{"id":29485,"date":"2020-03-22T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T07:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=29485"},"modified":"2020-03-22T00:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T07:01:46","slug":"stay-out-of-supermarkets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/stay-out-of-supermarkets\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Pushing 80 — Do We Stay Out of Supermarkets? Sheltering at Home Day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"stay<\/a>
Stay out of supermarkets? Here, Jon visits our local farmer’s market on a pre-pandemic Sunday morning. The prices are too high at the outdoor market, Jon tells me. He prefers the supermarket. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Sheltering at Home Day 5, Saturday, March 21, 2020<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Years ago, when Jon and I were planning our first big trip as a couple — to Europe — I wondered what Jon would want to do and see. The Mona Lisa? The Berlin Wall?<\/p>\n

Even as we traveled, I wasn’t sure what Jon’s sightseeing priorities were. I knew what I wanted to see. I wanted to stand inside Europe’s mighty architectural wonders: Paris’ Notre Dame and Berlin’s Ged\u00e4chtniskirche. It wasn’t until we got home and I took a look at the photos Jon had snapped that I realized what Jon’s idea of a traveling\u00a0good time was.<\/p>\n

It was towers.<\/p>\n

I saw photo after photo of towers. Photos taken of towers. Photos taken from towers.<\/p>\n

And vegetables.<\/p>\n

Vegetables and fruits. In whatever city we visited, I realized, Jon had arranged for us to climb the local church bell tower and stop in at a local grocery store. I hadn’t noticed this pattern until we got home and our vacation pictures came back from the developer.<\/p>\n

Tomatoes, peaches, cauliflower, garlic. My young husband couldn’t help himself. Wherever he was, he wanted to see the fresh produce.<\/p>\n

But Can He Stay Out of Supermarkets?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Which brings me to Day 5 of our government-mandated stay-at-home-and-keep-your-microbes-to-yourself policy.<\/p>\n

\"stay
Too many apples at our house — the result of an online grocery ordering snafu during the COVID-19 pandemic. How do we store these to last until we can eat them?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At age 79, should Jon stay out of supermarkets during this COVID-19 epidemic? He’s in that vulnerable, over-age-65 category. Should he venture into the local Safeway or Lucky, armed with a handful of anti-bacterial wipes, to pick out tonight’s dinner?<\/p>\n

Let’s see. What looks best? The asparagus? The artichokes? Which bananas are crying out to be taken home? Which seedless grapes? Which mushrooms for Barbara’s lunch-time salad? Red peppers or yellow?<\/p>\n

I miss my Zumba classes, but there’s no way I can slip out of the house and sneak into a forbidden class. Our gym is closed. Classes have been cancelled.<\/p>\n

But the supermarkets are open<\/a>, and Jon has been tempted. “I know exactly what I need and how to find it in the store,” he’s been saying. “I’ll be quick.”<\/p>\n

“Please, don’t,” I’d say.<\/p>\n

He would go anyway. My blood pressure would rise. And so would Jon’s.<\/p>\n

Kicking the Supermarket Habit<\/strong><\/h5>\n

And now, finally, after a long phone conversation with our worried son in Minnesota — who apparently wants to have a full complement of parents and parents-in-law when COVID-19 has blown town — Jon has relented. He will stay out of supermarkets. He will go cold turkey on his grocery shopping habit.<\/p>\n

And so, yesterday Jon went on line. Which he likes to do almost as much as he likes perusing bins of artichokes. Unfortunately, the grocery delivery websites are still a little wonky here in the Bay Area, and it wasn’t clear whether we would get our delivery yesterday or next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Full of hope, Jon filled out an order, revised it a couple times, and hit Submit.<\/p>\n

What arrived at our house yesterday was the best — times two. A half hour apart, two young, and let’s hope healthy, delivery people arrived at our house.<\/p>\n

Part of our order got doubled somehow and we were now the happy owners of six heads of romaine lettuce, 28 apples and four dinners worth of asparagus.<\/p>\n

I’d offer to share. But you probably don’t want our microbes.<\/p>\n

More travels with Jon at “A Totality Disappointment in St. Joseph, Missouri.”<\/a>\u00a0 See also, “The Politics of Housework Revisited.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"stay<\/a>
The vegetable bin in our refrigerator is filled with six heads of romaine lettuce. That’s too much salad. Can we cook it as a vegetable somehow? Ideas anyone?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"farmers-maret\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At age 79, should my husband stay out of supermarkets during the COVID-19 pandemic? He’s used to making daily trips for groceries. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41],"tags":[2179,2186,34,29,689,82,56,2184,2197],"class_list":["post-29485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-dont-miss","tag-jon","tag-marriage","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-peter","tag-sheltering-at-home","tag-supermarkets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}