I’m working in my underpants. Sorry if that’s way too vivid an image for you. But it’s in the mid-90s, my apartment has tall south- and west-facing windows, and I have no air conditioning.
Those of you who aren’t screaming and pouring Clorox directly into your eyes should read on for tips on staying cool.
You can’t win a wrestling match against a Himalayan blackberry vine. Some of the creepers are as thick as my finger, with spines the shape of shark’s teeth. If they want you, they’ll get you – and they’ll hold on.
The only way out is to dance.
I’ve eaten in restaurants more often in the past 10 weeks than I have in the entire previous year. That’s not as big a deal as it seems, since in Seattle I cook almost all my own meals. Here in Anchorage, though, my hostess and I like to go to Harley’s Old Thyme Café. I’ve also enjoyed taking my muddy nephew, his little brother and his mom out to eat.
Not that I’ve completely lost my cheap edge: I often use BOGOs or other coupons that I’ve gotten from social media, the Val-Pak mailings and newspaper supplements.
Naturally it would be cheaper to heat up a can of soup. But isn’t it swell to have someone cook for you once in a while?
I know that I’m getting older because I have begun to find value in bromides. That’s why I’ve decided to highlight one every so often, starting today. After all, Ben Franklin made a decent living at it – not that my site is comparable to Poor Richard’s Almanack, for a number of reasons:
Let me emphasize that an axiom is no substitute for independent thought. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, pious aphorisms are a way to appear profound when what you’re actually expressing is “Because I said so.”
A former coworker hosted a potluck for me on Saturday. Among the goodies we enjoyed: Alaska salmon in a ginger-based marinade, burgers (meat or veggie), dilled potato salad, baked beans made from scratch in a slow cooker, a mesclun salad with chicken and grilled sweet potatoes, rosemary bread, eggplant pate, olives, grape tomatoes, melon and several desserts, including a Ukrainian rhubarb torte that was much classier than the rhubarb cake that I made recently.
I was the guest of honor but gently urged the hostess to tell me what I might contribute. It wound up being deviled eggs and two 12-packs of Diet Coke.
Someone suggested that potlucks would be a good subject for a frugality column. I laughed. Then I realized that she’s right. If I were unemployed or underemployed, I’d be attending or hosting potlucks as often as I could get away with it.
Consider that:
I recently attended a barbecue that was wryly dubbed “Grill, baby, grill!” by its hosts. As I was leaving they gave me a small sack of newly cut rhubarb. Alaskans are nuts about the stuff. In the old days, rhubarb was the first fresh food of the year. To the pioneers it must have tasted positively ambrosial after a winter of sourdough bread and boiled beans.
Modern-day sourdoughs can get all the fresh produce they want at Costco, yet they maintain an ancestral fondness for this vegetable that masquerades as a fruit. Even people who don’t eat it grow it, probably because it takes no horticultural talent at all. Stick a rhubarb root into dry cat litter and by morning you’ll have enough stalks to bake a pie. (Stick it in used cat litter and you’ll have enough for two pies.)
Recently I flew to Anchorage, Alaska for a 10-week housesitting gig/visit. I generally go with just a carry-on bag, but my new neck-supporting pillow takes up a big chunk of that bag. I couldn’t stuff much Stuff into the small space where the pillow wasn’t.
A real frugalist just hates to pay checked-bag fees. Were this to have been a short trip I’d have simply used a rolled-up towel under my neck. But 10 weeks is a little long to subject my creaky neck to a tube o’terrycloth. Into the bag went the pillow and into another bag went a bunch of my stuff.
Plus some birthday presents, and some mayonnaise.
Every so often I stop by the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop near my apartment. Not to buy a sandwich, though: To spend 50 cents on one of yesterday’s baguettes, which I call “calypso bread.”
That’s because it’s day-old.
Daaaaaay-old.
Daaaaaaa-aaaay old.
Any of you who aren’t laughing yet, follow this link. Go ahead. I’ll wait.