esrosedotblog

I have always thought that going out with others on one day to shop is just another sign of mass insanity.

As it turns out, this year, the rest of the world may be catching on to my ideas.

Retail group: Black Friday weekend loses allure

I am not a lifetime agoraphobe. I am late onset.

Now, I don't shop at all except by mail. And the idea of going out while all the world is running around the stores is a nightmare.

It has not always been this way. I don't think that I was ever a Black Friday celebrant but I did enjoy going to the stores.

I used to go out and wander the length of Washington Street in Boston. In and out of Jordan Marsh, Filenes and all the other stores that were laid out along this grand promenade.

We lived about twenty minutes away for a quite a while and so it was easy. And then we moved. I think this is when it got to be less attractive. It was a little further to walk in to the place. A mile? There was the T and that was fun. But then it wore out.

I am not sure what happened. I know the street changed about the same time. In the old old days there was plenty going on besides retail. There were at least two newspapers along the row with hand made news bulletin boards outside. The original Radio Shack. Many many street vendors. Lots of theaters. Hordes of people. A carnival.

And one end anchored by the "combat zone", Boston's porn store neighborhood on one end and then a couple of blocks to the theater district. Legit theater. Everything you could want in a walk of about a mile.

Then slowly, it all deteriorated. People moved out of the city. Shopping malls grew in the suburbs. Taxes drove out the more interesting places to hang out.

And by the time we left Boston, it was a shade of its formal self.

I never got interested in malls. At all.

Now, we have a retail district and people go there but I lost the urge and it is not coming back.

The idea of going in for specials and fighting it out is just beyond my imagination of a good time.

But then wrestling has always been a spectator sport for me.

Labels: shopping

I visited my friends at Ralphs* this morning.

As in Ralphs super market.

I go twice a week religiously. Tuesday and Friday at 6AM. The agoraphobics' hour. Also the best time to get fresh produce, yak with the staff and generally enjoy the process of roaming the aisles.

There was nothing particular about today. It was so normal. Some of the customers are familiar, a nod and a faint "hi". Some staff are old acquaintances. Some short visits. They are working after all. I am shopping.

I like the guys who are still stocking the shelves from the night shift. This is an especially busy store. I hear one of their best performers, dollars per square foot. So it is a constant replenishment. Start at one end and then go back and do it again. And again. There is one guy who mostly does nothing but take care of the corrugated. It is an assembly line operation. The shelvers shelve and leave the unflattened box for him to pick up. These go in back to a baler then all is taken away.

I am chummy with the bakery lady whose sense of responsibility is so great that I dare not ask for directions to a certain item or serve up any questions. She will relentlessly leave her assigned work and finish whatever errand she sets out upon at my request.

I don't know any of the meat people. They are not there when I shop. Later, 630AM I think. But the shelf items are so complete and the selection so good that I never have to ask anyway. That would be the night staff doing its work. Not so long ago, something happened and the meat display was desolated. Nothing there. It turned out that the night crew had some emergency or other. I waited until next time.

Today was smooth sailing. I like the morning manager, Jim. He is always up for some badinage. He is their best bagger. Funny. Work your way up to the top and the customer values your bagging skills above all other. Besides we get to shoot the shit while he is doing it. The checkers love him and his talk so it is a good entertainment all around.

There would be none of this later in the day. I have gone in there and it is fucking bedlam. People wall to wall, ten checkout lanes in operation. Electronic signs controlling the crowds through the lanes.

I like the old fashioned pace of the morning hours. No one in a hurry. No one pushing from behind. Time for thought and consideration.

* No apostrophe. Ralphs.

Labels: food, shopping

Another new thing around the house are cut flowers.

Not a big deal but a definite plus.

We have never been much for indoor plants or flowers. I say we but that means me. I am the gardener.

On the other hand, I am not the florist. The arranger. That is John.

So, I have been buying a bouquet at Ralphs for him to arrange.

I am learning about what to buy. Roses do not last worth a shit. Daisy types of flowers a lot longer. So daisy types it is.

I don't get the selections that include dyed flowers. And that is a lot of them. Mostly the daisy type and lilies.

The prearranged stuff tends to run to color selections. The ones I bought today are yellow. A little sunflower, some carnations, some daisies.

