Gas pump in Jacksonville, Florida. Wikipedia Commons.
Can you even remember when you last paid less than $3.00 a gallon for gasoline?
Lordie! This noon I swung by the Costco that regularly has the chain’s cheapest prices in town, to refill half a tank: two dollah and ninety-nine cents a gallon!
Okay, one cent does not a lot less than $3.00/gallon make. However, the Circle K around the corner was posting $3.09 for regular unleaded. The Exxon across the street: don’t even ask.
USA Today says prices are down around $2.75 in some parts of the country. Doesn’t seem to be happening in our parts: cheapest price registering at one of those price round-up sites is $2.95, in neighborhoods where you’d just as soon not unlock your car doors, to say nothing of get out and pump gas. I’m happy to pay four cents a gallon to fill up at a site that’s on my beaten path at an outlet that’s at least reasonably safe.
How much are you paying in your part of the country? And do you still remember hypermiling?
…Temporarily, anyway. Actually got some work done this weekend, for the first time since the Healthcare Fiasco from Hell started. And that has been months: it began last June.
In the paying work department:
•Met with the respected bank CEO client on Friday. Received instructions, heard update on his activities. Good. •Read lawyer/novelist’s copy; sent off a slab of his latest iteration. •Received more from the same; read about a half of that. Should be working on that right now, instead of blogging over coffee. •Worked frantically on a book of my own, which I want to enter in a low-stakes local contest within the next few days.
In the puttering around the Funny Farm department:
•Drove to Home Depot; purchased plants and four bags of potting soil. •Drove to a Mexican import/kitsch store and purchased a fake agave metal sculpture (therein lies a tale!).* •Dragged bags of potting soil out of car. •Dollied a heavy potted plant out of the front courtyard and placed it decoratively in the perennially moribund, failed flowerbed in front, getting it out my way and also, by serendipity, making the mess I made out there look a little better. •Deconstructed huge, leaky, ugly, eroded old strawberry pot; rescued its few survivng plants, dollied strawberry pot out of sight and mind. •Filled the new Talavera pots with potting soil; planted survivors and new stuff in them. •Cleaned up the mess. •Moved old coffee table out of the way to make room for gorgeous new Thos Moser table, delivered Saturday afternoon.
Fake agave and friends (click on the images for larger, higher resolution views)
* Tale! So, I wanted to put a plant that would grow sort of tall but not too tall in the $29.99 pot I got the other day, by sheer luck. The courtyard is way too hot for sanseveria, at least in the spot where I crave to see this bargain pot. A real agave would get too big. Aloe vera might work, but it’s invasive and kinda ugly. Idea: use one of those kitschy metal garden sculptures of an agave scuplted in rust.
Whitfill’s Nursery, home of the accidental bargain pot, did not have any left — they’ve carried them in the past, but apparently others in North Central have suffered the same lapse in taste I’m undergoing. But I happen to know of a down-at-the-heels shop in a scruffy area of North Phoenix, tucked into the river of blight that is Cave Creek Road. They carry a motley collection of anything they imagine might sell, including the self-same Talavera pots that Whitfill’s trucks in from Mexico. And they have a lot of rusted kitsch.
Yea verily, they did have the kitsch agave. And they had big signs up all over the place: 60% OFF! EVERYTHING MUST GO!!
So I took a look at their Talavera, because for sure if I could get another steal on one, I’d grab it in an instant.
They happen to have the very same style of pot that Whitfill’s normally sells for $59.99. Dang! Sixty percent off $60 would be $36, making the sale price an incredible $24.
Uh, no.
The junk store’s price tag? $139.99!!
$140 x 60% = $84
$140 – $84 = $56
Heee! Their “sale” price is about the same as Whitfill’s full price.
How do people get away with that kind of thing?
All real, some from defunct strawberry pot replaced by Talavera extravaganzaNew succulent potDon’t tread on me…Puppy…Like…Pots…Eat…Plants!
Haven’t posted for a day or two. Busy couple of days and then last night the damn router went down again and this time stayed down all night. GOTTA get a new router. One of these days…
Meanwhile, a number of developments, all of them positive for a change!
The Mayo surgeon had to loosen her clutches long enough for me to get a grip on my wits, at least in a perfunctory way. As you’ll recall, on the weekend before the last planned surgery, scheduled for a Monday, a convenient case of bronchitis led the anaesthesiologist to intone,”It would be foolish to proceed,” frustrating the surgeon no end. The next fun procedure was scheduled for the 15th of this month.
