Yesterday being house-cleaning day, Irving and I were both busy, doing just that. On such days I'm all for the convenience of meal preparations that don't require too much effort. In that category I place tiny frozen Cornish game hens. They're so quick and easy to prepare. I often bake a little egg-noodle pudding to accompany a game hen, and some kind of green vegetable. Jackie and  Jillie are most appreciative of that kind of meal; invariably there's some of the breast left over that they can enjoy as a supplement-treat for several days afterward. 

 

Convenience is steadily taken out of our lives and the irritation factor is immense, but livable. In Canada, we're no longer able to rely on those disposable plastic shopping bags we're all so familiar with. They've been outlawed in the name of environmental protection. I can understand that to a degree, but in the same token though they're considered disposable, once they've served their original purpose, to carry your purchases home after a shopping trip, they have other uses, mostly as receptacles for trash. In their absence the option is to buy these same bags marketed as what else; receptacles for trash.

I also relied on those bags for other reasons. To be filled with articles of clothing, for example, that were deemed expendable, no longer serving a personal purpose, and to be donated to the Salvation Army thrift shop. I also used them each time we did our food shopping, filling one each week with a selection of canned and boxed food, to be deposited for the Food Bank. I began using cloth bags instead. But then last September we drove to New Hampshire for a week of vacation in the White Mountain National Forest range. And each time we shopped, for groceries or any other type of consumer product, they were packed in the kind of plastic bags that were outlawed in Canada.

 

I kept each and every one of them. And by the time we were ready to return home I had amassed a surprising number of plastic disposable bags. We packed them up and brought them home, and we're still using them for our weekly grocery deposits for the Food Bank. Ah, the weekly grocery shopping expeditions -- they too now have an irritant-factor. Supermarkets intent on maximizing their profits and focusing on the expendability of employing people to expedite their sales.

When we do our shopping, invariably we fill up that shopping cart. And we have no intention of using any of the self-check-outs. We go through the aisles with actual cashiers; they're far more adept, experienced and above all, efficient than we can be at putting all our purchases sliding along the conveyor belt, through the computer system to be cashed out. And we've noticed in the past several weeks that of the four-five cashier stations only one or two will be open.

People with a lot fewer purchases generally use the self-check-out, and store employees formerly acting as cashiers are often delegated to stand around the self-check-out area to supervise and assist people using that method. Today when we did our shopping there was a long line of people awaiting their opportunity to get at all the self-check-outs, since all were occupied. And there were no regular cashier-assisted lanes open.

People with shopping carts were patiently waiting at the Customer Service aisle, and a lone cashier that usually sells Lottery tickets and looks after client-store interactions was now doing the job of a regular cashier. Inconvenient to say the least. Did I mention that the small disposable plastic bags used for fruits and vegetables in bulk have also been changed; the plastic fabric is now so thin that anything of any weight like large oranges piled into them destroys the integrity of the plastic and the bag simply disintegrates.

People still maintain good humour through it all. While we were waiting our turn at that single Client Service lane, on two occasions young women carrying a few items offered to give us their places. We thanked them of course, and their offers made us all feel fairly good, but their surrendering their place in line while only purchasing several items made no practical sense, and we demurred.

Earlier in the day we took our puppies out for their afternoon hike through the forest. We've been plunged back into the January deep-freeze. We had sunshine and -3C yesterday, but overcast, an icy wind and -5C today. The temperature-wind combination made for a very cold adventure through the woods. Not cold enough to dampen Jackie and Jillie's enthusiasm for their walk on the wild side, however.

It was a fine outing we all had, invigorating and pleasurable simply to be out there. And as familiar as we are with the terrain and the landscape, it seems as though we're always seeing the arras before us as though through an lens of unfamiliarity. There is always something different to be noted. And today we fell in with familiar faces and other little dogs about the size of our own, all of whom had a lot to impart to one another.