Day One - Kate

Ian, Lelia and I opted for group shopping last night. I’d pored over the Weekly Circular and tweaked my shopping list for weeks during my commute. We crawled down the aisles, hunched in concentration, Lelia faithfully applying post-its with prices to each item that she placed in her cart and punching numbers into her calculator. Ian and I went through our list, making a few carefully weighed substitutions. We stopped for 10 minutes in front of the peanut butter, longer in the pasta aisle. There were some thrills along the way - $1 bags of potatoes and cabbage at 19 cents a pound - but, mostly, it was the minute tradeoffs and calculations that kept things interesting. That’s right, an hour in Key Foods was interesting. This is where you know something is not right! At this point, I do still feel like a tourist. I wonder how long it will take for the novelty to wear off, and if a week is enough time. I relished my home-brewed coffee and hot roll with peanut butter this morning, and tasty beans/rice/hot dog combo for lunch. But I feel that I am in the honeymoon phase. Lelia left Key Foods significantly less alive to the thrill of the hunt than I did, and, I think, more in touch with reality.