Sometimes it works

Just got back from a quick shopping trip and not feeling the usual stress, actually pretty happy. Driver was on time, cheerful and competent. Traffic was light. Had a good map and found the desired house in V.I. with little trouble. Dropped off package with steward. Quick hop over to Park and Shop, bought a couple things. Then over to Goodies to get our latest addiction, their "multi-cereal" bread. What heaven, and it should be for N1,000 a loaf fresh baked. (about US$8, yikes!) Avoided the stopped traffic on that street by walking down to the corner to buy tomatoes and onions that the cook had requested. Cucumbers looked good so I got a couple of those too. Seems like they are coming into season. Back to the expressway through some secret way I'd never seen before and home before you know it. Two hours total, must be a new record.

NEPA (Never Expect Power Again) just cut off the power. Firefox hung from some annoying flash popup. Maintenance guy has A/C unit all taken apart on the floor when I thought he was just going to clean the filter, but for some reason I'm still happy.

Maybe it's the tomatoes. Sold by a guy sitting on the sidewalk that had a large basket of them that he was dividing up into small bags. The next guy was doing the same with potatoes. Those small bags are then sold to cars in traffic jams by nimble guys dodging traffic. So I was getting them direct from the wholesaler. N250 for good quantity of tomatoes, N100 for bag of onions, cucumbers N50 each. All this guy has is a basket of tomatoes, some plastic bags and a bit of sidewalk and he's in business. Talk about low overhead. That's exactly why the city draws in so many people from the countryside every year, the opportunity to start with nothing and build whatever you can.