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Shopping

Not in Kansas Anymore…

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Argh. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, that’s for sure!

As a side note to today’s craziness..do you  like to bake bread? If so, try to get your hands on some of this stuff.

This is the Italian flour the Instacart lady showed up with a few days back, instead of the regular white unbleached Pillsbury-type stuff normal people use. Never heard of it, but since actual white flour is now a collector’s item, yesterday I decided to “stretch” my remaining flour with some of the Italianate stuff.

So, my breadmaker holds 5 cups of flour. I put in 2 cups of the Anna Nappy stuff and 3 cups of regular flour and then proceeded as usual. I like to have the breadmaker knead the dough; let it rise in the breadmaker’s container; then turn it out into a couple of loaves, let them rise on the counter, and pop them into an oven. (Tastes better than cooking in the breadmaker, for unknown reasons…)

Well. This combo made, bar none, THE most delicious white bread I’ve ever concocted! 

Dunno what it would do if you tried making the bread with nothing but the fancy Italian stuff, but a slightly less than 50/50 mix was awesome.

Speaking of food scarcity…M’hijito decided to opt the Costco junket this afternoon. Becaaauuuse: they won’t let you in there without a face mask, and he doesn’t have one.

Jayzus…. So I ordered up a few items via Instacart.

Costco has at least 50 varieties of cheap….ahem… delicious wines in the $8 to $12 range. Online? You can access two of them. Yeah. Neither of them anything you’d care to have. So I ordered one mediocre bottle of cheap red, and I guess when that’s gone — about a week from now — I’ll have to send another pup to Total Wine or AJ’s to get a couple of decent vintages.

And are they gouging on the prices!!!! One bag of Ruby’s favorite chicken jerky doggie treats? $24.39. Yeah. No kidding. For 3 pounds. If my ’rithmatic serves, that’s eight bucks a pound!!!!!

Plus tax.

Mygawd. You could buy a damn chicken and turn it into jerky on your grill, for a whole lot less than that.

{sigh} So I guess I’ll have to make my son a face mask. On the other hand, one of the women in the ’Hood has been making and selling them: $6 apiece. That might be preferable to cutting up a good scarf or pillowcase for the purpose.

****time passes…passes…passes****

Eventually, an Instacart guy showed up from the first Costco run of the day. (A real cutie, we might add! Born a mere 50 years too late…) He couldn’t find the brand of cheddar cheese I buy ALL the time there, and tried to claim he’d asked someone for it. This, after I explained in the special instructions where to find it. That’s hopeless BS, because the stuff is a standard there — has been for years.

So…after giving them several chances, I’d say Instacart is NOT going to do the trick as a stand-by in one’s dotage. Their contract help just doesn’t understand enough about food or about shopping to come up with the most ordinary boring stuff that you buy all the time.

Exactly how you would work the age-in-place scheme if you couldn’t get to the store and dodder around in it…escapes me. It might be that you could hire a college kid to make grocery runs for you. In that case, you’d have to do some serious training, because Americans apparently know next to nothing about real food. Evidently all anyone eats anymore is processed junk. So…how do you help them to recognize real food and, in the case of produce or fresh, raw meat, to discern whether it’s any good????

****

Thought I was kidding about the food dehydrater? Hmmm…not sooo much. The top of the line for these gadgets at Amazon sells for what three (count’em, 3) bags of doggie treats go for at Costco. Cheaper ones range from $40 to $60. Forhevvinsake, it would pay for itself in doggy treats alone in about three months…plus you’d know what was in the stuff.

The lady who makes the face masks says she’ll put a couple of them in her mailbox. So I’ll drive one down to my son, which will elicit a crabby response but at least he’ll have one. And so will I. I’ve been too lazy to make the things (plus I think it’s pointless, since they do nothing to protect you from getting the bug and probably do rather little to protect anyone else). Anyway, at least we’ll each be able to disguise ourselves as righteous, when called upon to do so.

heee heee hee HEEE! On that note, that idiot Trump is in town, entertaining his constituency of morons and sheeple. I just checked news.google.com and found THIS bit of hilarity.

Nope. Not in Kansas any more…

The Instacart Experiment: Living & Learning

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Okay, so after the last Instacart experience — which was mixed, but overall pretty good — I decided to try again, needing a few items from AJ’s Fancy Overpriced Gourmet Grocery that I knew M’hijito would not be able to pick up in this week’s Costco expedition. This led to another strangely entertaining interlude.

