Coffee heat rising

Pillar to Post…or is that Po$t?

Okay, I knew I was going to have to drive from pillar to post this morning. But that doesn’t make life any less…amazing.

Item: Yesterday by pure serendipity I happened across a study that looks real (but sure, may not be: have we heard of the International Journal of Dermatology?) reporting that virgin coconut oil is almost as effective as mupirocin in beating back staphylococci. I’ve come to the end of the time that one is supposed to use the anti-MRSA staph ointment, and my nose still itches and the fading remains of the first and largest of the staph boils lingers on my paw. I am neurosing.

Meanwhile, I’ve had to throw out all of my makeup, because of course all if it is contaminated with the honored microbe. Yesterday I spent $90 at the Target replacing just  a few of my favorite drugstore cosmetics. But Target, being in the process of dumping last year’s fashions and restocking with this year’s fashions, offered precious poor pickin’s.

Item: Today I need a bottle of wine and a bottle of that “green” odorless relatively environmentally friendly dish detergent, which Sprouts does not carry. Sprouts does carry woo-woo shit like “virgin coconut oil,” whatever that is. There’s a very fine Sprouts down in the old, now obscenely gentrified neighborhood. It’s across the street from a Safeway, which will sell the coveted detergent. And I needed to go in search of the eyeshadow and brow powder that Target didn’t have.

Target, which I visited yesterday, is in the process of replacing last year’s stocks and so had almost none of the brands and products I use. To frost that cake, most of my makeup is several years old. Makeup, like clothing, goes out of style under the impetus of its manufacturers’ craving to sell more, more, and still more of the stuff. So of course I couldn’t find most of my preferred brands and colors.

I wear a lot of makeup when I go out in public, because my weathered skin is so grotesque that my unpainted face will scare small children. It’s an annoyance: when I was a young thing, especially during the hippy-dippy period when women went around bare-faced all the time, I could go out unpainted without feeling self-conscious. But now: not so much. Two layers of L’Oreal foundation covers a lot of brown spots and scars.

And carries a lot of staphylococci, presumably: I apply it with a brush, which gets dipped back into the cream between smearings-on.

First stop was the new Sprouts in Encanto, where yes, they did have several brands of the coconut oil nostrum, including one in a house brand that was significantly cheaper than any of the offerings at Amazon. Plus of course some wonderful red potatoes on sale. And a beautiful squash…and…and…

Moving on: of course, as usual, the road was under construction. Getting out of the parking lot involved dodging an 18-wheeler and a ninny in an SUV who felt entitled to take his half out of the middle of the road (and whom the truck driver also had to dodge), then navigating a fine mess at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Osborn.

I needed, also, a bottle of red table wine. Sprouts’s choices of wine range from poor to mediocre, all of them overpriced. So I needed to dodge through the construction to get into the large, fairly fancy Safeway across the street.

Wow! I’d forgotten how massively gentrified the stores in that area had become. Holy mackerel! At the Safeway, I saw a bottle of wine that Costco sells for $9…on offer for eighteen bucks! No, thank you.

This added a trip to said Costco.

Up to Costco through the homicidal traffic. It being Wednesday, almost noon by then, the place was as uncrowded as it’s been in weeks. I stand in a very short line and buy a bottle of $9 wine and a bottle of $7 wine.

How hard is this?

Very, apparently. The cashier charges up a lifetime supply of butter to me, which really belonged to the guy in front of me. Said guy doesn’t notice.  Neither do I until I pick up the box his sidekick hands me. He says he didn’t charge me for the butter, and they take the stuff back. I head for the door, but check the receipt on the way. Yes, he did charge me.

It’s the unsalted variety, which I use. I go back and say “you did charge me.” His sidekick is about to take it back to reshelve it. I say I’ll take it, by way of avoiding the hassle of standing in line again and wrestling with the cash card to get the money back. Fortunately, it’s the unsalted variety, which I prefer, and so that’s one fewer thing I’ll have to buy in the future.

Onward.

Cruise east and north across the city to get to the Walgreen’s I habituate. This entails driving through a residential neighborhood to avoid having to wait to turn left at the interminable red light at Montebello and 15th Avenue. Which is OK, but a nuisance.

Arriving in the vicinity of the Walgreen’s, I see it’s a good thing I decided to try the Safeway downtown, because as usual the City has the streets torn up and getting catty-corner across the street into my usual Safeway haunt would have presented a headache.

In the Walgreen’s, I finally find the make-up I’ve been searching for. Damn! I kick myself: I should’ve gone to Walgreen’s first, not hoped I could find replacements at Target.

Yesterday I spent $90 at the damn Target on foundation, mineral powder, blusher that was the wrong color, and eye paint, but still didn’t find the products I prefer.

At the Walgreen’s, hallelujah sisters, I do find a blusher whose color probably will be OK. And they have a lady who runs the toiletry and make-up department: unlike the Target lady, this one knows what she’s doing. I ask for matte eyeshadow. She does not look at me as though I’ve lost my mind. And she does indeed find a box of the stuff I want, over on the Neutrogena shelf. They also have the L’Oreal gold accent shadow I like, which I grab before it evaaporates.

The new mode is to sell all eyeshadows in “sets.” so to get the color you want, you have to buy a box that contains upwards of five colors: four or more shades you don’t want. This is exceptionally annoying, but far as I can tell can’t be avoided. The Walgreen’s still had a few of the glittery gold eye stuff I wanted to replace in single pads. But to get the matte brown I need to use as eyebrow fill-in, I had to buy five colors.

Shee-ut! $30, all told.

So I’ve now spent $120 replacing the makeup contaminated by the late, great staph infection. Ducky.

Now to get home…  Hah! The city has the intersection of Seventh Street and Glendale blocked for construction, too. So now, to go west and north I have to backtrack a block, come back around, navigate the left-turn at the intersection, veer through a neighborhood, beat my way through to Central to go north. Lovely.

The dog, of course, has peed on the floor while I was gone. Again. I’ve already cleaned up two brown mounds this morning, before leaving the house. Is there any question why I have a staph infection all over my hand and arm?

In cruising the Web this morning, I learned that rubbing alcohol — which I used in hopes of disinfecting my computer’s case and touch-pad — does NOT disinfect. To the contrary. It’s exceptionally counterproductive in the case of S. aureus. It not only does not kill staphylococcus, it enhances the bacteria’s film, which it produces and which harbors the little bastards.

Holy fuck.

The only way to kill S. aureus is to clean well with water and detergent. And of course…you can’t very well apply those substances to a computer keyboard, hm? The CDC says about the best you can do is equip the keyboard with one of those plastic covers, which  can be removed and washed in a sink.

Holy shit. As though this damn computer isn’t hard enough to use?

I wonder if I’m going to have to buy another MacBook? Like I have a spare three grand laying around for the purpose.

Oh, well. At least I found this out before I wasted my time scrubbing down all the door handles in the house with rubbing alcohol.

The coconut oil, by the way, is extremely soothing and makes your itch feel a lot better. It also makes you smell like a walking Mounds bar. But if you don’t dislike the parfum de palme, it’s something to know about.

Now I have to cover my face with the new make-up and run off to choir practice. And so…away…

1 thought on “Pillar to Post…or is that Po$t?”

  1. I think there are some kind of disinfecting wipes you can use on the screen of a phone. The details escape me and whether it works against staph I don’t know.
    I’m sure you can find something out online.
    But I thought soap just loosened bacteria’s hold on a surface to flush it away, not that it killed it.

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