View from the Cottage

Tidbits from a day gone mostly right

March 23, 2018

I’m here to testify weather does make a difference in your disposition. Up earlier than usual this morning, partly because I couldn’t sleep and mostly because I suspected Jordan would want to leave early for our Friday morning shopping trip. She did, and while I wouldn’t say we were either one grumpy, we weren’t exactly happy and chatty. We dropped Jacob at school at went on our way.

By ten o’clock, I was back home, having been to the grocery and the nursery and checked out a site that worried me—found out the latter will be a piece of cake. More about that another time. Grocery shopping was fine, but the nursery was a joy, if expensive. We got two large ferns to put by the “front” door to the cottage, a geranium and two pots of fountain grass for the patio. Tomorrow is planting day Jordan tells me. It’s a joy to know that spring is settled in enough that we can put these plants out, clean the patio, and move into the “summer living room.” Got to do something about mosquito control this year! Next: coreopsis for the bed under my office window--it's the first thing you see when you drive in the driveway.

The rest of the morning I put off a call that I thought would result in hours of computer research for me, checking on ISBN numbers for my books. Every book has a unique number (International Standard Book Number), one for digital, one for print, one for audio. One company that I was dealing with told me I could neither correct one nor post a new book because the number was already in use. A ten-minute phone call solved three problems—they retrieved the information from their stored files, posted my books, and all is well. So a shout-out to Draft2Digital, a company that posts books on various digital platforms for indie authros, doesn’t charge their authors but takes a cut of the sales. It’s such a pleasure to do business with a company where you are not put on hold, shifted from one tech to another, and they solve your problem quickly—and, oh yes, the tech spoke clear English. I love dealing with them.

And I placed my first order for curbside pick-up from Central Market. It was an adventure. List in hand, I called, prepared to discuss my specific preferences etc.—did I want my bananas green or ripe, my avocadoes soft or hard (actually neither were on my list). Turns out you can only order online. So I checked into the site and proceeded. Like any new site, it was a bit confusing, and it took me two phone calls, but I got it done and next time will be easy. I ordered two cheeses, some ground lamb, cottage cheese, and dried thyme. The latter was my biggest problem—I didn’t know how much an ounce is so I ordered two. I now have enough leaf thyme to last a lifetime. But still a lot cheaper than buying dried out thyme in a jar at the regular grocery. I put my generous bag in the fridge to keep it fresh.

I learned as I went. For instance, I started out browsing dairy, but I really didn’t need to browse all the many dairy items to find cottage cheese. So I figured out you can go to product and type in the specific item you want. Cheese, for instance, is offered in blocks of a specific weight—need more? Order two. There is even a place for you to add a note for your personal shopper—about those hard avocadoes, for instance. I opened a new account which earned me four pickups free of the $4.95 service fee.

I’m not a grocery snob, but there are simply some things I can get at Central Market that I can’t get at Tom Thumb, Kroger’s, or Albertson’s, like ground lamb, pecorino, and the bulk spices. You pay through credit card when you order, so the order was easy for Christian to pick up on his way home from work. Warning: order at least four hours or the day before you want to pick it up—or better the day before.

So it was a good day of groceries and work and learning lessons—and spring, glorious springs. Turning my attention to a menu for Easter brunch.