We built our place in 1991 as a second home. We moved here to live full-time in 1999 when DH was able to negotiate a telecommuting agreement with his employer up near Boston. So we’ve lived here for 25 years, except for a brief 2 year stint in the Netherlands for his job. It’s a very remote place - only one highway on and off the Cape and we’re at the tip of it. DH grew up in New Bedford, a seaport across the Cape Cod canal.
It’s a difficult place to live where we are. Feast or famine. We’re on a bay beach road and are the only people who live on it year round. All of our neighbors are second home owners. Many businesses and restaurants are seasonal. We’re 2 hours from an airport. We’re federally designated as an underserved medical services community.
Our town quadruples in population in the summer. We just hole up and wait for September.
a college buddy - who, with family - lived in a micro-town at the base of Cape Cod.
once upon a business trip dreary ~1974 . . .stopped by to visit with them. took a ride out onto Cape Cod proper. a recent storm removed (?)20-30 feet of sand. many houses sitting on stilts with ladders for access.
Mother Nature will have her way - and no human has any say in it . . .
I do love the ‘ocean’ - me and all my ancestors were seafaring . . but one has to weigh intelligence vs. the inevitable storms…
After we’re both dead and gone, our property will eventually be waterfront but we’re a long way from that. We’re nestled in the pinewoods on the bayside. Most of our coastline out this way is in the National Seashore, which is undeveloped and left to the whims of Mother Nature.
We’ve both moved into our seventies and have had early conversations about leaving this place. I’m ready, but he’s not. And so it goes. If something happens and I lose him, I would not be able to live here by myself.
I don’t know if that’s Aldi or the clientele. I see a lot of people fiddling with the canned goods. I just grab and go. Why, though, doesn’t Aldi’s have a discount bin for perishables? I found it is because they donate it to local food pantries. Aldi’s is good for many staples, but weak in certain things. Just tried their giardiniera for $3. Pretty dang good. Hot Italian beef ain’t hot enough on its own.
I think now about all the places I’d like to have lived, and realize that my age now makes that a very bad idea - because of easy access to medical care, although knock on wood I’m fine now. It can change in a nanosecond. My parents had a beautiful home in St Croix that they shared with another couple. They all sold it and opted instead for a second place in Florida - simply because of swift access to medical care.
3 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
1420
I’ve only visited the cape once, and that was just so “we could say we did” on a whirlwind 1-week all NE state tour. Drove out past a few beaches, parked on one, walked the boardwalk over the dunes and looked at the big gray waves on a blustery early October day.
But in Florida, I’m one of your problems. We like the Keys, Naples, Marco(*) and Sanibel/Captiva Islands, and the Atlantic coast between Jupiter Island and Boca. Always just a week at a time.
The locals live in dread of “Changeover Saturday” with all the weekly renters clogging up the roads and especially descending upon the Publix and Winn Dixie groceries on Saturday like a plague of locusts.
I’m lucky in that we can drive, so I just take a cooler and a laundry basket with enough meals to get us through the weekend. Then I’ll either hit Publix or WD an hour before closing Sunday night (locust horde now pretty much taken all they’re going to take in their first go-round, and shelves restocked) or just as they open Monday morning.
(*) The locals on Marco Island can be pretty brusque with visitors. Love the area and the houses we’ve rented, and the (full time) neighbors have always been gracious enough once you chat with them and they figure out you’re not going to sprout a second head or whatever.
1 Like
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
1421
Back to OP. Yes, I will usually taste one grape of the bunch to be sure it’s not just “bleh” flavorless. That’s something on the close order of 4/10 of 1% of the 3 pound bag. And it saves me and them the trouble of a return and replacement.
Two peeves I’ve just been reminded of. One is people who give to-be-weighed produce to their kids in a significant percentage of the total. Last night a mom with young toddler in the cart peeled off 2 bananas, opened one, and gave it to the kid. I kind of eyeballed her as she went through the store and sure enough, she tossed the empty peel in the corn husk bin and checked out with her remaining single banana being weighed for price.
It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things (say, the dude who tries to tuck a whole beef tenderloin cryovac down his pants, ), but still irksome that people think it’s fine and dandy. Why not just say, “Hey, weigh it twice, my kid ate the other”?
The other one I hadn’t seen in a while, but I’ve seen a couple of guys do this and saw it again last night. Grab an avocado and pop off the stem nub. If it isn’t green enough for your liking, put it back for some other poor schlub to get. They have to know that it will now go bad much more quickly given the new big oxidation point.
People who sample, or let their kids sample, from the olive bar. And I did see a guy wheel up to a prepped seafood bar and start eating the shrimp. See… there is such a thing as a free lunch!
My favorite are the parents who let their kids run rampant in the store, pushing in bread loaves, dropping dried pasta on the floor, acting like boneheads. Last time, the mom let it all go, until she saw a store employee, then she told the kid to knock it off. Didn’t much change the behavior.
There is an elderly male, at one of the grocery stores I frequent, who stuffs his pockets (shorts in the summer, jacket in the cooler months) with the chocolate covered almonds in the produce department. Not bothering to use the scoop, he just reaches into the bin and grabs a handful or two. Disgusting, who knows where those hands have been. This goes on while the wife is pushing the cart around the store. I have mentioned this to the revolving door of managers, but the behavior continues. I’m sure the couple’s business is worth more than the hassle. Beware of bulk item bins.
This morning at Sprouts, I saw 3 teenagers grabbing sour patch gummies out of the bin. I gave them and their mother standing a foot away the evil eye and reported them to a Mgr. As I was checking out, the mother approached me to apologize and thanked me for saving her kids from a theft offense.
), but still irksome that people think it’s fine and dandy. Why not just say, “Hey, weigh it twice, my kid ate the other”?
