Grocery shopping by the numbers, for Lamont and me

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

Photo #4

Lamont's had the flu since Wednesday. I knew it would not rain on Saturday, so I offered to pick up a few items for him while doing my weekly shopping at Fred Meyer, this week by bus--no need for a Zipcar on that particular day. He gave me a short list of three things and asked if I could also pick up his pay check and deposit it for him. Since the Fred Meyer, 3 Doors Down Cafe, and his bank are within two blocks of each other, I immediately agreed. Realizing I would need two rolling black bags, I looked over my selection, thinking how nice it would be only roll one on the way there. So I shoved one into another, zipped it almost all of the way, satisfied that it would work just fine. You can tell from Photo #1 which one fit inside the other one, right?

I left the apartment at 10:25 a.m. Saturday, 2/26/2011, and walked to TriMet Bus Stop where I waited to catch the #12 bus, heading east on Sandy Boulevard. By 10:31 a.m., I sat comfortably, having stayed warm while on the sidewalk in my three layers of jackets, earmuffs, gloves, long pants, socks and shoes. Before long the #12 was at SE 47nd and Sandy where I got off to catch the #75 so that I could head south to the Fred Meyer on the corner of SE 39th (known officially now as Cesar Chavez) and SE Hawthorne.

A couple of blocks from that particular corner, I decided to get off at the stop before it and walk the few blocks to the restaurant on a partially different route. In no time at all, I had the check from Dave and headed for the bank. Making the deposit didn't take much time, either.

By 11:17 a.m., I was inside the Fred Meyer, texting Lamont to let him know to call if he could think of anything else he wanted; he added a box of crackers, saltines. The remodeled store still confuses me, so I had to back-track some, plus I kept looking at my coupons and my Fred Meyer Rewards Card coupon list. Before I knew it, a couple of hours or more had passed. At the check out, I ran my FMRC through the card reader, then my debit card, as the cashier rang up the 37 items and my nine coupons. The machine spit out my receipt which also showed the four coupons which were loaded on the FMRC, for a total coupon savings of $9.05. Some of the items that I bought were also on sale, so I saved more than that--hooray!

Now for the fun, fitting a 12-pack of Diet Mt. Dew and a 12-roll of Quilted Northern Double Rolls, plus two four-pack boxes of Nabisco Saltines and the 33 other items inside the two rolling black bags. It took less than 20 minutes, and I couldn't quite make it all fit, so I got the Fred Meyer paper bag with handles and put all but one of Lamont's items--Nancy's Vanilla Yogurt, two cans of Muir Glen chicken noodle soup, and a container of powered lemon-lime Gatorade--and two of mine into it.

Outside on SE 39th, I sat down to wait for the #75 bus for the ride south to SE Division where I would transfer to the #4. That's when I took Photo #1. The two reasons I had not taken any photos earlier were the cold, cold temperature and not enough time to get the camera out before the buses came. This time, to make room in the rolling black bags, I had the camera hanging around my neck! I waited six minutes on the bench, laboriously made my way onto the bus and to a seat, rode the nine blocks to my next stop. I got off without dropping the paper bag or letting either of the rolling black bags fall over, crossed SE 39th to the bus stop for the #4, due in 3 minutes. I rode the #4 the 17 blocks to the stop closest to where Lamont lives, then walked the two blocks to his house.

Not wanting to catch the flu, I set the paper bag on the porch and called Lamont on the phone to let him know I was outside. He came out and got his groceries and the deposit receipt, thanking me over and over. I gave him a smile, told him I hoped the food would help, said "No, I won't let you give me a ride you've been and still are too sick," and took off back up the street towards the bus stop. Imagine my joy when the #4 appeared just after I had crossed the street!

Even more joy came over me when I got off at the corner of SE Madison and SE Grand and walked half a block to wait for the #6 which came in four minutes, then total joy as I crossed SE Grand at East Burnside and the #12 bus arrived in four minutes! By the time I got off it at the very stop where I had caught the #12 that morning, I was a happy, tired shopper, very pleased with the speed of my homeward bound bus rides.

Not wanting to lug the two rolling black bags down two taller-than-usual steps into the basement, then up nine steps to the level of the front door, I decided to walk up to the corner, pull the bags up the four steps from the sidewalk to our building's entry sidewalk, through the front door which was opened and held open by a gracious neighbor lady on her way out to walk her cutie-pie pug, through the door off the entry and into the wing where my apartment is located. As I pulled the bags slowly up the four carpeted steps, my left foot somehow got caught up in the crowded area, my shoe slipped off, plus I dropped the handle of the smaller rolling black bag which slid to a stop on the floor. My first thought as I stood at the top of the steps, "Oh, I hope the package of flour tortillas protected the egg cartons!" My second thought, "Take a picture for the blog." See Photo #2.

No eggs were broken!

I was too tired to remember what time I got home, but I do know that I saw the start of the Nationwide race at Phoenix--the show came on at 2:30 p.m. All of the groceries, Photos #3 and #4, had been put away, leftover baked chicken had been warmed and Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamer Shoe Peg Corn had been steamed. I think it was 3 p.m. or thereabouts. I enjoyed my meal, washed the dishes, and headed for Mama's recliner with my giant heating pad on medium, lying between my back and the chair back. Nap time.

All totaled up, it was a good effort.

