it’s just never easy

We’ve lived here just days short of two years, and it never gets any easier. I mean, things that should be completely simple tasks turn out to be ordeals. Always.

I invited a friend and her two daughters over for dinner last night. I ended up feeling so sick that I postponed it till tonight. (Note to self: skip Chinese buffet at mall from now on.) When I extended the invitation originally, I had plenty of food to back it up. Then Bill added another friend and her two boys… and a trip for more food became necessary. On Saturday. The day from Hell at the stores here (because they aren’t open on Sunday.)

I’d planned on serving raclette, because I stopped at the cheese truck the other day at the smoked raclette looked good. Yes, I buy cheese out of a truck. Yes, I now look at French cheese and think some of it looks appealing. For those who don’t know, raclette is a cheese that you melt then pour or scrape onto your plate of potatoes, bread and meats. It’s fondue’s lesser-known cousin. I’d bought a chunk of raclette for four people. I needed more.

Bill suggested we go to Carrefour. I’d rather walk on hot coals than go to Carrefour on Saturday. I said we could get everything we needed at the market that specializes in fruits and veggies. We got there and Bill stayed in the car with Kaitlyn while she napped. I walked in and couldn’t believe what I saw. There were so many people you could barely get up to the produce to stuff it in your plastic bags. Even worse: the cheese aisle did not include any raclette. Not one tiny morsel.

Annoyed, I got back in the car and announced we’d have to stop at the fromagerie (cheese shop) in Uriage. He’s overpriced, but he’ll have it. Bill dropped me off, I walked in and couldn’t believe what I saw. He had a sign on the door saying he’s going on vacation from Monday till the end of October… and inside he had two wheels of cheese left. Stinky cheese with a crust of mold that looked impenetrable. No raclette.

Now I was beyond annoyed. People were set to arrive in two hours. Had we just gone to Carrefour, we’d have had everything done already. I hate to admit that. So I stomped down the street to the Petit Casino (small grocery store… bigger than a 7/11 but only by a smidge) and bought two packs of pre-packaged, pre-sliced raclette. I could have just gone to the stupid Petit Casino and gotten everything I’d ended up buying.

It was a good thing I did buy the extra. We plowed through what we had. You’d think none of us had eaten in a week. What can I say? Raclette is good. And the raclette from the cheese truck… is better. I gotta figure out where that guy takes his truck on Saturdays.

One Response to “it’s just never easy”

  1. D.A.D. says:

    The parallel is when arriving at a restaurant and being told the wait is an hour, one has to decide if one drives to the next place twenty minutes away only to discover the wait there is 45 minutes. Biting the bullet (or in this case the raclette) and heading to Carrefour would be the equivalent of waiting at the preferred restaurant in the first place. But if you can get an itinerary of the cheese truck, that may be a good emergency backup plan. Then you can drive all over Europe chasing an elusive merchant on wheels who won’t follow his own itinerary. Hmmm. The pizza truck sits still. Maybe he could carry raclette. Keep on truckin’

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