Only One Way to Go at Stew Leonard's

Stew Leonard's, the Fairfield County-based amusement park of supermarkets, is a funny place.

You go there with the understanding that this is not your typical grocery store. It features large displays of singing barnyard animals, mooing cows, and hanging monkeys. I believe there is a parrot, or a cockatoo, or a toucan, as well. These are all amusing, for adults and children alike. The store also has many very good free sample stations. Yesterday, I sampled some Cabot cheese, chicken sausage (awesome), pan seared green beans with onions, olive oil and garlic (which we are having for dinner tonight). There is usually free ice cream (sherbet yesterday), milk (strawberry and chocolate), OJ (which people form a line for), pomegranate juice (awesome) and sometimes steak or deli meat.

It reminds me a little of a market in Florida called Publix.

But Stew Leonard's has figured out the psychology of a shopper. They know your shopping behavior far better than you know them. Not only are there fresh fruits on tables the second you walk into the store. Not only are there free samples of up to three soups. Not only is there music and eye catching displays.

You can only go in one direction at Stew Leonard's. There is one aisle.

Unless you have been there before and know about the two or three shortcuts, you must follow the maze from the beginning of the store until the end. The shoppers go, then, in one direction. On a Saturday, when you forgot to get an onion and need to travel in the opposite direction, this is a bad thing.

My wife, having gone to college and lived for a few years after college in Fairfield County, loves the place. She, admittedly, is sucked into the sights and sounds of the place. She has convinced me to go, now three times, and I have to say, the place is fun. The food is great. The fruits and vegetables are high quality.

But the experience, when you are done, is exhausting. Because of the one-way route, you cannot travel at your own pace very easily. Your time in the store is determined by lots of other people. It's sort of like driving in New York City. There is no time to stop and look at things. You have to move, or the people around you will thrash you. At Stew Leonard's, a similar thing happens. You feel like you're "going slow" if you stop and actually look at what you are buying. There are people maneuvering carriages around you, invading your space. You end up buying much more than you need just to keep moving. It's a supermarket traffic jam.

We spent $88 yesterday and we were supposed to only go there to buy fruit.

This is impossible. You cannot go to Stew Leonard's to buy one thing. If someone can, there is something wrong with them. They have too much self-control. Also, if you spend $100, you get a free ice cream. The last time we went, my wife threw in batteries - which cost like $7 - at the register in order to get the ice cream, which is soft serve and comes in a variety of flavors. This is how Stew Leonard's brainwashes their customers. They plant an ice cream stand right next to the exit. You can pay $1.50 for an ice cream or if you spend $100, you get a free one.

So, and this would qualify to be an only-in-Connecticut thing, you see people walking out to their cars in the middle of January, when it is 25 degrees, eating ice cream.

This is ludicrous, but so is Stew Leonard's, and you have to know this going in. You have to know that you will be entertained there. You will sample good food. You will buy more than you need. If you go on a Saturday, you will endure a little stress - in the parking lot, in the check-out line, in the one-way aisles.

You will literally "stew" while you are there.

But, if only for the experience, I recommend going once, just to see the place. Eat as much as you can. Especially the meatballs. You MUST try the meatballs. The samples have little pretzels sticking out of them, like tooth picks.

IN fact, I might eat them just for the pretzels.

They figure me out, too.

Winding Brook Road Massacre

Don't be afraid, it's just the movie I starred in with my friends back in the old neighborhood. Can you guess which one I am?

http://gallery.mac.com/stevefranco1#100069

(Special thanks to my buddy Steve who made this Emmy-worthy performance available.)

Why Can't I Turn Off Rocky IV?

Rocky IV, the motion picture in which the Italian Stallion faces off against Drago in Russia after Drago beat the living crap - literally - out of Apollo Creed, has been on TV a lot lately.

So, of course, because the TV writers' strike has left little for me to watch, I have been watching it. It is on again tonight, in fact. I can hear it in the other room.