Subsequently, the surgeon erred in forgetting to have the Mayo’s scheduling department reserve an OR for that date. So the soonest she can try again will not be until after she gets back from vacation, toward the end of this month. That gives me time to get to another doctor at another institution to try to get some fresh insight, and to gather enough strength to put up a fight. Somehow I’ve got to bring a stop to the present cascade of disasters; whether I can remains to be seen, but at least I’m beginning to make out a vague pathway toward that goal.
This is particularly good because a new challenge has developed: As I have begged the staff to just do the goddamn mastectomy and stop torturing me with (presumably very profitable) procedure after procedure after procedure, they have begun to pressure me to get reconstructive surgery. I do not want reconstruction, for two reasons.
1) I’m not in the market for a man, and at my age no one looks at my boobs and so no one is going to notice whether I’m a little lopsided or not. For that matter, at my age no one sees a woman at all. When strangers are staring in your direction, they’re actually looking right through you. What they see is the background behind you.
2) More to the point, especially for older women, breast reconstruction is more complications and more surgery waiting to happen. The autologous procedures now in vogue, where they gouge chunks of flesh out of your back, belly, butt, or thigh and slap them on your chest, are esthetically unsatisfactory IMHO, cause still more surgical wounds for you to have to recover from, weaken the muscles in those areas, and can leave you with chronic back pain, weakness, hernia, and the unpleasant. disabling manifestations of upper quadrant disorder. As for implants: silicone or saline, they have an expected lifetime of about ten years, at which time you get to enjoy still more surgery to have the damn thing removed or replaced.
When I told WonderSurgeon that I do not want reconstruction, she told me I need to “think about it.” In other words, I’m a child who doesn’t have good sense.
Guess which one is fake.
One of my friends chose to go flat after a double mastectomy; she said she never regretted it, and she looked just fine. Obviously, if one side is flat and the other is not, that’s a little more problematic. However, you can get custom-made prosthetics that are a great deal more convincing and comfortable than fake reconstructed boobs (if you’re feeling strong, go to The Scar Project, where you can see artist-quality images that show women with and without reconstruction — warning: this is graphic).
Such a large contingent of women has decided to go breast-free that there’s even an organization representing them. Interestingly, many of these women describe similar pressure from their medical teams. Apparently people are so convinced that every woman’s self-image is so inextricably invested in her boobs that a woman must be crazy if she chooses not to go through the tortures of the damned for the sake of having a lump sticking out of her chest.
So: I need some reinforcements to put up a fight on this front.
I called to make an appointment with a medical oncologist at St. Joe’s that my gynecologist, who unwittingly plunged me into this mess, has been trying to get me to see. He also has been out of town, and so on the last attempt to get together with him, his staff couldn’t shoehorn me in before the the 15th. Called again, they managed to set up a meeting for the 20th. Hallelujah! That means I’ll be able to talk with the guy before the Mayo doc can cut me up again and before the craziness makes another spin around the drain. I don’t know whether he’ll provide enough moral support for me to hold my own, but everyone who knows the man says he’s eminently rational.
So that may be a dim light visible through the black fog.
Yesterday morning the damnedest thing happened. My single all-time deepest-pocketed client, Scott Flansburg — the man who made it possible for me to pay off the mortgage in one fell swoop — has hired a new business manager. He’s looking to kick his business plan up a notch, and he wants someone, namely me, to write new products for him and the like. Said bidness manager tracked me down, how I do not know — probably through LinkedIn — and asked if I would be interested in working with them. They want to expand into e-publications.
Lo! What should The Copyeditor’s Desk be into but e-pubs! I’ve got a slew of formatters, illustrators, and designers who can hire on to help him out, and of course I wrote the book that earned Scott $1.5 million in the first year after publication and $1 million the following year.
Heh. When we say “things are looking up,” we speak in cosmic terms.
Meanwhile, I have two clients who are just wrapping up their books. Both of these guys have uttered the words “…and how do I market this thing?” Flansburg is a wily sort of a gent, and you can be pretty sure that he would not hire a marketing agent, which is what this guy is, unless the guy had a decent track record. So this is promising: we just may be able to do some bidness here!
If the guy can sell books (and authors), The Copyeditor’s Desk may soon have two happy customers. And that is always good. Very, very good.
And finally, in the God seems to have gotten over Her tiff at me department: I took it into my head to buy a large Talavera-style garden pot for my beloved shady deck. Purchased anywhere north of central Mexico, these things are absurdly expensive, and the place where I chose to buy, Whitfill’s Nursery, is famed for charging through the wazoo for everything. So I walk in there and find the desired vessel, and on my way out my eyeballs land on another design. The actual price of these monsters is $59.99, but someone has scribbled $29.99 on the one I happen to spot.
