Today is Valentine's Day, a day of chocolate, flowers, candlelight dinners and the occasional apology.
But New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein has the story of the love that you can see on the 364 other days of the year...but maybe don't notice.
T.19
7:19 sfx: getting out of car
ED: so cottage cheese, brown sugar, cous cous Cous Cous, or however.
T.26
5:15 sfx: cart
Ed is 69, a retired physics professor.
Sandy, 59, works part-time at her town library.
They spend hours food shopping on Thursday afternoons.
ED: we go to five, six, seven, eight stores we can consider going to.We don't stop at every store every time.
Because they are low-income, they shop for bargains.
That's one reason why it takes Sandy and Ed such a long time.
The other is that Ed is blind.
T.21
1:20 How much? 89. ok, that's good....Come be tall...
So when Sandy can't reach a couple of two liter bottles of pop....
...black raspberry, that's about my favorite of the waist watcher...I need both hands, just this aisle? That and the one next to it. Near your ring...oh. Here...don't drop it...Two? Is two enough?...how about three? (laugther)
...it takes some time.
Ed does have Judge, his Seeing Eye dog.
But the creature is old.
So sometimes the dog stays in the car, and Sandy takes her husband around.
SANDY: I've been known to have him on my arm and walk him into a concrete post b/c I forgot he was there.[ He's been known to forget that I am his wife and say, 'Left! Left!']...sometimes he gets maybe nervous that he is going to lose me and he pulls too hard on the arm...where he holds, has upon on occasion, has gotten bruised...Sometimes I really wish he could see.
DG: But they're a team.
Ed does price per pound calculations in his head.
Sandy remembers where to find better deals.
And they leave 39 cent loaves of bread on the shelf, knowing they can get ones for 33 cents.
Sandy calls it squeezing money until it squeaks.
S+E: $4.99 for...two pounds. And how much was the price? $4.99... so this is a dollar less...it's a dollar less but I still think we can do better...Ok....
SANDY...I would love to go into a store and say let's have a roast tonight, and not have to worry about 'I've got a five pound roast let's see if I do it as a pot roast I can have it as pulled beef...and then I can take some of it and grind it into a gravy and we can have it over potatoes....It gets old really fast. But we can roll with it, and try to enjoy life anyway or we can go, 'oh, life is so hard. Life is so horrible. I am not enjoying this at all.' Or you can enjoy what you can enjoy.
Though shopping can be difficult, it can also be intimate.
Here, they joke...and on occasion- indulge each other.
S+E: they've got what looks like a really nice crusty five grain bread. Yeah but it's a dollar sixty. I don't mind crusty but it's crusty a little further in than we might want...mmmm, squeeze here....well the middle is always loose...I would be tempted by this anyhow...ok, if you say so, so.
Even though this is the third store of the day, they still haven't found cous cous.
Then Sandy sees the bulk section. Bingo.
S+E:...ok, here we go. $1.79 pound. That's it. Get a plastic bag fill it up.
9:00 sfx: filling bag up.
Patiently hunting for deals, working together, says Ed, has helped deepen their connection.
Like a few weeks ago Ed told Sandy he'd love to celebrate his 70th birthday with duck.
Sandy heard her husband's craving.
T.24
1:48 I took money from my private stash and bought a duck...so we are going to have duck. It's waiting in the freezer. I haven't had duck in about five years so looking forward to that. My mother and I almost shared birthdays, they were one day apart. And for our joint birthday she always used to bake a duck for the two of us, which we would split. She's been gone now ten years.
T.10
15:01 if we never had anything special, life would be duller. And we can do special things, within limits. And picking what it is that's special.
Finished for the week, Sandy and Ed just had to make out their menu for the upcoming week.
T.19
2:10 that's Friday. Saturday... you just bought the stir fry stuff, why don't we have the oriental, or whatever it is, Indian, Chinese stir fry for lunch Saturday...Ok, if you make the rice...ok, yeah. A new pot of rice...stroganoff?...do we want stroganoff and stir fry on the same night? no I want grilled cheese!..Ok, so Saturday night will be grilled cheese......ok, Sunday....
The menu made Sandy think of a line from a Glenn Yarborough song.
Something about 'We made bowls of rice and each one was a different spice while we played skin and bones gourmet.'
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
