Friday, August 29, 2008

Shopping and Texting

"Where you at?" texted Jeri, in a message that made me cringe with its grammatically incorrect colloquialism. At least Jeri knows better. I know that.

"Snack food aisles," I texted back.

We were doing our "big shopping" at Costco.

Nine of us: Alice and Joe, Walt and I, Jeri and Phil, Tom, and Jeri's friends Meghan and Cris, who had just arrived from Boston and Wisconsin, respectively. We all had cell phones and we were all keeping track of our locations.

Jeri sent a photo to pinpoint her location:

Walt, Tom and Joe were picking up about 25 tri tip roasts while I was off looking for crackers and chips.

"NO CLAMS!" I texted to Jeri, when I realized I could find cream cheese, but no canned clams for the mandatory clam dip. You can't have a wedding without clam dip, for heavens sake!

I decided I was probably missing all the fun by wandering around searching for clams, so I headed to the meat department to join the others.

Of all nights for me to have forgotten my camera! Fortunately Jeri and I both had cell phones with cameras, so we did our best to record the often hilarious tour through Costco.

There was the discussion about vegetarians vs. the meat eaters and how to make sure the vegetarians got enough to eat. Joe suggested we have red wrist bands for the carnivores and green bands for the vegetarians and you could only have a cherry tomato if you wore a green band.

But we decided that everybody liked tomatoes, so we got three big containers of cherry tomatoes and Tom tried to guesstimate by eyeballing the height of the container and the number of tomatoes he could see on top, how many were in each container. I think we decided there were about 210 tomatoes, so everybody could have two. We figured we'd have a tomato czar to monitor that nobody hogged the cherry tomatoes.

I added a couple of containers of golden tomatoes and Tom pounced on them, holding golden tomatoes and red tomatoes and stating that this was now officially a 49er wedding.

The amount of food began to grow.

There are roasts on the bottom and bags of veggies on the top. I had the snack cart (note the tomatoes at right).

"Where you at?" came the message from Jeri again. I was in the middle of texting her that I was looking for a large serving bowl and could she get some potato chips when she came up with some champagne to add to the basket. I sent her off in search of potato chips.

"Where are you?" I texted to Walt (by now I had figured out how to make that a "quick text" message so I didn't have to keep typing it over and over). I was at the front of the store. His reply came: "Paper plates." At the back of the store, of course, so I headed back there to meet up with them, passing Phil, who was on the phone to his mother who had called to ask him to bring some grated cheese home.

The others by now had two pallets, not one. It was easy to keep track of them because the wheel on one of the pallets made a sound that reminded us of a barking seal. Joe, who had the quiet pallet, started barking as he wheeled it around, just to keep the other one company.

We were just about finished when Joe remembered that we had all these tri tips to barbeque on the beach and maybe we should get some charcoal.

As we approached the checkout stand, all three pallets, Joe guessed the total would be $850. Cris guessed $750. The actual total?

Jeri was feeling guilty that we spent so much and Walt reassured her that it cost less than Tom's rehearsal dinner. We are still missing the 4 Bs that have to be purchased tomorrow: Bread, big bowls, big mushrooms, and something else I've forgotten.

So the Big Shopping has been done and we caravaned out the door of Costco with all our pallets. Tom and Joe took off on a race to the cars, looking for all the world like a couple of 13 year olds...especially when Joe lost control of his pallet and spilled everything all over the parking lot! We laughed a lot.

Now it's the end of Thursday as I write this. I have spent the entire day making cakes and starting to put the frosting on them. Tomorrow will be spent in more serious decorating. I have no plan. These things with me kind of "flow" however the spirit moves me. I have ideas, but those never turn out the way I originally plan them, so the end result will be as much a surprise to me as it will to everyone else.

I am so sore right now I can barely move. It's been a long day. But a good one.

(And wasn't it great to watch history in the making as Barak Obama made his acceptance speech? I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like for an African American who can remember segregated lunch counters to be sitting there watching Obama accept the nomination of the Democratic party for president of the United States. If only Rosa Parks had lived just a little longer! I can only hope and pray that those same people will soon be watching him be sworn in as President.)

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