shopping in person

This afternoon, I went to Davis Square and bought a chicken and some frozen ground lamb, then walked a few blocks to Mass Ave. and bought some lettuce plants for my garden. That's two stores I hadn't been to in over a year, MscKinnon's and Pemberton Farms, which were both basically as I remembered, and I will be able to roast a chicken for cattitude and adrian_turtle while they're recovering from their second vaccine doses.

I wanted to do my own shopping for the chicken, rather than chance an Instacart shopper picking something that needed to be used right away. The original plan had been to go to Star Market, which is closer, but some of their delivery drivers are on strike, and shoppimg there right now would feel wrong even without a physical picket line. So, bus and subway to Davis, rather than just a shorter bus trip. The advantage of this is that uncrowded subway trains let me do a bit of balance practice, which isn't formally PT but which the physical trainer I was working with for a while agreed was useful as a balance exercise. (When I was 15, standing on a moving train without holding on was just for fun.)

Mostly this trip felt refreshingly normal, though passing through the Harvard Square subway station and seeing almost nobody in the normally crowded area between the escalators and the turnstiles, fare vending machines, and busway was weird.