My mother has become a Costco aficionado, again.
    Yesterday she corralled me from sample table to sample table. While we were making the rounds it occurred to me that this was a bullet-proof way of exposing those on specialized diets to the former delights of their now more disciplined palates at least once a week, and it seems to satisfy from visit to visit. Although Mom still wanted a polish sausage with sauerkraut afterwards, depending on the array of samplers I have known her to pass up a proffered lunch.
    At the smoked meat case for bacon I sidled up to a man about my age who was shopping with his father. "Dad," he said, "you love bacon. Get the good stuff. You can afford it." This is not only precisely my policy with my mother, a few years ago I had precisely this conversation with her at precisely this place. This is Costco. Get the good stuff, the lean, thick sliced, maple cured bacon. We use enough so we can buy in bulk. It worked for us. It worked for this man and his dad, too.
    My mother was never the owner of emotional incapacitation in this regard. My father was the needlessly stingy (as well as cleverly frugal and a smart investor) one in our family. His obsessions became her habits. Immediately after his death, though, she recarpeted the house from dirty rust to off-white and purchased a micro-wave before the "funeral baked meats" spoiled and the guests were gone. But when she forgets what day today is, she sometimes thinks we must cinch more than we do and more, sometimes, than is advisable. As well, she is not a particularly materialistic person (both of us delight in our ability to use things beyond what is, today, considered appropriate) so sometimes she doesn't want something simply because the item doesn't matter enough to her to buy for quality. And sometimes, like all of us, her cheaper tastes get the better of her.
    Today is wide open. I might even be spending more time online.
    Later.
- posted by gail rae @ 12:22   email...this post