Spending Money

Five for Friday on a Saturday
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Five for Friday on a Saturday

Did you know that it is nearly November?! Which means that I am going to be (supposedly) posting every day, for NaBloPoMo. (Considering I wrote part of this post on Tuesday, tried to post it Wednesday and Friday and got interrupted, NaBloPoMo may be a big fat pipe dream.) But what, pray tell, shall I write about during the course of that long and dreary month? If you have any burning questions for me, or ideas for posts you want to see, now’s your chance! My old Ask Me Anything form stopped working, so I have set up a new one right here. Please check it out and ask away!

I hope you have questions for me, because I have some questions for you.

When you make leftovers, how long do you expect those leftovers to stretch?


I used to actively dislike leftovers, but I have come around. Now, as long as it’s something I really like – fire fry! chipotle chicken tortilla soup! chipotle chicken tacos! I like-ah the spice! – I am happy to eat it day after day. Maybe not indefinitely, but I’d be happy eating any of those things I just mentioned for a whole week.

However. I just learned that my husband is happy eating a thing, and then eating it as leftovers, and that’s it. I should not find this as surprising as I do, based on his “we eat tacos too often” stance.

This is good for me, of course, because I wind up getting most of the yummy yummy fire fry/soup/tacos to myself. But it’s not so good when I am counting on not cooking for the number of days a food lasts.

Listen, there are most definitely things I don’t want to eat even a second time. For most things, though, I feel like the ideal amount of leftovers is enough for two meals AFTER the initial meal. But maybe I’m wrong?

What is the correct your preferred way to pack a grocery bag?

The other day at the grocery store, for the first time ever in my history of patronizing grocery stores, the checker requested that I put all my produce together to make it easier on the bagger.

I am just now realizing that usually, my produce goes on the belt last. So it’s probably always together already. But this time, I think I may have put some of the heavier produce (onions, sweet potatoes) on the belt first, and then withheld lighter non-produce items (tortilla shells, a quarter pound of deli ham) along with my tomato, bananas, and precious bell peppers (I cannot stand a bruised bell pepper, and I want them to go ON TOP). Perhaps the “all produce together” rule has always been in place, and I’ve only just now run afoul of it.

The checker seemed to feel weird about her request. (Maybe I caused her to feel weird, by remarking – in what I thought was a cheery, non-argumentative way – that no one had ever asked me to do that before.) She kept thanking me for rearranging my items on the belt. And then she gave me a semi-long explanation for why she’d asked me to put the produce together in the first place, which boils down to: the checkers like to bag like items together.

Lenny has Thoughts about how the baggers acked these bags.

Well. I found that FASCINATING. Since the pandemic, I have had quite a lot of experience bagging my groceries myself, and here is how I prefer to do it:

  • Between 2 and 4 heavy-ish things on the bottom of each bag (milk cartons, large yogurt containers, flour, sugar, large cans of tomato puree, cartons of ice cream)
  • A nice base of less heavy but sturdy/boxed items (boxed rice, mixed lettuce in a plastic clamshell, frozen pancakes, containers of salsa or guacamole, boxed pasta, crackers, butter, cream cheese)
  • Or, a nice base of less heavy/smaller cans (beans or tomato sauce or coconut milk)
  • Or, a nice base of heavy, sturdy produce (onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, citrus fruits, iceberg lettuce)
  • The middle section is for meats, awkward and semi-sturdy vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, celery), and bagged items (shredded cheese, cookie mix, frozen peas or mango, chocolate chips, bagged rice/beans/lentils)
  • The top section is for light and/or delicate things (cilantro, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, bananas, berries, bagged pasta, bread, chips)
  • Eggs and flowers go in a separate bag

I have most definitely run into grocery store baggers who, like, put all the canned goods in one bag. Or who put three items into each of ten separate bags. But I’ve dismissed those occasions as errors on the part of people who either don’t do the shopping and therefore don’t have to carry bags into their house, or are body builders, or, conversely, have no upper body strength whatsoever. I had no idea that, it seems, they have all been TAUGHT to do things this way.