Once again, the runners tried to substitute stuff for products they knew little or nothing about. Instacart would be excellent if you bought a lot of plain-vanilla processed, packaged foodoids — since these seem to be what most Americans eat today. But if you ask for anything at all different from what they’re used to, the results can be hilarious.

Day before yesterday, I tried to get another package of the Italian flour the last AJ’s runner stumbled upon (not having any clue what she’d found). The cupboards were bare of old-fashioned unbleached flour, but she found a tiny package — one kilo, 2.2 pounds — of real, unadulterated, un-Round-Upped, un-genetically modified Italian flour. I pointed to a picture of it on the AJ’s site and said that and only that was what I wanted. She showed up with a pound of tapioca flour! Heeeeee!

Asparagus? AJ’s carries, tucked away in a particular part of its produce department, lovely thin dainty spring asparagus. Well. Spring has sprung. I got the King Kong of asparagus, thick stocks trying to take after a sequoia tree. So those’ll be…uhm…just yummy. Maybe I can make them into asparagus soup, if I can find someone who can figure out how to buy plain old heavy cream. 😀

So, it looks like, unless there’s a way to connect through Instacart with a single person whom you could train to shop in your own style, that system isn’t going to work well for the Aging in Place scheme. It would work to some degree — you could get SOME of the products you use regularly. It surely would be better than the Beatitudes, because even if you were buying mostly processed foods, they’d still be better than the chow served in the old-folkerie’s mess halls…uhm, “restaurants” (heh!). But you’d have a very hard time getting an ever-changing variety of runners to bring what you want consistently. And that would be annoying.

An alternative might be to train your cleaning lady to shop for you. At least if you had her at hand as you were presenting your requests, you could say “…and if you don’t see this, that’s OK — don’t try to substitute anything else.” Someone like Luz, for example, could pull this off a lot better than the Instacart runners, because she’s very smart (indeed) and because she knows how to cook.

And another alternative might be to hire a college kid… There used to be two culinary schools in town. Two of the community colleges now have culinary programs, and there are a couple of free-standing scams. You could hire a student in one of those — community college kids, in particular, are always looking for side gigs. And if they’re interested in food and cooking, they’d probably have a better shot at understanding what you’re asking for.

The adventure continues…

Meditations in the Time of Plague

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So how long have we been officially locked down? Nigh unto a month? And a couple weeks before that we who had any brains were wary enough that we were effectively self-locked down. How long, all told? I’ve lost track.

Over the past home-bound weeks, I’ve slipped into a kind of goofy daze. Have managed to keep the house reasonably clean — that’s something. But otherwise have loafed, loafed, and loafed some more.

Consequently, I’ve put on 10 pounds!

So as of today, it’s back on the diet. The dog and I walked, briskly, for an hour this morning, and will do it again this evening. And tomorrow morning and evening…and the next day’s morning and evening…and the next day’s…

Who would think you burn 10 pounds’ worth of calories driving around town, walking across parking lots, climbing into the choir loft once a week? How?

On the other hand, I haven’t purchased gasoline since March 1st! Today is April 18, and the car still has 2/3 of a tank of gas. I normally buy gas once or twice a month. At this rate, I certainly won’t have to get a fill-up before the end of the month, and probably not then.

A tank of gas that lasts two months? Wow!

The main reason for this has little to do with my own desire to hunker down and everything to do with my son’s request that I not leave the house, especially not to go into retail stores. I’ve honored that, especially since he’s willing to do the shopping. It also, in theory, gives me an opportunity to experiment with merchandise delivery services, though so far I haven’t done so because my son is doing all the running around.

So this is one of several little revelations: if I’m not running to AJ’s whenever I happen to be at the church or in the mood, if I’m not trotting hither, thither, and yon for no very good reason but instead organize trips to serve specific needs, not impulses, probably there’s no need to buy gasoline more than about once every two months. Indeed, if I were to have groceries delivered, most of my driving would be mooted. And since a tank of gas costs about $30, that could represent a considerable savings.

Next revelation: Halellujah brothers and sisters, and thank God for Costco!

Because of my habit of shopping at Costco, which pretty much forces you to buy lifetime supplies of staples and household goods, I was bloody well not about to run out of anything that mattered. Except, of course, for toilet paper. I happened to have a half-dozen rolls of Walmart’s Best in the house, but since I prefer the Kirkland brand, it was by sheer chance that I wandered into the Deer Valley Costco on a Friday just as the TP frenzy started. And sheer luck that I happened to walk into the paper goods department in time to grab the third-to-last package of the stuff.

