Gotta admit, I'm sick to death of listening to Biden talking about how he's rescued the country from the "disaster" it was when he inherited it. (Spoiler alert - he wrecked it, not whoever he's blaming it on this week. Don't care about your political party or who you voted for - this is recent.)
Gas prices in Southern California are back above $5/gallon, after a period of them going down. Not down to pre-Biden levels, but at least not in the $5+ range. That didn't last. Oh, and a bank just crashed and there's a good chance that starting tomorrow the stock market is going to do the same. Peachy.
Prices of everything are going up. I don't know how people are surviving, especially those that have to commute to work (1 hour+ one-way isn't unusual here in L.A.) and provide for children. The closest thing I have to a kid is the lovely Sophie, and even she's getting expensive. Case in point:
Yeah, there's cheaper cat food, but Sophie is old and has gotten picky as heck in her old age. In fact, if she'd eat the even more expensive specialty food for kidney disease that she rejected, I'd pay for that too. But I'm also not in the position of having to decide between feeding kids or the family pet, so I'll take the hit and she'll continue to get the fancy-schmancy stuff.
Anyhoo, this box of twelve servings has always been in the $11-$12 range, depending on where I buy it (Target, Walmart, or a grocery store). About a week ago I was at CVS and it was priced at a jaw-dropping $22. Not making that up. TWENTY. TWO. DOLLARS. I probably should have taken a picture, but I was too stunned by that number to think about it.
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| "Regular" price. There's nothing "regular" about it. |
Fall doesn't even begin until next week.
Too soon.
Didn't get a chance to take pics, but yesterday going to and from the store I saw a trio of really cool license plates.
In the parking lot, one car had VEN BCH. I wonder how long they've had it. My late godfather, an Arcadia, California historian, had the plates ARCADIA and OAK TREE on his and his wife's plates. Not sure if she kept them after he passed away.
Just a few spots down from VEN BCH was a car sporting plates declaring I LV NY (California plates - the classic gold lettering-on-black, no less).
Then driving home I saw a car sporting DLVR BBS. It took me a few seconds to realize what it meant...deliver babies!!!
And just to top off the automotive experience for the day, the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was parked out in front of the hotels down the street.
This was right after the rest of my patio furniture arrived! So just a good day all-around.
The credit card that I use for most of my purchases expired last month. That means that not only did I get a new card that's one of those weird-looking contact-free cards (apparently plastic cards with raised numbers are a thing of the past) but I also had to notify various accounts I do business with of the new expiration date. Which is no biggie. Something I can totally handle.
Then yesterday I got this email from PayPal:
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The other day this popped up on my Facebook feed: Celebrating Every Publication by Kate Fellowes.
What Kate has done over the years is fill bracelets with charms relating to her stories and essays each time she's been published. She's currently on her third bracelet.
I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I looked at my whopping four published short stories and started thinking about charms. Here's what I came up with.
1 - "Crime Drama/Do Not Cross", which appeared in LAst Resort, is a Hollywood-based story about a failed actress turned private eye, and who is obsessed with a CSI franchise-type show that is about to end its run. So I figured a Hollywood sign charm would be awesome.
I had a surprisingly tough time finding Hollywood-related charms. In addition, a lot of them are intended to have chains looped through them, while I'm looking for charms with clasps. So far this is the closest thing I've found and I'm not really sold on it. I love the comedy and tragedy masks, but not for this story.
I did find this clapper board, but not happening at that price. Even the charms at Brighton (where I was really hoping to find what I needed to make this happen) aren't anywhere near that, and that is not an inexpensive place to shop.
2 - "Like Deja vu All Over Again", which appeared in Crossing Borders, was based on a nightmare I had years ago about being carjacked. So obviously a car charm is needed here.
Again, I was surprised by the apparent lack of car-related charms. The car in the story is an old Toyota Corolla, so it can't be a fancy car. I might need to brainstorm this one a bit more.
3 - In "The Legend of Bahama Bobby", which was just published in The Fish That Got Away, Bobby is a painter, so something painterly, obviously.
I found the perfect charm here. Is this cute or what?
4 - Lastly we have "Christine Thirteen", which is just now being published in Avenging Angelenos (I'm still swooning over that cover). I don't want to give too much away, but the obvious choice is a disposable coffee cup with a lid.
I was surprised how few of these I could find. You'd think they'd be all over the place. I needed a cup with a lid as opposed to a cup and saucer, and eventually found this.
At my new local Pavilions they have two entrances (one on either end of the store) and because of the lockdown have designated one door for entering only and the other for exiting only. As I was entering, a woman was coming out of the same doorway with a full cart. She had a bunch of stuff, including a couple cases of dog food and most notably four very large bottles of tequila. The cart got stuck on the door track and I assumed she was just having trouble pushing the cart over it, so I stepped back to give her room. Just then a guy came up behind her and I assumed he was going to assist her. That's not what happened.
The guy told her "nice try" and she proceeded to stride away into the parking lot. It turns out the guy was an employee and he was holding a device that locked the cart as she was trying to leave with a cartful of groceries she hadn't paid for. They didn't go after her, and the guy and another female employee who was stationed at the door seemed almost amused at the brazen attempt.
Once I realized what had just happened, I was shocked that someone would try to just waltz out of the store with stolen items and not even panic when caught. I asked the female employee, "People actually do that?" Her response: "All day long."
I'm thinking loss prevention might be a bit more exciting job than people realize. Years ago, at a Guitar Center, one of the employees told me a story about a guy who tried to steal an $11,000 guitar by shoving the neck down one of his pant legs, then covering the body with his shirt. And then he tried to nonchalantly walk stiff-legged out of the store. People are crazy. And stupid.
This is a perfect example of how ridiculous these rules are. We are required to wear masks, but if the masks protect us from the virus, then why not open up all businesses? And if they don't, why are they required? Why can I go to Costco and Walmart, but not my local mom and pop shop or restaurant? If the six foot separation helps prevent transmission, why can I walk right past someone in the grocery store, but then have to stand way behind that same person at the check stand? And what happened to wearing gloves? That was a thing when this all started, and then suddenly it wasn't.
And then there's this picture, which has been making the rounds on the internets:
Yeah. None of this makes sense.
