BIG NEWS!

Alright everyone, brace yourselves. I have absolutely incredible news! This is wonderful, incredible, amazing news! It's life changing!




Are you ready for it?





Are you sure you're ready?





Get ready! You'd better brace yourself! You won't believe this!





Two of the three stores in Picard now have AIR CONDITIONING!


How incredible is that? Miyana's 7-11 (which as far as I know has nothing to do with the 7-11 in the States, the name refers only to its hours) and Picard Grocery both have air conditioning

Which means that now I get to walk about 10 minutes to the store in 90 plus degree heat with lots and lots of lovely humidity (or in the pouring rain) and then wander around in lovely air conditioning while I find my groceries, wait in line, and pay. Then I load up my canvas bags (the plastic bags the store gives you tear very easily so canvas bags are important) and trudge back home through the heat with my groceries.

Now, the air conditioning is lovely, but don't get too much of a false impression of shopping here. It's not easy. The stores I shop at are about the size of a gas station convenience store and have about the same amount of selection. There are no shopping carts and the aisles aren't very well organized.

Now to give you an idea about the weight I haul home from the store, imagine yourself following me as I walk the aisles (narrow, dirty, poorly lit, disorganized, but AIR CONDITIONED) at one of the stores.

Oh, there's pasta! The brand we like, Carib Pasta (which is the only one that doesn't dissolve while cooking), is hard to find in this area so I'd better grab a few pounds. I pop them into my basket and turn. Diced tomatoes! Fresh tomatoes are going out of season and are getting more and more expensive, so I'm using more and more canned tomatoes. And I use them in everything. Spaghetti sauce, lasagna, pizza sauce, salads, salsa, chili... the list goes on and on. I used my last two cans last night and I wanted to make spaghetti tonight, so I'd better grab a lot of cans. I grab four, and then I spot tomato sauce, and so I grab a few cans of that as well.

A little farther down, there's cream of mushroom soup, which I use in a lot of my cassaroles, so I grab a few cans of that as well. My basket is starting to get heavy. I check my list and move to the next aisle to grab a bottle of italian salad dressing and a large tub of margarine. Since we can't buy stick margarine here, I go through the tubs pretty quickly when I am baking. And Ryan asked for ramen noodles for lunch, so I'd better not forget that!

Alright, it's time to pay and walk home. My walk home is hot (more than 90 degrees), humid, hilly (2 big hills), and ten minutes long. Let's list what I have: 3 pounds of pasta, four cans diced tomatoes, two cans tomato sauce, two cans cream of mushroom, a bottle of salad dressing, a large tub of margarine, and several packs of ramen noodles. Doesn't that sound like it will be fun to carry home? I can't wait for the large grocery stores of the States, where you can push a cart around while you gather your groceries, and then push your cart out to your car, which you can drive home with the radio and air conditioning blasting. How amazing is that?!

I hope this gives you an idea about why I am so happy that the local stores have air conditioning! It's such a break to be able to cool down a little before sweating on the walk home again. And remember how I said that two of the three local stores now have AC? Well, don't think that James Store is being left out. They're improving too. They removed whatever poor dead thing that has been rotting near their registers for the past few months. The store still smells a bit (you didn't expect them to CLEAN did you?) but there's been improvement!