Thirty rolls will, as they always do, last me for several months. So will the nine rolls of paper towels that I happened to have remaining from some earlier Costco run.

Those paper towels will last me even longer now that the next little revelation has dawned:

Why am I using paper towels all the time, anyway? Yeah. Why???? When I was growing up, my mother and I didn’t have paper towels. We used dishrags. Anyone remember those? You had a square rag for kitchen and bathroom cleanup, and for washing the dishes. You didn’t throw it away when you were done using it. No. Hang onto your hats, young folks: you washed it!

You used paper — newsprint, actually — to wash windows and to wrap garbage. That was about it. Oh — and to write on, of course. In those days, people could write. With pens and pencils.

Well, I happen to have about 30 microfiber towels just about the size of a classic dishrag, courtesy of Costco. Thank God for Costco! So I tried using one in place of the wads of paper towels I pull off the roll, swab around, and then toss into the trash. And lo! It works. It doesn’t just work, it works handsomely. It absorbs more moisture. It cleans the counter better. It shines the brightwork better. And…should I say it again? It goes into the washer, not into the landfill.

Revelation the Fourth: Life in These United States is one hell of a lot more precarious than we think it is. (Why do these things seem so obvious to me now?) The present public health horror could not have happened at a worse time, with an ignoramus in the White House play-acting at being President — or Emperor, or King, or Tsar, or Führer, or whateverthehell he imagines he is — while craven interests that do not have the public’s welfare at heart work behind the scenes.

In the absence of good leadership, the covid-19 contagion has brought our country damn near to its knees. We’re looking at a recession that will at best rival but more likely exceed the Great Depression.

Do I really need to point out that Europe is not on its knees? And neither is China. A failure of leadership at this juncture — at just the wrong time — is likely to prove catastrophic.

And that is not an exaggeration, my friends.

Revelation the Fifth: The Mormons had it right. Stemming, as it does, from a rural culture, the Mormon church urges its followers always to be prepared and stocked up for a rainy day. What’s a rainy day? Could be just about anything: a year when the crops fail…a tornado that takes out the farmhouse and barn…death of a breadwinner…loss of a mother…a lost job…a Great Depression…a flood…a drought…a tornado…a Civil War…a devastating contagion…a moron in the White House… The message appears to be that you need to make yourself, at least to a credible degree, ready for hard times.

My dear ex-husband had a law partner, Monroe McKay, an extraordinary man, who, after a stint directing the Peace Corps in Malawi went on to become a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals justice. Monroe was a good Mormon boy — on steroids. One of the interesting things we learned from him is that he and his wife always had a year’s worth of supplies stocked in for themselves and their nine children.

They had a pantry closet in which Monroe had installed shelving on a slight angle, slanting downward toward the front of the closet, with a lip at the bottom to serve as a block. At all times, they kept a year’s worth of canned goods on these shelves, the cans arranged on their sides in rows, so they would roll forward when a can in front was removed. Thus if you took out, say, a can of tomatoes, a dozen more cans behind it would roll down behind that can. When you next went to the store, you would buy a new can of tomatoes and put it in the back, up at the top of the row. In addition, they kept large bags of pinto beans and rice.

So you understand: when this latest panic happened, these folks didn’t have to go running around frantically stocking up on whatever they imagined might keep body and soul together. They had already thought it through. And they already had their stockpile.

What do you bet they also had a generator, should the power fail? What do you bet they kept a rotating stock of gasoline, should the country run short of fuel? What do you bet they had a propane stove on which to cook those beans and canned veggies, if push came to shove?

The time has come, my friends, to pay attention to this institutional wisdom. The time has come to get prepared.

You should not have to run around frantically trying to buy toilet paper: you should always have enough in the house to last several weeks or, better, several months.

You should not have to wonder what will happen if the power goes down for a long while: you should have a generator and enough propane to suffice until a major failure can be repaired.

You should not fear running out of food if you have to hunker down in your house for a period of weeks: you should have enough staple foods to last you and your family for a bare minimum of two or three months.

You should not go to the grocery store and find there’s no yeast and no flour on the shelves, to say nothing of no bread. You should have yeast and flour stored in the freezer.

