30 Biting winter, Groceries & Public Transit

On Sunday I took my fast self and say ah going to make grocery. Good Lord it was cold. It was so cold even my exhaled breaths tried to go back in my mouth and the rest just plain refused to come out on the exhale because the wind chill seemed like it was just waiting like a defence man threatening to shove it back in my mouth. I took my time walking to the bus stop singing to myself; carefully manoeuvring the snow plies in order to keep my focus off the snipping cold.

I sat down at the stop and wrapped myself tight, legs tucked under, hands in folded in the coat sleeves and my chin buried in my chest while I waited patiently for the bus. 20 minutes passed, 20 minutes in the freezing cold is like an eternity and does some not so good things to the equilibrium because your mood changes and you become impatient and snappish. To avoid that I started to hum, my toes began to feel a little cool as i did a mental inventory of what supplies I may have at home that will sustain for me for at least another day or two and give me the much needed excuse to turn back. Just when I was about to give in the bus came.

The ride to the grocery store was a short one and the little warmth was enough to motivate me to walk the quarter block to the store. I put in my quarter took my cart and in I went in. I took my time going isle to isle, when I was finished I called my sister who offered to come and pick me up, 30 minutes later she and mom arrived. I pushed the cart from inside the grocery store to the minivan and in less than 30 seconds my hands were freezing and my sister was moving quickly to load everything while my mom danced from leg to leg going “oh gard it so cold, why I come up here… I should have stayed in New York…”Jesus Christtttt”. With one more stop to the market for fruits we quickly jumped in the van and drove off each of us making sssssshh…. sounds and mumbling “it cold boy, oooh”.

Grocery shopping is always a store hopping adventure because we are armed flyers in hand  hunting for bargains. The next stop was made in a mad dash, at this supermarket it was a quick meticulous trip. My sister parked as close to the door as possible, sending me out first to see if the store was open still while she and my mom stayed huddled in the van laughing that I would be the one to go out and check. Once it was established that it was indeed open mom jumped out and we made a fast pace inside while my sister found a park as close to the door as possible.

Inside we did focused shopping, my mom got some, my sister got some and I got some and we all headed to the cashier paid for our items and headed for the door but my mom and I stopped hesitating before we exited and turned to my sister asking simultaneously “how far you park?” laughing she said, “right by the door,'” and we all laughed meaning to say ‘it too cold to walk too far’ we hurried to the van made quick business of packing jumped in stopping briefly to knock off the excess snow. I lifted my foot out at precisely what I determined to be the wrong time because at that precise moment a gust of roaring wind hit, “have mercy!” I thought. I felt chills in places I didn’t know I had and places I forgot was there. At that point I didn’t care to do any more shopping, I had enough, grocery shopping be damned I was cold and home was calling me and that is exactly where I went.