Shopping

It was both good and bad today.  First was the grocery store.  Last Fall I got either the flu or covid shop.  Couldn't remember which and couldn't find the record of it.  And lately, there has been a line at the Pharmacy counter so it seems too long to wait just to ask if they knew which one I had already gotten.

Today there was no line, so I stopped to ask.  I had gotten the flu shot.  So I asked to get the covid shot.  The timing was perfect.  They were about to close for lunch, but agreed to give me the shot.  What usually takes 20-25 minutes suddenly became 10!

I didn't even have to fill out the whole permission form.  They just said "sign here", LOL!  And I received the shot.  I appreciate the modern thin needles.  I can still usually tell I am getting the shot.  It hardly bothers me.  This time, I couldn't even feel it at all.  I saw it go in (yes, I watch) so I know they did it.  But talk about easy.

And not only is the shot free (my Dr would charge a $20 co-pay), Safeway gives you a 10% discount coupon on the whole cart.  Not only that, they gave me 3 coupons!  I make a profit getting a health-promoting shot.  

The bad was that their website is changed (or temporarily messed-up).  Safeway offers website digital coupons (called "Safeway For U).  You have to click on each specific item you want though.  I couldn't just click on all of them, but I think they learn to offer what I click on most frequently, and my needs are specific.  So I pick and choose.

But sometimes, it doesn't work quite right.  I find some stuff I've clicked on not registering at checkout.  And I think that happened today.  Usually I check the receipt before I leave the store.  Sometimes I have to go to the Customer Service Desk (and they are pretty good about making adjustments).

But when you have that 10% discount coupon from the covid shot, they don't just reduce the final bill by 10%.  They assign a few pennies discount to each item you purchased.  So between my store loyalty card discounts, the shot discount, and the Safeway For U digital discounts, the receipt was 3' long.  I just didn't want to stand there 15 minutes and review every item.

So I went on to the other food store I shop at.  That one is sort of like a large 7-11 for real food.  Deli counter, personalized meat counter, beer/wine/liquor, specialized herbs/spices, some basics, and some fruits and veggies.  I love the place!  Never seen anyplace quite like.  They have weekly sales of good quality meat.  And they happily accept my special orders of cases of the wine I most like.  And "by the case" is discounted.  They even call me when my order has arrived.  The store manage knows me by name!

The store is busy, but the checkout lines are short because they have enough of them open.  It is a pleasure to shop there.  And they bring my wine out to the car and load it!

So of course there had to be another "bad" experience to make up for the good ones.  On the way home, I stopped at my "not-my-usual" 7-11 to buy some cigarettes.  It was horrible!  Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn't smoke.  But I do and this one was on my way home.

I buy cigarettes by the carton.  It's just easier that way and the price is the same.  But it saves me going to buy a couple packs every week.

So I asked for a carton of Marlboro Red 100's.  The clerk grabbed 1 pack.  No, I said a "carton" and made the shape of one.  It's like the a 2" slice of a shoebox the long way.  "Ah" he said and proceeded to take a pizza out of the oven and slice it up.  Took him 10 minutes.

Then went off to a secure backroom to get a carton.  Came out and "no carton", like he expected me to leave.  I said 10 loose are fine.  So he pulled 10 loose packs off the rack.  And he started ringing them up (after I entered my smartphone number for a slight discount).  He rang up 2.  Then 2, then 6.

I asked why.  Please understand that I try very hard to understand people for whom English is a 2nd language.  I'm not good at it and I partly blame myself for that.  I just don't have an attuned ear...  But I could not understand a word he was saying, what he was doing, or what I was actually being charged.  

I turned to the next customer in line to ask if he understood what the clerk was saying.  He must have been a smoker too.  Because while he didn't understand what the clerk was saying, he understood what the clerk was doing.

There was some promotion deal where buying 2 packs gets a small discount (up to 4 packs).  So he was ringing up 2, charging my card, rang up another 2 and charging me separately for that, then ringing up the 6 not eligible and charging me for those.

A quick look at the receipts at the counter suggested it was about the usual price, so I just gave up and left.  But I should have been more observant.  When I got home, I realized I had been cheated.  Marlboro sells their cigarettes in various colors indicating quality.  I like the best of their line which is "Marlboro Red".  Other colors indicate a decline in quality (but also in price).

Sort of in declining order (by memory) are Gold, Blue, Black, Special Blend, and Silver.  And one I had never heard of.  Red Label.  The pack is red, but slightly different in design.  Mid-quality and $2 cheaper per pack.

I got charged full Marlboro Red 100s price for the lesser quality Red Label 100s.  

I don't expect that most of you smoke.  And some people who do don't really care about the differences.  But I do and I can tell.

I am never going to go back to that 7-11!

Been Gone

But for reasons.  Being on the computer makes me smoke, and I have been fighting that by restricting my computer time.  The Mark's Mews blog is primary, so I manage to do that.  Emails came second, and that has been difficult.  I've had to write them in increments.  This blog seems least important...

Not that I don't enjoy writing on it.  Just that my non-smoking willpower gets worn out fast and by the time I get to THIS blog, I need a cig.

