Adventures in grocery shopping

So, last night I was looking for my shoes and my purse. I was almost ready to walk out the door to get a chai and go to a bookstore for a couple hours. But while I was in my hallway, I heard the sweetest little voice yell "Jennnnnnnnnyyyyyyy!" I knew it was Gilly (Gillian), my neighbor Bertha's 4 year old daughter. So I went to the window and looked down, and there she was smiling. She seemed delighted I responded to her call by coming to my 2nd floor window and saying "yes??" Haha. She said "Honey (her Grandma Bertha) wants to know if you'll take us to the store." I said sure, and thus commenced a very crazy adventure.

Let me tell you. It is something to stop by a grocery store by yourself, and something quite different to take an 82 year old woman (who was just released from the hospital for a hip injury) and her 4 year old granddaughter. It involved a walker, a mini-van, a child's car-seat, one of those motorized driving grocery carts in the store, and a lot of fussing! Well, I loved being there with Gilly. We even got her a tiny kid-sized cart (that she loved, of course). But Bertha was being really particular about everything. "Oh no I don't want to get that here... I want to get that at Food Lion. Oh I only get that at Sam's. Those are much cheaper at Harris Teeter; we'll have to go there." I am of the mind that for most things, just get it all together! You factor in gas and time (which, yes, is worth something) and all of that headache becomes... well, even more of a headache.

Near the end of this brouhaha, a guy was helping us find the chicken on sale, and he ended up hitting on me. That made me feel pretty good. Are you desperate when you get an extreme boost of confidence when the meat department guy checks you out and tries to hook up? lol Well he was cute, but I just don't know about stuff like that. Situations like that are messy for girls.

Anyway, so we got home, and I just felt like I needed to get back into my personal space ASAP and so I did. Then my friend and sister Amanda came over with a friend of hers from high school. It was great to meet him, but I have to admit I was caught off guard. This guy is Army Special Forces, and somehow, within 3 minutes of meeting, we were into a violent debate about Iraq. Whassap with that? I felt sort of assaulted... seriously. I had this chill perspective and was just relaxing from The Great Grocery Adventure and then he came into my life. However, seconds before freaking out, I realized that he just really loved debating and derived energy from it. So then I started to appreciate him more (it was cute how passionate he was getting). So that was just like this 30 minute hurricane that blew through my house. I thought he was (very wrongly) pigeonholing me as a liberal and an ungrateful, unpatriotic person. He said he wasn't. I guess we'll have to trust him on that. :) [I do think the war is a very nuanced, complex thing. I don't see it in right or wrong, yes or no. But that's just me.]

Then, I went to get a chai and went to Borders. lol PHewwwwwwww.

ps. I really just wanted to post all this so I could show you guys the picture I took with my camera phone. Heheheeeeee. Cute huh?