If I can get through my weekend grocery run in <45 minutes, it is a major coup.
To be clear, I have grown quite efficient in my list-making, organizing our week of meal ingredients and quantities by department. I also have no problem moving swiftly with a child (or two, or three) in tow, as I am seldom without at least one during errands. More than that, I can even do so while narrating all the grocery goings-on with said child(ren) — in a practice I picked up from my own mom — however non-conversant the child may still be.
No matter my prep, my process, and my years of practice, I simply can’t wrap up quickly. And the reason is simple: Steve the wine guy.
Steve the wine guy is not, strictly speaking, just a wine guy. Rather, he’s my grocery’s drink specialist (there’s probably a professional title for his role, but all I know for sure is that there’s a sign with his face and name on it near the alcohol section that suggests shoppers ask him if they have questions). When we first moved to this area, I went to this grocery seeking advice on a DIY-style wine pairing for a dinner menu I had planned for my sister’s bachelorette party. Steve was available, offered fantastic suggestions for the event, and a friendship was born.
Fast forward almost 6 years: he has seen my boys grow from being strapped in their infant car seats to tearing down the frozen food aisle towards the end cap featuring all the Hot Wheels we don’t need. He has helped carry bulky objects out to my car, has flagged other co-workers to give me a hand when he spotted me coming into the store with my hands full and in need of a cart, and he has happily alerted me to upcoming 20% off wine sales. He updates me on the Labradors he breeds, tells me if there are any litters of puppies on the way, and likes to point out that the food I occasionally open to entertain or satisfy a hungry child shopping with me (blueberries, baby carrots, bread) is often the same that he uses to treat his dogs.
I sometimes pseudo-complain to Dave about how long my grocery trips take, as if there’s nothing I could do to expedite them. But I think we both know the truth: I really love people and cultivating relationships with them and playing a small part in making someone else’s day a bit more sunny. Plus something about forging community in the places we’ll frequent seems like a fundamentally good investment to me.
So yes, I will almost always make a point to say hello to Steve the wine guy, even if he’s with another customer and as if we are bona fide friends. And I will probably always ask him how his dogs are doing when he swings by my cart to see if he can coax a smile out of my ever bashful toddler. And frankly, regardless of Steve, I’ve also gotten pretty chummy with the produce guy who teases that we nearly clean them out of broccolini when we visit, or the meat guy who likes to tell me stories about his grandsons when he hears me chatting with the boys while we wait, or the check-out clerk who has 2 cats and feels strongly about alternative solutions to declawing them (honestly couldn’t tell you now how I know that about her except that it involved a long wait for my balloons to be inflated).
And thus I will likely never make a “quick” grocery run.
Today I am grateful for:
- Finally locating 2 missing library books that we have otherwise auto-renewed an obscene amount of times… I mean, Mo Willems’ “Pigeon” books are good, but they’re not that good…
- Putting the Bachelor in Paradise premiere date on my calendar for August. IMO it’s equal parts guilty pleasure and I-am-immune-to-your-judgment-because-I-am-so-enjoying-myself programming.
- Weather consistently warm enough to move my lemon tree outdoors! In the process, one of its winter warrior lemons fell off and we cut it open to find that, although small, it appeared perfectly ripe and tasted great.
At the end of next month, our eldest son, J, will turn 6 years old. To commemorate his 5-year-old self, here are a few recent anecdotes and observations:
- On unadulterated sweetness: today I tried to snap a picture of him and his buddy palling around as they boarded the school bus. Instead, I captured him in a moment of turning back to me with the sign language symbol for “I love you.” On just about every school day this year, he started his bus ride by waving goodbyes, “I love yous,” blowing kisses, and otherwise making goofy gestures out the window at me until the bus pulled away. I reciprocated in equally animated fashion & from underneath my umbrella or behind my layers of winter clothes or whatever else the elements mandated throughout the seasons. I know this won’t last forever, but for now, his affections are uninhibited and resolute, and the bus stop is therefore a place of happy associations in my mind.
- On independent development: with several small children in our home, we spend a lot of time teaching, helping, and doing things alongside our boys. Watching J grow, where every new milestone as our eldest is a new milestone for us as his parents, I’m increasingly noticing the many things that we cannot do for (or even with) him. My first conscious taste of this was watching him learn to ride his two-wheeler: repeatedly falling, crying, frustrated… getting back on and trying again until he mastered the physics. I could burst with pride for the way he’s stopped preemptively asking for help before sounding out long words in his books, the way he volunteered to play goalie his first soccer game this spring, the way he happily assures me he can just “help himself to something else” (read: deli meat, see also: a battle I’m not willing to wage) in the refrigerator if he really doesn’t like our dinner entree.
- On the increasing influence of friends: J brought home a drawing from school recently that featured a figure on a path to a building labeled “WWE.” I asked him what it was. He casually replied, “John Cena.” As if we have ever, ever viewed or discussed or even tangentially referenced professional wrestling (much less John Cena) in our home. Upon further probing, he told me that his friend at school introduced him to John Cena and WWE, and while he didn’t have many more specifics than that, he is confident that John Cena is a “great guy, Mom.” I’ve loved watching his humor and enthusiasm for imaginary play matched by his friends before, but this was my first overt reckoning of the fact that, over time, the direct influence of my son’s friends will only grow… and there’s no reason to believe I will ever be privy to the full extent of it. I contemplated this fact solemnly that night along with the realization that I had said “John Cena” more times in a single evening than the entirety of my lifetime before.
In sum, I’m feeling pretty content about closing out this 5th year with a son who loves his mom enough to bring her home a dandelion from recess (however mangled it may be by the time it arrives), who seems fundamentally motivated by making progress rather than expecting perfection upfront, and who has spent >1/5 of his life in various stages of severity in a global pandemic, yet is genuinely delightful to be around. And just in case anyone else is equally as uninformed as I, it turns out John Cena is evidently a pretty great guy indeed.
I am 35, which means I’m old enough to appreciate what a joy Tide original scent is on freshly cleaned laundry, but young enough to remember when Friday nights were a thing.
I have been married 9 years, which means I have discovered new dimensions in a profound & evolving love, and also have asked my husband to flush out the wax buildup in my ears… more than once.
I have 3 sons, which means my single-family residence is increasingly eligible to rezone as a fraternity house.
I work at a global tech company, which means that since March 2020, I have been holed up in a corner of my unfinished basement with a $40 faux-wood photographer’s sheet prop behind me to give the illusion that I am not, in fact, making business decisions from within what appears to be a poorly appointed prison cell.
I am not strictly a “glass half full” person, but I am definitely a “glass could have been emptier” person, which means I spend a lot of time counting my blessings even when things go wrong.
Hence the site name. In my estimation, lemons don’t get nearly the acclaim they deserve compared to the “make lemonade” adage.
