I went to the NEW! BIG! Big Y today. It just opened. Well, re-opened. It is now Stop n' Shop sized, and is similar to S&S, except it sells wine and beer and there's a place where you can eat whatever you bought at the pizza bar and deli. And the "natural" foods are all integrated with the other food throughout the store, instead of handily/food-apartheidedly segregated into two aisles all the way over on one side. The prices are not cheaper at Big Y, in fact a few of my staples were noticeably more expensive (and strange: why did they choose to make the almond/flax GoLean Crunch 60 cents more than the regular GoLean Crunch?). However, Big Y does have a very special savings "club" card. Like other cards, it lets you get the sale prices on some items, and they track your purchases for probably=nefarious purposes. But at Big Y, at check-out you get to play a virtual slot machine which might give you a blue, silver, or gold coin. An actual coin, which you can use for future savings. Today they seemed to be giving everyone silver coins (even though my slot machine thing came up without a win). A silver coin can get you a free small coffee in the new cafe, so I have that to look forward to.

And though it was one in the afternoon on a weekday, Biy Y was packed. Lots of elderly people wandering around in wonder and gratitude; apparently they have been waiting a long time for Big Y to come back. I do not know why they like Big Y so much, and why they do not like Stop n' Shop. Big Y has always had a kind of old-fashioned feel to it, with smaller aisles, lots of canned and processed food, ground beef and frozen hash browns in bulk, and very little fresh, all-natural stuff. At least, it did. Today they had a guy grilling chicken teriyaki on a Foreman Grill and giving chunks out as samples. There was an old man there saying to his wife, "I think it's chicken, but it's got some kinda spice on it." "It's teriyaki!" I said helpfully. He just stared at me. Change can be difficult.

In other news, I seem to have a cold. It's been a while since I've been sick, but the petri dish of my sister's apartment was too much for my immune system. I call it a petri dish only because she has two young children who don't know how or care to know how to blow their noses. It was a snotty situation, is all I'm saying.