Good Morning.
My younger son and his daughter set out several days ago on a tour of the colleges where she's been accepted for next year. They took the train to the west coast because it's my son's preferred method of travel. I don't blame him. My sense is that you meet more interesting people on a train than on a plane for some reason. On the first night out, they had dinner in the dining car with a British couple and said there was a guy on board who was wearing a kilt. I don't think you run into someone in a kilt on a plane, at least not in this country, but I have no idea why.
After looking at a school in California, they rented a car and drove back to Colorado where they were greeted by the storm that bombed everything from the Rockies to the upper Midwest. The interstate got shut down on Wednesday afternoon, and they found themselves stranded near Vail, the ski resort, not a bad place to sit around for awhile but probably more appealing in December. They got out yesterday and were able to look at another school and will take in a third today and then grab the train back to Chicago.
I prepared for the storm by taking stock of my pantry and fridge and heading for the pet food store. I used to shop at a place that had a "club" where if you bought a dozen bags of food, you got the thirteenth free, except they jacked up the price of the bags to begin with, sorry about the preposition at the end. At the pet food store I patronize now, they don't have a program like that but a bag is $5 cheaper. Do the math: twelve bags at $25 is $300 and twelve bags at $20 is $240, which means the higher priced place is still making $35 on the so-called free thirteenth bag. The store I prefer also takes checks and doesn't ask for ID. This is because their attitude about dogs and cats also applies to people.
I decided not to have a go at the supermarket for the rest of my storm shopping because it's the size of a small city and hard on questionable knees and nerves. I'm not to the point where I'm willing to drive around in one of those motorized carts they keep at the entrance, so I decided to go to Walgreen's. A lot of other people had also decided to go to Walgreen's because they were out of the store brand ice cream I like and had only the little designer pints left so I passed on ice cream. I got bread, eggs, and cheese because I get funny in the head if I don't have cheese in the fridge. I also got peanut butter that I needed to fill the rubber kong the dog has while I'm sipping on a beverage during the six o'clock news and woe unto me if I'm out of peanut butter. Dogs invented the dispensing of guilt trips. Ask a friend of mine what happened if he didn't take his dog who got a treat when he went through the coffee drive-thru every morning.
Winter's Last Hurrah began with rain, then turned to sleet, and finally snow with thunder and lightening. It was a sloppy, icy mess with the lights flickering on and off a time or two, but we didn't get as much accumulation as a lot of places. I will spend the weekend watching The Masters with the lush, green fairways at Augusta lined with appropriately leafy spring trees and brilliantly colored azaleas. The tournament is on my list of annual must-watch events, along with The Kennedy Center Honors, The Westminster Dog Show, The Academy Awards, and The Triple Crown. I also do royal weddings, dignitary funerals, and until recently, presidential inaugurations. My granddaughter who is off to college in the fall is now old enough to vote and I have a feeling we will be on the same page or pretty close and that makes me feel very cool and occasionally even relevant.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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