Getting a Newspaper

1-25-13 7:47am Fri.

      I just got back from a walk up Tai-Yuan Road to Family Mart near the high school. I walked up there because today is Friday and Leona likes to read the Liberty Times and Apple Daily newspapers on Friday; they’re like America’s Sunday papers. The 7-11 downstairs was out of the Liberty Times so I walked up the road (actually an avenue or even boulevard since it has three lanes each direction [including a green bike path] and a center garden median) but Family Mart was out of the Liberty times, too. So I walked back to the 7-11 on the sidewalk (there’s actually a sidewalk, mostly, but with a few parked cars, potted plants, sleeping stray dogs, and ‘ghost money’ urns from a mini-temple across parts of it) to get the Apple Daily and some milk for coffee. I picked up the Apple Daily (50 cents us) and pint of milk ($1.45us) and counted out 67NT in change to bring to the counter. That’s when I noticed someone buying a Liberty Times! It wasn’t sold out; it just hadn’t come in yet! I counted out another 10NT and paid, confusing the unhappy young man who needed to use a counting tray to see if I was correct. I was just about to leave when I said to myself, “what the heck,” and bought the English Taipei Times (50 cents) too. I went upstairs to make myself a glass of orange juice from three little oranges, two of them ‘new year’ oranges with stem and leaf still on. I hope I didn’t make bad luck but they were in the fridge for weeks and were getting shriveled.