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Pickup at Kroger

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have been doing my shopping on line and picking them up at the drive thru.  My experience is mixed.  Some weeks a complete order and other weeks many things are "out of stock."  I turned off the option to substitute because they have to be on some kind of drugs to pick the subs they pick.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I would go in the store and shop but these people are f'ing crazy.  Everyone ignores the signs on the floor and at the registers and to add insult to injury no one enforces it.  The aisles are too close and I just don't feel safe.  I feel like I'd have to wear a hazmat suit to feel safe.  I'm too old to take the chance.  So if I have a few missing items I deal with it.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I will say that as I had been working on a project to redo our laundry room, I used the curbside pickup multiple times at Homo Depot and Lowe's.  I had great experiences every time.</span>
 
Little things to celebrate....

Was in Kroger yesterday and came across a 6 pack of Bounty paper towels --The Full Size Sheets!  You can bet that found it's way into my cart.  I've seen lots of Select-a-Size Bounty but I hate that with a passion and would do without rather than buy. I was down to the last 1/4 of a roll from the 18 pack I bought last year at Sams.  Debated for a few seconds since I really prefer the Mega Roll vs the double but at this point there really wasn't a question.

 

Now I'm on the hunt for a 3 pack of  Puffs Plus at a reasonable price.  Usually get it for $3.99 -4.99 but have only seen it at Walgreens for $7.99, not paying that price...
 
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I like this chart. You have to start somewhere. Notice that grocery shopping is near the top. </span>

twintubdexter-2020070815452108455_1.jpg
 
Matt, I’m just the opposite as far as the paper towels go.  I prefer the select a size as there is less waste.  Many times a half of a paper towel is just enough.  If I want a full size paper towel I can easily just tear off two half towels.  Cutting a full size paper towel in half is a PITA, but I will do so to conserve on the unnecessary of the waste of paper.

 

Joe, thanks for posting the chart of the scale of risk for everyday activities.  Its a great reference resource.  BTW, I hope that your recovery is continuing to progress well.

 

Eddie
 
As of Monday

Texas medical cemter Houston had no ICU beds available. All were filled by Covid patients. It's one of my hubby's project hospitals. Those being ignorant and not wearing masks or taking precautions are putting otheres at risk. It's selfish. Our gym is open illegally 24/7. Members posting on Instagram were unmasked. A local Red Robin closed last week when employees were working sick. All it takes is for one of them to be in a gym, etc. and infect others. Many young people here live with their immigrant parents and elderly grand parents. Our grnadaughter said the other day she doesn't want to wear a mask to school. Betsy DeVoss announced today that schools will lose funding if they are not 100% open, and enrolled in September with zero online virtual teaching. She's a dinwitt too!
 
Eddie, just like you.  I prefer the select-o-size paper towels.  I use cloth cleaning rags 99%  of the time.  A roll of paper towels can last me over 1/2 a year.  
 
I don't know, it's rare for me to  ever need just a half sheet of paper toweling.  I use them as a napkin with my dinner and hate nothing more than having select a size splitting in my lap or wiping my face. A half sheet just does not fit my hand well when cleaning.

 

I don't use a massive amount, a mega roll will last 6-8 weeks if not more.
 
I ran a couple of errands in and around Fort Lee & Englewood yesterday. First time doing so during business hours in at least a month. Fort Lee is the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge. I can walk from my building across the bridge to the subway in less than a half hour.

Anyway.....

Dentist: Called office from my car when I arrived. Receptionist in full gown, gloves, & face shield. Temperature taken and was given a squirt of hand sanitizer. Dentist and hygienist in gown, gloves, & mask. Oh, yeah. Tooth has to come out and was given antibiotics for infection.

CVS: Garage was about 1/3 full. Store not crowded. All in masks.

Acme supermarket: Store not crowded. Every person I saw had a mask. Random empty spots on shelves. Ample stocks of Regio toilet paper and one brand of paper towels. Picked up Boars Head chocolate hummus* 50% off with 7/13 expiration. SCORE!

Realized I'd forgotten pseudophed and batteries at CVS so...