It is not a big deal but worth a mention.

Labels: flowers, shopping

Things are shaking in the super market business.

I see some changes at my local.

I am going through some changes myself.

I recently left Stater Brothers, a "local" chain for the closer, bigger and better, Ralphs. Really Kroger masquerading as a local chain. Super super. But not too super.

I made the move because of some vague understanding that things were not up to snuff at the old place. Problems with outdated merchandise and then shortages of critical items. Produce not quite as good as it used to be.

My impression was that they were trying to lower costs and it was showing. Not in good ways.

A huge employee turnover was a symptom as well. New faces, not too smart clerks. Obvious personality conflicts. Not good when the help knocks the store, management or other workers.

The new place is loaded with products. It has a two tier private label line with an upscale set of products that I really like because they are new-ish and very good quality.

There is also a difference with the "privilege card" system. Staters made a thing about their lack of one but I quit believing their story. Ralph's prices can be astonishing. The yellow tag system is not unique but they are moving the deals around all the time. I do not shop on price but there it is in front of me. Irresistible not to get engaged with it. Again, the private label stuff is amazingly less money than the branded.

I have not seen the electronic stuff but they do have the self checking. I don't go for it actually. But it does siphon off the other customers who do use it. The one or two or three item folks, which I rarely am. I am not actually a candidate for self checkout because the space wouldn't hold all my items.

We do have this though. QueVision.

Why Your Grocery Store Is Installing Military Cameras

I have seen those signs and had no idea what they were for. Another thing which does not apply to me normally as I only shop before there is anyone else in the store and there is no waiting. Period.

Oh, the people. Obviously competent. Interested. Friendly. On the job. They know the layout cold.

The checkers are fast, fast, fast and even at my early time the manager who is stationed right in the center of the checkouts helps bag. And s/he talks and banters with the workers and the customers. Very nice energy. They are proud of their store and they show it.

The staff on duty in the morning is enormous. Some are just at the end of their shifts but there are others starting. There are very few aisles without "help".

I don't shop for anything else anywhere any time. I have John to do a lot of this. I use online.

But the groceries? I am the cook. I love to wallow in the store and I grew up in supermarkets. Even worked there. My Dad was a lifer with A&P. I know a good one and I know a not so good one and will go in that good direction every time.

Labels: food, shopping

WRENCHING DECISION

I have shopped at Stater Brothers, a small southwest grocery chain, since the big disabling strikes out here, seven years ago? No, ten years. 2003-2004. See here.

I had been a super market kid and had a job with the supermarkets as an adult engineer for five years. I had been in the union and I had been in management.

This strike got to me like no other strike I had seen. It was basically a lockout. And the Safeway guy who kind of ran it was a gold plated asshole.

I had shopped at Ralphs, then left because it was dirty and the stock wasn't rotated. I went to Vons. Vons is the Safeway outlet here. So I left Vons.

I would not, could not, cross a picket line.

Stater Brothers had and has an independent contract in which their people get whatever the other national chains and unions settle for.

I stayed at Staters through a second strike in 2011.

But lately, there is trouble in paradise.

The Staters is a great store but small and has recently dropped items that are on my standard list. About a year ago there began to be serious problems of stock rotation. I had to look at everything.

I liked the people at Staters. Regular friends. I stayed because of that and the meat which is like an upscale meat market and, for a long while, it has been a routine that John and Booker would walk the two miles there and we would meet at the end of my shopping.

It wasn't just shopping but a destination.

Small straws break the camel's back.

A missing item here (vegetable lasagna), the realization I had a month old potato salad there, an empty shelf of sodas, an out of stock with this and that.

Enough.

Today, I went back to Ralphs. I have come full circle.

But it is not the same Ralphs. Not even in the same place. It is a huge modern double the size super super market and it has fucking everything.

The produce is dramatic. The aisles are wide. And so on.

I shopped there today and found everything. I also was able to buy vegetable lasagna.

Things are looking up.

John and Booker changed their route and we sort of hit the mark on when to leave and when to meet.

I already miss some of the Staters thing and the meat does not compare but the fact is that I do not really buy my meat from the counter but from the case.

Old dogs can learn new tricks.

