Frugal Wobble

So, there was this cool thing.  And then I bought it.  I may not have been frugal. 

I took some frugal steps before the purchase:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need
2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item
3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person
4) I checked the budget
5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price
6) I looked at it in person

So, you ask...what was this?

It was, and is something super cool.



It is an old hotel safe with "safe deposit" type boxes in each little locking cubbie.


The locks all turn, and have keys.  It's so fiddly and oak and heavy.

Here's how it fits in with the above frugal steps:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need --  I wanted something cool to put my silverware and other small kitchen things in when I finally get a real house built.  I have items to make shelves and a countertop but no drawers or small item mouse proof storage.  I was looking for something unique to use for that.  This should be it.

2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item -- I saw it on craigslist and I waited and thought about it before contacting the seller. 

3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person  --  Once I did contact the seller and determined it was still available, I let it go another few days.

4) I checked the budget -- self-explanatory

5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price --  it cost a few hundred bucks.  So, I pulled as much as I was willing to spend, put as much as I WANTED to pay into one of those bank envelopes so it looked like I had a hard budget.  The rest was in my pocket in smaller bills.  The combined total was the max I would willingly spend.

6) I looked at it in person --  I had a list in my head of disqualifying traits:  smells like cat pee, animal damage, bat/rat/mouse crap inside, urethane finish on it, rusty hinges, etc

It was/is in pretty good shape, certainly for the age, did not stink, had the expected level of dirt on it from being old and has an original varnish finish which I prefer.

I tried the bank envelope trick but the dude was hardcore and I had to pull money out of my pocket.  I spent 75$ less than my top dollar, but more than I had hoped. 

With something like this there is also the "out" of reselling if things go awry.  I could recoup at least part of the money.

So far, no buyer's remorse.  I really like it.  It fit into the storage unit so no additional cost to keep it until I can put it into use.

Western Montana Artisanal Kombucha and Good Food

I took a work trip to Whitefish, Montana.  While the hotel wasn't thrifty, frugal, or particularly impressive for the $$, it was paid for by work so what the hell.
For the record, it was the "Lodge at Whitefish Lake."  It's fine, but at about 100$ a night I got much less than I get at my usual 50-70$ a night hotels.  No free breakfast, slow wifi, no control of room heat (several of the conference attendees agreed that the thermostats had no effect on the room temp).  My room was 71degs F the WHOLE TIME.  I can't sleep that warm.  I only had a sliding glass door to a patio, which was lovely, but no window to crack and leave open in hopes of cooling off a bit.   The gas fireplace had 2 temperature settings, 1: world's biggest pilot light  2: center of the sun.

The good bits were the food elsewhere.  I didn't try food at the "Lodge."  The prices were not in my approved range for standard fare.

So, road trip!

Just down the road 1/2 mile was the Montana Tap House.  The food...meh.  Cheap and edible.  It looked like the "cook" had to go out the back door and back in to bring food.
The brews though!  Good!  My colleague tried a beer and said it was excellent.
I had a beet kombucha on tap from Dark Side Fermenters.   It was most excellent!!!

I know one of the fermenters...kombuchers...one of the people who owns the company who makes the stuff.  OK, I sort of know him.  He's adorbs.  Hi Pete!

Had I known I could get them to fill a growler I would have gone to a thrift store and gotten one of those football-sideline-beverage-cooler things and brought home about 5 gallons.  Damn.  Next time.

The colleague and I headed south one day to tour some work relevant sites.  Really.

We of course, had to eat as well.  

Polson, Montana...who knew the food was so good???  

First we stopped at Flathead Lake Cheese.  Go get some.  I don't even eat cheese (damn you dairy!)

I tasted a tiny bit.  It was good.  I got some for office gifts and it was well received.  Smoked gouda and some garlicky cheese curds.  The place is all solar and you buy cheese out the side window of the old house.  It's the bomb.