Walgreens: Few people, no crowds. had what I wanted but noticed several 'button' sizes out of stock.

NJ law mandates masks in all businesses. I saw 100% compliance. I saw a few people walking outside with masks off but dangling around neck. Everyone I saw outside not social distancing had a mask on, including teens.

Traffic was definitely up since I last drove around during business hours. I'd guess about 1/2 pre-Covid volume.

*Chocolate hummus is not terribly unusual. The Boars Head I bought is a somewhat less sweet version of the filling used in mini-calzone popular around Christmas. The internet says it's "southern" but I can tell you it runs at least as far north as Abruzzo. Traditionally the sweetener is not sugar, but 'black' grape syrup (name forgotten). Sugar used to be very expensive. During wine making gallons of the raw juice 'black' and 'white' were separately boiled down to a syrup. They'd be used instead of sugar for pretty much all baking. As an aside, Abruzzo is far enough south that butter was not commonly used. There is/was a particular type of olive oil used for cakes, cookies, etc. I'm afraid I've forgotten the details over the past 30 years.

Here're two links with recipes for the chocolate filling:

https://www.shelovesbiscotti.com/chocolate-chick-pea-calzoni-aka-calzoni-di-ceci/


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www.justcrumbs.ca
 
Since this is sort of related....

Got a text today from a cousin, she alerted me to the fact you cannot find canning supplies!  Was out so stopped at 2 or 3 stores and it's true, shelves are stripped bare.  As she said all the "Preppers" are out in full force.  Not sure how much I'll can this year, and do have some lids from last year so I might be ok.  But will be on the lookout for supplies just in case.
 
No Salt

I went to my local Nob Hill (Raley's) Monday morning.
No iodized salt.
No "name brand" dishwashing liquid
No isopropyl alcohol (haven't seen that on the shelf since March).

On the flip side, I also went to Total Wines & More during their "60 & over" hour Monday.
No one but me (and employees) in the store.
In and out in 5 minutes with everything I came for.
 
My niece does a lot of canning..

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">She reached out to the family a couple of weeks ago asking us all to look for canning lids.  She couldn't find any where she is.  We found some on Amazon but the prices seemed high to her.  I don't know if they are always that price or jacked up given the demand.</span>
 
I found a very small selection of lids and rings at Walmart, then Ace hardware. I don't do much in the way of canning, but with the success of the tomatoes last year I'm repeating this year. I also do refrigerator pickles but I can re-use cleaned lids for those since they're not processed.

Eddie, Bob, We bought a pack of Brawny select-a-size at Lowes maybe 2 months ago because they had it. Not only does it allow the 1/2 sheet as all select-a-size, but each half-sheet is perforated in half the other way so you can just use a 1/4 sheet! Might be something to look into where you use so little already!

Chuck
 
Chuck

thats good to know about the new Brawny Select a size paper towels.  Thanks for the heads up on this.  I hate to waste paper or anything else.  If we all conserve more of everything maybe we can get a handle on reversing Climate Change that is causing all the natural disasters we are currently experiencing.

 

Eddie
 
Went to ....

Walmart yesterday. Everything back to normal now. No signs placed by certain items saying you can only purchase one of the items. All TP and paper towels fully stocked, clorox wipes back and to capacity. Only thing different ...... hand sanitizer can be found in multiple parts of the store and in every checkout isle now. Face masks, the same way. Can be purchased by the single or the box, and if you are fashion conscious, they have them in all different colors ..... even in your favorite college football logos. Well except for Ohio, LOL
 
I was in our local Shoppers Food Warehouse and a gallon of off-brand bleach was $7 which I consider gouging, but it was there if you had to have it. Also saw for the first time ever Clorox bleach packets, little square packets of dry chlorine bleach. I don't know how well that would work with he machines using so little water; seems like you could get fabric damage. Seems like it would be better to put them in the dispenser to give the stuff a chance to get diluted during fill, except like with the tablets they introduced in the 90s, the fill was too short to dissolve the tablet and there was not enough water in the drum to dissolve it either. I had to smush them up to use them.
 