Labels: food, life, shopping

HAPPY FEET

I have always owned white bucks, nicely dirtied and worn.

First at MIT, I would run them down to the insoles. Then in more affluent days, I would keep a fresh pair coming up behind the old pair. Bi-bucked.

Later I added saddle shoes. Not as nuts over saddle shoes but I always had them one way or another.

Then when we moved out here, somehow, what with permanent sandal wear and so on, the bucks went away.

But lately I have been having buck fever!

So I ordered a pair today. And a pair of saddle shoes. Then a pair of tan buck shoes. All from Bass. Inexpensive, simply done.

They come Saturday or before.

The balls.

A mysterious change. Good to have these waves of new things, images, even old nostalgic moves. Is this a 75 thing or just a thing?

When we moved, we agreed that a new purchase would accompany the removal of some old item, equal bulk. We are limited by space constraints.

I got rid of my Birkenstocks. Years with those too. But they don't work here although I have never figured out why that is. Not good in sand.

Labels: shopping

MERCHANTS

The mattress experience also presented a new world of department store buying.

Macy's.

It is a peerless service machine. Nice people. Good prices. Extreme followup, emails, guarantees. Even the delivery men were handsome! And we had the mattress less than 24 hours after we bought it.

I used to work for the Federated and Allied chains of big name stores. They did not own the stores per se but had an interest and provided services.

It was a place of desperate politics and backward management. A lot were family owned or the equivalent with second and third generation management.

The work was not difficult, the people were nice, but they were a slow motion train wreck and not getting any better.

I quit on them as a customer.

But this is a new thing. It is no wonder that Macy's came out on top.

In this case, at least, big is better. Obviously it is well managed.

But more, they are true merchants. When I worked for the stores, the merchants were king and then they were not.

The numbers guys came in. The big box guys came in. The first in first out inventory came in. The just on time delivery.

The link between the people who bought the stuff and the customer was lost.

Sure, there were some dumb parts to the old merchant system. The liberal returns policy and so on.

But you go to the boxes or any of the other new retail places and there is no merchandising at the consumer level. It is all take it or leave it. Not Macy's.

I will go back.

Labels: business, culture, management, shopping

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

Not even titanium eyeglass frames.

I just put my glasses on and the bow broke off.

No problem really.

I popped my older set of glasses (also titanium) on my face and took off for the optician.

They are close by. Five minutes.

They were out to lunch!

It is summer in Palm Springs. Skeleton crews. Closings for "lunch". I had 15 minutes to wait. No point going home then turning around in three or four minutes.

It wasn't bad. It is hot as hell here today but that was OK. There was shade and that takes the sting out of any heat. I made a few phone calls.

They were a little late but I was first!

And they served me right up. Found a new frame just like the old one and put it together while I waited. Chit chat. Down home talk. Nice.

I was home within the hour.

And, because today's movie was relatively short, I had the time.

Great. Perfect. Synchronicity.

Labels: eye, shopping

WIPES

E. coli found on 50 percent of shopping cart: Reusable shopping bags also harbor nasty bacteria, Ariz. researchers say

About two years ago, my Stater Brothers' supermarket began putting sanitizer wipes at the door. I started using them.

Then after a year or more, I got the idea that this was silly. That I was depriving myself of "useful" bacteria which would create antibodies.

Well, that thinking just got changed. Back to the wipes again.

I don't care much about the re-usable bags which I re-use. This would be my bacteria mostly. Well, no it wouldn't. But I think I can wash my hands at home OK.

I do wipe down the gym equipment after I use them but I notice a lot of people do it before. I wonder what the fecal count on that would be.

I am aware in the downstairs, the weights. I wash plenty before I go home and handle the steering wheel and stuff.

E. coli isn't anything to get careless about. I don't think we get antibodies for that. Do we? You microbiologist guys?

Anyway, it is back to the wipes. Keerist. 50-85%.

Labels: shopping

DOWN CYCLE

I wrote a year ago about food prices.

I could actually see the prices increasing week to week.

What had been 80$ a visit had become $90, then topped at $110.

Now it is going the other way.

I am not down to 80 yet but it is close.

Of course, week to week, it is not a constant figure. There are big meat weeks (2.00 off yesterday's ground beef, buy 5 packages) and not.

