A couple of thises and thats ... ...

I could have said theses and thoses, I suppose, but I like thises and thats better. :)


Well, I now have grape salad in my refrigerator. Surprise, surprise!

I stopped by Kroger's - which is almost on my way back home from Hobby Airport - yesterday morning, just to see if they had any grape salad. It was Friday, and I thought, "What can it hurt? At least I can get some of that good fish they serve up in their deli every Friday." Besides that, I needed to get a couple more boxes of that large kleenex that I like so much. Are you familiar with those? They are the ones where - after you take one out of the box and blow into it - it doesn't immediately disintegrate right in front of your eyes.

So anyway, I was kind of hopeful that Kroger's might have some of my grape salad, even tho they hadn't called me as Debbie had promised me they would, because I bought some of those large luscious-looking grapes at Randall's the other day when I was there.

Long story short, I went over to the deli and guess what? No grape salad. I saw Debbie and asked when she thought they might be making grape salad again and she said, "We had some earlier this morning but we must have sold out." Aargh! I said, "I thought you were going to call me." She said, "I gave your number to -----," pointing behind the counter. "Didn't he call?" "Nooooo," was my getting ever more exasperated by the second but trying to keep my cool answer.

"We'll have some for you tomorrow!" she cheerily said. Lying through my teeth, I responded, "Debbie, I won't be here tomorrow. I live way out in Katy! I'm only here today because I was on my way back home from Hobby Airport." "Well, we'll make some up for you. It'll only take an hour or so."

I thought about it. I asked, "You know that I only like those big luscious grapes in my grape salad. Do you have any of those?" "Yes, we do!" I thought some more. "OK," I said, and I went to visit with a couple of old coots sitting at a small table near the deli (one old female coot visiting with a couple of old male coots, you understand) - after first putting my order in for the fish that was soon to be ready. Yum, yum!

Paul (one of the old coots) said, "I like your outfit." "You must like the color blue," I responded. (What did I have on? Blue jeans, blue shirt and a blue denim jacket.) "Yes," he said. We made idle chit chat for a while, but were a little distracted by CNN's raw footage of that deadly standoff hostage situation in Binghamton, New York. Wasn't what happened there awful?

While we were all three sitting there, Debbie came up and whispered in my ear, "They're picking out the grapes right now. And, by the way, there'll be no charge." I was astounded, and I'm sure the shock registered on my face. I said, "Whaat!!" She said, "You've been here and called more than enough times. We want you to keep coming back." My goodness!

The fish was ready. I purchased my usual two small containers and started my shopping. There wasn't much of it to do, really. They had the kleenex, hooray! It's not in every store every day, and so I grabbed two boxes. I restrained myself from loading more fudge bars into my cart and looked for the cheese I wanted. Kind of hard to believe that I only would eat Velveeta when I was a kid. Ugh! Just the idea of it now makes me crinkle up my nose and frown. I like Cheddar ... the sharper the better.

That was it for my shopping. I went back to the deli. Grape salad wasn't quite ready yet, so I sat down at one of the tables (an old female coot all by herself) and proceeded to gobble up most of one of the two small containers of fish. Yummy!

While I was in mid-chew the grape salad arrived, all bundled up and ready to go. Looked like 4 large containers. Ye Gods! Debbie wanted a hug. I readily gave her one. Then she trotted out this enormous black dude from the back, whom she introduced as the creator of my grape salad. He wanted a hug! Hug-giver extraordinaire, that's me!!

So how much of it have I eaten? "Zero" is how much. I'm almost afraid to even look at it! I guess I prefer to just sit back and savor the fact that it actually exists in my refrigerator after all these months!! How long has it been, anyway? Too long, for sure.


My application to be an "examiner" is going to have to wait until Monday. Craig and Polimom, I know that you both read my last post because you commented on it. For any of you who are reading this one but don't know what I'm talking about because you didn't read Taking a break ..., you should probably take a few moments to cruise through it.

[Even when I first set eyes on the ad, I realized that I wanted to be hired. I immediately thought of a couple of topics where I might be considered an "expert" ... bridge and taxicab driving. I decided to make my first application on the subject of bridge.]

Why is my application going to have to wait until Monday? Well, this morning I'll be sitting on one of the visitors' benches as a (hopefully) very loud - at least, as long as I can retain my voice - supporter of my granddaughter as she participates in a volleyball tournament. Later on today I'll be reading other WOW members' submissions for our critique meeting tomorrow afternoon in addition to gathering my research and thoughts for a post I want to publish tomorrow, the 153rd anniversary of the birth of Booker T. Washington.

Hasta manana!

PS. Wendy posted again yesterday.