The baggers at Trader Joe’s have been taught a different and far superior way. Without exception, they seem to possess clear understanding about which items should accompany one another, what should go on top vs on the bottom and – crucially important – how to pack a shit ton of groceries into the one solitary reusable bag you brought in from the car, so sure were you that you were only going to buy the three things on your list.

Tell me all your grocery bagging ways.

What Halloween candy have you bought this year?

Carla has persuaded me to buy two bags each of Brach’s candy corn and candy pumpkins. That is, so far, the ONLY Halloween candy I’ve purchased. I have no idea if my husband and I will even give out candy tomorrow. We haven’t decorated our yard, so it’s kind of unclear whether we even celebrate Halloween. But, more pertinent, I have not purchased any Halloween candy to hand out!

I’ve tried. I’ve been in Target a couple of times recently and looked at the Halloween selection with the express purpose of getting some to hand out. IT’S SO EXPENSIVE. A bag of, I think, 75 pieces of candy is TWENTY AMERICAN DOLLARS. That is ridiculous!

Well, I am apparently not the only one complaining about candy costs.

We get a good number of trick-or-treaters, so it’s not like we could buy one bag and call it a day. We usually buy two or three of the giant bags from Costco (I haven’t been to Costco recently, so I have no idea how much they cost). But the bags from Target are NOT BIG ENOUGH. They seem very eeny compared to years past. So it feels like we are getting much less candy for much more money. UGH.

(Edit: After I wrote, tried to, and failed to publish this post, I went to Costco. The bags there had 92 pieces of candy and cost about $21.99. More reasonable but still. My husband voted for turning off the porch lights and watching a scary movie instead of welcoming trick-or-treaters. This feels a little mean and a lot sad, but I left without buying anything.)

I didn’t think to order candy from Amazon, but it looks like that would have been the better option. Oh well, too late now. What are you doing?

Is this anxiety, or Something Real?

Necessary context: with the complete support of my doctor, I stopped taking anxiety medication a couple of months ago. So far, I have noticed that a) I am sleeping much better and feeling much less sleepy during the day and b) my anxiety has ticked up a bit.

I am currently in a spiral about a friendship, and I can’t tell if it’s justified or if it’s just anxiety. Probably I should just TALK TO MY FRIEND, right? But… what if there’s absolutely nothing wrong on my friend’s end, and I am being an overanalytic psycho? I don’t want to come off as clingy or desperate or obsessed or or or. But also… what if I don’t ask and our friendship just dissolves? I can FEEL that this is anxiety; my whole body is tense. My brain keeps coming up with all these very defensible ways that it Knows Something, and I’ve done Something Horribly Wrong, even though the plausible Wrongs are very vague and amorphous. (But plausible!) Also, this is the type of friend who – I think – would come to me if there were Something Horribly Wrong. I don’t see this friend feeling hurt or wronged or whatever and just… pretending things are okay. But then again: THINGS FEEL OFF. Anyway. Ugh. Perhaps the clearest path to take is to restart my anxiety medication.

In the meantime: based on your assessment of my very non-specific and brief explanation of this worry, is this anxiety, or is it Something Real? And whether it is or isn’t, what should I DO about it? If your advice is to reach out to my friend, I am going to need a script please.

Would you like to see a picture of my cat?

This is, of course, a rhetorical question because I am pretty sure the answer is yes. But I have locked myself into this Question Format and I can’t think of anything else (see previous bullet).

If, however, you are on the fence about whether you want to see the cat or not – I mean, there’s ALREADY a picture of him in the post – let me tell you this: Carla and I took him into our yard for an impromptu fall photo shoot yesterday.

He LOVED IT. He loves Outdoors, plus, he finds leaves fascinating. Once in awhile, a stiff breeze will send leaves showering from the trees in our yard, and he has to leap up to whatever window-adjacent surface he can reach so he can watch them fall and try to bap-bap them through the glass. Are they toys? Are they prey? Nobody knows.

That’s all I have for you today, Internet. Hope you have a pleasantly spooky Halloween, full of treats.

