Thursday, February 15, 2007

Bag Lady





I like to go grocery shopping late on Thursday nights -- first, I go to one supermarket, which closes at ten o'clock. I help close it...and then....I go to another supermarket, which closes at eleven o'clock. I help close that one too.


Yes, there's still produce, there's still Kosher meat, there are still baked goods or freshly-baked goods available, so I'm not usually missing anything as I buy my last-minute items for Shabbat, the weekend and the early part of the following week.


But tonight I was annoyed...as I looked down at myself, standing in the fruits and vegetable section of the first store. I tore off from a roller some plastic bags to use to bag the fruits I'd selected. I separated the bags at the perforations and then... I attempted to open them one by one.


I stood like like an idiot, trying to find the seam for the opening. If you looked over at me, you'd have seen a woman in a heavy-duty-good-for-the-Arctic-or-in-this-case-Toronto-weather parka standing and looking as if she was just rubbing her hands together, trying to warm them; she might've even looked as if she was rubbing two sticks together in a natural attempt to make fire. No, not at all. She was just trying to get the damn plastic (equivalent plastic of Israel's "sakeet nylon") bag open!


I become very self-conscious in a situation like this and often attempt to make small talk with the people around me: "Can you get these bags open?" "How do you get these bags open?" "Could you please get this bag opened for me?"


Unfortunately, tonight there was nobody worthy of approaching in the fruits and veggies section, and I had to become self-reliant and manage the bag on my own. At one point, I was tempted to just hurl the nectarines I'd picked into the shopping cart -- to hell with the bags.

But I persevered and did manage...slowly but surely...to get the several bags I needed open.


Hmmm. Have I given the term "bag lady" a new meaning...?

All in the Name of Love

I noticed a strange phenomenon in my blog statistics over the past several days. The numbers of visits (okay, so it wasn't the number of comments; I can live with that... I think!) went up... I mean WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY UPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daily visits and page views were up...in the hundreds category, something I'd never seen. A couple times when I checked, and looked under "last hour," it said 147. "Why the sudden 'growth spurt'?" I wondered. "Is it a kind of SPAM?"

And then I probed further and realized that my blog had been found via a particular image when GOOGLEd.

That image?

http://stevegarufi.com/storyhearts1.jpg

Of course...Valentine's Day. Love. Sweethearts. Candy.

People were planning and looking ahead to Valentine's Day, seeking out images and messages on the Internet, and in doing so, "found" my blog.

It's interesting to note that the image in question was posted on my blog a year ago today -- February 15, 2006.

And now that the day of romance is over, so is the romance with my stats. Yes, I'm mentally prepared to see the numbers slope back down...but I don't have to like it!

And here's what singer-guitarist B.B. King has to say about all this:

The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone, baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong, baby
And you'll be sorry someday

The thrill is gone
It's gone away from me
The thrill is gone, baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although I'll still live on
But so lonely I'll be

The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone, baby
Baby, it's gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all, baby
Just like I know a [woman] should..."