when am I?

Saturday DH and I were out shopping and we passed the big Asian supermarket. "I'd like to go through that place sometime," I remarked. He turned the car around and said, "Why not now?"

It was fascinating! Whole roast ducks hanging in the butcher shop, heads and feet and all. Whole cooked carp. Pints of pig's blood. And the vegetables! Bins of wrinkled, warty mottled things. Piles of long, smooth white things. stacks of sundry leafy greens. Tanks full of live tilapia and lobsters and oysters. Aisles of freezer cases, and more aisles of canned goods. If I ever need a pretty tin of fancy tea cookies, this is where I'll come. And I might pick up a box of mochi balls (sweet rice paste with various fillings) just to give it a try. By then, we had been wandering for more than an hour, and my head was full. We didn't even check out the non-food aisles. Oh, and how can I forget the bakery? Trays of cookies higher than my head, flavored with mango and lychee and ginger and green tea and . . . I was dizzy by that time.

On the way out, we passed a shop selling marble statues, between three and four feet tall. Chinese lions and dragons, rearing horses, and many versions of the holy family (Mary Joseph and baby Jesus.) I had to go back and double check - yes, every one of them had asian features. Joseph with the traditional full thick beard and almond eyes. I liked it!

DH, being the dear man that he is, had gone on line and checked out the nutritional analysis for the TacoBell Fresco meals, and took me out for a Mexican treat for lunch. One Beef Fresco crisp taco has only 139 calories (or something like that) so I tried one. It has so few calories because it's so darn small. Lots of chopped tomato and lettuce, a fried taco shell, and about a tablespoon of seasoned beef-like substance. And, when I looked it up on the Weight Watcher's site, it turns out to have 6 points. DH and I agreed that it would take about three of them to feel like a meal. I get only 23 points a day. Soooo, I'm not gonna blow 18 of those points on crispy taco shells, no matter how well marketed. Still better off with a Burger King Whopper Junior without mayo. Only 6 points, and you feel as if you've eaten something.

Grocery shopping on Saturday was a madhouse. Was it where you live, too? Why should having one more day off work make shopping for food SO much more confusing? People leave their carts crossways across the aisle and wander away, blocking everyone else's path. And women who leave their purse in the cart, wide opeen with the wallet sitting like a plum to be picked . . . It drives me nuts! And of course, at any given time, somewhere in the store, some child is having a melt-down. Those steam-whistle shrieks go right through my head. The bored, resigned husbands tagging along because they have the money and want to see how it's spent, and the newly retired husbands who want to examine every item on the shelves . . . Oh my I was glad to get home!

I submitted my first article for Write on Demand Studios. Finger crossed. "How to Crochet Different Hats" And I proposed a topic for "How to set a pretty table with mis-matched china" that I am working on now.

Sunday, quite unlike myself, I slept in till 8 AM. That's three hours of extra sleep! I must have needed it. It was just a lazy day. I frogged the decreases of the cable cozy I'm working, and started over. I can not seem to count to five.

And it rained. Low 60s and intermittant showers all day. We have the same weather as Sydney Australia and it's autumn for them. Our high was lower than the low for Boston. All you folks in the midwest, enjoy that sunshine for us!