shopping

Kid in a Candy Store


I used to shop at a grocery chain called Hy-Vee when I lived in Des Moines. Open 24hrs seven days a week except for Christmas it could boast of being a fairly full-service venue. Pharmacy. Starbucks. Bank that keep the same hours pretty much. And a nicely stocked health food section to appeal to the conscious eaters among us. I took it for granted. The Safeway I use now is very nice. The people are nice and most know me on sight in and out of the store now but to give you an example of the difference in service level I will tell you this little story. The Safeway has new shopping carts. They are the small two-tiered ones for people who won’t or can’t fill the bigger carts. I was pleased to see them. I missed them because I had used them quite a bit back in Des Moines. The clerk at the Safeway commented to me about them as I checked through one day last week. She thought they were marvelous. A kind of sliced bread thing. It was quaint and when I agreed that they were wonderful, I also mentioned that I had used them before where I used to live. She was amazed. She thought they were some new innovation in grocery carts. Shopping in Canada is not like shopping in the U.S. whether it be groceries or clothing or home improvements. The shelves in Canada can be bare for a time while awaiting the next truck and given the lack of any kind of worker in Alberta sometimes that can be a long wait.

 

So today, Rob and I went grocery shopping for Easter dinner at the Hy-Vee near our bed and breakfast. The first thing I did was get a chai to drink while I shopped, and I can do this back home too, but though it is a good chai at the Safeway, I have yet to have a chai anywhere in Canada that tastes as yummy as in the U.S. We started out in the produce and by the time we’d moved on to the next area, my eyes were as big as saucers, I swear. The more time I spent wandering the supermarket aisles, the more like a deer in the headlights I became. There were so many aisles and each crammed with oodles of choices. Oodles. And cheap too.

 

Rob and I read a lot about the tanking U.S. economy but haven’t yet seen much evidence of it. My mother complained about food prices going up but they were still far cheaper than what we play up North, and it didn’t seem to me that lack of anything was keeping people away, The grocery was packed as was the J.C. Penney’s we’d visited earlier in the day for a sale. Plenty of merchandise and people willing to buy it.

 

The clothes shopping I have done, just today, puts any shopping trip I have gone on in Canada to shame. Remember my Old Navy visit a while back? I went to Old Navy this evening. The shelves were stocked. There was stuff on sale everywhere. I left with a pair of sweats and three shirts for under $30 U.S. I was almost giddy with shopping fervor. I could have shopped all night, not even bought anything and be completely content. People here, and I was once one of them, have no idea what kind of a good life is all around them. Hip deep in cheap food. Affordable clothing. Even the gas is cheap. $3.19. That’s the same price as six months ago and certainly cheaper than anything we have ever paid in Alberta or B.C.

 

It’s such a spoiled life here.

The Mall


The mall in West Edmonton is one of those mega-malls. Mega is the key word. There is a small amusement park and a water-park on site as well as an IMAX theater,  car wash, casino and a replica of Columbus’s Santa Maria. We went with my best friend and her two children who are here for the wedding. The first thing I said to Rob when we walked in via the Bourbon Street entrance was, “Let’s never come here again.”

I am not an anti-mall or even an anti-shopping person. I love malls. I like shopping that doesn’t involve being outdoors and exposed to the elements Getting in and out of the car with a child is wearying and so one stop anything is always better. Edmonton’s mega mall was at one time the largest in the world though I believe that the one in Minneapolis now enjoys that distinction. The first thing I noticed was something I have seen all over the area so far in that doorways are smoking havens here. So, after you hold your breath long enough to run that foul gauntlet and make it inside, you will find that it still smells somewhat ……bad…..and that the smell doesn’t improve so much as it just morphs into some other bad smell as you wander from here to there. Thank goodness for olfactory fatigue.

Like most malls of any great size, it is hard to hear. Sounds echo and assault. It is too narrow. Dodging people becomes an objective that overrides window shopping. Strollers are hazardous to child and passersby alike. Teenagers and younger adults are less bearable as they travel in small packs and add to the generally deafening atmosphere.

After coercing the girls (ages 9, 5 and 4) into allowing a bit of necessary wedding shopping, we took them to the amusement park. My friend proved again why she is the best by offering to shepherd the kids around so Rob and I could go off on our own for a late lunch which led us to the food court, an even more smelly destination but romantic lunches are about the participants more than the locale. Anywhere I can spend a bit of uninterrupted time gazing into my love’s eyes and talking about life it’s all good.

Hooking up with my friend and the girls, we spent another hour navigating the amusement park and satiating the children’s need for thrill and terror before heading back to the hotel to drop off our friends and head over to Montana’s to meet with Rob’s older daughter, Farron.

Montana’s is a meat restaurant. Dead carcass of all kinds, mainly the mooing variety, are offered up in a variety of ways. I used to eat dead animal myself and still eat fish on occasion, but after stomach issues forced me to modify my eating habits and diet I gave more thought to what it is that I was really putting into my mouth. Flesh is flesh and I am even beginning to think that fish is probably a bad idea. Digression finished. Farron is a cook at Montana’s and we thought she would be working but as it turned out she was attending the dinner portion of a stagette at the nearby Moxie’s, so we spent time with her there.

It was, in retrospect, the kind of day that normal people spend, entertaining out of town friends, occupying children with weekend diversions, and relaxing at the dinner table with family. Normality. Once just a concept and now a reality, of sorts, again.