You should not be in a position to run out of clean water should the water processing plants fail or be attacked: you should always have several five-gallon jugs full of fresh water. Once a month, pour one out onto your garden, refill it, and move it to the back, so that you regularly refresh your supply with new water.

You should never run out of detergent and soap and shampoo. You should always have enough in a closet or washroom to last your family several months.

And, let’s be completely frank about this: You should not fear roving mobs of “patriots” rioting to demand that the government shut down or open up under the most irrational circumstances. You should be armed and prepared to defend yourself and your family. And I don’t mean with a baseball bat.

Amazonian Frenzy!

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Okay, so here we are in the comfort of our backyard, ordering up junk from Amazon from the comfort of our laptop computer. 😀 What a rip! The prices take your breath away…for ordinary items that you would blithely buy in a supermarket or drugstore.  Like $25 (+, +) for a couple of three-ounce tubes of the sunscreen demanded by the dermatologist.

Twenty bucks for a pack of three tiny little tubes of Lanacane, now almost out of stock because benzocaine, the ingredient that actually WORKS, has been taken off the market because a few morons smeared the stuff on their teething infants’ gums. They get stupid: the rest of us get to pay the price for it.

On the other hand, $13.99 for twenty pounds of wild bird seed, on offer from Walmart for $15.37.

Interesting. Did you know Walmart does free delivery on orders over $35? It’s iffy, though. When it comes to groceries, fresh produce is not included, and a lot of staple items (salt, for example) are only available for pick-up.

Even though I’d sure rather not pay to have this, that, and the other delivered to the house, it sure beats risking your life to go into a grocery store. Or worse, risking the annoyance of your Honored Son who has told you to stay the heck out of grocery stores. 😀

I must get to work. A wannabe client surfaced with a document he described as a grant application. Clearly he’d never before enjoyed writing any such thing (what…uhm, fun that is), so in addition to the language issues, there are basic problems with the document itself. Like, for example…it needs to be rewritten from top to bottom. And…since your project is already completed, what are you asking them to fund?

When I realized this, I quoted a rate of 8 cents a word, which is wayyy low for what is required. A squawk of agonized protest arose. He’s running late on a deadline and cannot understand why I won’t do it for a fraction of that. I explained that a copyeditor is not a ghostwriter. When I have to write a document for someone, I get something more like 30 cents a word — and that’s for book-length documents. Wouldn’t touch a magazine article for under 50 cents a word. And even that is low, if it’s coming out under a client’s by-line.

So it’s back and forth. He’s pretty desperate — up against a tight deadline. Allllright…so yesterday he sent some new copy that I suggested. Today somehow I’ll have to try to make this thing look like a convincing plea for money.

Off at dawn for about a mile of doggy-walk. The plan now is to split the desired two miles of daily exercise-walking between the pre-dawn hour and the after-dusk hour. It looks like it may work, to some degree.

Last night we encountered only two dogs — the same couple who have the lab and the pit bull. Luckily, I spotted them from a good distance off, and so stopped and waited for them to amble on up Feeder Street N/S. Otherwise, we had the streets of Richistan to ourselves.

This morning the only dog we encountered was the beloved and goofy Sammy, the adopted mutt of a couple who live to the north of us, on the po’ folks’ side of Feeder St. N/S. Sammy, who is the funniest-looking dog you’ve ever seen, with curly blond hair all over his bouncy body and…blond eyes. Yes! His eyes match the blond color of his fur!

So he’s a great pal of Ruby’s, and I enjoy his humans.

This may work out well, at least until it gets hot and more people are walking their dogs in cooler hours.

Later today I have to call Gerardo and see if he and his guys are OK. Yesterday evening whilst perusing the evening Play-Newz, I came across a report of a truck that crashed into a dentist’s office, over on the other side of North Central. Gerardo and his cousins live north of that area and slightly to the West, so he would have been headed off to work at about this time. And this thing looks exactly like his rig. I would put money on it that we’re lookin’ at his truck and trailer there.

If so, he’s out of business, at least for the time being. Sure hope he’s insured.

One of our fellow homicidal drivers ran the red light at that intersection. Two other vehicles crashed trying to avoid the collision.

We’ll find out in due time. It’s only 9 on a Sunday morning. He has religion, so will be rounding up his kids to drag them off to church at this hour…unless like mine, his church has not suspended services for the duration. Kinda doubt it, though…think he subscribes to some evangelical Prod denomination of the fanatically missionary persuasion.

