Hello from "the road"...

As you all know, I'm on the road again. Due to the need for meetings in NJ or NYC Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday, I elected to spend the weekend in Chicagoland rather than fly back and forth. It saves the company money, saves me extreme time zone swings, and I get to see family. While here, I've noticed I'm becoming more and more like my mother. My thrill yesterday was a trip with my sis-in-law to both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's - Oh my God, I am enjoying grocery stores around the world...just like Jo Mamma does when she visits us!!! Aside from that, the trip to Whole Foods was especially enlightening in that I found that if TBF and I were to relocate back to this area we would be able to buy epoisses from France, and various other stinky gooey yummy imported cheeses! Now all I need is to find a store that sells the much maligned, but oh so delicious foie gras.
Other than grocery store tours yesterday, I accompanied my bro and s-i-l to their church's food pantry for the bi-weekly distribution of food bags to the needy of the surrounding area of their parish. They had originally discouraged me from joining them because 1. we had to leave by 9:15 AM requiring an earlier than desired wake-up on a Saturday AM and 2. they didn't want me to be bored for 2 hours. But, I insisted I wanted to see the operation that they run as I've heard so much about it. You know what - I had a great time! First of all, I enjoyed meeting all the people they work with at the food pantry - a very nice group of people. Secondly they let me help out by making small candy bags for the little children that come with their moms and dads to get the free bag of groceries - a theraputic and mindless task. And thirdly, while giving me a tour of the school and church bro and I ran into Father Bob, the pastor and I was introduced. A hand-shake from a priest has to count a little since I'm not a church-goer - a few extra holy points can never hurt! And, I now realise as I write this that the visit to the food pantry is somehow also connected to my weird fixation with grocery shopping. There are shelves with food (all non-perishables) and bags of groceries! I told TBF that if we relocated to this area I would enjoy voluntering at the food pantry...and I warned my bro that I would need to do some shelf organisation for them. And guess what ...I learned that my bro is also compelled to want to organise the shelves, although he now lacks the time to do it. Could it be we are both becoming grocery geeks???!!!
Moving on to the rest of the weekend...nothing much planned. We'll take Jo Mamma out for lunch today, do a little shopping and then relax before I take off tomorrow AM from O'Hare back to Newark. Tuesday night I fly home from JFK. Now I'm touring airports of the world - I much prefer the grocery stores. Stay tuned for more road trips - I'm back in NYC again next week, and then back in NJ and Atlanta the week after that! All this flying really makes my arms tired.
Ciao for now!