Could I borrow a cup of sugar?

   I made a trip over to Juneau last week to go shopping. Sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry doesn't it? I believe most ladies like to shop, but I think that usually involves fun things like shoes or clothes or some such thing. I don't know what's so fun about those items. Now if they were shopping for hoochies or spoons or flashers and assorted other fishing gear, I could see where that would be fun. I think my heart skips a few beats every time I spot a new pack of hoochies that have the potential for catching fish. That's much more practical than a tenth pair of shoes or an extra blouse to squeeze into a closet. Unfortunately I wasn't shopping for fishing gear. I paid $132.00 to hop a ferry and go shopping for groceries. It seems like a lot of money, and it is, but the fact is, it costs so much for groceries here, that with the amount that I bought, I actually saved money. A case in point. I ran out of gum prior to my trip so I elected to go to Colette's Cupboard to buy some. Colette's is the only other store in town that carries groceries. I bought two packs of my favorite gum- Trident original. When the gal rang up the sale, I had to cough up $4.03. Holy Crow! I really savored that gum, chewing it until there wasn't a smidgen of flavor left. At Costco I bought gum on sale for $5.99 a carton. There are 14 packs in a carton, so I bought four cartons. I figure I saved about $88.00 just on the gum alone, which pays for a good bit of the cost of the ferry ticket. I love shopping at Costco. Most of the groceries you buy come in case lots or in  a size so big that you need to invite  the whole neighborhood to help you eat it all. I bought a beef sausage log that's about two feet long and two and a half inches in diameter. You could feed half of Germany with this thing. I bought it for an upcoming Christmas party that we're having. As you can see from the pictures above, the shelves are well stocked- at least for now. I believe I've mentioned in the past that on occasion my daughter Jennifer will fail to pick up some necessary item that she needs for dinner. For whatever reason, she'll decide she wants to cook something like, say, chicken. Well she doesn't check to see if she has chicken before she decides to cook it, and because she is incredibly busy, and apparently shopping isn't at the top of her list, by the time she discovers that she doesn't have what she needs, the store is closed. Hey, no problem- I'll just go over to mom and dads and tap into their supplies. No need to go to Costco, I'll shop at Bottsco's. I can't count the number of times down through the years that she's called and wanted to "borrow" one thing or another. I don't know how you borrow a spoon of mayo. It runs in my mind that we've provided coffee, sugar, potatoes, canned vegetables, soy sauce, mayonnaise, other items that escape memory for now and of course toilet paper. I don't know how, in a house full of women, you could possibly forget to buy toilet paper, but apparently it happens. I guess we're guilty of enabling by the very act of providing said TP. Once or twice of having to squat in the woods without the benefit of tissue would probably do wonders for ones memory. However, we're not totally hard-hearted, so we of course "lend" whatever is needed. Just don't bring back the toilet paper when you're done with it. I have a tendency to express my opinion when I deem something isn't what it should be, and Jen has called to borrow things with such frequency that I inevitably give her a hard time for not being prepared. Now when she needs to borrow something, if I answer the phone she'll ask to speak to her mom. Of course I know what that's about. Things are looking up though. She recently had to go to Juneau for some medical issues and while she was there she stocked up at Costco. When I was at her house the other day Jen proudly announced that she had a full compliment of toilet paper and coffee and other supplies that in times past could be conveniently gotten at our house. Then she marched me down to her freezer and showed me how neatly stocked it was. She was very proud of herself. I'm proud of her too. However, I know that it's just a matter of time before she'll run out of something and she'll need to be making a trip to Bottsco's. Fortunately I have a large supply of plastic grocery bags she can use to take my supplies home with her.