The Four-Day Weekend Begins -- Whoo-Hoo! May 27, 2022

This is one of the very few Fridays in nine months that I have not gotten up early to walk Sophia to the bus stop. Yesterday was the last day of school for Sophia this year. Sophia is likely to be home with her family all day -- until she gets bored and wants to come over to our apartment. She's not allowed to watch YouTube videos at her home, but she has total access to my big-screen iPad and she knows how to use it. 

We have no plans for tomorrow, Saturday. 

We have no plans for Sunday.

We have no plans for Monday. 

Nada, nothing. 

We slept in late this morning, though I checked the news, the market, the war, almost everything except Uvalde every hour or so starting about 6:15 a.m.

I see the Europeans have decided to continue funding Putin in his war against Ukraine; the Ukrainians are about to take a huge loss in the east; and, there will still be a shortage of oil this summer, and a worse shortage of natural gas next winter.

Oh, speaking of all of that, that reminds me. Greta has a new book out. The front cover doesn't name an author; it just says "created by Greta Thunberg" or whatever her last name is. 

"Created by" -- not authored -- LOL. God created the world; Greta created a book. 

I woke up to two great essays: one sent to me by a reader and one sent to me by Literary Hub. 

The first, sort of on/about Leonard Cohen, so that piqued my interest. Leonard Cohen is a favorite of mine. Someone gave me a biography of Cohen years ago; I never read it; I did not want my version of Cohen ruined by the facts. 

Likewise I have never read the definitive biography of Steve Jobs. Both were beautiful hardcover books and both were tossed when we downsized. Or at least when I downsized. My wife has not yet done much in that arena.

Oh, speaking of downsizing, sort of. Yesterday, I was going to slice an apple and eat it with caramel -- that caramel that is heavily featured around Halloween every year. I don't recall when I got my little $3.99 tub of caramel but it must have been around Halloween last year (2021). For those who don't know, caramel lasts "forever" in the refrigerator. I eat it infrequently and sparingly and at least three-quarters of the tub was still there. At least it was "there" until it was no longer there. As Tina Fey would say, there was no there there. LOL.

Later in the day I mentioned this to my wife. She said she threw it out because it was old. Yes, it was old, but using that reasoning, she should be getting ready to throw me out. LOL. Worse, I can guarantee you that I do not age as well as caramel, much less wine.

Okay, so I digressed. Not sorry.  

The second essay, the one sent by a reader was by Ammo Grrrll, "Thoughts From The Ammo Line," reflections on Mother's Day.

The two essays were remarkably similar in a funny sort of way. In the first, the author talked about getting to know a famous person through little bits of trivia, and the second was an author tossing bits of trivia about herself. Amazingly, Ammo Grrrll (and her husband) seem to mirror my wife and me "to a T," as they say. 

Etymology of "to a T": link here. My favorite: the variant in which meat on a spit is perfectly done to the proper degree -- the proper turn (1780). The first use might be related to a T-square from the 1600s. If so, that very well could have been another phrase coined by Shakespeare. It's exactly the type of phrase Sir Henry Nevin would have used.

As for me, as soon as I'm done with this, I'm going to make breakfast:

• Keurig coffee, two cups: 58 cents for both (29 cents a piece)
• two ounces of orange juice, 52-ounce bottle for $3.99 = 15 cents
• two eggs, $3.89 / 12 = 65 cents
• a tablespoon of chorizo, I have no idea, maybe 25 cents?
• later: just back from Target; $1.59 for chorizo; I probably get eight servings from that one package; $1.59 / 8 = 20 cents
  
• maybe two slices of white bread, $1.19 / loaf = pennies for the two slices
• fake butter: inconsequential; like the caramel, a tub seems to last "forever"
• grand total: maybe, $1.75. No tax. No tip. I might have four ounces of orange juice. We can afford it. 

Speaking of eggs, it appears the shortage is over. Target now has plenty of eggs, but the price has barely come down. Before the shortage, I could find a dozen eggs for $1.19, but that price quickly escalated to $3.89 if one could find eggs at all. At Target they have come down to $3.19 for a dozen, I believe, and at our regional grocery stores should be slightly less expensive. 

One wonders why Target would drop the price from $3.89 too $3.19? I doubt folks shopping at Target would make a separate trip to Albertson's to get eggs for $3.59.