On close inspection, nothing seems to be wrong with it. Apparently some underling carelessly mispriced it. The kid at the cash register didn’t even blink…so I walked outta there with a BIG, beautiful, gaudy planter for half price!
This is too good. Well, for us survivors of the Lower Pleistocene, it’s too, too good. 🙂 Today’s New York Times reports breathlessly on the newest discovery among American home cooks, the rise of craft popcorn. Hilarious!
Do you realize that today, this very day, you can spend your children’s patrimony at Whole Foods on a package of flinty “heirloom” popcorn guaranteed to litter the bottom of your pan with duds?
It gets better.
Do you realize that Americans have so lost touch with reality that the Times, one of our country’s last surviving publications of record, feels called upon to explain, in exquisite detail, how to pop corn in a pan (remember those?) on top of your stove?
No kidding: step by step instructions on pouring raw popcorn seeds into a puddle of oil and setting the mess over a hot burner. They wrap it up with hints on how to butter your popcorn and suggest adding rosemary, sage, hot sauce, soy sauce, or grated ginger to “add character.”
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Okay, for those of us who haven’t seen a popped kernel of corn outside of a movie theater in the past few decades, here’s the real old-fashioned CHEAP and INFINITELY BETTER TASTING way to make real popcorn.
First, disconnect the microwave.
Then, buy yourself a bottle of Orville Redenbacher’s. It tastes better than the generic stuff that comes in bags, leaves fewer duds, and believe me it will not cost what WF will charge you for that organic, artisanally grown, non-GMO, never hybridized, dudley popcorn revival.
Find a decent-size pot with a lid. A Dutch oven will do nicely, but any pot that will hold three or four quarts calls out for popping corn. While you’re at it, find a little pan to melt butter in.
Find some sort of vegetable oil: corn oil, safflower oil, olive oil, or, if you’re feeling effete, coconut oil will all do the job.
Find some butter. Find some salt of the finely ground variety.
Assemble these items. Then…
Melt the butter in the small pan. Set it aside.
Pour enough oil into the larger pot to just cover the bottom. Turn a stove burner to medium-high (gas is ideal, but you can struggle along with electric…). Place the pan atop the fire for a few seconds, long enough to heat up the oil (if you’re using olive oil, make this process every short, as olive oil quickly denatures over excessive heat).
Sprinkle enough popcorn into the pan to form a single layer covering the entire bottom of the pan.
Slap the lid on.
Stand back for a minute or two. Listen for the sound of corn popping.
When it sounds like typhoon rain banging on a tin roof, pick up the pan (use hot pads if necessary) and give it a few vigorous shakes. This will prevent individual kernels from scorching. Place it back on the heat. You may need to do this a couple of times.
When the frantic popping subsides to just a couple of pops a minute, turn off the heat. If you have an electric stove, promptly remove the pan from the hot burner.
Wait until the last pop is popped, lest you get whacked on the nose by a late-popping piece of corn. Then remove the lid.
Dribble the melted butter over the hot popcorn. Stir with a spoon or spatula to mix evenly.
Sprinkle granulated salt over the buttered popcorn. Stir (etc.). Do not add sugar. Do not add honey. For godsake do not add corn syrup. Do not add any exotic ingredients.
(Optional) Pour an ice-cold beer.
Dish up popcorn and and carry popcorn and beer to the nearest sofa. Enjoy.
Infinitely better than the bagged stuff you stick in the microwave.
Came across that in an estate-sale organizer’s online ad. It’s an image of a bedroom in a Scottsdale house.
Talk about more money than taste, eh?
Yesh, I believe that is exactly what it appears to be: the Happy Homeowner has stapled custom appliquéd, quilted padding to the walls. Is that astonishing, or is that not astonishing? To say nothing of hideous.
What possesses people? Is there something about the term “gawdawful unholy fire hazard” that’s hard to figure out? How about “property value”? Breathes there a buyer who craves to strip that crud off the walls and probably reinstall the drywall or at the least float a thick coat of plaster to cover up the damage?
They so loved this exquisite motif that they had matching pillows made…
And astonishingly, they found a hideous black fake plant arrangement to go with!
Okay, you have to admit: that was a find. What a find it is.
Choir friend JJ reports on his and his partner LA’s experience of yesterday’s meteorological drama. Their power went out about 2:00 p.m. at their midtown high-rise as the storm blew in.
As they were staring into the wind, rain, hail, and turmoil, a sofa flew past their windows!
They live on the tenth floor.
Their power came back on around 7:00 this morning, by which time, one hopes, the sofa had returned to earth.
