Tag: shopping

Solving the Hard-to-Shop-For-Mother Quandary: A Little Macaroni and a lot of Inner Child

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, LoveLeave a comment

“Remember when you used to make me cards and presents for Christmas?”

I should never have made her that scrap-wood jewelery box when I was 8 -- I set the bar too high.

My mother, my wing-woman, is an Italian-Irish Catholic Canadian, but I swear, she’s got that New York City Jewish Mother knack for instilling a stomach-churning sense of guilt.

“I always liked it when you made me cards and presents for Christmas.”

She said this to me one December 22nd as she drove me home from college. I had just grumbled something inaudible about being behind on my gift-buying. Not 30 minutes had passed since I was freed from the relentless push of the semester’s end and I was worn out from two weeks of exams and term papers. There had been no time to eat and sleep let alone tackle the NYC holiday shopping crowds. Not surprisingly, I was in that typical student mode of pure selfishness. Forget holiday shopping and bow making. Forget fa la la la laaaing and joy to the world. I was going to sleep for the next 24 hours… some one else could deck the halls.

My mother, like all mothers, is a notoriously bad person to draw in Secret Santa. Shopping for her Christmas gifts makes me sweat, ties knots in my stomach, and often causes hyperventilation — I started carrying a brown paper bag with me when I hit the mall in Santa mode. Yet, once upon a time, all I had to give her for Christmas was a glittered construction paper and doily card gingerly assembled during afternoon craft hour.

Mum had made a good point (one I’m not entirely sure she meant to make) — homemade presents are not only more thoughtful, they’re also easier: standards are lower.

A summer vacation scrapbook? Who doesn't love a sentimental photo album, witfully assembled?

At home, bedraggled but eager to please, I rummaged through drawers and bins on a hunt for stowed-away crafting supplies. I should never have made her that scrap-wood jewelery box when I was 8 — I had set the resourceful bar high. Many years later, the only materials at my disposal were faded construction paper, colored string, and macaroni.

“You’re an art student,” my father, who escapes the thinking/shopping challenge through gift certificates, said encouragingly. “Surely, you can come up with something.”

“Dad, it’s Art History. I don’t make stuff. I analyze stuff other people make.”

Sitting on my living room floor, in front of the fire, I consulted my creative side and got to work. A humorous scrapbook from our summer vacation? Who doesn’t love a sentimental photo collage?

A construction paper collage card? It would be just like kindergarten. Half the fun of Christmas is rekindling your inner child, isn’t it?

But the piece de resistance of that Christmas? The pasta necklace.

Despite its aesthetic qualities and the diligence with which it was crafted, like many a Christmas present past, it never got any use. But my mother’s hearty laugh and big hug upon opening it said it all: this time, it really was the thought that counted.

 

A construction paper card and macaroni necklace made by a 20-year old college student. Without a doubt, it was the thought that counted.



Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving and All through the Whole Foods

On By KathleenIn insights/observations, relationships1 Comment

…the villagers were stirring, kids, significant others, and in-laws in tow. There was a feast to prepare and a table to set, flights to be made and cars for roadtrips to be packed.

I’d never seen it before — a supermarket suffering from a hand basket and shopping cart shortage. People stood dumbfounded. Where did they all go?! Where am I supposed to put by butternut squash? Some wives were stalking departing shoppers, helping them unload their groceries in hopes of scoring a vessel for their groceries. Others were in foot races, running to grab the first cart returned to the corral.

Meanwhile, husbands sat in the driver seats of minivans praying a parking spot would come vacant, pretending they didn’t know “that woman” who was about to bat another over the head with her Michael Kors handbag.

A timeless Thanksgiving tradition -- over crowded grocery stores and shopping cart ralleys

Inside, the aisles were packed, but the shoppers unphased. Everyone was on a mission. The line for the organic turkeys swirled around the store. Family teams were passing bags of cranberries like they were footballs and tossing turnips like fastpitch softballs.  It was a controlled chaos, except for the occasional fight over an un-cracked frozen pie crust.

The shopping cart shortage was easily explained. There seemed to be a two per family distribution — one for the children, one for the turkey and trimmings. The children looked terrified. Their eyes bugged, their little hands gripped tightly around the cart’s mesh. They looked at their parents as if they were total strangers. Are these  people diving for the last bag of stuffing mix the same people that read me Winnie the Pooh stories with the funny voices?

