18-Mar-99 Stocking up

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It was another warm day so I went by bike again. This time it was quicker getting started, but I got caught up on some bookkeeping before leaving home and stopped at the bank on my way.

Sure enough, the warmth of yesterday had decimated the snowman population. It had melted so much snow that I ventured through Edmands Park instead of just rolling down the street alongside it. My normal route is through the park; it’s like a walk in the woods in an armchair, the trail gently downhill along a little brook. The 37mm tires had no trouble on the few remaining patches of snow. Skunk cabbage was up along the brook, a more reliable sign of spring than the warm weather.

As soon as I got home from work we drove into Brookline to do some serious food shopping for Passover. Arlene wanted to get in ahead of the biggest crush, but even two weeks before the holiday it was hard to find a place to park. The Butcherie is a small supermarket with narrow aisles and a selection of kosher-for-Passover foods that you would never imagine existed. Pseudo-cheerios made of ground matzoh? We got ’em. Home ground horseradish, fresh on February 23, once you try it you’ll never go back to another brand? Sure. Instant hot matzoh cereal in individual paper cups? We got two. Passover chocolate pudding? Two packages. The next item you looked at might be labeled in Hebrew, Russian, or perhaps French as well as English. It was slow going in the narrow aisles, with grandmas pushing their own fold-up go-to-market carts ahead of us and employees heroically trying to restock the shelves as the customers blocked their way. When we were finished Arlene said, “I’m sure glad we got there when it wasn’t crowded.”