The Day Is Not Over Yet

You would think that after spending a deliciously full afternoon at the Lithuanian Picnic that we would be all set to high-tail back to Mattapoisett.

Now way, Jose! The day was nowhere near being over.

After leaving the picnic, we drove about 45 minutes, heading east on Route 44, to my mother's house in Providence.

Being exhausted from the long day (so far), and more so from having forgotten to take her meds in the morning, Ariana was not all too keen about me spending a whole lot of time at my mothers.

At my mother's house, time is measured in the number of cups of tea that are drunk during a visit. The way Ariana was feeling, a one-cup visit was the best she could manage.

While waiting for the tea to steep, Ariana decided to take a walk a few blocks up Smith Street to the corner 7-11. She was on a mission to get her favorite (and deliciously red grapefruit flavored) energy drink, Kronik, which she has only seen in Providence.

After Ariana came back, and as I swilled my cup of tea, we showed my mother the spoils from the loterija.

We managed to foist off on my mother two aprons, a pathetic African violet plant (that I felt sorry for and would not have minded keeping had it not been Ariana's prize), a gigunda frosted glass snowman candle holder, and a much smaller frosted glass angle candle holder. No luck in unloading more of our šūdas.

After finishing my cup, it was time to leave.

At this point, Ariana's energy drink was starting to kick in. Not only that, she was getting hungry. So when I suggested that we go to Bread and Circus (now called Whole Foods Market) on the way home, she was all for it.

(The Bread and Circus that we like to go to is located in the very hip and politically liberal East Side of Providence. It has got to be one of the coolest supermarkets ever.)

Seeing that I had done my grocery shopping the day before, I wasn't planning on going all out ~ just enough to satisfy Ariana's rumbly tummy and little treat for myself.

Boy! Was there a greatly delayed reaction in that Lithuanian beer reaching my brain! I was sorely deluded to believe that I could just walk out that store with only one bag of groceries.

For one thing, mangoes were a buck a piece.

And they were in cahoots with the mouth-watering Casaba melon that had no problem in convincing us (with free samples) that the mangoes would be lonely without its company.

Then there were the bulk-packaged raw nuts. Cashews! Brazil nuts! Macadamia nuts! I bought them all.

The bulk-packaged cornichons and assorted organic Greek olives were just too tempting to pass up.

Temptation struck again ~ big time ~ at the exotic cheese section. Five cheeses that we never even heard of flew into the shopping cart.

Then Ariana saw this delicious looking herbed pizza crust. "Ooh! I wanna make pizza tonight!" Into the cart it went.

The decadent desserts ~ with far too much class for the likes of Stop and Shop or Dunkin' Donuts ~ would not allow us to pass without three of them high-jacking the shopping cart. (Better hurry up and eat your chocolate bombe, Neil, before it goes off in someone else's stomach!)

If the desserts weren't bad enough, we now started to wander into even more dangerous territory ~ the deli counter.

We could not resist the siren's call, "Escargot ~ 59 cents each!"

"Gimme half a dozen. No! Make that a dozen."

There was spicy kimchi linguine, golden fried sesame tofu, and a perfect and nearly raw slice of steak for Ariana.

Yoghurt Land was a dizzying array of tiny yoghurt cups in exotic flavors like Vanilla Chai, Pomegranate and Açai, Plum Honey Lavender, and many other unusual and tempting flavors.

We lost count of the number of yoghurt cups we harvested for Ariana to bring to work for lunch.

And speaking of lunch, Ariana also got an udon instant soup bowl and a box of instant miso and seaweed soup.

Exotic drinks of black current, maté, and pomegranate and blueberry soda landed in our cart.

So did a jar of garlicy-garlic spaghetti sauce for Ariana to make pizza with.

And did I mention a nice bar of exotic (There's that word again!) dark chocolate that had a very subtle hot pepper after taste?

Seeing that Ariana needed a new pair of sunglasses (because she's constantly losing them) there was this darling pair with tiny cloth flowers embedded in the plastic temple arms. In the cart they went!

But the ultimate of our indulgence were two Sigg metal water bottles that came in the most outrageously cool designs.

Lest we neglect to pay homage to frugal practicality, a humble bottle of that delightfully lemon scented ~ and very long-lasting ~ Ecover All Purpose Cleaner completed our raid on Bread and Circus.

It was now time to check out before more damage got done to my wallet.