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Thursdays are the best because I only have one class and it isn't even an early one so the day is mostly my own. I usually set aside a nice personal activity that is geared more towards house and home to be worked on after all homework and reading are out of the way. Why should today be any different? Well, let me tell you. We are between the holidays of Valentines and Easter/Passover. My family has a long tradition of going all out for any holiday and being masters of the kitchen (at least according to my father and grandmother, I am not so sure about other family members) all sorts of culinary delights are prepared in this particular time to share with family, friends, and coworkers. One of those delights is candy. Peanutbutter eggs, Buttercream eggs, Peanut rolled eggs, and a mellow flavored mint truffle shaped as, what else? An egg. This year because I am sharing this activity with a friend of mine we are also making taffy (something I usually don't make till summer time but since she has never seen taffy pulled and isn't big on chocolate I figured why not? I have all the flavorings for it). So what is the all the hub bub? I'll tell you. We had a forcast of snow. Now if you live in the North East you know snow is not uncommon. In fact, in many places you are more or less guaranteed to get snow and ice from between October to the end of March. In this particular region because we are right on the coast and the air is a little warmer than a few miles inland most of the time the snow comes and goes quickly or turns to rain. The last snow storm was an exception. It was an outright blizzard and left much of the state without power for several days. You may ask why I mention it at all if it was an uncommon condition. Well the fact is we got another forcast for several inches of snow. This in no way bothers me. I grew up further north and inland and have always been used to heavy snowfall. This however was not a prediction of heavy snow, just a few inches. Why do I mention it if the whole point of my story is making candy? I'll tell you. I went to the store to get the candy making ingredients. (As class was canceled because the professor had an emergency I went early hoping to not have the rush hour crowd). It is one of those large chain stores that is always kept looking very nice and very clean for the sake of asthetics (nice place, nice sales concept). Now the parking lot was very full and I hadn't thought anything about it, the parking lot is always somewhat full towards the end of the week. (Though looking back on it, I suppose it should have seemed odd considering the time of day). I stepped through the door and it looked like a war zone! It was crowded. Which was not the problem at all. But looking around you would have thought people expected to never see the light of day again! The produce department had empty cartons tossed on the ground where people had emptied the displays and knocked them down. The deli had a line into forever and the poor clerks looked like they were going to fall over from being so rushed and harried. There was almost no bread items left of the shelves. There were only a few cartons of milk left. Soups, sauces, and pre-packaged starch foods (rice a roni and the like) all most all gone. I was lucky all I really needed was the milk and butter and some sugar because nearly everything else was gone. Sale signs were laying on the floor. Coupons were scattered everywhere. Some items were laying over or knocked on the floor. The store staff seemed to be rushing everywhere in response to calls from the stock room and cashier area. I got my things and proceeded to check out. Now this store has tried to bring itself into the 21st century and has all those nifty little self checkout counters. But it still has several regularly staffed checkout counters also. Every single counter had a full line of people who had carts filled up, even the express lanes. I somewhat knew I was going to be in for this when I saw the shelves. So I resigned myself to waiting quietly. When it got to be my turn, I greeted the cashier. I was rewarded with a smile.(I must say this took off some of the irritation of being in an environment that is usually not that tense). I was also given thanks for having such a small bundle of groceries. I wished the lady a good day and returned home. So here I am now, just waiting till my company arrives so we can start in on our candy making. After the adventure in the store it will be a nice way to mellow out. I hope she likes pulling taffy. I always find it fun.
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