 

Of Groceries and Gates

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The major grocery chains in lovely Arizona are posting special Old Folks’ early-morning shopping hours on certain weekdays, by way of minimizing covid exposures to the most vulnerable segment of our population. If you’re 65 or older, you get to make a dawn shopping trip in a low-population store.

So yesterday, armed with shopping lists from the Old Folks (who are literally locked up in the Agèd Rabbit Warren Arms) and from WonderAccountant, who as you can imagine has her nose on the proverbial grindstone. Out the door in the wee-hours darkness, I arrive at AJs as the door opens, a little before 5 a.m.

Me and a bunch of other old buzzards.

We dodder around the store and pick up…uhmmm…whatever is left. I managed to find almost all the stuff I needed, which wasn’t very much, and the couple of small items for WonderAccountant were on hand. But finding the loot that Joan had ordered up was a whole ‘nother story.

She wanted eggs, preferably boiled. There were none. Nothing, zero: no eggs at all.

Whipped topping: I did find some of the squirt-on stuff. Not sure that’s what she wanted, but that’s what they had left.

1/2 gallon lactose-free milk. She was in luck: no one wants lactose-free milk, so there were two cartons there; otherwise, nary a drop of milk in the dairy cabinet.

Speaking of the which, I wanted a container of heavy cream: no such thing.

Pepperoni pizza for Lee: after much searching I finally found one. Didn’t look very good — frozen. They usually get one of those huge freshly made numbers from Costco. I fear he will not be happy with this factory…thing.

Large bag frozen blueberries: not a frozen berry of any variety in the entire store. I grab a package of fresh blueberries, which will last them all of, oh, probably one breakfast. Better than nothing, I hope.

Cat food: managed to find a couple cans of stuff (looked like one serving apiece, weirdly enough) and a bag of kibblish stuff, neither of which I believe their cat will eat. Also got a roll of Freshpet cat food — Freshpet, apparently, is so overpriced as pet food goes that no one will buy it even if it does look like their furbaby is going to starve. Otherwise: that cupboard was bare.

I was able to find all the things I wanted except the cream:  tea, Jet Dry, avocadoes, coconut-flavored paletes, lettuce — so felt pretty smug about that.

Okay, so after I got the WonderAccountants’ items delivered to them, I called Lee and told him I was on the way down to the Beatitudes with their loot.

You simply would NOT have believed… When I’ve yammered “prison guards” in earlier communications, I imagined I was joking.

Not…so…much…

They had THREE barricades for you to get through. First you have to get past the gate guard. To do that, you’re diverted into a parking lot where TWO guards give you the third degree, quizzing you with about a dozen questions as to your health, your reason for being there, your whereabouts over the past two weeks, your international travel, your local travel, and on and on. They take your temperature — with a thermometer that doesn’t work: it registered something like 96, and I happen to know my temp that morning was 98.0, which is elevated for me…my normal temp is around 97. (Admittedly, I was having a hot flash when I took it myself, but usually hot flashes don’t make any difference in your thermometer-type temperature).

Then you get back in your car and drive up to the front, which they’ve barricaded with tables. There you are once again ordered to state your business. I was able to drop off the groceries with the worthies manning this barrier and get back on my way. Later Joan called and said they’d received them.

Later in the day, the guy I contracted with to install a new gate to replace the tumbledown thing Satan and Proserpine left behind, all these years ago, showed up to install it. He did a beautiful job! I’m thrilled! Now instead of the rotting wood thing that dragged on the ground, we have a fine metal-framed number with indestructible fake wood stuff as paneling, and it has A DEADBOLT!!!

Which brings us to the true, 24-karat gold holy shit! moment of the day….

Once he got the gate hung, he found the deadbolt they’d supplied him was defective. A part inside was bent. So he decided to schlep to the Depot to pick up a new one.

The guy is gone the better part of the afternoon. He finally shows up and installs a deadbolt that works like it was made of silicone. It’s a very nice piece of hardware, and he extracted five keys so I would have them for my son, Gerardo, Luz, myself, and an extra.

What took him so long at the Depot was…they are letting only fifty people into the store at any time! 

He said they make you stand on a spot outside the door and wait your turn to go in the door. Can you imagine?

While he was here, he remarked on the black granules that washed (or were beaten) off the roofing shingles during the latest storm. He lives right around the corner (!!  Close enough that his little girl rode past on her bike while he was working!), and he said they had hail over there. I said I thought it sounded like hail, but I couldn’t see any ice on the ground. He said it was kind of slushy and didn’t last long.

