I didn’t have a lot of reading time this week because I stayed in Chicago for a few days after attending SaveUp 2010. Thus my recommended reading list is short and sweet. A cheaper Christmas? at I Pick Up Pennies Get a bigger check from Social Security at Kiplinger’s (hint: timing is everything) 25 a-peeling … Read more
The random number generator chose Deedee as the lucky recipient of the soap-and-germ package. Yes, she gets her very own stuffed cootie to go with all that laundry detergent and softener.
It occurred to me, belatedly, that the little guy’s picture might be available on the Internet somewhere. It was:
Here’s today’s word, and it’s a funny one: gofobo. (Try saying it five times, fast.) This movie-mad site offers access to free screenings, contests and events.
I’d been planning to write about free movies but my daughter beat me to it. Well, at least she got me off my dime. Which, of course, means saving you some dimes. Lots of them. I’ve paid as much as $10.25 for a matinee ticket in Seattle.
As Abby notes in the blog post linked above, gofobo is chronically last-minute; you might have 24 hours or less to respond.
“Still, what’s the worst that happens? You get an offer on a movie you can’t go to,” she writes. “I’d say that’s one of the smaller tragedies in life.”
About that $10.25 ticket: It was a business expense. Otherwise I would have used a freebie. Here are some other ways to get them.
Alas, it’s not another $100 Amazon gift card. I wish I could give away one of those every week (and keep a few for myself).
However, it is a $10 head start on something you want — and it comes with chocolate!
My Ani DiFranco T-shirts are fraying. Not before time, you understand: They’re from a 1997 concert in Anchorage, Alaska, which I reviewed. Originally they belonged to my daughter, who went to the concert with me.
The gray tee features a DiFranco verse:
“So I’ll walk the plank and I’ll jump with a smile/If I’m gonna go down I’m gonna do it with style/And you won’t see me surrender, you won’t hear me confess/’Cuz you’ve left me with nothing – but I’ve worked with less.”
The other shirt, a kind of an old rose/mauve color, bears a single lyric:
“Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.”
Neither of us could have known that would be the last summer of Abby’s first life. Seven months after that concert she was on life support in the UW Medical Center’s intensive care unit. Guillain-Barre syndrome paralyzed her right up to her eyeballs and nearly killed her. She’d recover function but would never be the same.
I am wearing flip-flops that I bought at Rite Aid when my daughter was two years old. Abby will be 32 in August.
Granted, these zoris didn’t get a whole lot of use during my 17 years in Alaska. But I’m still amazed how well they’ve held up. I’m also grateful: They kept my feet off the ground for three days straight when my broken toe convinced me not to put on a real shoe.
Abby has her own cheap-but-dependable anecdote, which she detailed in a blog post called “Unexpected quality.” Her favorite pair of shorts, which she’s been wearing for 11 years, cost $10. It amuses her how “some of the cheapest things turn out to be so ridiculously durable.”