Saline Coffee Calcium

Saline Coffee Calcium

There were three items on the original grocery list. Saline, coffee, calcium. Jamie said these three words to herself like a mantra. Saline, coffee, calcium. Saline, coffee, calcium. She drove her sonic gray Honda Civic to the supermarket, breezed through the automatic doors confident in her mantra, her mind humming. Comfortable in her pull-on baggy jeans, black Sam Edelman sneakers, no socks, black tee and jeans jacket, she believed she belonged in the world, set her phone to the Scan It app, chose a shopping cart.

Tofu

Once inside the store, the linear lights and high bay LED lights disrupted her mental humming. She lost the mantra. As microgreens and tofu dipped into her mind, she directed her cart to produce, roamed along the berries, watermelons, greens and sweet potatoes, selected extra firm tofu, and as she began to drift out of produce, her eyes widened at the sight of the roasted, unsalted pistachio nuts.

Calcium (not gummies)

Jamie lost track of the order of aisles and began wandering from one end of the store to the other, mulling over items not shelved near each other. From produce, she went many aisles away to vitamins, gazed at the many brands, selected Nature Made calcium 600 milligrams with D3. Mark said to get 500 milligrams. Jamie did not see that dosage. Mark also said not to get gummies because gummies have too much sugar. For a while, she and Mark were taking all kinds of gummy vitamins. It was like eating candy. Jamie knew about the sugar but believed the goodness of the supplement outweighed the badness of the sugar.

Bananas

She added greenish yellow bananas to the cart. Each morning, she ate a banana with her coffee. But now she was doing that intermittent fasting thing and the program was less than supportive with fruit entries. Too much sugar. The bananas ripened in the bowl on the kitchen counter. Jamie passed over them and started to feel powerful the longer she could go without eating. Mark watched what she ate, asking her incessantly if she ate lunch, why was she not eating the pasta he made. She loved cacio and pepe pasta, but she would only eat a few bites. Mark asked her if she was going to finish it. I ate a lot of it, she said. She thought, I hate when he polices my eating.

Saline Solution

Mark’s recent second cataract surgery resulted in the eye drops routine. Anyone who has had cataract surgery knows that you get three vials of drops you must put in your eyes four times a day. After the second eye is done, there are two sets of vials. Jamie kept track of Mark’s drops, bent over is face on schedule, lifted his eyelid with her thumb and squirted one drop from each vial, making sure to follow the different schedules for each eye. Mark wanted saline solution to wash out his eyes, gunky from the drops. For the most part, Jamie willingly assisted him, but he caught on that, at times, she was tired and less than willing, so he began doing his own drops. Jamie felt guilty knowing Mark knew she did not always want to help him.

Mac & Cheese

Jamie thought of their 25-year-old son who lived with them. There were more and more articles in newspapers and magazines about boys and young men struggling to thrive. In fact, she just read an article that morning in the New York Times, It’s Not Just a Feeling: Data Shows Boys and Young Men Are Falling Behind. Mark found the article and when Jamie went into the family room to sit with him, have coffee, and read the paper, Mark held up the article for her. Look, he said. What else is new? she thought. She and Mark had Johnny, patently one of those young men. He drove for Uber Eats to make spending money, badgered them to buy cars for him, took a shower maybe every few days after Mark nagged and criticized him, ate mac and cheese for just about every meal along with goldfish, mini muffins, shelled sunflower seeds, and pizza. Never did one green item or piece of fruit pass his lips into his mouth. Jamie used to worry about this. Now Mark did most of the worrying. Jamie practiced opting out. Still the raised, angry voices of Johnny and Mark wearied her, pushed her away from them as if they were launching a boat with her in it, kicking it out to sea. She selected the eight pack of Kraft Mac and Cheese.

Microgreens and Kale

Returning to produce, she focused on kale because it has so much calcium. Mark wanted calcium-rich foods since his doctor told him to take calcium supplements. He did not want to get calcium from the pills, said they cause constipation, and he already had a problem with bowel gridlock. And microgreens. Determined to lose weight with the fasting, she wanted this superfood for more interesting salads. Recently, she created a salad with greens and strawberries.

Milk

She traversed the store once more for milk thinking it would be a good idea to get more milk since the other day, Johnny downed the remaining milk in the refrigerator, and she had none for her morning coffee. Opening the store’s milk refrigerator, she chose the Fair Life fat-free, lactose free 52-ounce plastic bottle for herself, and Fair Life 2 percent, lactose free chocolate milk for Johnny. The meandering did not upset her. There were times when she began to panic in the supermarket, did not like to go without Mark. But over time, she braved going alone and found that she enjoyed her alone time while shopping for food.

Coffee and Lemons

Passing by the coffee aisle five or six times, the coffee in the mantra never made it back into her memory but she did get back to fruit to get lemons. The intermittent fasting program suggests 70 ounces of water per day. She thought that was nearly impossible, but she was more frequently filling her purple water bottle, adding a lemon wedge to each refill.

Jamie scanned her groceries so she could check out fast, prided herself on her tech abilities. When she got to the check-out area, everyone else sighed in frustration, cursed under their breath, stuck at the self-checkouts needing assistance for just about every item they tried to scan while Jamie scanned the summary bar code, paid and pushed her cart to the parking lot.

Saline

Jamie forgot the saline solution that Mark requested for rinsing out his eyes. It was the first item on the list, one of the main reasons she went to the store. When she walked into the kitchen from the garage with filled reuseable grocery bags, he was standing at the counter. Did you get the saline? He asked. Oh no, I forgot the saline! I will go back, but she did not want to go out again, thought Mark could live without it. He did not insist although he did not usually tolerate this forgetfulness. It was like him to get angry, feel neglected and expect her to run out again. In the past, Jamie would dash right out to get the drops, to calm him down, atone for her mistake. These days, she cared less about Mark’s reactions.

Wow, she said, I went to the store to get three items, and I forgot two of them. That’s sad and she laughed, not at all bothered by her foibles. Mark said, Yep, that says it all right there. You said it. Calmly, she let his criticism wash over her like a refreshing salt spray without any inner disturbance.