Five for Friday
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Five for Friday

Right out of the gate I am going to admit that I have been An Utter Failure at participating in Elisabeth’s walking challenge. I have gone for… three walks so far this month. And I have no excuse! The weather has been peak fall perfection, I have had pockets of time during which I could EASILY slip in a 10-15 minute walk, I am in good health and all my limbs are operational.

Well. Today is a new day. I have an opportunity to change my ways.

ROOF REPAIR WEARINESS

Our roof has undergone a total replacement this week. The contractor originally thought it would take two days; it took four. I worried that the constant but irregular thumps and bangs and slams would stress out the cat, so I spent most of the week in the house with him, so we could endure the constant irregular thumps and bangs and slams together.

In addition to the noise, I felt the same kind of on-edge-iness I always feel when people are working in or on my home. Yes, the roofing team was outside, but also they were RIGHT THERE. It was weird to eat lunch at the kitchen table because they were right outside. It was weird to go for a walk because I had to thread my way under and around their scaffolding and materials. It was weird to leave to take Carla to school or for an appointment because it was weird to leave behind a passel of strangers.

I never know how to deal with people working on my house. (I am soothed to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.) I said hello and thanked them for being there. On the second day (what I thought was the LAST day), I brought the crew donuts. But then I felt weird about not bringing them treats on the subsequent days. Was I supposed to be outside, observing them? Asking for reports and updates?

The guy who was overseeing everything – which is a different guy from the foreperson, because he had to call the foreperson a couple of times – didn’t really seem to be overseeing anything. I didn’t see him, for instance. And he assured me that something had been done that clearly had not, and had to call the foreperson to ascertain that I was right. The big storm that caused all the damage to our house caused widespread damage. I know that the roofing people are overwhelmed and have hundreds of clients just like me. I know they are being pulled in multiple directions at once. I still feel a little like no one was steering the ship.

Even though the roofing team tried to keep things tidy, there was trash everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Scraps of roof tiles in the shrubbery. A plastic water bottle on the pool cover. Shreds of plastic flung all over the lawn. Flowers trampled beneath ladder legs and canvas tarps.

By the end of each day, my head felt full and I was snappy and impatient with my family. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the work. The vinyl siding will be replaced next, and then the wooden parts of our house will be painted, and I have no idea how anyone survives any sort of renovation, especially if it requires having people INSIDE YOUR HOUSE. This is all to say, I am pretty sure the entire process stressed me out more than it did the cat.

Anyway: it is blissfully quiet this morning, and we have a new roof, for which I am very grateful.

THE POOL STILL HAS A LEAK

This is the Champagnest of problems, and yet it is rapidly becoming a massive pain in my ass. I have contacted the leak people; they said they could come out. They never give me a specific day when they will come out. They want the pool clean, full, and 85 degrees when they show up. I am spending unknown quantities of money and resources keeping the pool full and heated. With the roof repair, they couldn’t have done the work had they wanted to. Not that they called me back after saying, yes, they could repair the leak this week! My regular pool maintenance guy keeps warning me how important it is to address the leak before winter, lest the water freeze and cause much more damage. It does not appear that there is an alternative leak company for me to use.

I rescued this frog from the pool, even though he may have not needed rescuing. He has, presumably, nothing to do with the leak.

GARAGE DOORS

This is not about how we also are replacing our garage doors, it is about the doors to our kitchen storage garages! In response to my recent post, Carolyn asked, “Does it have a door that goes up and down like a standard garage door?” Yes, kind of! The doors come out and then up. Here is the front of the garage I recently tidied (don’t worry, Lenny is not inside).

And here is the front of our other garage, this one an appliance garage.

I do love how these garages allow me to use what amounts to regular counter space – convenient, counter height, no need to lift or carry – without resorting to the counter clutter I resist with all my heart.

I did TRY to take these photos in a way that looked normal, but I am incapable of photographing anything straight-on.

ANOTHER KIND OF CLEANING PROJECT

I drink Earl Grey tea every morning in the cool months. (I drink iced chai in the summers.) While I have many, many mugs, I typically opt for one of three enormous mugs my husband and child got me for Christmas back in 2018. Over the years, the ceramic has become deeply discolored by the tea.


