Sunday, January 29, 2006

Dr. Virago fact no. 2 of 100

Dr. Virago hates grocery shopping, especially when it means having to drive to the store.

This fact brought to you by another fact -- the fact that at this very moment Dr. Virago should be going to the grocery store to buy necessary staples like milk, OJ, bread, and butter, so that she has things to eat for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, but she really doesn't want to haul her ass out in the windy (though warm) night and drive all the way to the grocery store, which is inconveniently about 4 miles away.

Apparently, though, Dr. Virago loves to write about herself in the third person. (Not really.)

16 comments:

Bardiac said...

That third person thing... seems to be a blogger favorite, doesn't it?

I suppose we could go all Gollum and start talking about our precious this and we that and such?

I've worked myself to a rotation of three grocery stores: one carries a cream I like, another a regional specialty I like, the other tends to have better veggies. I think I've become entirely too picky.

MT said...

Does Dr. Virago live near a Whole Foods grocery store? It's like Club Med for the environmentally, politically and aromatherapeutically correct. You don't pay for the food. You pay for the experience.

Another Damned Medievalist said...

I try to avoid it, because I shop like a woman who cooks for a family, and I'm not ...

Dr. Virago said...

Bardiac -- what do you mean *go* Gollum. *We've* already *gone*, oh yesssss, we have! :)

MT -- Alas and welawey, Dr. Virago does *not* live near a Whole Foods! The nearest one is 45 minutes away in another town and state. But yes, grocery shopping is a thousand times more pleasant in a Whole Foods than in a depressing Kroger or its ilk. But really it's the drive that we hatesssssss -- oh yes, we really hatessss it.

ADM -- I know exactly what you mean. (Yes, back to first person. Can't keep up the Gollum thing.) I do the same thing and then food goes bad before I eat it.

Bardiac said...

I would give a LOT in life to live near either a Trader Joe's OR a Whole Foods.

Dr. Virago said...

Bardiac, me too!

Heo said...

Grocery shopping, bah! I usually wait so long to go that I'm ravenously hungry in the store and buy far too many things, often stuff I will never. ever. eat. For example, somewhere in my pantry there is a package of whole-grain banana-cake mix. That's just never going to happen.

MT said...

I think "welawey" was one of those words that felt safe to skim over when I read Troilus & Criseyde. No, on second thought it was the whole thing I skimmed. Does it mean something?

MT said...

Doh! It was the Shakespeare I skimmed, not the Chaucer. Googling "welawey" brought me to the Chaucer (which is now public domain, people might be excited to learn). I recognized the title and thought I'd read it, incomprehensible though it was. I read a lot of things I found incomprehensible as an undergraduate.

Dr. Virago said...

HeoCwaeth - yeah, me too. I don't have whole grain banana-cake mix, but I do the shopping hungry thing, which means I usually buy convenience food. Bah.

MT -- "Welawey" (in various spellings) is just an intensifier for "alas." It's an expression of woe and dismay. Now stop skimming either Chaucer or Shakespeare!

jo(e) said...

I hate grocery shopping. It seems like I just buy the same stuff all the time and that is soooooo boring. I would love it if food just got delivered to my house magically every week.

Karl Steel said...

"Welawey" is one of the words that makes me happy to be a medievalist.

DV, not sure what rusty old city you're in, but you might have a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in your area. If you do, join it, at least when the growing season starts up again. Organic food, small farms, generally nice people, and totally delicious. And you're supporting a local economy and diminishing your participation in the petrol economy. Since joining one here in my big city (Park Slope in NYC), I've been much more interested in food.

Will this decrease the amount of driving you have to do? Maybe not. But there'll be more food happiness in your life.

And if I hear that you're doing it, it'll give me hope, because sometime this year, I'll finish the PhD and leap, again, into the whole MLA thing and this time, I expect, end up someplace like, oh, Cleveland or Duluth or Green Bay or someplace else entirely unlike NYC where I'm still going to want to eat the nice things I eat now.

Dr. Virago said...

I would love it if food just got delivered to my house magically every week.

If only, Jo(e), if only!

Karl, I will look into CSA around here. We do have a number of local fruit and vegetable stands, which makes produce shopping a little more fun, at least. But for the staples, it's such a drag.

Dr. Virago said...

Oh, and Karl, on keeping hope alive: though I have yet to find decent Chinese food here (but then I complained about that on the west coast, too -- I just prefer NY styles), and there's an overabundance of mid-range chain restaurants and not enough really creative fine cuisine, there's still some interesting eating around here, especially of the ethnic variety.

It's a little harder for the foodie-at-home, though. Boyfriend is the chef (I appreciate good food, but don't know how to make it) and for really fancy ingredients, we have to drive to the Whole Foods (and other stores) in another town 45 mins. away. But at least we can do that. It could be worse.

Anonymous said...

OK, as Virgo Sis to Dr. Virago, I thought I was obsessed with food and that the academics on her blog should be concerned with much loftier things!! Even in major southern city I miss Whole Foods (here in 07), Trader Joe's (no chance thus far) and real delicatessens (sp?). Pastrami anyone?

Heowaeth - Whole grain banana mix? Perfect for all those bananas that go black. Add them and a teensy bit of almond extract. Yum!

Anonymous said...

If you learn how to cook, grocery shopping is a little more bearable.