711 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes, 43 seconds

Oh Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven. Don't make her sick. That jingle was introduced in 1969, the year she moved to New York. She didn't own a tv, she didn't listen to radio, she didn't have a car. God knows where or when she heard it. There was a Grand Union (willing to cash checks) and bodegas on every other corner. Those first months, living in a residential hotel, she bought a quarter pound of shrink-wrapped ham or salami, two rolls, and made that lunch and dinner. Once in awhile there was Tad's Steaks, $1.99 for a greasy steak and sensible baked potato. Edible then, as she doesn't think it would be now. Sick. But she was in New York. She was thankful. Don't tolerate, exterminate. That was her father's slogan.