• One heck of a morning to you

    The morning started off swell… I didn’t get up until 9:30. What else could you ask for? Perhaps 10:30? I digress. Since I woke I’ve been chasing down my son trying to discourage his most recent habit, cat burglary. He has taken to sneaking around the house with one of his miniature fold-up chairs, unfolding it in strategic positions to gain access to various forbidden zones around the house. It appears he’s even learned he can quietly close a door to a crack to mask his activities. Through trial and error he’s no doubt learned that there’s no surer way to bring his parent’s attention than a door mysteriously snapping closed – almost as sure as hearing little hands quietly riffle through a forbidden drawer.

  • Next

    I’ve got great news! I just saved a bunch of money on my grocery bill!

    I used to be a grocery snob. You know the type, those people who fall for the raz-mataz of a “name brand.” I’d go grocery shopping and look down my long, anglo-germanic nose at “those people” with the store labels in their cart. Well a funny thing happened on my way to insolvency… I decided to try and save a little money.

    There are several ways to solve a budget problem:
    1. increase income;
    2. decrease expenses; or,
    3. die.

    I’m a happy-go-lucky civil servant, so that rules out two options…

    So I decided to take a looksie and see where my budget could stand some shaving. As it turns out groceries are one of our biggest monthly expenses; and somewhere between gluttony and malnutrition there’s some wiggle room. So I went to the store this afternoon and set aside my petty bias and had my self a generic brand ho-down. It wasn’t until I was checking out that I noticed that my cart looked like something out of science fiction. Where else do you see a collection of different kinds of food in nearly identical packaging and labeling. All I could think of were those scenes from Lost where they discover caches of Dharma Initiative food stuff, with the identical, generic black and white labels. So far so good though, I did save some money.

    Now we just have to see if the stuff is edible.

  • We’re still here

    It wasn’t a sure thing though, after yesterday. The butcher’s bill for the Kauffman Family Household (v.2.2.1) on Tuesday, September 12 is as follows:

    Two doctor’s appointments
    Nine allergy shots
    Two long telephone calls, of the banking kind
    A haircut

    All of this occurred on a weekday, which is just plain crazy… everyone knows you get a haircut on the weekend. We would surely not be here to discuss this if not for the heroic efforts of my wife, who took the day off.