Hm. So I called George the Insurance Dude, who recommended a roofer to come inspect.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll get another new roof out of this!

This gate thing is very pleasing. The incumbent was decrepit when I moved in and had devolved to “tumbledown.” Getting it open and closed was a chore — and the cops having kicked it apart in pursuit of Matthew the Garage Invader didn’t help it.

§ § §

So at any rate, I made a nice discovery in the course of today’s adventures: Hitting the grocery store before dawn cracks is a GOOD thing, not the PITA one would assume.

This kinda pot

Seriously. I was home by 5:40, with the grocery pickup done for three households. That meant I had the whole rest of the day, UNINTERRUPTED, to do more interesting things, among them paying work. The stuff I wanted and needed to do was not, after all, interrupted by the annoying time-sucking shopping chore.

One project: I bought two of those little heads of butter lettuce that come in a plastic box with the roots still on, sitting in a little depression with some water in it. (One actually was a mix of loose-leaf varieties.) Some years ago, Iearned that those things will grow if you stick one of them in the dirt, with a few leaves remaining on the head. Soooo…I pruned a bagful of leaves off the things, then took the pretty new Mexican pots that I’d intended to use for decorative cacti, filled them with potting soil, and stuck the little guys in there. If they take root, I’ll have two handy-dandy heads of lettuce right outside the back door.

§ § §

Later in the day,  it dawned on me that I’d made a MAJORLY mistake. Took those keys from our Gate Guy, the ones he’d had made at the Home Depot, marked them for what they’re for, put them away…and failed to wash my hands. Dawned on me as I was sitting here with my hands…where? on my face, of course. Ohhh shit.

Well, let’s hope he managed to escape HD without getting exposed. So far the covid infections have been mostly in the East Valley, I think. As of yesterday, we had 251 cases in the county, if which 15 were on the ASU campus. As of two days ago, 17 people had been hospitalized, and 1 had died. There were 26 cases on the Navajo, most of them in Chilchinbeto, which is beyond remote. On the other hand, of late some guy flew in to Sky Harbor on a jetliner with it.

George (Insurance Dude) recommended a roofer, who perked right up when it was proposed he should inspect the roof. 😀 The guy just e-mailed to inquire about contact info…sent him the fone number and address.

How kewl would it be if I can extract another $10,000 roof from the insurance company? Holy mackerel! That would make the roof last longer than I will, which means one fewer maintenance headache for the duration of my time in this house. THIS time, though, if we get away with this I’m going to ask to have a light color. The stuff they showed me last time was all pretty dark, which is brain-banging stupid in Arizona.

The fascia board on the roof thingie in front has what looks like dry rot (gulp! termite damage???), so while he’s here I can get him to look at that. If they have the roof off, they should be able to fix that then, and maybe even that cost can be foisted on the insurance company.

So, that which doesn’t kill you fills up every minute of your day.

Life proceeds, in spite of it all.

Lampquest!

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And so it was off into the rising sun…

With a printout of a candidate glass lampshade from the Lamps Plus manager, along about midmorning I set out for Phoenix Lamps, a venerable shop that has occupied the same hole-in-the-wall on east Indian School Road for years. Nay, decades.

This is not a place to which I would normally avail myself, because years ago — yea verily, decades ago — their staff was unforgivably rude to me. Never have I returned, and never did I intend to return. But the Hinkley’s lady and the Lamps Plus lady assured me that the joint has changed hands, and the new proprietors were capable of behaving themselves as if they cared whether customers ever came back.

Welp…they’re right. Staff there were visibly human, and they managed to be very nice to me, despite the crankiness of my quest.

Traffic, though? Not so much. I dawdled until around 11 a.m. before dragging unhappily out the door. That was a mistake. Traffic in all directions, on all routes was just effing fierce. What are all these clowns doing out on the roads in the middle of the effing morning?

Phoenix Lamps is parking-lot challenged. They have only a cramped space behind their strip-mall slot for customers to stash their cars. No doubt under ordinary circumstances, this would have been fine. Today, though, was not an ordinary circumstances day.

The store was busy — several parties perusing every item in the store. This would explain why the slot I hogged was the only parking spot left behind the place. But despite the demands on his time and attention, the guy I met up with was very kind and very knowledgeable.