Next door, across the alley actually, is the Cherries BBQ Pit.  OMG!  Brisket sandwich is awesome.  For reals.  It came with 2 sides, 8$ total.  I got "ribbon fries" and coleslaw.  A ribbon fry turns out to be a giant russet potato sent through a veggie spiralizer into hot fat.  It was HUGE.  And delicious.  The coleslaw was quite nice.  I also ordered some pork rinds for the table.  They come sprinkled with the house rub.  Very very very good.  And huge.

This was the first time in ages I could not finish a meal.  I took it with me and had it for supper.  2 meals for 11$ (including the rinds).  I tried to buy a bottle of the jack daniels sauce, but the waitress lady never quite figured out that my saying "I want to buy a bottle of that" meant that I wanted to buy a bottle of that.

There is a drive through but I went inside and sat down like a grown up.

No great meals on the way home sadly.  We had to just drive straight through.  Oh well.  I plan to take a road trip to the area again as a leisure trip and to bring my stretchy pants.

When Did America Decide Kids Are Stupid?

I've got TV this week.  Not much.  A few broadcast channels.  Hence this is not a full survey of children's programming.  It's impressions from PBS programming.

When did kids get stupid?  The shows on offer are insulting to the intelligence of a toddler.  Squeaky baby animal characters are the most common lead figures.  Followed by squeaky baby humanoids.  Ew. 

In my day....(spoken like an oldster)...we had cartoons with irony and snark. I like irony and snark (my character would be "Captain Obvious).  I liked irony and snark as a child.  Bugs Bunny, who is now a baby for some creepy anti-aging reason, was sarcastic and a bit mean sometimes.  Elmer Fudd may have a stutter, but he doesn't talk like a squeaky toy.  No wonder children end up surfing the internet and finding porn.  It's less insulting, though possibly more damaging. 

Of course, I was the kid who loathed Mr. Rogers.  I don't like being talked down to and that cat puppet gave me the willies.  Still, he's starting to look better to me.  There were real topics and sometimes he talked about issues that were in the news.

We were also apparently smart enough back in the day to understand that even though the road runner could fall off a cliff and be smashed flat, then stretch-pop back into a normal shape, such a feat was not possible for human children.  I do not remember, nor can I find evidence of, any rash of children jumping from heights because they were inspired to emulate the road runner.  We also rarely built bombs despite Wile E. Coyote's constant attempts.   They never seemed to work for him anyway.

The cartoons I've seen this week have been pandering to the stupidest children and their genetic source material, the parents.  I don't like it. 

The laundromat I go to generally has a dvd of a classic cartoon from the 1960s and 1970s running so I have seen the adult Bugs Bunny recently for comparison.  I AM disturbed by the weird racism in the old cartoons.  Perhaps there can be new exciting versions that are not completely infantile and not racist. 

I also wonder what happens when kids turn about 7 or 8 years old and they can't hack the squeaky baby pablum cartoons and switch to hyperviolent superhero cartoon and live action stuff. 
Probably they will grow up just fine like humans always have, but they will have wasted all that time on crap TV.

Random Thoughts on Pants

Even Carhartt is making their pants stretchy.  Dang.  I'm down to 4 pairs of pants that more or less fit and have zero stretchiness to them.
Turns out, lack of stretch is more important to me than fit or cost.

One pair of my current jeans is a men's Levi's without stretch, but they are boot cut and tight on my lady thighs. But they are 100% cotton and the pockets are full size.

Tiny pockets are the other loser in women's jeans.

Another pair is flannel lined. They are lady jeans, straight leg, decent size pockets and no stretch.  With the flannel, they are only good for winter but I was thinking I could get another pair and cut the flannel out.  Alas, they are discontinued.  The new model is stretchy.  WTF?  Two layers of stretchy, because the flannel is also stretchy, would be like wearing tights over pantyhose. 

My third pair is ancient Carharrt lady jeans in 100% cotton.  The pockets are a bit small.  Apparently because girl car keys are smaller than man car keys.  Whatever.  They are long enough, and shapeless, but they don't have stretch so I wear them.  Somehow I tore the shin wide open, only on the pants, not my actual shin, and these are not double fronts.  So, I patched it with scraps of previous non-stretchy jeans.  The seams are frayed and there are parts of those jeans that are so thin you could read newsprint through them.  So, not long for this world.

