Dave woke me up this morning too early, like, around eight forty-five. His flight got in late last night. Not very late, but late enough that it was very late by the time he had collected his bags and I had collected him and we came home and I got my omiyage (an alternatively amusing and terrifying cookbook dedicated to Minnesota "hot dish" that includes a recipe for a "tamale pie hot dish" that has as one of its ingredients "one can of tamales") and he unpacked and told me about his trip and the wonderful hockey game he attended where he sat up in the executives' box and ate junk food and drank way too much beer and then we got ready for and got into bed and I had to read a couple of chapters from my new book about gulags before going to sleep.
And the morning came too soon.
But no matter. I got up and took Dave to work and on the way home nearly got killed by some construction worker who, irresponsive to the world while on his cell phone, mindlessly drove his huge dump truck across three lanes and into oncoming traffic. No one was hurt but I laid on my horn only to be greeted by a slow, stupid, sheep-like look of Huuuuhhh? so common to idiots with cell phones up to their ears.
So that was how the day started.
Then in the afternoon there was preparatory Thanksgiving shopping to be done with Kelly First at three--count them, three--grocery stores. We started at the ghetto grocery mere blocks from our home for all our white trash grocery needs. Kelly First is responsible for the bulk of the dinner so she needed a bunch of stuff, but all I needed to buy was potato chips and sour cream and onion dip.
Now don't get me wrong--even I know that potato chips and sour cream and onion dip have no place on a Thanksgiving table, no matter how untraditional the menu, no matter how white trash the venue. But greasy, salty potato chips and sour cream and onion dip are some of Judi's favorite party foods and in an attempt to mollify Judi's holiday-awakened inner control freak, I promised her greasy, salty potato chips and sour cream and onion dip for Thanksgiving dinner. So yes, it is white trash, but only necessarily so.
On the way out of the ghetto grocery we noticed that one of the news channels had sent a camera guy and a big camera to film--what?--pre-Thanksgiving shoppers? We checked out through the liquor department (of course) and I made a point of asking the cashier about the camera. In response to my question, "Why are they filming?" He said, "Channel four." So. I still don't know.
From the ghetto grocery we made a quick stop at the fruit stand (for green chile, garlic, and blueberries) and from there we crossed the universe to Whole Paycheck.
Whole Paycheck would, quite honestly, be one of my favorite stores if there were no other people in it ever. All I want is a Whole Paycheck that exists only for me. All I want is to be able to shop for my over-priced organic food without The Brain having to have a meltdown because some bland, drone-ish housewife has paused bovinely in the middle of the aisle with her cart at a diagonal so that no one can get past. Is my own Whole Paycheck so much to ask for? I used to be embarrassed when I was a little girl and I would go shopping with my grandmother and she would not hesitate to push drones' carts out of the way. I thought she was rude then, but now I find myself doing the same. When The Brain starts in with the passive-aggressive wondering aloud if people are all so stupid or if they get stupid when they cross the Whole Paycheck threshold, then I know it's time for me and The Brain to head for the checkout line.
That was, seriously, like half the day.
I'm danged tired now and there is no energy left to chronicle dinner and the trip to yet another grocery and the making of a tres leches cake for dessert tomorrow and the trip to the bookstore and the embroidery I did in the middle of all that. No energy.
Here's a crappy cell phone picture, though, of the police lights in my rearview mirror that I took last night as I was waiting for the cop to write me two tickets.
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