The stain doesn’t bother me too much, but I left my empty mug next to the sink last weekend and my husband was aghast at the state of the mug. He informed me that he had used one of the tablets he uses to clean his stainless steel coffee mug on my mug, which I thought was probably not going to work on the ceramic. Sweet of him to try, though.

BUT IT DID WORK.

No idea what these weird shadows are. That’s what I get for taking photos in the early morning hours.

CAT NAPPING

My cat is an excellent napper. That is all.

Five for Friday
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Five for Friday

It’s the final Friday in September and I have a few things on my mind. Also, this post has a TON of parentheticals, just FYI.

Heads Up: Changes Afoot

Here’s what happened. Last fall, I had a little blogging existential crisis, to which you all responded with love and kindness as is your beautiful tendency. (I love you.) Then I had a chat with my husband about this here bloggy hobby. Then I bought a domain name in preparation for transitioning to a new blog. Then I sat on the new blog for FIVE MONTHS my god, you’d think the domain name would be “expertprocrastinator.com” because I am A True Expert in Not Doing Things in a Timely Manner. (What happened was I got overwhelmed, set it aside, kept setting aside, then couldn’t stop.) Then, this week, I finally took some time to migrate seventeen years of blog posts and comments to the new blog and figure out how to do things, like “add posts” and “muck about with CSS in ways that are sure to be disastrous.” And now I am finally nearly ready (“ready”) to shift you to the new space.

At first, I was all about starting fresh! New blog theme, new layout, blah blah. But a) I found it almost impossible to deal with a new blog theme/layout because I am no longer quite as agile with technology as I once was; b) the available WordPress themes seem to work best with photo heavy content, and I am not nor will I ever be a fantastic photographer; and c) even though the whole thing probably (hopefully?) won’t feel like a huge change to you, it felt, to me, like a new URL plus a new look was asking you to digest quite a lot.

All that said, my current blog theme has long been defunct. I was able to install a similar but not identical theme, so things will look a little different. Also, I am so poorly versed in web design that things are Quite Wrinkly; with lots of help from Google and much trial and error, I hope to iron out the worst wrinkles in time.

Starting next week sometime (I think? but also see above for a reminder about my True Expertise) (and also, do most people just institute the change rather than interminably dragging it out????) (I, if you have not already intuited this fact, am not good with change), I am going to try to redirect this site to the new one. I think the transition should be unobtrusive on your end… HOWEVER, you will need to update the URL in your feed reader and I also think you may need to resubscribe to emails if that’s how you access new posts. I’m sorry; if I can find a way to migrate the email list without you having to do anything, I will, but I haven’t looked into it yet. I know, I know; I’ve only had five entire months to look into it.

You can go check it out now, if you like, or add the new URL to your blog roll/feed reader: suzannedaybyday.com Please keep in mind that you may feel a bit like you’ve arrived at a wedding reception an hour early: piles of unironed tablecloths on the tables, half-filled vases surrounded by leaves and stem trimmings, boxes of candlesticks and centerpieces overflowing on every surface, people in decidedly NOT party attire running around. Hopefully it will all get sorted out, but it may take until the last minute.

Negroni Week

My husband informed me that it’s Negroni Week! I did not know that was a thing, but I’m on board for any week in which I can try a fun cocktail. The Negroni is a recent favorite of my husband’s. He ordered one during our trip to Canada that he said is the best Negroni he’s ever tasted. He thinks the difference lies in the vermouth; the brand, according to the restaurant website, is Carpano Antica. The other ingredients are gin, Campari, an orange, and ice. We have gin in our cupboards; gin is the Liquor of Choice in this household, as in my husband’s household of origin. I strongly recommended getting Bombay Sapphire, as that is the gin the restaurant uses. But my husband says that Tanqueray (which we already have) is more versatile a gin than Bombay. Not to mention, the prevailing advice seems to be that Negroni’s benefit from a strong, London dry gin (like Tanqueray). We’ll see. We did need to get a bottle of Campari, which I understand to be a bitter liqueur that tastes of orange peels. (Ew?) (I don’t think it’s intended to be taken on its own, but still.) We also needed an orange, and my husband ordered these fun ice cube molds. (We got the spheres, because we are boring. If you are a dog lover or, like, a Yale grad, perhaps you should get the bulldogs???)

