lost in the supermarket

In the back, on the left-hand side of the store in an area that looked like the Asian section, on the top shelf there stood a jar which read tomatpuré. It was a clear jar, and on the line below "tomatpuré" it read "Naturell." Could it be? Was this the item I'd spent a week searching for each time I came to the store? I've never felt so completely at a loss when grocery shopping in my life! I would compare shopping in a Swedish grocery store to going on a treasure hunt where all you had to help you out were pictures and a secret code that you had to unscramble. I've figured out the basics, in the almost three weeks I've been here, but today I think I've made my most exciting discovery yet. Tomato paste! (I hope) The first attempt or two at shopping also yielded some exciting discoveries, yes, but then there were so many discoveries at once that it became normal. It's like...giving a room a quick once-over cleaning where you pick up lots of visible stuff so it looks so much nicer. Yeah, it looks like you're doing good, and you do feel accomplished, but deep inside you know the drawers are messy, the carpet needs to be cleaned under the bed, and we won't even mention the closet! But when you straighten those drawers out, vacuum under the bed and and the closet is looking much better you get a very satisfied feeling and life can go on. Finding the tomato paste was my drawer straightening today. And I'm still not sure it is tomato paste, but the texture looks right and it tasted like tomato paste...it just wasn't in a tin can, it was in a jar so it looked different and I didn't know exactly what the label said. But with this, hopefully, my meal menu can greatly increase, and I'm happy for that. Mom's spaghetti, here I come!