In the interests of efficiency I find it enormously helpful to think ahead on busy days, like Monday house-cleaning. I've got to know well beforehand in my mind what I'll be preparing for dinner. Lunch is never an issue since it's been many decades since we gave up lunch as unnecessary and a waste of time. Breakfast and dinner are our mealtimes, and we don't tend to snack in between. Habit reflecting choices, like most things in life. 

 

So while I was busy cleaning, the only pre-preparation for yesterday's dinner was to snip top and bottom off beets and parboil them so I could slip their skins off more easily when I was ready to prepare them for the sweet-and-sour dish they would become to accompany the roasted chicken breast and yam that completed dinner (not counting the sliced fresh persimmons for dessert). It's quick because once I decide what to prepare it takes no organizational time at all to season the food and slip it into the oven.

 

 

I do the same with breakfast, trying to keep ahead of things as a simplifying and more efficient device. We planned to leave the house early to avoid food-shopping crowds at the supermarket. Once we settled Jackie and Jillie down, having them out in the backyard, giving them little cheese tidbits, setting the table for breakfast on our return (when they'd have breakfast too) we left the house to do our food shopping.

 

 

Because we'd missed a shopping, it was easy to clean the refrigerator interior in anticipation of filling ti all back up again. Nothing in the fruit or the vegetable crispers, we needed everything. Even though our intention was to miss the crowds we were somewhat surprised to find so few cars in the parking lot and fewer people yet in the supermarket. Also surprised to see some empty shelves. No mushrooms to be had, no rice crispies or cornflakes. But all the necessary whole-food items we needed were there.

 

 

The usual brand of eggs we buy were absent, but there were ample alternatives. I did find those empty shelves a bit psychologically troubling, but with the plentiful display of most shelves either full or being filled by store employees stocking the shelves unease quickly dissipated. It's the lingering effect of knowing how infectious the Omicron variant is, and the daily case counts that are escalating in number, always in mind.

 

When we approached the check-out the store was still vacant of shoppers, and only one cashier was on duty. A woman with a shopping cart piled nearly as high as ours reached the check-out counter almost simultaneously with us. I suggested since her cart wasn't quite as full as ours, she should precede us, but she insisted on waving us through first. I suspected my silvery cap of hair and Irving's white beard  may have had something to do with that, and thanked her.

When I was packing the items that had been rung through the cash register, she called out to me that there was a little switch that would bring items on the conveyor belt closer without my having to stretch to retrieve them. Now that's a bit of patronizing condescension, though I'm sure she didn't mean it that way ... that elderly people haven't the intellectual wherewithal to notice such little 'conveniences' to shopping, or had the experience to take advantage of them... I assured her I knew about it and would make use of it when it suited me to. She meant well.

 

In the afternoon, by half-past two the temperature had struggled from -16C up to -7C, under heavy overcast with light wind, and we decided it was time to get Jackie and Jillie out for a walk. Even at that time of midday it appeared as though dusk had already crept into the landscape and was just waiting impatiently to enter full-on: 'surprise, we're here!'.

On with the puppies' little rubber boots. Orange ones this time. Very colourful, very visible, very risible. It was cold, but we kept moving along and that generated some energy-warmth. Jillie's funny; the moment we step out of the house to make our way down the driveway preparatory to going up the street to access the ravine entrance, she begins barking. No amount of chastizing can stop her. She barks constantly as though telling the world, here I am, aren't you lucky! Jackie is far less likely to indulge in that kind of behaviour. 

People who tend to frequent the ravine know all about Jillie. So do their dogs; her voice is their signal that we're near, and many come running over to say hello, and how about some treats, Mr. Cookie Man?