Rocky IV is one of those movies, like Dangerfield's "Back to School", Chase's "National Lampoon's Vacation", and Murray's "Stripes" and "What About Bob?", that I can't just pass by when flipping channels on the remote control. I have to stop for a while, perhaps get something to eat and a blanket, sink into the couch a bit, and wait for a certain part. Sometimes, It might be Rocky training in the barn, or when he's doing crunches hanging from his ankles, or when he takes off in the snow from the Russian bodyguards. Their car, as a result, gets stuck in a snowbank. The best is the end, certainly, when Rocky takes Drago's best punches and then urges Drago to hit him harder. "C'mon," Rocky says. "Fight."

And later, after he knocks out Drago in the final round, Rocky grabs the microphone, the American flag draped around his shoulders, and says something to the effect that, "I saw a lot of changin' here tonight...and if I can change... and you can change... then we all can change!"

Then Rocky tells his son, who's watching from his living room with his friends and robot in the United States, to go to bed.

It's not that great a movie. But the first time I saw it, in 1985, I was 12, a very formative time. Much of 1985 remains a fond memory. Quick Google search shows that Cheers, Knight Rider, St. Elsewhere, Who's the Boss?, the Cosby Show, and Webster were all popular that year. On the radio, we heard LL Cool J's "Radio", aha's "Take on Me," Phil Collins's "Don't Lose My Number", and a song I could never get out in one breath but I used to try, "Everybody Wants to Rule The World," by Tears for Fears.

Clearly, it was a great year.

So, for some reason, Stallone resonated with the 12-year-old boy. A number of us in the old neighborhood watched it again and again and again, as if something different might happen each time we saw it.

Today, I happened to be reading some columns by author Joe Quennan, who is a cultural magazine critic for Esquire, Salon.com, New York Times Magazine, and he mentioned how lousy an actor Stallone was. Here is an excerpt of an interview he did with salon.com.

Q: What do you consider to have been the lowest point of our culture?
A:Whatever you thought about how things were going to turn out in the '60s, nothing could have prepared us for Stallone. I really hated it when Stallone was a big star. I thought those movies were evil. I thought the Rocky movies were racist. I don't think he has any talent.
A stupid man, making one stupid violent movie after another.
I feel that movies don't have to reflect reality, but they have to connect to reality in some way. So, if you make five movies about some short white guy from Philly who beats up a lot of black guys, what does that tell you about reality? I haven't seen any white guys winning any heavyweight championships in a long, long time.

Ouch. Kind of makes me feel a little stupid for liking Rocky IV so much.

But not enough to stop watching it when it's on again.

Orthodontist observations

In a few weeks, I will visit the orthodontist, the theme park of American medicine.

I have fun when I go there, and I generally hate doctors, preferring to let most illnesses "run their course." My orthodontist recently moved to a very posh office, complete with a huge plasma TV bolted into the wall in the waiting room, four little kiosk video games for the kids who make up most of the clientele, and a Tassimo coffee/tea maker for the moms that have to wait. There are raffles on the counter near the reception desk to win iPods and tickets to Six Flags amusement park. Last time, I guessed how many M & Ms were in a glass snowman. (285) Alongside the chairs where kids get braces, more virtual reality video games await.

At this office, you don't give your name to the receptionist, like at every other doctor's appointment. You walk over to a computer and type in your last name, and hit "enter" to announce you've arrived.

This was all pretty new to me last year when I decided that I wanted to straighten out my teeth and invest more than $4,000 for a plastic retainer called Invisalign. You're supposed to wear these all day except for eating, and after about a year (for me) your teeth realign. I am proof that the technology works, even though I don't follow the rules. (I usually just wear the retainers at night.)

At the orthodontist, the staff treats its patients extraordinarily kindly, a shocking thing to experience at a doctor's office. It could be that they're used to seeing kids all the time and maybe have an improved bedside manner. Or maybe I get special treatment because I'm one of the only adult patients they see all day, and we can talk about something other than the teachers who I have this year.