The other week I had to buy stamps.

But the trend has stayed in place over the last three months.

I credit a few things. One is that the food manufacturers got caught with their hand in the cookie jar cutting weights of packages and leaving the prices the same. Another, people cut back in volume. I read there was an enormous impact of average people cutting inventories of food in the home. I didn't do that. I am compulsive. I have to have one or two backups for everything.

In my case, it has been a steady trend towards private label.

I shop at a regional chain, Stater Brothers. For such a small outfit, they have an enormous selection of "as good as" private label items. Some better!

Another thing about Stater's. It does not have a plastic discount card. It does have unbelievable savings on the shelf. These are ubiquitous in the store. The other day, John's favorite cereal, a branded one at that, was marked down to 60% of its normal price. I bought eight. $2.00 a box.

Please understand. I have never been a price buyer. I get what I want when I want it. I do not do coupons. I don't buy specials unless they knock me over the head.

This is just normal, nearly inattentive buying. And I am spending less on food.

Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh!

Labels: economy, food, life, shopping

DUDE HAVIN' HIS CAKE

I did the grocery shopping this morning and bought the standard bundt cake that I use for people who have birthdays at our Meeting. People I sponsor.

I got home and took the cake out of its bag and realized that it had a piece sliced out of it!

A very neat piece. Cut with a knife.

Well, I need the cake tomorrow so I took it back. Got another one. Went to the checkout where Lynda reigns in the morning. I just held the cut cake up. She nodded. I asked if she had ever seen the like. She just smiled and kept nodding.

Routine for them, I guess. It was really a kind of shocker to me. I even thought I might be seeing things. Or that it was a joke. Lynda putting it in the bag along with the real one just for the hell of it. I even thought, "maybe I could give this cake and no one would notice". A form of denial that one.

So strange.

I reconstruct it this way. The cake was outdated and someone in the bakery department cut a slice out before it got tossed. I didn't look at the date. It's possible.

Then someone else came a long, saw the cake and put it up on the display thinking that is where it belonged. Not too big a stretch.

Or, it made me think of the Dude in Lebowsky who gets a whole meal in the super market during the night just going around and taking food. I think the Dude would definitely cut a neat piece out of the cake.

Labels: birthdays, food, shopping

WIPE OUT

This is Kevin Drum's day. Three links.

SHOPPING CARTS

I have started wiping down.

I noticed those wipes a few months ago.

I scoffed.

Then I read about some of the shit you could pick up from them and tried it.

A kind of peace settled over me.

I now wipe when I go in and again, when I go out.

And I wipe the cart and my hands.

I am a wiper now.

This has gone over to the gym. I now wipe down after I use a machine and the other day I didn't like the look of the fat lady who used my bike before I got to it so I wiped after her too. She did not.

I don't use the sanitizers other than that.

We have a bottle at the kitchen sink but I just use my Neutrogena soap.

I don't want to overdo it.

I think that a modicum of bacteria are important to get so I build up the anti-bodies.

But the shopping carts and other mass 'tools'? I have seen someone with MRSA and have seen a lot of illness here lately. I don't want it.

Labels: health, life, shopping

GREENING

We have added a new step to our greening up our life.

No, we are not going off the internet, the most wasteful additions to global warming. Not our cell phones. And I sure didn't leave the AC off today.

No, I mean at a more micro level.

Another area than global warming.

I have been on and off with organic products.

I usually am interested in them because they are superior in quality. I care less about the chemicals and all.

I read another article the other day that says organic makes no healthful difference. It made me angry. So I know that I am onto something here.

I took the first tangible step with cage free eggs. I wasn't interested in the eggs as much as how the chickens were kept.

Then I saw how cage free works and the chickens are still all crowded in.

So I have gone the next step to free run eggs which, by coincidence, are also organic.

I guess that when you have them all closed in you have to feed the antibiotics and hormones and color for the flesh and all that.

Actually I know that they have to do this.

I used to have clients who made the chemicals. I worked with their salesmen. I went on sales calls to see their unique problems. I learned that a chicken in the usual store sense is all tricked up with unnatural ingredients.

Anyway. With each change, from regular to cage free and from cage free to free run, there has been an incremental increase in quality!

