Husband is getting serious about our needing to buying food. Last time we went food shopping was in mid March. As far as I am concerned we have plenty for another couple of weeks. He was looking at BJs (similar to Costco in case you don't know BJs) website to order from them as he had a coupon for free delivery. It is a nice company. Periodically, in normal times, they put the chicken patties we buy on sale and we go and buy the 3 pack of packages. We also normally buy our gas from them as it is much less expensive (when gas was still an expensive thing compared to right now) than the other stations. There are few Costco stores which have gas stations here and they are not conveniently located. But it is rare we find anything else to buy from them. There are only two of us and many of their food items are in packages which involve cooking the entire package at the same time and would be months worth of the particular item for us.
But the seem to meet his current criteria – they will deliver, they seem to have time slots available in a reasonable time frame (any place else he looked at is a 6 week wait), and they seem to have food items that he thinks would be good to have. As we sat at our desks this afternoon he was reading off the foods which interested him. I told him to make a list of what looks interesting – in this case, peanut butter (2 huge jars in a package, he does not normally eat same, and I am only eating it as we are eating lunch home and want to leave the better lunch foods (such as canned soup) for him. I am not sure if we will actually get to another jar of peanut butter and how long the 2 jars will last us – years, a decade? And BREAD! We normally do not go through a lot of bread, often do not even any in the house and he has always refused to freeze bread. He looking at buying “2 or 3” packages of 2 loaves each. I am guessing we will sit and draw up a list of what we would buy from them tomorrow and figure it out. My attitude has mostly been through all of this whatever he needs to feel secure as long as it too not far out there.
Back in November the weekend before our last food shopping trip we had picked up Chinese food from our normal place for the last time also. We picked it up on Friday night and the wife told us that they would be open the next day and then would be closed until April 1. Both of us thought that we would go back the next night and take out again as it would be a couple of weeks before we could go there again – and eating in restaurants, still open for eating in at the time, we did not feel comfortable going to. Of course then our brains kicked in ' Why are they closing for 2 weeks? Is someone sick? We did not go back the next night.
Week before last husband decided that we should pick up Chinese food for dinner – it is a small place and would be much safer (in his mind) than going to a supermarket and he would not have to eat my cooking for one night, well two nights, which will make sense soon. I tried calling them a week ago on Sunday night. The phone alternately kept ringing or was busy. We figured that they must be terribly busy and were no longer taking orders for the evening. During the following week I telephoned during the day and spoke to the wife and they were open, though closing 2 hours earlier than before – which should not have affected us when I called. We decided we take out on Friday night and we would buy 2 meals plus extra rice. (Husband has found out how nice rice reheated in boiling water so the grains expand big and it is filling.) I tried telephoning them – again it was either ringing or busy. This time for some reason my cell phone would cut off the call as I waited to see if they answered the phone after 4 or 5 rings “the party is not available”. So we tried using our land line – we don't normally make outgoing calls with it as it has no included minutes (why pay for same and for unlimited cell phone minutes on my phone when we can just pay for the latter and use my phone for outgoing calls and the land line for incoming calls.) This time when I called a message -“This party does not accept calls from hidden telephone numbers.” Husband was starting to panic. We went upstairs and called on his Magic Jack line (he has for business). We got through to the place and found a message telling us to order through their website. We did so – technically through a third party site accessed through their website. It was fairly easy and straightforward to order with – even had a place for husband to specify bok choy instead of broccoli in both main dishes. Paid through the site with our “use online, by mail and by telephone” credit card.
We then went downstairs to prepare for the adventure that we anticipated was to come, Husband had read to wipe down food containers coming into the house with alcohol wipes – we only have one – old – package of same, so I cut 2 paper towels in quarters and found the spray bottle of alcohol in the basement – we use it while making sure we don't get bed bugs again. I put all of this together in the kitchen on the counter near the door. I then pulled out an assortment of plastic containers and a bowl. He had also read that the food should immediately be put in one's own containers and the restaurant's containers be throw out outside. I took our masks, 2 plastic sandwich bags (I use them as disposable gloves – cheaper than same and we have a lot more of them and they fit my small hands better) and 2 plastic shopping bags and we set off. Our idea was that I would go in and he would wait in the car. I would open the door to go in and then out with one of the bags and have the other one on my hand as I carried their shopping bag to the car. We would then put their shopping bag(s) in ours so theirs did not touch our car floor.
When we arrived in their parking lot I noticed 2 things – lots of people with masks on waiting around outside the store and the door was propped open. I walked in to give them my name and found out why they had closed for 2 weeks. The inside had been converted to non-contact pickup! Oh, did that make me feel good. Over their counter was a plexiglass wall with a small slot opening for ordering menus to be passed out to people and then returned for those ordering in person. Were there had bee a walk through from the customer area to kitchen was filled in by wood making a door with a trap door in it and a shelf attached to our side of the wall with a railing around the shelf. I started to wait off to the side and noticed a sign that if one had ordered one should text to a phone number, wait outside, and would be called when ready. I went back out and texted my name to the number with the info we had ordered online. I then figured out that was not enough info. I texted additional info as I waited after explaining to husband what was going on. People waiting did not have, to put it mildly, the best concept of staying 6 feet apart – or they had no idea how far 6 feet is. One woman came up and started approaching me (I always look like I know what is going on – I inherited same from my dad.) A woman started coming closer to me - about to be too close. I told her to stop she was coming too close and she did though seemed to not really understand. I answered her questions. As I stood their waiting it occurred to me that I should have included the order number in my text. I texted again, apologizing that I had not done this sort of thing before. Finally my cell rang and it was my turn. I went in. A young woman I had not seen there when things were more normal held up their copy of our order, pointing at our name, and I shook my head yes. She passed the bag through the trap door and after it closed I picked up the bag – wearing one of the sandwich bags on my hand. When I got to the car husband was waiting with our bag and we put the bag of food in it and drove home.
I stopped in our small side porch with the bag. I took out an item with the second sandwich bag on my left had and wiped with it down with a piece of paper towel soaked in alcohol. I then passed it through the door and husband transferred the contents to a plastic container in the kitchen. (Most of the containers are old soup containers from the same place, from when life was normal.) We kept doing this until all of the food was in containers, except the main dish we were having that night was in a big bowl.
Oh, what a treat! Soup and big main course. No cutting back on what we would normally have as a meal to make the food last longer. After they cooled down soon and we finished eating the rice and second meal were put I the refrigerator to keep them until we were ready to eat the food on other nights. Last night we had the second meal. We will definitely pick up again and pick up for one meal now that we know it is safe enough to go there. - Yum.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
We are fortunate enough to be able to continue to pay for our food. But I never thought the luxury of a full meal instead of smaller than we normally eat meals would be so wonderful. I guess it is true that when one is deprived of their regular life, the little normal things mean a lot.
Please continue to stay inside if you are in area with these rules. I would like for all of you and your loved ones to continue to be well.
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