Away Down the River

Recently the Missus and I were shocked and stunned by the unexpected deaths of two people.

The first, the husband of one of the Missus' former co-workers died of a heart attack while is wife was at work.  She came home to find him.

The second was the wife of a former co-worker of the Grouch,  She passed away two weeks after her illness was discovered.

We were saddened by both losses and grieve for the surviving spouse.

I was reminded of this song by all of this.

Time heals the heart but never erases the sweet memories of a lost partner. 

Shop Like You Mean It!

So, once a week I accompany the Missus to the local Ralph's for our supply run.  My job is to fetch items from the list that the Missus controls (only those items I'm not likely to muck up by picking the wrong brand/size/color/texture) and beeline back to the shopping cart for my next item or two.  Kind of like those hunting dogs that race out to retrieve the fallen bird that the hunter just downed.

So as you might guess, I'm pretty goal oriented when doing this job.  Find the box of crackers, bottle of shampoo, and the favorite cookies and RTB (return to base).   I just wish everyone else was in the store.

Listen folks, when you are shopping pretend you are driving a car in a busy neighborhood and navigate accordingly.  The people pushing carts around aimlessly are driving me crazy.

Between the people doing the Walmart shuffle (lean your body on the pushbar of the cart and shuffle your feet to propel you and the cart at a snail's pace), those who are wondering just why they are at the grocery store and are planted in the aisle blocking the flow, the women who apparently haven't seen each other since maybe yesterday and are parked side to side at the end of the aisle blocking the traffic in all directions as they recount the minutia of the day, and the new age parents who are letting their offspring do gymnastics next to them again plugging all traffic from moving...all of you: shop like you mean it!

The only classes of shoppers that I will give a pass to are the men who have been sent to the store with a cryptic note from the wife and are standing there vainly attempting to discern the true intent of the list, and the codgers who are shopping like they mean it but their flat out pace has slowed.  Being an impending codger myself I must give them a pass.

So, when you next go to the grocery store pause before you enter and take a deep breath and review your checklist one more time: multi-use grocery bags? Check. Shopping list with pen to check off items? Check.  Funds to pay for the items? Check.  If everything is a go, hit that sliding door and shop like you mean it!

I'm back!

So I had to take some time off recently due to surgery and recovery but I am back.  Luck you!

I'll start off easy with this post and revert to my inner grouch.

The 'change oil' light came on for my Jeep Wrangler the other day.  I used to change it myself but decided that paying the dealership $10 more to do it for me was a wise way to go.

I stopped at the dealer yesterday to avail myself of the 'express oil' lane (oil changes only!) figuring to kill an hour there which I could pass reading a book or maybe walking up and down auto row looking at the shiny new cars.  the nice young man told me that sadly 6 cars were ahead of me and I was looking at a 2.5 hour wait.  I was a bit stunned.  So much for express oil changes.  I was considering leaving the Jeep and coming back for it later and I commented that I could just do it myself.

the young man smiled somewhat condescendingly and said 'we don't need to be rolling under Jeeps to change oil anymore'.   The 'we' got me.   I'll do it myself I declared, bought the supplies headed home and within an hour and with only a couple pints of oil spilled, the oil and filer was changed as was the air filter and the wiper blades too.

So there Mr. young service writer, 'we' may not need to roll under Jeeps anymore but 'we' can certainly do it when called on!