Being a patient at this practice comes with its share of surprises, too. A few months ago, for example, I received an invitation in the mail. When I opened the envelope, a card read, "Let's Go to The Movies!" My orthodontist rented out a movie theater to see the latest Harry Potter film. I didn't go, but I'm looking forward to the next invitation - hopefully for something a little more grown-up, like tickets to see a UConn basketball game.

It should be pointed out that my insurance does not cover orthodontic work - nor do most kids' parents insurance, I presume. So, at $3,000 to $4,000 per patient, my doctor can afford the latest technology, plasma TVs, more office staff than she might need, and little headsets on the secretaries like Bobby Brown wore in his "My Prerogative" video. Okay, that's showing my age.

Regardless of the glitz - actually because of it -I'm looking forward to my next appointment. I like being greeted by the friendly office staff. And the results of the last raffle might be in. Who knows? I just might be going to Six Flags for free!

My vacation

“No one needs a vacation more than the person who just had one.” - Unknown

Well, my 11-day vacation is about to expire, so, as is the case with every vacation I will now complain about having to return to work, contemplate changing careers because I'm in a bad mood, and assess whether I did what I said I was going to do over vacation.

On Day 2 or 3 of my vacations, I usually make a list - on paper or in my head - of what I'd like to accomplish during my time off. I guess it seems like the productive thing to do. This vacation was no different, except my wife also gave me a list of things she wanted me to do. This was fine, I thought, as many of these overlapped.

My list looked something like this.

1. Clean out/reorganize the basement (This has been on my list since we moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago)

2. Get new eyeglasses (I have not renewed my prescription nor seen my optometrist in about 4 years)

3. Seal basement window so mice can't get in (This also has been on my list for a while, and, out of pure laziness, I haven't done it)

4. Return bottles that take up half the garage

5. Read

6. Write (Not for this blog)

7. Correct papers

8. Exercise more than once


Usually, I don't accomplish much on my list. I tend to get sidetracked and distracted and I'm a master of avoiding things that aren't pleasurable.

While I did amply procrastinate, I did do a lot on my list. I will address them here.

I will skip number one, for now.

I got new glasses. Instead of going to my regular optometrist, who is in Bristol - too far away - I went to Sam's Club. (see earlier post about my thoughts about this place) I got an appointment in two days, the optometrist was good enough, and I figure I saved at least $100 to $200. I don't like supporting WalMart (which owns Sam's Club), but I got an appointment quickly, and they had the best frames I could find.

I did not seal the basement window. Rather, I set up 7 mouse traps - four in the basement, three in the attic. I thought this would help control our rodent problem. Except the mice are smart enough to eat the peanut butter I spread without disengaging the metal bar that's supposed to kill them. So now I have to get better traps. I can't say I didn't at least try on this one.

I did return a garageful of bottles - to a redemption center in Manchester. I usually go to Stop and Shop, where it takes two hours from start to finish. But I learned that this place, affiliated with the state, also takes bottles and cans in bulk. When I arrived there - the place is a pit - I was happy to see there were no machines I could jam. The only problem is that you have to organize the beer by brand. This took awhile, even though I drink mostly Sam Adams. ( I even separated Coors Light, which my BROTHER IN LAW drinks.) In the end, I got $21, enough to buy only one case of beer. I am starting to think it is not worth redeeming bottles, but instead to recycle them. Plus, traveling with almost 500 bottles in my car made me feel like a serious alcoholic.

I read a little. I just started a book Complications, by Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a Harvard Medical School professor. His book is about the realities of being a surgeon. He talks of medicine as an imprecise science, full of a lot of guesswork. The book reads well. It should; he's also a contributor to the New Yorker.

I need to correct more papers tonight. I have 10 left, and I figure I need about 45 minutes to an hour.

I ran on the treadmill twice, so that qualifies as meeting that exercise goal, barely.

As for cleaning the basement, you would guess correctly if you said I didn't clean it. (Hey, I wanted to have something on my list for my next vacation!)

For some insights about my tendency to procrastinate, read this column in the Boston Globe from a few years ago:

http://www.boston.com/jobs/globe/view_cube/archive/091805.shtml
(Need to scroll down on the webpage to see.)