Grocery Shopping

We're slowly fine tuning our weekly grocery shopping trips. And sometimes we even manage to go longer than a week. I like our grocery store. It's well stocked and well staffed, but I don't particularly want to spend much time in there. Today I went to the produce and the cheese counters perusing the dairy offerings along the back wall as I marched from one to the other. John went to the meat /fish one and found a few things from the middle of the store. That tends to be my downfall, so if I don't have to walk up and down all those aisles (there is one whole aisle of nothing but tortilla chips, popcorn and potato chips) things go more quickly.

We went and saw Kathy at an unusual time today because Monday, our usual day, was a holiday. We were both tired because Spike had what we call a case of 'the yips' last night. He paces up and down the hall scratches at his rugs and the blanket on the couch where he sleeps  and can't settle down. John has been sleeping in what we are now calling the 'infirmary room' since his shoulder began bothering him and we both seem to be on a merry-go-round of needing to get up in the night. Nobody can figure out exactly what happens to Spike, and it only happens a couple of times a year, but the best solution seems to be to sedate him. Maybe that's what we all need!

Our third pharmacy switch, this time to Walgreens is not going well. We chose Walgreens only because they are closest to us but they are understaffed and the staff they do have is sorely undertrained. All they can do is dispense filled prescriptions. If there is a glitch or a question they can't answer, they seem to make up the answers as they go along and they are often conflicting. Our supplementary insurance company, which pays some of the difference between what Medicare pays and what we owe  also has a pharmacy service. It's mail order and it's looking better and better. It may be about time to give them a call....

Gustavo and Carlos have been here for two days installing posts for a post and rope handrail up the 32 steps to our top terrace. They know what our 'soil' is like because they replaced all the fence posts around the whole property that burned in the fire. They came prepared with a little jackhammer, a pickaxe, shovels and a posthole digger. At one point, it looked like they were drilling through rock. The posts are all set in concrete now, and I assume they'll be back tomorrow with rope. It's not a great one, but I've put a picture of them in extras. Gustavo is the one wielding the posthole digger.

I was going to prune the olive tree this afternoon, but I ran out of time. Maybe tomorrow....