Ugh. Moving slowly.

This high dewpoint (currently 70 F) is really getting to me. (And we're stuck with it, I think, until the water in the soil rejoins the water in the atmosphere and moves on out....and that is not speeded up any by the high pressure in the area).

Today, I still need to:

* put away the herbarium specimens I borrowed for yesterdays lab
* probably force myself to do some data entry
* go get chicken livers, chicken muscle (whatever chicken meat is cheapest), potato, and apple for this week's lab in intro bio. Normally the TAs go out and get this stuff on the departmental credit card, but because of a stupid rule about how our fiscal years work, we can't use the credit card from about June 15 through the start of July. And as the TAs get paid little enough already, I don't want them to have to buy supplies out of their own pockets. The only upside is I will go to a store I don't normally shop at (they have livers, some other places don't) and maybe I can see if they've upgraded their stock recently and have anything I might want to buy but that other local places don't carry.

(We have, really, four local groceries: Green Spray, Wal-Mart, Dollar Saver (where I am going today), and Save-a-Lot. I've never been in the Save-a-Lot, it's in an inconvenient place for me to get to and also I was so turned off by one of their ad campaigns a couple years back. I don't *like* the wal-mart but I shop there because they carry some things the Green Spray - which is usually my go-to place for quick needs, like spinach or onions - doesn't have. I wish we had another, slightly fancier grocery, but we don't, and we probably won't get one any time soon, because it seems a lot of folks have no issue with regularly driving even as far as Dallas for stuff. (For real. I know people who make monthly trips to the Central Market, at least for staple-type stuff). I go to Sherman for lots of stuff myself but these last few times I've noticed the traffic getting progressively worse, so I may cut back on THAT. I don't like feeling like I'm taking my life into my hands to go grocery shopping and the past few times there's either been That Guy who wants to play bumper cars weaving in and out of traffic because it's going 5 miles per hour too slow for what he wants, or there's that Other Guy who gets on the Interstate and can't go faster than 40 mph and is right there in your lane and you run up on him and have to brake because there's too much traffic in the passing lane to safely pass, and it just becomes a bad feedback loop because then the people way back from you jump into the passing lane and you have to wait for the whole gob of traffic to clear before you can pass Slow Guy.

I think what it would take for us to get a ritzier grocery would be either an influx of wealthier folks, or a really really big population increase. (I also feel like we should have a bookstore. I think the local paperback exchange closed or is closing; the other day I went past there and there was a moving truck out front and I could see lots of empty shelves in the store. Oh well, there's always Amazon, I guess. Some days I really do feel like I'm out in the jungle (and hungry to hear you).

The Brookshire's in Pottsboro, I suspect it went in partly for all the people in that general area who have lake houses. I will say they were really empty last Friday when I went - normally a busy grocery time - so I suspect that the lake being up is hurting them)

I'm just really tired though. I'm sleeping okay, or at least it seems okay. And I'm eating okay, enough protein. I don't THINK I'm getting sick though I have a slightly scratchy throat that I am hoping is "just" allergies. Maybe it is just the humidity.

It's way too early in the summer for me to be this sick of it already.

ETA: I remember why I don't shop at  that particular grocery after having been there. They don't have any of the stuff I use that the Green Spray doesn't carry, and the Green Spray seems to be a better taken-care-of store.

Also, they used to be the Winn-Dixie in town and it always makes me a little sad to go into a store that is built on the bones of another one I used to know. The Winn-Dixie was where I shopped my first two or so years here - the super wal-mart hadn't been built, it was close to me, it was fine. But then it closed - Winn-Dixie pulled out of this region. The old store was taken over by another one, but not remodeled. And also, the store just feels not well-taken-care-of. And yeah, I get that that's all aesthetics and maybe it's cheaper to shop there, but you know? Somewhere that's kind of ugly and falling apart makes me sad. I'm willing to pay a little more to go to the Green Spray.....