The final pair is a set of lady, short waisted, medium leg length, 100% cotton double front Carhartts.  The holy grail of pants for me.  If they were inches longer, they would be perfect.
But, they aren't. 
I tried ordering a brand new pair of these, paying retail (well, sale retail but it's so rare I don't buy thrift and instead get on the internet and order pants that it's newsworthy, or blogworthy).  35$ including shipping.  That's a lot for a garment in my book. 

I read the reviews that these run BIG.  I was about an 8 by the size chart so I ordered a 4.  Well, gentle reader, you and I could have both put those on..  They were a 34 inseam so that was good, but I could take them off without unzipping.  And the leg opening.  I like a straight leg on my trousers.  These were oddly HUGE at the bottom.  Like so huge they would catch on crap.
Still, they were nice hard cotton double fronts and I had to pay to send them back so I get back on line to see if there is a size 2 long left.  Nope.  In fact, they never made the 2 in a long.  Crap.  I don't want to pay retail for inadvertent capris.

I have worn men's carhartts.  They are tough and last well and are available long enough, but rarely in a small enough waist size.  Not many men apparently wear a 30x34.  When they do, the rise is about 2 feet long so they button right to my bra.  I could cut armholes just below the waist band.

There is a company in Montana now that will make real hard cotton pants.  Red Ants Pants.
The pants are 139$, but they are 100% cotton, double front, double butt, gusseted crotch, come in a straight cut, full size pockets, have a longer inseam option, and are made in the USA.  So, we'll see.  Perhaps I will use christmas money for a pair.

Wranglers do make a few styles in 100% cotton.  So far all the options I've tried, including the men's option, were way too big in the butt and waist by the time I got my thighs in them.  I suppose I could use a hula hoop instead of a belt and carry my groceries around in the resulting waist basket.  They fit like clown pants with tight legs.  I tried a pair I got from a thrift store with new tags on them.  Alas, I took them back after 1 wearing.  The bubble butt and tight thighs caused a problem different from the stretchy pants.  Stretchy pants ride down all day, requiring lots of yanking up and the pantyhose squat move (where you have to grab the waist, yank up with all your might while doing a wide stance squat, then stand back up, still yanking.  This gets the crotch back up in the vicinity of your actual crotch).  With the thin thigh big butt wranglers, the pants rode UP all day.  I spent my day doing the wedgy hop (where you grab the butt crack seam and yank down while hopping up a bit, then grab the thigh fabric and shimmy it down a bit).   These activities BOTH piss me off. So, sorry wranglers, unless you acknowledge that some women have thighs without the bubble butt, we're over.

Once again, I may end up getting tailored pants.   I tried that through Lands End once.  It took a half dozen returns and turn arounds and eventually I got workable pants that were long enough and straight enough.  I got compliments.  Alas, they would not go short enough in the rise. They weren't truly tailored, it was a computer program that made a one-off pattern. I fell outside the allowable limits.  So, while the pants looked good, they were gouging by ribs every time I wore them. 

If anyone knows a good tailor who will make my new blue jeans...let me know.

Dear Duffer, Open Your Eyes

This is a response to a letter to the editor and common comments I hear at professional meetings (I'm an anthropologist, not a field the world is dependent on and still this silly myopic lament is common).
And to an asinine country western song.

The title of the letter to the editor in the local paper is this:

Who's going to fill their shoes?

Well, if you have to ask, I'm going with "not you."

The letter writer was, and probably still is, wondering who will fill the shoes of the county commissioners and other local "leaders."   Leaders who are pointedly unkind to large portions of the community.  They were the movers and shakers of their day.  Like many movers and shakers, as they age, they tend to cling to past glory rather than mentor up or help someone get ready to take the reins and, god forbid, take things in a new direction.  Never mind that the current "shoes-fillers" made big changes back when they were starting out.  Kicking out the aging curmudgeons who had the community stuck in the past.  Guess what, after 50 years, you, dear current shoe-filler, are now the curmudgeon stuck in the past.  You are the one packing the local boards with your cronies and making  sure the school educates kids for professions that are on the way out, the ones that were good jobs in your day, rather than professions that are on the way up.

