonight after I got home from work. Normally I'd do that on Saturday morning. I got reminded of why I don't usually shop in the evening. Gary wanted ground beef to make something for tomorrow when he's inviting friends in for the afternoon. They had a sale on it, and the case was empty. The butcher had already gone for the day. So, I bought a chuck roast and ground it myself when we got home. That's enough to remind me why I prefer vegetarianism. Eew.
Other problems with evening grocery shopping... You get a trainee cashier who doesn't know what vegetables are. She didn't recognize the avocados, nor the canteloupe, nor even the ordinary head of cabbage. I'm sure you people who live outside the US will be amazed that anyone could reach the age of 18 to be a grocery store cashier and not know what basic food items are. I'll bet she knows the McDonald's menu by heart but can't cook an egg on her own.
The baggers are all busy joking with each other and flirting with the girls so you can bag your own groceries. Which would be fine, because I do a better job than they do. However, when we started that the cashier stopped us and ordered one of the boys to come do it, which he did.
The lady at the deli counter is grouchy because she gets to go home in an hour and wants to start cleaning stuff up, and there you are asking her to weigh out potato salad and cold cuts. The bakery goods are already nearly a day old. The dairy case has gaps in it where things have sold out and it hasn't been restocked because it's an hour to closing.
Really, to be fair, for a small community of only 3500 people or so, our supermarket doesn't do that badly. They have a better selection than I'd expect, and prices are usually reasonable if not rock bottom. Sale items are competitive with sales at the big chains farther away. Yes, I do read sale flyers. ;p
So Gary's in the kitchen making sloppy joes out of that poor cow I just mangled. Tomorrow he and our friend Rob do their Bear Creek thing at the Woodstock Farmer's Market in the morning. Normally we go to lunch after that, but since Rob is sticking around to play again with him for Marengo Settler's Days in the evening (a real paying gig, at union rates even) he and his wife Dawn are coming to the farm for the afternoon. That will be nice, but it's also why the early shopping trip and the advance luncheon food preparations.
Then on Sunday Gary has his church choir in the morning and in the afternoon we both have to be back at the gallery in Woodstock for the opening reception of the weavers' and spinners' guild show. He will be playing dulcimer, as he has done for the last three years now, and I'll be demonstrating spinning. That runs until 5 pm, when we'll have to rush home and do evening chores. And then it will be almost Monday. Sigh. This is almost the last flurry though before the real flurries. October is going to be busy, and then things should slow down until MFF at least.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 03:22 am (UTC)And I agree, bagboys don't bag as well as...
BAGMEN!
XD
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 08:03 am (UTC)Gad my suburb is a small one and it has 25,000 people living it O.O
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 10:53 am (UTC)And I'm glad those 3500 people are four miles away and not next door.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 08:06 am (UTC)Over here, we are so advanced that we already dropped the self-service scales again because they have a tendency to encourage customer fraud (put a barcode for 232 grams on the apples, then add another two to the bag), so all the fancy scales with their eighty-something buttons now have stickers on them reading "MERCHANDISE WILL BE PRICED AT CHECKOUT". :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 11:00 am (UTC)Are you kidding? Most Americans couldn't figure out how to work a produce scale, let alone how to cheat with one. We were just reminiscing last night about the supermarket we went to in Chicago when we first lived together. It was a big one, but proud of its old fashioned ways because they were "European". :)
Anyway, the produce department was ruled by a girl named Carla who was as funny as any stand up comedienne and could weigh your peaches and tag them while talking at 90 miles an hour to two different people. Always friendly and helpful too. She taught me quite a few things about selecting good melons, peaches, and tomatoes. The produce was good too. They had really ripe tomatoes. I remember watching one woman pick up a tomato and put it down quickly with a look of disgust because it was soft. Carla looked at her and said "If you want green rocks, go down the street to the Jewel."
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 11:35 am (UTC)As you said, not surprised at all. ARGH! Hitting a note here so sorry for the rant. *sigh* When my parents visit these distant relatives in Arkansas me mum always winces when she sees em opening up three or five tinned cans for dinner. No recycleables of course, all tins go to the landfill. And this is in a smaller farming community?
My business type driving trips (full van, long story, whatever) used to take me through ND, SD, Montana etc and I could never stand the food there. Quantity not quality and generic aaarrrggghhh! Fargo: One giant strip-mall with an insanely underused empty amazingly good east-indian place. I used to stock up with about four days of takeout there whenever I went through. Always told these instructors who'd never been in the place (Fargo) about it. "Sorry, I don't like spicy food." was always the reply. Well don't order the damn beef vindaloo then! Heh... they liked me there. Nobody 'cept the owner spoke english. When he asked me how hot I wanted it I told him just like mama used to make. "I want to see through time in five dimentions!"
I quickly gave up on finding anything decent to eat as far as restaurants were concerned, with occasional very rare notables. Even then, finding good deli food in one of these HUGE supermarkets was hard! Nothing but rows and rows of frozen processed shite and tinned crap!
Most memorable eating out experiences: Rapid City... an authentic looking/feeling vietnamese place. Ordered mooshoo (sp?). Got fried rice with a bit of pork and some bean sprouts rolled in a burrito wrap (kid you not). No hoi-sin sauce... they'd never heard of it.
Next: On the road in Montana. Classy looking (and rather expensive) roadhouse. Sign on the blackboard (oooh! they got a blackboard!) reads "grilled chicken breast on kaiser". Ok, go for it. Recieved a breaded processed piece of greyish paste on a hamburger bun. The "meat" was in the shape of a porkchop, I guess because the machine in New Jersey that shits this stuff out had the wrong template on it. You'd figure that in rural Montana they'd have at least one chicken and at least one person smart enough to wring it's neck and shove it in a fire. *sigh
Cooking lesson #1: You can't polish a turd.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 04:07 am (UTC)