Hot and humid again, although less so. Same prediction of rain in the afternoon or evening. Which is how yesterday went. We had sun and rain at the same time for part of the afternoon… so we didn’t get clobbered, but I think we’re 4 for 4 on rain in the afternoon now.
Spent the day moving stuff from one bin to another, getting ready to drop off some auction stuff today. Then I went to Costco to get TP and whatever else struck me as a good deal.
Hmm. Spent almost $800 and didn’t get much meat, and got no TP. The TP area was BARE except for one or two pallets of Scott. No paper towels either. The napkins I like were on sale so I got some of those. They were bringing out about 10 pallets of kirkland TP, but I don’t need to mess with that. If they haven’t restocked Charmin Blue, I’ll pull some from my secondary location. It’s not that I don’t have any, I just am getting low at the house.
What I did get was some of the stuff I haven’t bought in a year or more. 3 boxes of ziplok bags for example. Dishwasher pods. $40 in black bins for the auction. And lots of prepared meals. They are very convenient with the kids and with me being out of the house in the late afternoon. They’re not cheap, or a great value, but they are tasty and convenient. I also doubled up some purchases to get ‘caught up’ on some stuff I’d let run down. Butter. Cheese. Potstickers. Cereal. Our eating habits have changed and I’ve got stuff on the shelves that is just sitting there that would have turned over twice a year ago.
There were some gaps. No lamb rib chops, so I couldn’t compare today’s price with 2019. No lamb convenience meals either. Still no spiral sliced ham- I don’t think it’s coming back at this point. They marked down the pallet of Community brand coffee. They had switched flavors from what was selling well (and what I bought) to a lighter blend, and it looks like it didn’t sell at all. I hope they go back to the dark roast, and don’t drop the company completely. There was one Mountain House box on an otherwise empty pallet. People must have been buying today. The black bins were sold out on the floor, so I grabbed some from the second shelf. No flip top bins at all.
There was still rice in different sized bags and a couple of different varieties, but nothing like pre-wuflu. It was more like 70c/lb than 50c. That could be brand, or seasonal variation, or it could be inflation. Oh, and no Breathe Rite strips in the store… weird. Lots of indian food displacing the chinese and korean, lots of stuff I’ve never seen in the store before, but all in smaller quantities. All the canned veg was national brands, not kirkland.
There seemed to be a good assortment of cheap wine options, 8-12$ bottles. More selection at the low end than I remember them having pre-wuflu, and confirms what I saw last time. There were a lot of discounted items too, which almost seemed back to normal. It wasn’t crowded at 4:00-5:30pm while I was there, but they must have had a pretty busy day. Storms headed this way, and political storms brewing might do that.
It’s not just foreign actors that will be testing Bidden and the US. Our own politicians will be looking to exploit his weakness and mistakes too. That will give our enemies even more encouragement as we continue fighting amongst ourselves. Don’t look for peace, prosperity, and stability. It’s going to get a lot worse before we get back to those.
Prep as best you can for whatever threat you see coming. If you feel like you’ve got to lower your profile, don’t just drop off the air here. Let us know you’re going to be ‘spending more time with family’… so we don’t worry. Or change your nickname… although that won’t stop us from noticing your old nick isn’t coming around anymore. Thanks for the support for Ray and his wife, especially from those of you we don’t hear from that often. Glad to know you are still coming by.
There’s only so many ways I can say “get prepped” but despite all the time Bob spent saying it, and I spent saying it, some of you were still caught short last March. Don’t let that happen again. For REALZ this time, get prepped! Anyone with specific questions, ask them. It will give me something specific to write about, or it’ll let the other experts here chime in, like battery discussion does.
And let’s not forget that life does go on, even in the middle of a global pandemic, and the coming civil war, and the world wide rearrangement. Ordinary stuff needs doin’ too. I’m not the only one with kids (or grandkids) and we have an obligation to them too. They’ll be the ones that come out the other side of this, and they’ll need a good foundation to build off of. They sure aren’t getting that in school, they need to get it from us. Building the next generation is the biggest prep of all.
And of course, keep stacking. Piles of stuff, a head full of knowledge and hands full of work, and a few stout friends, and you’ll have what you need to get through, and even thrive.
At least, that’s what I am hoping, and building toward.
nick
-title question referred to mood, or zeitgeist. You tell me if you are seeing it.