So, letter writer, when you say "who is going to fill their shoes," try looking around.  Not everyone in your generation was a leader.  Not everyone in the younger generations is a leader. But some are.  How about the National Merit Scholar who just won a full ride at an ivy league school?  What are you doing to attract her back to your community...oh right, she's a girl, not a leader in your eyes.  Also, a book worm, which you don't respect.

What about your former chief of police who is also a chainsaw champion (yes, we have chainsaw contests here)?  Oh right, she's a middle aged woman.  Not a leader in your eyes.  If I remember right, and I do because I looked it up, you were among those who ousted her for playing nice with the local minority population. She is a leader.  And she's still a leader and she's still living in your community.

What about the dude who is running for county commissioner despite the fact that one pair of the shoes you are looking to fill has been commissioner for nearly 2 score years and bad things happened to those who've run against him in the past?  How about encouraging him to support someone younger coming in to the position and being willing to share the history of the county politics and struggles and advise new commissioners on handling local politics and business interests?

Rather than just lamenting "who's going to fill their shoes" you could be helping folks learn the ropes and fill the shoes.  Look around.  And quit looking at funerals. The dead have better things to do.  And they're dead.  Look at the young and middle aged people who are doing new and different things that are helping the community and be open to the idea that MAYBE they are going to change things just like the current shoe-fillers did back in their day.  Get over it.  Get over yourself.  Get over the past.  

Seriously Safeway?

So, I don't usually shop in large chain groceries as part of my attempt to shop more locally.  I shop at farmers markets, veggie stands, the Moscow Food Co-op, local chain "Rosauers" and sometimes Winco if I need a GIANT bag of sugar (for the bees...hi bees!), or some Zevia pop.  (That's right POP.  It's not SODA.  It's POP.  Baking soda is "soda.")  Anyway, not usually you're safeways or albertsons.

Alas, last week, I needed a few burger buns (cooking up some elk that I was given into pulled elk sandwiches) for people unaccustomed to the sorts of breads I would eat (organic, sourdough, dark rye, 78 grain sprouted whatever with extra fiber so I poop).  I was near a safeway so I stopped there for some reasonably healthy but familiar looking buns.  I mean, how hard could it be?

HARD.  EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF BURGER BUN in the store had some sort of "deal" on the price label that made it very difficult to decide the cost per bun.  It was things like "3 for 2 deal" with 4 buns a pack, a 2 for 1 deal with 8 buns a pack, a percent discount for people with a loyalty card (making me do higher math for stupid mediocre buns does not buy MY loyalty and certainly does not get you my email or phone number).  The combinations were endlessly varied and the bun sizes varied independently from the number in the pack.  It also turned out, when I finally found a "deal" that would apply to me without my handing over personal contact information to prove my loyalty, that since I bought 1 package, not 3, of that type and a package of another type (seeds vs no seeds), the 2 for 1 deal DID NOT COUNT.  Cripes.  By then I'd spent 15 minutes on damn buns. 

So, safeway, if you can't just tell me the damn price and let me have the product at that price, then you confirm my opinion that giant chain stores are not a value for me.  I'm not going to play "price roulette" at the check out on every item. 

In summary:  bite me.

Growing Food From Scraps

This kind of thing is fun, but cuts into my wormbin scraps supply, but still, I want to try to do more of it.  This year I started ginger for myself and another person.

When asked how long it would take before it was harvestable I said "10 years" because I didn't know.

According to the chart below, it may only take a year.  Nice.

Below are things you can regrow from grocery items or scraps from grocery items.   A warning on the potatoes:  often they are treated with a "no-sprouting" chemical and won't want to sprout.  Buy those organic.  In fact, you could by everything organic and regrow it.

More after the chart...

I have regrown celery.  I got mostly leaves and dried them for winter seasoning.  I've planted organic/local garlic and potatoes that sprouted and had great results.  You don't have to wait for the garlic to sprout.  Just stick it in the ground.