Now. Another new thing.

I was in the milk case looking for the best date and I found that they have organic milk. Fat free. And ultra pasteurized so the freshness date goes out 6 weeks.

No (added)hormones. No antibiotics. Happier cows.

We haven't tried the milk yet but it can't be as problematic as the cartons I have been getting of the regular stuff. They frequently stink a couple of days before the past sale date.

Now, I bought organic and all that when I lived in Boston. Bread and Circus. Now Whole Foods.

It was just better food, like I said.

When we came here I gave it up.

Now I am taking it up again.

Another area.

I realized that the natural ingredient household products were as good as the regular. Now they have dishwasher tabs, household cleaner, laundry detergent and dish detergent. They are going into the bag too.

All of this costs more.

I don't care.

I am happy to pay the added amount.

Is it worth it?

I don't know but it feels better.

Now, if I could find me some biodegradable plastic bags.................

Labels: fool's paradise, life, shopping

BAGGY

We have returned to reusable bags for grocery shopping.

It is trendy now you know.

Totes goods, saves the planet, costs a bunch

When we were in Boston, I had cloth bags and used them for all the shopping.

When we moved here, somehow, that faded and we joined the rest of the gang using paper and plastic.

But John got on me the other day and I remembered seeing a new display at our Stater Brothers store where I do all the shopping.

I figured it was easier to do it than to argue about it. Besides, there is not much of an argument in favor of paper and plastic. They suck on all levels.

The reusables are cheap—99 cents—so I bought 8 of them.

And only needed 4. They are pretty roomy even if they look small.

So, an additional advantage, fewer bags to carry.

Another thing I noticed is that the bagger is a lot more careful with the reusables. You can see what is going in the bag and there is something about the spirit of it that promotes some care.

Then, there was the unexpected stability of the bags in the Jeep.

They are square and support each other. They have a nice high friction surface that keeps them from sliding.

All around, it was a great decision.

I hope that I just remember to take them with me when I go to the market.

Labels: environment, shopping

VIRTUAL SHOPPING

I mentioned below that I got my new Braun electric at Amazon.

I shop there most of the time.

I get clothes at Lands End.

I gave The Gap up. Shoddy.

There are other sites I use for specialty items. Drugstore.com for the obvious.

A few others.

I do almost all my shopping on line now. Other than our bakery and the super market it is all mail order.

Isn't this the way it is going?

No.

Some people still reality shop.

I don't get it.

On line I can pick and choose and compare and I don't once have to get in my car or put up with other customers or clerks.

I have mild agoraphobia, true. But isn't this really easier?

Maybe.

But it sure creates a lot of corrugated to recycle and I hate to think of my carbon imprint or is it footprint?

I had at it with that a few days ago. Don't get me started.

I know that it used to be more expensive to shop on line, in general. That is no longer the case. I get free shipping from many regular sites and the discounting and sales are frequent.

I am not a bargain shopper anyway.

No coupons.

Just show me the shit and tell me what it costs and I am out of here.

Not a shopper.

Labels: shopping

INCOMPLETE

Hosts of readers have written in asking for the model number and name of the wonderful Braun Shaver that I bought the other day.

It is the Braun SyncroPro 7505.

Don't forget the upper case P in the middle. You might get an inferior substitute.

I bought it where I buy almost everything. Amazon.

Well not my groceries.

Labels: appliances, shopping

RAZED

My Braun electric shaver began to stall.

There is no way that I will ever go back to the blade.

So, I ordered a new one of the same approximate style.

It had to be a Braun and I don't want some of the gadgetry that they have added to some models (a cleaning bath for the shaver, a new Gillette technology version—30 dollars more).

I also ordered it for overnight. I didn't want to go without my Friday shave.

It arrived yesterday.

I charged it and tried it out today for the first time; three days of stubble.

Keerist! It took off. A high frequency buzz. Power.

It shaved me at least twice as fast as the old model.

I don't think it is just that the old one was tired. I never had a shave like this.

I think that they have souped up the motor and I know that they have redesigned the neat foil that touches your face.

The holes are not regular but have a sort of spiral arrangement.

Whew!

I may start shaving every day instead of my usual three times a week.

Well, it isn't that good.

Labels: appliances, shopping