Cool and clear again. Cold even as anything less that 50F feels pretty cold to me. It did warm up over the course of the day. Flaming nuclear fire in the sky helps with that.
Spent the day driving back and forth. First to do my pickups, then Costco, then D2 pickup from school, deliver to appointment, rush to pickup D1 from school, return to D2’s appointment, then gas fillup and home… Running from 1130 to 530 without a break. Mostly stuck in heavy traffic too. Yuck. 1 star, cannot recommend.
Costco was odd. Prices have come down on some stuff, but remain high on other things. Pork was cheap and they had the standing rib roast cut I love, which they only carry for Christmas and Easter. Bought two big ones that I’ll cut in half and vac seal for the freezer. The imported Australian lamb was LESS than it has been in a while, and that’s saying something because the price has remained pretty steady for years.
Rice and flour were still higher than they were, and selection was limited. My favorite shelf stable take and bake loaves of bread were damaged. Many of the packages showed mold in the packaging, on the loaves. They were well within sell by too. Weird that staff didn’t pull the bad packages, and weird that it was usually one loaf of the three in the box. They still haven’t gotten the frozen cheeseburgers I like back in stock. Prices for paper goods were high. No sales this month on paper. List price for Charmin blue is now double what it was pre-wuflu.
There was also more chinese prepared food from china than there has been in the past. Dunno if that’s significant but I’m not a fan of food prepared in china for safety reasons.
I’ve stopped buying vegetables and milk products at Costco and I was a bit rushed so I didn’t even stick my head in to check stock levels. I’ve also decided to not buy more of the Kirkland bacon, even though the price is now competitive with HEB. The Kirkland bacon leaves a hard crusty black film in the bottom of the pan. I think it’s burned sugar. It needs to be scraped off the teflon, and it’s bitter so I can’t reuse the fat either. The bacon tastes fine, but the other things are too negative.
And hey, they had both the socks I like and the underwear so that was a score. Set for a year or two now. Stacks…
It wasn’t a cheap trip, but then my average ticket had increased 50-100% even though I’m not buying bulk to stack anymore. I’m not going as often either. In fact I’m shorter than I’d like to be on TP again, and I kept kicking myself and wondering why this has happened again… and I think it’s because I only buy it when it’s on sale, and it hasn’t been on sale as often, so my two bales run out before the next sale. Girls might be using more too, but the frequency of purchase definitely contributes. I need to run to my secondary (for a number of things) but I’ll also be grabbing an extra bale of TP out of deep storage.
Our usage patterns for a lot of things have shifted with time and changes in our lives. I’m not making the kids’ lunches anymore, so I haven’t bought peanut butter in a long time. Same for white bread. D2 is making her own ramen so I’m not making soup for her. Kraft mac and cheese consumption is way down… take a look at your assumptions and see if they still are a good match for your real usage. Adjust as needed.
Today I’ll be doing some more domestic bliss, and household errands, as well as picking up TP and dropping stuff off at my secondary location. Got kid pickup duties in the afternoon too. Might hit the HEB and see if there is any meat on sale, and get D2 some eggnog. Normal stuff. Auction stuff will happen too, and I’ve got a few things I still need to get for my party this weekend. Busy day.
—————————–
Whilst in the midst of your ordinary everyday stuff today, take a minute to consider this day in 1941. People all over the world went to bed with the world in one condition in their minds. They woke up and everything had changed. Plenty of people saw US involvement in the war coming. Plenty of people from individuals to companies to the government worked for or against our seemingly inevitable involvement. Almost universally I bet they thought they would have more time. Despite all the time they’d already had.
It’s my contention that we are living through one of those times in the world where everything changes. Not all at once, and not in obvious ways, but the world of 1950 was completely different from the world that rang in the century. Most of that change happened in a very short time, from ~1911 to ~1946. And you could argue that the big chunk happened in an even shorter period between those years. We know change is coming. We think it’s probably gonna be bad change for a while, but we hope it will get better. It’s likely to be very disruptive to the way things have been for all of our lives.
Do what you can to ease your way through this coming disruption. That’s what I’m prepping for now, the local or regional disaster will happen but they will have to be considered against the bigger picture of the complete realignment of the world order. Be flexible, be cautious, be wary, and be as prepared as you can think of ways to be.
And stack. It’s easy and likely won’t hurt.
nick