October 11, 2020 thought for the day: You will never learn enough looking for only the good things in life; you will always be a pupil. Japanese Proverb

I slept in a little but I try not to press the snooze button too often on a Sunday morning. I like to get a few things done before I get ready for church. 

The photo theme for October 10 was “a splash”. Some of my photo peers are proficient in shooting splashes of something dropping into a glass of liquid. I haven’t mastered that gift yet. So I had to think of something that created a splash of it’s own. At the local metro park down the street there is a fountain that does a terrific job of that so that is where I headed. 

When I got to the church only the organist’s car was there so I went back out to Broad Street to photograph the bridge (viaduct over the highway) for the photo of the day. By the time I got back there were a few more cars there. 

We have been having fewer and fewer people at church service the past three or four weeks. I can’t help wonder if some of that may be because we have our services online now.

The first thing I did when I got home was upload the taped service to facebook. It took about an hour and a half to upload both sections. In the mean time I was multitasking. I want to send a (snail mail) letter to a dear friend who doesn’t do computer (email) or texting on a cell phone. At church, he expressed a slight interest in a situation that has been bothering me for a while so I wanted to get more of his counsel on the subject. 

The 10th was a day for a second photo of the day so while I was at the park for the splash I decided to use another of the park’s pleasant features. The theme was “landscape”. This is perfect at that location with trees, grass, a pond and a public park. 

The rest of the day will be spent in leisure, as it should be.

The word today is notes  He listens well who takes notes, Dante Alighieri.  It should be noted that the games of children are not games, and must be considered as their most serious actions,  Michel de Montaigne.  Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, 'I told you so’,  Lord Byron. Talking is one of the fine arts - the noblest, the most important, the most difficult - and its fluent harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note, Oliver Wendell Holmes. When we are young, we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, in the hope that, in the course of a few years, we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get no completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs will never meet, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Great talents ripen late; the highest notes are hard to hear, Laozi. In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Seek not to know who said this or that, but take note of what has been said, Thomas a Kempis.   

I mentioned a couple of paragraphs above that I shot some photos on my way to church. The challenge today was “bridge”. We don’t have many bridges very close to me so I so I used the viaduct as I mentioned.  

The article is interesting. I have shopped Whole Foods on rare occasions. It was a unique experience. I haven’t been there since Amazon took over though. This article is about how Whole Foods has faired through the pandemic. It started by saying the grocery business has been one of the more fortunate in the time of the “battered U.S. economy”. It seems Whole Foods hasn’t been one of the luckier ones though. Apparently since September visits to Whole Foods has been down by 25%. It is felt that one of the reasons is that people have “consolidated shopping trips” and are shopping more on line. Some of the sales have risen since the pandemic but not as much as in the other stores as Walmart and Kroger. Even though people are buying more the customer count is down at Whole Foods. They aren’t a one-stop spot. For one thing they offered prepared meals that office workers took advantage of but during the pandemic were working at home. They are continuing to grow in their kinds of service. They are now offering delivery and pickup services. One of the things that picked up during the pandemic was the sale of meat and some other categories due to people cooking at home. Whole Foods grew in interest after it was founded in 1980 because they stocked products that were hard to find elsewhere. They also provided more organic foods, now other supermarkets have adopted the organic food sales. All of these high quality standards made prices higher than other supermarkets. They “shied away from cookie-cutter” type stores. The article stated that by the time Amazon became involved with Whole Foods growth and profitability had begun to decline. Amazon cut prices on staples to bring in new shoppers. It provided online delivery lockers in several stores. Earlier there were complaints about crowding sometimes, during peak hours and the crush of contract shoppers and regular customers cause traffic jams. To help with the safe distance rules the hours have been “tweaked” in some stores. A warehouse-like facility in one area was designed to fulfill online orders to go along with helping with safe distancing. The Whole Food Prime shoppers seem to be about speed and efficiency.  Some customers are saying that products are harder to find and the prices are still higher than other places.  A spokesman said that they stocking with 30% more “locally sourced” products than in 2016. A research firm estimates the 4.5 million fewer US households have shopped in Whole Foods since March compared to last year. 

I think it will be Taco Bell for dinner tonight. 

Joy