The Negroni recipe is stupid simple: 1:1:1, ice, orange peel. But I might try Noble Pig’s version, which eases up on the bitterness quite a bit.

AI Encounter

A few months ago, I am pretty sure I spoke to an AI agent on the phone. This has happened a couple times since, but I never know know. Yesterday, I got a call from our HVAC company. The caller said their (its?) name was Shawn, and told me I was due for an air conditioner check. The checkup would be completely free since it’s covered as part of my annual membership. “I just got a brand new air conditioner,” I told Shawn. “Do I really need a check up?” (I am 90% sure that I already had this conversation with someone, by the way.) Yes, Shawn assured me, I did need a checkup, even on a new air conditioner; it was good to assess how the new unit had been performing in the months since we’d had it installed, and, not to worry, the cost was covered under my membership. “Okay,” I said, not entirely convinced, but whatever; that argument made sense. “Don’t I have a furnace inspection coming up?” My thought was to try to combine the two inspections if possible. You sure do, said Shawn. You have a furnace, water heater, and air conditioner check scheduled for next week, in fact. I blinked a couple of times, waiting for Shawn to hear the words that had just been uttered. Shawn did not catch up. “So… the air conditioner inspection is part of the appointment that I have already scheduled?” Yes indeed, Shawn told me. And asked if I needed anything else, as though I had been the one to initiate this completely pointless call.

 The experience, short and not-particularly-awful-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things as it was, kind of boiled my beets. What a waste of time – mine, and that of whatever hapless technician Shawn was clearly going to book to do a superfluous inspection of my air conditioner.

I am left with two questions. One: Is it okay to ask if someone is an AI? I don’t think I could do it, actually; my fear of offending someone is too great. But also, shouldn’t an AI agent announce itself? That is not my second question, although maybe it should be. Two: Would it be wildly Karen-ish to contact my HVAC company and tell them I want them to stop using AI agents to contact me? Eh, probably it is wildly Karen-ish and I should ignore the impulse. Well, there you go. I answered my questions for myself. I’d still be interested in your thoughts, though.

Impulse Bulbs

The other day, I came across the bulbs display at Costco. I love flowers so very much and, before I knew it, two packages had made their way into my cart (giant allium and narcissus, $15 each bag). Now that I’ve broken the bulb seal, I want ALL the bulbs. I got too few, for sure, and I keep spotting little empty places in our yard where bulbs would look beautiful popping up in the spring.

Keep in mind that I have not yet planted the bulbs I already purchased. I should probably get on that. But I don’t know how. I mean. I could watch a YouTube video or look it up in a library book or online, so the knowing how is only a few keystrokes away. But maybe I need to buy some bulb planting tools in advance, just in case? Like this little guy? Ooooh… or there’s this tool that seems to do EVERYTHING; it even promises to help me plant the annuals I can never resist in the summer. It is a little bit pricy though, at least in comparison to the bulb planter. There’s also an attachment for my drill, and it’s under $10. If I had seen this one first, it might already be on the way to my house, but the other tools seem to remove the dirt from the hole, and this one does not.

My biggest problem with bulbs is that so many (all?) of them are toxic to cats. So I will be admiring any and all bulb blooms from my house, and not bringing them inside to enjoy in a vase. Maybe what I really need to do is plant some Gerbera daisies, which are one of the few non-toxic-to-cats flowers that I actually like.

Ask Me Anything

San mentioned that November is right around the corner, and with it, NaBloPoMo. I am planning to participate this year, while reserving full rights to drop out at any time. But I am a little bit concerned that I won’t be able to come up with enough topics to achieve the requisite number of posts. To that end, I am resurrecting my Ask Me Anything form. Please let me know if you have any burning questions I can address via post.

 

That’s all I’ve got for you today, Internet. What’s on your mind?