I'm getting worn out by this schizophrenic weather pattern. Slept with the windows open last night, woke up shivering. Last Saturday, when it was... what adjective goes well with hot? I got it...sweltering, I spent most of the day feeling like I'd run a marathon. I can only conceptualize, of course, what running a marathon feels like. I ran in a fair number of 10K races before my knees, feet and I all decided running sucks. But I imagine becoming quickly exhausted by merely moving about through heated, liquid air comes close. How'm I supposed to acclimatize when it's springSUMMERspringSUMMERspring?

My building turned on the air conditioning this morning. I know HVAC for a building this size must be terribly complicated, but I might have to have a word with them anyway about their timing. Last fall, they didn't fire up the boiler until November. They have a contractor come in here to convert the system, and seasonal demands in that industry could possibly overwhelm. Yet maybe now, while we're all thinking about it, you could schedule the flipping of switch a tad earlier, hm?

I bought what will probably be my last tank of sub-$2 gasoline this morning. Actually, with the illusionary fractional pricing peculiar to sales of gasoline, it was only one-tenth of a cent below $2 per gallon, so it was my last tank in concept only. Anybody know how that 9/10 business got started at gas stations? It's been that way for longer than I can remember, and has always struck me as marvelously deceptive. And I don't recall Wilson and Jones or Panati touching on the subject in any of their books.

When I was in California last month, I was watching my brother in law fill the tank on his Chevy Suburban without blinking. Out there, it was already a gaudy $2.15 per for the privilege. He, my sister and nieces together add up to a family of seven, so they've always needed a vehicle of that size to transport everyone. If I had to pony up $60 every couple of days, I'd be starting to consider "family outings" as a bit overrated. But what else can you do, he asked me. Get two Toyota Priuses and caravan, maybe, I replied. Instead, he's hoping that the market will soon be glutted with cheap SUV's abandoned by single-occupant owners who bought them for status only, and now can't hang with the operating costs. Maybe he can recoup some value there.

I can't eat salads fast enough to avoid wastage of vegetables. I eat two huge bowls of salad every day, and that's about all I can manage. It's only me eating them, so there's always something going soft and brown and mushy in my fridge within a few short days of my buying it. Salad-eating, for me, has been an acquired taste, but I've learned to enjoy them more in the interest of better nutrition. I still can't eat a mere bowl of lettuce- I must have a variety of other veggies mixed in there. Because I do that, I have to keep the crisper drawer well-stocked, and it seems I'm still throwing out more than I'm consuming, to the point of diminishing return.

So I was happy to discover neighborhood F.L. Roberts stores have recently added salads from Frigo's to their coolerators. I bought one the other day, and the deceptively small container contained a huge serving of fresh veg. While I know it's not economically smart to purchase individual "ready-to-eat" portions of food on a regular basis, I think value-for-money overrides in this case.

And... that's it. Maybe I'll have someting a little more meaty (or at least a little less vegetable-y) tomorrow. 12:42:03 PM    comment []trackback []