What's In The Bag?

I went to California and all I brought back were groceries. Forget Nordstroms, forget William Sonoma, when I get excited about shopping it's because I'm going for groceries. I have not always preferred produce to petticoats, in fact, shopping for clothes usually trumps all. I once choose a Patagonia store over the last day of the American tour of a Rembrandt exhibit. Somewhere something changed.

Ever since I can remember, visiting my grandmother and aunt was synonymous with shopping. I think I always went home looking more stylish than how I arrived. My fall back style is a tee shirt and jeans, so getting fancy new duds created this strange mishmash of dresses and flipflops. Or cut-offs and patent leather sandals. The complete wardrobe transformation was fun, exhausting & fun. I have to admit that over time I started to get a little paranoid about what I took with me to begin with. Surely something that I already had was fit to be seen in?

Sometime after an unfortunate dress phase in junior high and a bit of high school, I graduated to not caring so much about what anyone thought about how I looked. I gave up all purses for a wallet and most of my haircuts were of my own creation. Sometimes I would take up wearing a watch, sometimes it was all about the scarves.

Then came the clothing store jobs. Cheap clothes with a short shelf life. And it really didn't matter. I was hooked on buying clothes again. I kind of loved having the excuse of needing it all for work. I can no longer remember how long I had those jobs, and there is little more than these few sentences that would even be worth repeating. Except that it taught me that I love to work hard. I was fine with the long strange hours, and the physical (100 boxes of clothes don't unpack themselves) and mental (stay awake, do the paperwork) side of it.

The job title that meant everything to me was “Massage Therapist”. This title came with an entire wardrobe of scrubs. I favored Dickey's style - bootcut drawstring pants with a faux wrap shirt. When scrubs were no longer required, I returned to my roots and traded the wrap shirts for tee shirts.

Not that long ago, my years of storing clothes finally came to an end. Hence known as the Great Exodus of 2006. Plastic bin after cardboard box after garbage bag left the attic. My Mom's back was the one lasting casualty. That back just hasn't been right since.

As anyone except for the person hoarding the clothes could predict, nothing looked good on me anymore. Both styles and my body had changed drastically over the last 15 years. A few sentimental pieces stayed behind (like the dress I was wearing the night I met Karl. Black polyurethane never looked so cute), the rest went to Goodwill.

I completely replaced my wardrobe a few more times as the scale dictated. At first the shopping was a reward of sorts. Kind of for being sick. When I lost that last chunk of weight it became a bit of a necessity. I mean really, you just can't go around with your underwear falling to the ground.

After that last hospital stay I became food obsessed. My casual infatuation turned to full blown lust. Being able to eat again after not keeping anything down for so long can do that to a girl. The small amount of body fat I was carrying around did nothing to help the situation. Without any reserves, I was ravenous hungry every hour. It was hard to keep me fed and I was at the mercy of whatever was in my Mom's fridge. I still have a fondness for soy corndogs. I really wish Morningstar would start making those again. It's very likely that the grocery store was my first outing once I was able, but I can't swear to that.

I still get excited when I know that I get to buy food. So buying gifts for my friends at the grocery store was the highest luxury I could think of. Himalayan salt, lemon cookies, dark chocolate wafers, dark chocolate almond cookies, candied ginger, dark chocolate candied ginger, wine, low-sodium soy sauce and I can't remember what all else came back with me. My luggage was outrageously stuffed. I almost didn't make it through security. I could have bribed them with lemon cookies, but those boxes were mine!

I have receipts from 4 different Trader Joe's trips, and I know I went to at least 2 other stores, during a span of 7 days. Ah Trader Joe's. So much contained in so small a store. I came back with no pictures of famous people or landmarks, but when those yummy cookies run out, I'll have to go back.