The problem with pre-Thanksgiving shopping is that entire families head out to the grocery store. Grandparents are told to stay with the cart — usually deposited in the middle of the aisle — and watch the children, while parents try to double team on the whipped cream and produce.

Having been involved with team sports my whole life, I know that you’re only as strong as  your weakest player.  Bringing along idle shoppers who are told to sit and stay won’t help you get those frozen peas to the dinner table… not to mention the fouls they cause to members of other teams. I was nearly launched headlong into the stack of oranges when an unmonitored toddler cut me off at a corner. Where was that kid’s leash?!

At the end of the day, I give my fellow shoppers credit. No one really lost their cool, and I appreciated the woman who helped me load the Land Rover and chirped a “Happy Thanksgiving!” as she toted away my shopping cart.

“Good luck in there!” I hollared back.

She was going to need it.

It's a race to the checkout line. Watch out ladies, those handbags double as weapons!

Meet Me in the Meat Market

On By KathleenIn Dating, relationships, romance4 Comments
luuuurve in the produce department... so that's how guacamole is made...

I’ve always believed that supermarkets are the best place to play the pick-up game. Bars and clubs are unoriginal, expected, and often bothersome. But a flirtation in the oil and vinegar aisle, on the other hand, is surprisingly refreshing and thoroughly endearing.

You can gather more reconnaissance on a stroll past the cereals than during a 5-minute speed date. How a person moves through the produce section is extremely revealing, and a quick survey of a person’s shopping cart items easily helps you determine compatibility. Plus, there are few conversation starters as effective as a mutual interest in wild sockeye salmon recipes.

Yes, Whole Foods is the new OkCupid.

Today, I found an admirer while stocking on my Stoneyfield Farms maple-vanilla yogurt. There were smiles and waves before we went our separate ways, crossing paths and waving again in front of the wheels of parmigano regiano and the shelves packed with tea. Finally, as I waited in line for my iced latte, I felt a tug at my shopping basket. Before I could turn around, a white fluffy blanket hit my face.

I’ve had some pretty forward advances in my time, but no one’s ever thrown their bedding at me before… at least, not in public. He was pretty serious.

It was then his mother apologized. “He just turned 3. And I thought the twos were terrible!”

“I think I’m a little old for you, tyke,” I said as I handed the toddler back his blankie.

Okay, so it wasn’t the 6′, blue-eyed, dark-haired, wedding-band-less 30-something who smiled at me when I crashed into him while reaching for a head of radicchio, but this toddler dug me. And attention from a cute boy, even if he’s in a diaper, should never fail to flatter.

Next week my local Whole Foods is having a sale on t-bone steaks. I’m telling ya, it’s gonna be the new single’s night…

Why You Want me to Go to Saks with You

On By KathleenIn insights/observations, New York CityLeave a comment

I decided not to go to Cuba this weekend. The US would prefer that I don’t stimulate the economy of a nation with whom we have an embargo. So instead, I attempted to stimulate our economy. There was a sale at Saks, and I partook.

I didn’t go to Cuba this weekend, so I went to Saks. That’s a reasonable trade…

I walked into the famed 5th Avenue department store with no particular goal in mind. I was just killing time between physiotherapy and practice. And yet I came home with a hat box in hand and a garment bag and shopping sac dangling over my shoulder. I’m a good shopper. A focused shopper. Send me into a sale, and I will not come out empty-handed.

But the fact that I have a knack for finding that dress that hangs impeccably or that shirt that hugs in all the right the places is not why I make for a good shopping companion…

It’s because I’m brutally honest.

I opened the door to my fitting room and walked into the hallway to show my friend my ensemble: a pink pinstriped tuxedo blouse with ruffled shoulders tucked into white admiral pants. She opened her fitting room to show me the orange dress she was proud to have found.

Immediately, she doubled over in a fit of laughter. I started singing “I am the very model of a very modern general.”

“I look I should be handing out cookies and sangria in the medical ward of a cruise ship,” I said. The woman in the change room next to me burst into a loud chortle (she knocked on my door on her way out — she wanted to meet the “funny lady”).

My friend and I returned to our respective rooms, giggling. “Wait!” she hollered. “You didn’t tell me what you thought of my dress.”

“You look like a creamsicle.”

Needless to say, neither of those outfits ended up in our shopping bags.