morning ramblings

Saturday I got our pill-holders out to fill; the bottles of two of the three prescriptions Cliff takes were almost empty, so I called the pharmacy to order more. I received a recorded message that he was going to have to visit the doctor... there were no more refills.

That bit of information made me realize it had already been three months since our last doctor visit. Cliff argued that it couldn't be, but it was. How does three months go by so fast? I decided to go ahead and renew my blood pressure medication while we were there, and save a trip later.

Thanks to nurse-practitioners, we can always get in with very little notice, and yesterday morning I secured appointments for the two of us at 10:30. That meant Cliff had to fast, since he has to have his blood tested because he's on Lipitor. I decided to fast too, out of sympathy for him. I had two different leftover dishes we could heat up when we arrived home starving.

The nurse-practitioner listened to our hearts and lungs (and to Cliff's throat, I assume checking for clogging arteries), wrote our prescriptions (increasing my B.P. med), and sent the nurse in to collect blood from Cliff. She finished, and said cheerily, "I'll bet you're hungry; now you can go get something to eat. You know what would be good right about now? One of those great big P.T.'s tenderloins!"

Now, the thought of P.T.'s tenderloins had not entered our minds; in fact, we never go to P.T.'s. But with our stomachs empty as they were, that sounded like the best idea in the world.

At the pharmacy, we were told there would be a wait of thirty minutes for our meds, just the right amount of time for two starving people to go find something to eat.

No, we didn't have that tenderloin sandwich; oh, we discussed buying one and splitting it. But when all was said and done, we went to Subway, and came home feeling quite good about ourselves.

One more battle won.

While waiting for our sandwich to be made, I looked at the Sun Chips they had available in small bags; I picked one up, and it seemed as though there couldn't be more than five chips in there. They charge $1.30 for that? We never buy chips with our Subway sandwich, and we usually order water to drink. It saves us a fortune.

I've been buying a large bag of Sun Chips at the store and dividing the contents between ten zip-lock bags for Cliff to take in his lunch. That comes to about thirty-eight cents per serving, and he gets at least twice as many as he'd get in a small, individual bag from the machine at work, for much less money. Having them bagged up ahead of time like that prevents either of us from chowing down the whole bag, and that large bag lasts Cliff two weeks.

My loss

Cliff and I went to do the shopping today. For quite a while I tried to give my business to the local grocery (eight miles away) with the noble purpose of giving support to my community. I really wanted it to work. I was willing to pay a little more for my groceries.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well: They didn't stock certain items and brands I use all the time, and they'd advertise items on sale they didn't have, and didn't intend to have.

"But it's in your ad," I'd whine.

"Oh, our bigger store at (another town) probably has that."

So it's back to Walmart. I'm sorry, Guy in Oregon.

Since we had to make a stop in Lexington, the nearest Walmart from there is across the river at Richmond.

Cliff gets home from work at 3 A.M. and sleeps till 10 o'clock. We headed out shopping at 11 A.M. I get hungry at noon.

But I was not going to give in, not this time. I wasn't going to suggest the Chinese place or Sonic... I wasn't! Why spend too much money eating unhealthy junk someplace when we have plenty of food at home! Trouble is, I hadn't bothered to cook dinner ahead of time. Cliff leaves for work at 2:30. There's no chili in the freezer at present, nor anything else I can fix without some preparation.

Then I remembered a cooked chicken breast in the freezer. Chef salad! "I'll buy some lettuce and a couple of tomatoes and a cucumber, microwave-thaw and dice up the chicken to toss in the salad, and sprinkle some grated cheese on top," I said to myself. I had to talk to myself; Cliff was off somewhere in the automotive department.

When we had loaded everything into the trunk and were in the car, I told Cliff about my mental battle (it's a common one for me; I love to eat out). Boy, was I proud of myself for overcoming temptation.

"I was thinking about Subway, myself," he said.

"See? We saved all that money.... wait just a minute! I spent $1.39 for a head of lettuce, $1 for a cucumber, $1.95 for three puny tomatoes... and I still have to make the salad when we get home! Subway would have only cost us $5 plus tax.

Cliff found the whole episode humorous. Me, not so much.

At least the salad was good.