Costco!

Today, bright and early I joined my friend Lisa and her mom for a shopping trip at Costco. It was really fun! I am sure for many of you, a big box store is nothing, but for me its still awe inspiring and amazing. Every time I go I see things I haven't seen before.

As a shopper, Costco has very good prices on a few things that are hard for me to find but not consistently. Sometimes their prices as high or higher than the sales at the local upscale super market. As a marketer, I enjoy how they change item locations and reroute traffic flow. As a walker, its like a big indoor walking adventure complete with obstacle course. During my trip today I walked 1.55 miles!

Since the price of food around here has been jumping quicker and higher than the price of gasoline, and I have been talking with some friends about food budgeting, I decided to put my list in a cute little moleskin notebook someone gave me. I have had it a while and never used it because I prefer these. I carry 1-2 of the them with me most times, one is for experiences and things I want to record for some reason and the other for clothing, textile and/or design related things.

Anyway, on one side of the pages I had my list and recorded the prices next to it as I put them in the cart, on the opposite page I wrote down things I might like later such as a new rechargeable sonicare tooth brush for $99.00 with 2 bases, 3 heads and a quad timer and a big rival crockpot for $35.00. I was disappointed that they didn't have kiwi's, Muir Glen tomatoes, frozen french cut green beans and Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, however today, the tastes today balanced it out!

Usually unless they are sampling fruit with no sauce, plain meat/fish or dark chocolate, everything seems to have wheat, dairy or sweet bell peppers in it. Amazingly, I was able to try THREE things: gluten free breaded chicken pieces, blue corn chips with hummus and goat cheddar. They all tasted very good too, and I almost bought the goat cheddar but I didn't as it wasn't on my list. I spent about $33 on chicken broth, lemon juice, orange juice, wipes and frozen organic broccoli.

Usually a gallon of lemon juice would go a very long way but recently I have had a series of unexpected visitors (ie. friends, their kids, my brothers...) My solution is has evolved to taking them out to the balcony and serve them lemon aid to which they can add fresh cinnamon basil. My balcony is 6 x 12 and fits 4 adults, 2 kids quite comfortably. In the past week or so, it has happened so much I have started keeping sugar syrup in the frig for just such occasions. I made a batch of stew a few days ago, so I have been offering that too. Now I could offer steamed broccoli with a choice of dressings I made the other day, LOL!

Yesterday I attended Macy's Free 2 Days of Music that kicks off the start of Sommerfest at Orchestra Hall. It used to be 24 hrs of music, but this year the schedule stopped at 1am, and started up again at 9am. I went down there at about 3pm, listened to some music and wandered around. I spent about an hour walking around downtown and stopping in stores from a world I no longer live in, and wondered if I wanted to live there again. That would be another posted I guess.

I went back to watch the junior e-pianio competition awards. It's a very interesting competition.
"participants will have the opportunity to perform on Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand pianos. What is unique about these instruments is that they are equipped with state-of-the-art Disklavier Pro recording technology. This system, which was pioneered by Yamaha, is the fusion of the acoustic piano and computer electronics and allows all solo rounds of the competition to be downloaded via MIDI to be enjoyed anywhere in the world. "

The above is true but really doesn't explain it that well. The piano's are kind of like recording player pianos, that record key and peddle pressure, what ever the player does to the paino. Then the judges can play it back on a piano where they are. This explains it better.

During the awards ceremony the contestants sat on the stage and watched as a visual showed them playing a piece in the competition and a piano on stage played it out! These kids were amazingly good players, perhaps better than some of the adult ones I have heard in the past.

The judging was a bit strange, there was 1 fifth place winner, 2 third place ones and 2 first place ones. The first place ones then played a concerto each with the Minnesota Orchestra.

We were planning to listen to some more bands after the Orchestra performance but when we got outside again we found that a storm had come through, knocked down a bunch of tents, damaged the 3 outdoor stages, and it was very wet. They were supposed to be back up for this morning but everything outside last night got cancelled after the storm.

This is a picture by TOMruen on weather underground:

Caption:

View from third Ave bridge in Minneapolis just before the storm front hit. A pretty sky - darkest straight above, and rain in the west was a soft glow with the promise of the returning sun when it passed. (And the end of our 73F dewpoint I hope!)