WELL...  The computer crashed.  Sort of.  More accurately, an upgrade to Mac Yosemite (OSX 10.10.2) crashed my iPhoto.  Don't know why, but some internet search showed a LOT of unhappy upgraders.  I spent a couple of hours a day for a week trying to get at my photos with no success.  Tried un-upgrading, and other stuff too.  No luck. 

Apple doesn't LIKE un-upgrading!!!  It offends them that you don't like the new stuff.  

I could have lived with the new "Yosemite" operating system if it allowed me access to the old photograghs, but there was an endless loop of "fixes" with no end.  I finally had to do the serious thing.

Thank goodness for "Time Machine".  It stores my previous versions of the hard drive.  You would think that makes it easy to just copy back the previous old version.  You would be right.  And you would be wrong.

Its possible.  But not easy, they say.  I know because I read all kinds of internet searches about doing it (and some said it worked and some said it failed.  I knew it COULD work, because I had done it once before.  It took the help of a Verizon IT tech (2 years ago I think).  Not his job, but he helped me.  And I wrote down the steps on some scrap paper.  A foot-high stack of which is always on the corner of my computer desk

I went through the stack and actually found the scrap! 

It worked.  Two hours for restoring the older OSX version, 30 minutes for "repairing" the iPhotos Library, 30 minutes for repairing my emails (and I had to endure 15 minutes of re-receiving 200 emails and deleting them as they were all duplicates).

But everything seems to be working last lat month again, and I am greatly relieved.

All that sitting around and watching the s-l-o-w progress made me get more cigs.  Damn!  Well, one night in 3 weeks isn't too bad.

I've been busy.  But that's the next posts...

Thanks for visiting after 6 weeks of no posts...

Problem

I haven't been on the computer much lately.  Oh, I post on the cat blog, but I haven't been visiting cat blog fiends much, and not posting here.  Why?  Well, I'm trying to stop smoking.

That may seem odd.  But there are reasons.  I don't smoke because I'm chemically addicted.  I can go without cigs just fine most days.  I don't wake up wanting one, I don't want one just sitting around.  Days go by and it bothers me not.

I am, however, situationally habituated.  It used to be just when I was out on the deck watching the birds and squirrels, mowing the lawn on a riding mower, driving the car, and on the computer.  I have eliminated smoking while mowing, standing on the deck, and driving the car on local errands.

But I can't not smoke when sitting at the computer...  I don't type or post fast.  I like to think about what I'm saying.  And when I stop and think at the computer, I NEED a cigarette. 

I got through 8 days without a cigarette.  The same days I didn't help the Mews visit their friends, and the same days I didn't post here.  I'm smoking now.  I just CAN'T sit at a keyboard and not smoke.  I've gotten it down to "just" then, but I can't seem to stop that "then".

I feel guilty when I don't help the Mews visit their friends every day.  Its the "handling" of the cigs I need.  And the fake ones are SO heavy that those dont help.

As I struggle through this, I may not seem to be as active in helping the Mews visit their friends.  We love you all.  I just have this last habituation of the keyboard to eliminate.  It will take time.  Hang in there for me... 

Trying To Quit Smoking

Well, as the joke goes, "quitting smoking is easy, I've done it 100 times"!  It isn't of course.  I have quit for months on occasion only to fall back into it.  The saddest time was in the 1980s while on a camping trip to Canada with my former friend.   On our last day of camping, he was down to his last 2 cigarettes and said he was quitting and did I want to share 1 of the last 2.  I know now it was astonishingly stupid, but I felt immune immune.  It tasted GREAT! 

You know, I've actually wondered since then if my "friend" did that deliberately.  At the time, such a thought would never have occurred to me.  But these days, I consider the possibility.  He DID frequently mention how envious he was that I had quit when he couldn't...

When we got back to the Park convenience shop, he immediately bought a carton of cigarettes.  I stole several and smoked them stealthily.  We drove back to NY City where he lived at the time (and yes, I had done all the driving in my car).  But I had to drive back to MD from NY and I suddenly couldn't face the long boring New Jersey Turnpike without  smoking.  And there I was smoking again. 

I've stopped a few times since then for a few weeks at a time.  But then I face a long drive, a stressful event, or a long night at the computer and I give in again.  I wish the damn things were illegal.  It's just too hard to stop smoking when they are available 24/7 on every street corner.

I'm convinced I'm habituated to the "process" of smoking and not the nicotine.  I think that because sometimes I don't light a cigarette for several days at a time and it doesn't bother me.  And because I've been "vaping" an e-cigarette for 2 days which provides nicotine but is not in any way psychologically satisfactory. 

The e-cigarette is completely unsatisfactory.  It's a ceramic rod that is way too heavy, unwieldy, and (in spite of best efforts of designers) just doesn't work like a real cigarette.  I admire that it provides nicotine (in gradually reducible amounts), the appearence of smoke (its water vapor), and none of the carcinigens of actual cigarette smoke. 

But they just don't quite work yet.  They need to be as light as a regular cigarette, have a paperlike feel to the "filter" end,  and provide a better fake smoke.

And don't wish me good luck for stopping.  Between the 5th and 6th paragraphs, I drove to the nearest convenience store and bought a new carton of real cigarettes...  ARGH!!!  I just CAN'T be on the computer and not smoke... I need a better fake cigarette.