grocery shame
A few weekends ago, on the way to sleep over at an old friend’s house, just like we did in the olden days, I stopped by the store to pick up some essentials. The people behind me in line were apparently going on an organic kale, ginger, and lemon juice cleanse. I got ice cream and two cakes.
I walked in the front door of the house, a house that had served as a second home in high school, to be greeted by the same friends, standing in the same kitchen, wearing (possibly the same) sweats, talking over each other. It could have been 1997.
We were so excited. It was going to be just like before.
Except that since our last slumber party, Friend #1 (owner of the house) has graduated from college, gotten married, had babies, and bought the house from her parents.
And instead of ordering Dominos, Friend #2 made the pizza FROM SCRATCH (including the crust) and brought an incredible fancy appetizer of mussels with some sort of divine garlic dressing (marinade?) on it.
And she made her own bread.
A nice pairing to the gourmet dessert.
And this time, instead of gearing up to watch an ‘N Sync special for the 18th time that someone had taped off of MTV on VHS, we were prepping for Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids Concert on Netflix.
Oh, and there was this:
Tearing around the house.
So instead of eating pizza in front of the TV with YM mags to warm up for the main event, we fed these four, bathed them, dressed them, and wrangled them into bed.
Then we settled in with our beverages and Netflix. We were so ready.
…only to be interrupted about 5 minutes later from squealing coming from one of the rooms.
Repeat every 5 minutes. For the next hour.
After an hour we were about 15 minutes into the 2 hour concert because of all the pausing.
Then Friend #2 who was, in her day, one of the most die-hard boy band fans I have ever known, tilted her head at JT on the screen and, through a mild scowl, said, “Why would anyone pay hundreds of dollars to watch this live? He’d be like a tiny speck.”
…and that was it. Things just weren’t the same.
With a few sad, defeated glances around the room, we fast forwarded to the one song everyone wanted to hear and then turned it off.
Then we fell asleep at 10.
Thomas Moore wrote:
Ev’ry season has it’s pleasures;
Spring may boast her flow’ry prime,
Yet the vineyard’s ruby treasures
Brighten Autumn’s sob’rer time.
So life’s year begins and closes;
Days, though short’ning, still can shine;
What though youth gave love and roses,
Age still leaves us friends and wine.
A beautiful reflection on the passing of time, the relationship between what is and what was, and how beauty and value can evolve without being lost.
…plus we still know the choreography. At least we’ll always have that.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 