la grocería

Ago lives by structure.   He has his set schedule and it cannot be changed.  He wakes up at 4 am goes to bed at 8 pm.  Between those hours, I assume he is organizing his vegetables, inventoring his vitamins and preparing his meals (those take longer than you'd expect).  But all of that can be shuffled around.  What can't be changed, these are set in stone, are our trips to la grocería.  I honestly think that these are the highlights of his week (he knows that if he wants to go somewhere else i'll take him, but it's always the same places).  We usually hit up two stores twice a week.  He does not need to go twice a week, once a week is sufficient, but these are not just trips to get the perishables, these are also social events.  He gets soooooo excited, the smile on his face lights up the car.  When we go to the grocery store, we know everyone...and they know us.  We always go early to avoid the crowd, before 9 am, 8:30 if i'm up early enough; I recommend this.  It makes a difference to go in the morning, the produce is fresh, presentation aesthetically appeasing, and the selection is better (omg! I am too young for this).  Anyways, we get there before the crowd, so i'm pretty sure that the the guys who work in the departments that we frequent (produce) know us well.  

But what really makes the difference are the people at the check-out.  We have cashiers who open registers just for us, converse with us, throughout the time i've been chaufferring my grandfather, I have gotten to know the employees at the grocery stores.  I even know the ages of their kids and if they're trouble makers!  Even though all we go to are the chain supermarkets, because that is really all there is near us, it feels like a neighborhood grocery store.  I have stories about some of the employees we have encountered, especially the sackers....that's another post.  Ohhhhh....Ago has his sacker amgio, I'll just call him L.  He is a character!  Even they don't speak a word of the same language, they are from the same generation so they have this kind of unspoken language.  He deserves his own post.  Next time. 

The staples (food and vitamins)

I took Ago to the grocery store last week.  I went early too.  I arrived to pick him up at around 8 am.  8:15 I was bagging grapes.  Besides grapes (which were on sale!  He got like 3 lbs. and he bought some for me too!)  he  bought all the staples, like,, apples, avocados, bananas, and alfalfa.  Oh and milk, soya plan. The "plain" kind is very important.  He always asks what the expiration date is, which really throws me off because well...Silk brand of soy lasts like two months, and he devours it in like a week.  We're always buying soy milk so what difference does it make if it expires May 15??

Finally we got out to the car and before I even close my door my grandfather asks:  "TIENES TIEMPO IR A VEETAMINA AHORA?"

WTF?  I knew it! I mentioned it in my previous post and I knew he was going to ask. 

I said no, plus his soy milk needed to be refrigerated so we went later in the afternoon.

The associates at The Vitamin Shoppe know us.  In fact,  they know us a little too well.  They know that once every month this old, healthy, and loud man comes into the store with a patient often times frazzled young lady (me).  They know that he will probably make their sales goal for the day and they know what products he will buy.  They always help him get the things he needs and they never try to sell him anything.   

This time when we went three things stuck out.  

When we entered the store the first thing I noticed was that there were people in it.  I know that the purpose of stores are for people to go in and shop-i worked in retail- but i never thought of the Vitamin Shoppe as a place to browse and shop.   All the times we went in before, we were the only customers.  Occasionally, some guy would come in and buy Muscle Milk or there would be a lady looking at something on the side that we never shop on, but that would be it.  

Second, one of the managers greeted us by saying "Hello!  We haven't seen you all around here.  We thought something happened, like he moved."  OMG.  So The Vitamin Shoppe is keeping track of when my grandfather goes.  

Third, and this was baaaaaaddddddddd.  Veetamina decide to discontinue one of Ago's core products: Granulated Kelp.  Yes, I know, kelp.  Whenever I hear kelp I think of what whales eat, and i do not like whales, so I don' t like to think about that.  Telling Ago that Kelp was discontinued was not something i wanted to do. He was going to get angry, complain, and get moody, all which would damper his joy of actually going to his "candy shoppe."  I did what i had to do and explained to him that they no longer carried it.  He reaction was expected: he was mad he yelled, the associates where sympathetic, but he got over it when he bought six bottles of Flaxseed Oil, some cornsilk and hyssup.

Ago mañana.  I am looking forward to it.  He called tonight and said he wants to go to la grocería.  Who knows, tomorrow in the car he might spring up another location for me to take him.  I never know but I'm never surprised!  

The Telenovela

Ahh....the telenovela.  The long-winded, dramatic, mini series.  I never watched them, but I heard the Brazilian ones are the best.  Now, with the help of YouTube, we can incorporate the telenovela into the langauge acquisition curriculum.  For a lab assignment (due mañana) necesito ecribir una escena.  I am having the hardest time coming up with material.  And this is what I do!  I usually am a creative person and I do use my imagination to create, let's call them, alternative worlds for characters.  This involves numerous subplots and complex characters that get in the way of each other.  It is not harmonious.  Anyways, I guess I'm having writers block?  Hmm.....night before it's due.  Well...something will come.  

Pienso que tengo meido de lo que digan mis compañeros.  No sé.  When it comes to creative writing I am protective because I don't like criticism when it comes to works based on one's imagination.  I need to get past that, quickly, but its all a figure of someone's imagination, there is no right or wrong.  You either like it or you don't-and its okay to not like the story.  Just say "no me gusta" instead of "it sucks" or quietly think to yourself that I may be out of my mind.