Grocery Glory!

Why glory? I'll be happy to explain what happened on December 1, using photos taken in available light and lots of words shaped into sentences. Let's start here, just inside the front door of our apartment. You see here the rolling black bag, handle up. The black and white bag with the circles functions these days as my purse/carry-all, while the pink and white black with the huge black circles is a thinly insulated bag that I bought recently at Fred Meyer after Fred Meyer decided to never-ever-again use plastic grocery bags. (I knew I'd never-ever make it home with loaded paper bags because the handles just might come unglued--besides, why take part of a tree every visit to the grocery store?)


First I carried the thinly insulated back into the living room, set it down on a chair beside the table and unloaded it: broccoli crowns, bananas, potatoes, a Golden Delicious apple, two Bartlett pears, two bags of Hershey's Kisses, two boxes of Lipton Cold Brew family-size teabags, four boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, one box of Apriva sweetener instead of Splenda which was not on sale, a can of Private Select organic pinto beans and one of a three-bean combo, also organic. In the top left corner you can see Mama's hand as she's trying to put the lid back on the Skippy peanut butter. It takes her a few seconds to realize that she's got the two flat items where she places our daily vitamins, not the lid (see it there--it's blue). Did she ever laugh broadly at herself when she realized what she had done!


She picked up the lid, continuing to laugh. So good to see her laughing! I took this blurry photo, laughing myself.


The packed rolling black bag sits on the chair. I had bought this bag in October, 2009, in particular for our trip home last year. It's one of those with the zipper all the way round that lets it expand, depthwise. I like that in a bag, but more than that I adore a zipper that stays attached to the cloth of the bag and wheels that stay in one piece despite rolling lots and lots on Portland's sidewalks and crosswalks. This bag doesn't have that sort of zipper or wheels. Every time I take it to work empty on grocery shopping day, I pray over it several times: Please let your zipper zip and your wheels turn. So far, so good.


The groceries from the rolling black bag: three frozen Green Giant boxes of vegetables, two healthy weight, one healthy heart, all with sugar snap peas which we had recently in another Green Giant veggie dish and Mama discovered that she liked them; a Pillsbury Simply Rustic French Bread; four Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, Original; a half gallon Fred Meyer Lactose Free 2% Reduced Fat Milk, a half gallon Darigold 100% Lactose Free Milk, a half gallon of Breyers Lactose-Free All Natural Vanilla Ice Cream; a Lil' Butterball turkey, a bag of Fred Meyer Baby Lima Beans (thanks be these exist at Fred Meyer), a bag of Kroger Cut Okra (I haven't found whole frozen okra here and have only found fresh okra once at the farmers' market), a pot roast, bag of Farmland Fully Cooked Cubed Ham (more about that later), two packages of GenTeal Liquid Drops for Mama's dry eyes brought on by Sjogren's Syndrome, two packages of Werther's Chewy Caramels, two bags of frozen Grands Southern Style biscuits (thanks be for these tasty beauties), and two bags of Chex Mix, Traditional. You can see that Mama's drinking tea and that she's emptied our pitcher. You can see the Skippy Peanut Butter jar now has its lid. See the yellow circle to the left of the jar? That's what she had in her had, trying to put it onto the jar. It's a yellow-plastic-microwaveable chili lid, resting inside a paper-hotel-glass cover, those ones that are sitting beside the ice bucket in your room when you check-in. She puts my vitamins in the yellow one and hers in the white one.

Now, for the rest of the story. A bit of background first. At the first of November I vowed to pay attention to coupons for our grocery shopping. During that month, on three trips to Fred Meyer, I saved a total of $60.75. A little over $18 of that was from having always used my Fred Meyer Rewards card so that I got in the mail the $18+ gift card as well as four other $2 coupons relegated to specific categories--these come three or four times a year, I can't remember which.

So, without that ace in the hole, I wondered how I would do in December. I used the rewards card, thereby activating the coupons downloaded to it. I used coupons I had cut from the booklet in several Tuesday newspapers. I used coupons that I printed from several Web sites. And I used one that I got from the end of a can of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, Original. When the young man finished scanning all of the paper ones and the computer finished telling the cash register about the electronic ones, I had saved $23.65. Glory be! Better even than saving that money, though, is the fact that I didn't buy anything that we wouldn't end up eating. None of this getting tempted by a coupon for us!

Finally, about the cubed ham. Last night I stirred two thirds of the package into a boiler in which I had already put the two cans of organic beans. I had one box of the Jiffy corn muffins fixed and baking in the oven. I made a fruit salad from a banana, an apple, some raisins and some mayo. As we got situated to eat, I stirred my version of ham and beans one more time. What? Oh, no! I bent over to get a better whiff. Oh, no. I opened the frig and opened the bag with the rest of the cubed ham. Oh, no. The ham had gone bad. I didn't smell anything when I had opened the bag earlier, so applying heat must have activated the yucky stench. So, I'll be taking my receipt from Wednesday, December 1, right on back to Fred Meyer to let them know how that ham was on December 4 as well as the fact that it ruined two cans of beans. In fact, I'll be taking the rest of the package of cubed ham with me. It'll be on Tuesday, December 7, because that's the day I can shop and save an extra 10% on many Fred Meyer/Kroger store brand items, all because I was born before 1956.