HyVee Grocery

Oddest Item Not Available: Jars of sliced green olives. There'd been a big gap where the tall, slender jars of sliced olives should have been for the past two weeks. When shopping today, they'd filled in the gap with additional jars of pimiento-stuffed olives. Asked the day manager and he said they've ordered them several times, but no luck.

No gel-style hand sanitizer. I do not like the watery stuff that comes in plastic honey jars and smells like nail polish remover.

Out of stock for months: Lysol Pro Kitchen Disinfecting Cleaner. Finally just ordered a gallon of concentrated sanitizer from Sam's Club which is COVID-rated. Two tablespoons of sanitizer, 30-oz. of water. Also ordered a gallon of their glass cleaner, since that seems to be hard to get at Hy-Vee lately.

On the upside, they'd just loaded the shelf with HyVee-brand disinfecting wipes, so was able to score two big containers of those.

Made my day: PERSIL PRO-CLEAN + STAIN FIGHTER!! Bought two big jugs of that. They also had regular Persil ProClean. Haven't seen Persil on the shelf for ages. Our detergent section is basically just 20 variations of Tide
and the super-cheap crap. Think I saw some jugs of Purex, as well. Pods seem to be making a comeback.

Bought my Thanksgiving turkey, a box of Stove-Top Stuffing and a little bag of Idahoan Buttery Homestyle instant mashed potatoes--they're really quite good.

Our small family has decided not to gather for Thanksgiving. No final decision on Christmas at this point, but quite honestly I don't see it happening, either.

We've seen a steady increase in cases here in the rural, southwest part of the state. My doctor is in isolation, but don't know whether he tested positive or was contact-traced from an exposure.

My sister and brother-in-law live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which has seen a very dramatic rise in cases hospitalizations. Minnehaha County had consistently hovered around 55-75 hospitalizations until about a month after the Sturgis Bike Rally, surprise, surprise. They were at 395 yesterday.
 
Who'd-a-thunkit...

a shortage of sliced green olives?

 

As discussed in another thread, it seems we'll be seeing shortages again with the surge in CV cases. With that in mind I did pick up 1 additional bag of each frozen veg that I was buying anyway, one extra pack of TP and one of paper towels. If we each just stock a little extra and don't panic, maybe the supply chain will be able to keep up.

 

The store I went to was Market Basket, a locally owned discount chain. All the frozen stuff was very full. The TP and PT areas were fully stocked, but with limited brands. 

 

We split a gallon of 99% isopropyl with another friend back in April when nothing else was available. We use it, diluted to aprox 75% in small spray bottles, for cleaning groceries mostly as we have plenty of gel sanitizer (thank you Dollar Tree!). I do also use the spray to disinfect the microphones as needed during backyard social-distancing karaoke, but I don't think it'll be warm enough to do that again this year. It was a bit chilly a week ago Saturday when we did it last.

 

Hoping for the best,

Chuck
 
I Went to the Target Geezer Hour

this morning at 8 am as I now do every week.  Most everything is back to normal.  However, I did notice that there were empty shelves in the paper towel aisle, but there were still paper towel available.  And they were out of the Target brand of butter, but I have 5 lbs in the freezer, so I’m good.

 

 I was the first customer in the store when the doors opened and armed with my list I was at the checkout in 15 mins flat with my whole weeks groceries, out to the car by 8:22am and home by 8:29 am.

 

 I’m SO grateful that Target still has this special concession for the elderly and otherwise compromised.  Its a real public service.  And the staff at my local Target are just simply the nicest people around, always helpful and with a smile on their faces too.

 

I also bought our turkey last week, a 9.75 lb. Butterball.  I thought I was getting the largest frozen Butterball Turkey Breast, but thats OK, I’ll just have to make some turkey chili with the dark meat.  If I can snag a frozen turkey breast before Thanksgiving I’ll get one of those too.  We like LOTS of white meat turkey at Thanksgiving time for sandwiches, yum.

 

And Chuck, I also have been buying an extra bag or two of frozen vegetables every week too.  I always have at least one backup of every item that we use regularly.  I like to have a well stocked pantry.

 

Eddie
 

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