Upon inspecting the wounded Restoration Hardware lamp, he agreed that the proposed replacement glass thing suggested by the Lamps Plus manager was probably the best bet. That notwithstanding, he hauled out a gigantic Sears-Catalogue of the lamp industry and searched. And came up with the same choice. But, he allowed, this thing was not a-gonna fit in the RH lamp: it probably would be too short and too loose. However, his crew could fix that: they could build up the base for the thing and adjust it so the proposed shade would sit there with an adequate degree of stability.

So, he suggested, I should order this thing online, bring it and the crippled lamp in to the shop, and they would make it all work.

Holy mackerel. If the gods aren’t snickering, they surely are smiling.

From there, it was off to the Trader Joe in Town and Country (20th Street & Camelback)…after a lengthy wait until the disabled lady who kindly blocked the entrance and exit to the Phoenix Lamps parking lot with her van reached a point where she felt inclined to move the thing. Staff were not inclined to demand that she get off the dime, so this took awhile. Didn’t bother me — I had nothing else to do — but some customers were a shade miffed. That notwithstanding, staff steadfastly demurred to the lady in the walker.

{chortle!}

Town & Country hosts the snootiest and the snobbiest of the Biltmore nouveau-riche set, and by the time I got there — the lunch hour — the twits were out in force. Parking-lot challenged? Lemme tellya… Fortunately, I prefer to walk a ways (exercise, ya know) and I am…well…assertive. No. Of course I’m not aggressive. Who, me? 😉 I manage to shove the mini-SUV into a spot and hike in to the annoying Trader Joe’s.

Really. Was there some reason I didn’t go to Sprouts, where low-brow types like myself belong? Oh, yeah: the insufficient parking lot. Ohhh well…

The place was simply mobbed. Riots of shoppers, fighting kicking and biting to get at the desired products. Some poor lady was there who had a toddler that…well, the child had simply effing had enough of this bullshit and, trapped in a shopping cart’s kiddie seat, was SHRIEKING HER FRAZZLED LITTLE HEAD OFF.

Poor baby.

Poor mom.

Poor Trader Joe’s shoppers.

I grab the stuff I need, one item I don’t need, and learn that no, of COURSE no self-respecting TJ’s carries anything so déclassé as chocolate chips. Pay. Out the door. Back across the hectic parking lot. Into the car.

And there have to do to-the-death battle with the young, the rich, and the overprivileged just to get out of the fucking parking space.

No joke. Between the parking space and the lot’s exit, three different privileged goddamn wretches deliberately cut me off.

God, but I hate rich people.

Having been a rich person for a significant slab of my life, I can say that. F*ck you all, Rich Wretches!….

Westward on Camelback toward the poor folks’ district. Stop off at Total Wine to pick up a bottle of Everclear, which is damn-near pure ethanol.

Don’t drink this stuff, please. It’s grain alcohol and very much of it will make you plenty sick, if it doesn’t kill you. What it kills even more effectively, though, is microbes. Back a few months ago, I learned (purely by serendipity) that it’s about the most efficient killer of MRSA bugs that you, I, or our doctors can get ahold of. I want some more of it, to use as an antiseptic.

The plonk acquired with surprisingly little hassle, it’s back on the road, headed for AJ’s. My GOD the traffic! Bumper to angry bumper to frustrated bumper to lunatic bumper.

Because I stay off the roads during the rush hours and the lunch hour, I haven’t seen mobs of cars like that in years. And hope not to see them again, unless some taxicab or Uber driver is doing battle with them.

Finally crawl into the AJ’s parking lot. Park a good hike away from the door. This, too, is a purveyor of goods favored by the Rich and the Rude, so navigating their parking lot when it’s full is…well…an adventure. Grab a few goodies and lunch, fly out the door…and find myself once again jousting with The Entitled. One sh!thead cuts me off at the exit, so I veer around him to the other exit and get onto the road before the SOB can. Mwa ha ha!

Driving in Phoenix: a competitive sport.

On Central, too — northward into an upscale residential district — the road was just packed. Managed to veer over to 7th Avenue, which for reasons incomprehensible was much neglected, and shoot up north to the ‘Hood, relatively unmolested.

Finally, home!

Yea verily, back at the Funny Farm. Lampshade thing ordered. Chow scarfed down. A third of a bottle of white wine swilled. And now…enough, already! The dog and I are falling into the sack for a nap.