Just say NO to Digital Price tags & "Dynamic Pricing!"

Managed to make plans for today (because Tomorrow is supposed to be cold & rainy & I don't need that) & then actually get out and get them done. Which means shopping for groceries at Walmart. But not before I saw foodstuffs in a box on the donation table! Snagged 4 pounds of rice, a can of low sodium pasta sauce, 1 can no salt corn, 1 can low sodium Campbell's soup (120 mg per serving which comes close to the 110 mg per serving of another soup I like). And a tiny loaf of whole wheat bread which I froze for later. I passed on the 1,000 tiny packets of various fruit jelly from Borgor Knig, but I did pick up the 5% juice pink lemonade bottle.

Got over to Da Store. Someone kindly left (selfishly) one of the shopping carts out in the parking lot (which you're REALLY not supposed to do) and with 100% reading for the battery. It ran fine though it has a sticky thing when turning to the right. Saved me some walking!

I've learned to not go to produce & bread right off the bat and leave picking up the heavy stuff (milk, pop, and other drinks) for last. Get to the cereal aisle and there's a whole swath of the cereal shelves just fricken EMPTY. Was there a recall? I bought a box of Confetti Cheerios (among the cereal I got) but the cashier forgot to remove the coupon... But it's still good until November & on other products.

So last time the Anthem food program card doesn't pay for "Frozen, processed meats" like morning sausage patties. It needs to be freshly packed meat. So I found a 2 pound chicken tenders package for $8.82. So the rest of the purchase with the card is thusly: 1 gallon milk, 1 package Queso shredded, 3 loaves bread, 1 big jar of peanut butter. The total came to $25.01. Perfect!

One thing I finally remembered to look for was the Kinder Bueno ice cream thingy because Cyana heard about them & asked her mom to get a box... (There's also a Gnutella ice cream thingy.) And I rarely buy these things, so why not. But at the price for a box of 4? I won't buy them again. 

 

I've been wanting to replace my little frying pan for sausage patties & eggs because the non stick surface is coming off & over by the bread they had them hanging up! But man, $7.88? Were they always that price? And I see while Green Peppers are below $1 each, the $2.97 apples are $3.74 now...

Saw some curious packs of Matcha whatever it was in the baking aisle... but at $19 a tiny pack? GTFO with that! I bet I could get it for pennies on the dollar elsewhere online!

That one Monster High doll still on the shelf next to the other empty spaces has yet to go on sale... the one I want but nobody seems to be buying her. I see Playmates has brought out Winx dolls based on the Fletnix showing (which nobody watches) and they're not only ugly but wearing ... shorts? oh no. oh no no no no NO no. But hey at least there's a magic item which I have no idea what it is. I guess Nickelodeon should be the Spongebob Channel now because that seems to be the only thing they run.

And another thing not on the cat food shelf was Friskies Turkey Paté. It was simply not there as was most single can paté. I guess if I wanted it, I'd have to buy a multi-can pack.

ALSO WHEN DID WALFART ALLIANCE START USING DIGITAL PRICE TAGS??? I will be writing to my Ohio legislature reps to make sure Ohio passes a law banning Dynamic Pricing practices. IE These tags can be changed on the fly "based on demand" at any given moment to rip off people. I heard about this and a month ago those things weren't there!

I managed to make it in, tried to get some sleep but Poofball kept meowing at me until I threw down some "Happy Powder" after which he seems to have relaxed. Excuse me as I take the rest of this week to recharge.

Baked & stuffed Portobello mushroom caps

 

Supper tonight was 2 large Portabello mushroom caps I got from the marked down produce area yesterday while getting things. I didn't want to make these into Mushroom Burgers because I reserve bread for meat. I wanted a baked, stuffed mushroom dish. And after consulting 2 recipes, I put 1 together & got this. Rice & cheese with sauteed diced onion in oil & a bit of garlic with some thyme for color, Parmesan & blue cheese & shredded Queso mixed in & on top, and a sprinkle of Paprika for color. Bake for 25 minutes at 400F.  The mushroom added a nice flavor note.

 

 

 

May the 4th was almost with me

May 4th - about as perfect a day for getting refills & payments & doing what I needed to do as it can get. Temperatures were not too cold but not too hot, making wearing a long sleeve shirt perfect. Sunny, blue skies, a few road crews out doing their things, hitting green lights when I needed to... Driving not too fast but then I had one guy in front of me for most of my travel towards Minerva slowing me down. Minor annoyance as I was not in a hurry. I managed to get outside my building around 11:15, made a loop around to toss my garbage & cat poop, and was actually early.

Get to the credit union - nobody else in the parking area. Nobody in front of me making me have to stand longer than I would like. Got my money, counted it back to avoid having to be called to find out if I was given more money than I should have... Walked back to my vehicle which started up at the building just fine and continued to work.

Was going to call Mike to have him meet me at Disney Drug Mart but waited until I was there & before I went in to call him. Got his voicemail annoyingly, so being May the 4th, I couldn't resist. Didn't return my call while there...

Dropped off my 2 refills which I had prepared a month ago! Got payments, lotteries not worth playing. Shopped for mostly non-food items which I always got at DDM... I should have waited for a steno tablet at Walfart because I ended up getting a Shrinkflated 80 sheet tablet when mine was 100. Floor cleaner, air time card, body spray, dry cat food & stick margarine which Walfart was oddly out of stock, grabbed a marked down pack of Portobello mushroom caps, marked down chocolate doughnut holes, and a 99 cent clearanced Swiss chocolate cake mix. Green peppers were above $1 each here as well (why are these not sold by weight?), passed on a bag of apples, snacks, and any additional drink (cider or pop). Also noticed Disney Drug Mart no longer has bagged Malt-o-meal cereals...

Refills were $1.60, paid for my stuff, got some gas, and drove over to Mike's place to see if he was there and got his return call just as I was looking for a place to park. So everything up to now timed out perfectly. Handed him the 2 cables he needed to charge his phone, identified the Micro USB port on a rechargeable light he bought. As I drove on, he called me while I was doing so and I never answer my phone while driving. Called him back when I got parked to find out what it was about. Funniest thing is he thought I was going to go in, get that cable he could use, and drive back to Minerva, then back to the building. "Mike, I'm done! What I was going to do, I've done it. I'm going inside and collapsing on my bed." I was able to return to my spot & I'm NOT leaving it.

That would have been entirely true if wasn't for getting officialness on my rent money order receipt & getting in & putting things away I discovered my wallet wasn't in my pants pocket. Ah. I had heard something fall on the floor in the vehicle as I grabbed the backpack.

So after I got the cold stuff put away, I did collapse onto my bed, took something of a nap, dosed myself more acetaminophen, waited until 6 p.m. & dragged myself out again & got into my vehicle & saw my wallet right where I expected it. Bonus for my efforts was a bottle of Newman's Own poppy seed salad dressing & a box of Jewish Matzo crackers on the donation table. Those particular crackers are 0 Sodium & therefore great with tomato soup & keep a long time.

And for that extra effort, I'm paying the price of lingering body pain the next day. Acetaminophen takes the edge off but I'm still sleepy.
 

Frank I. Szabo, in passing...

I found out a few days ago a person I had sort of roomed with during my attempt at DeVry in Columbus, Ohio had died in 2007. His name was Frank Szabo. He was from New Jersey & Pennsylvania, and he had a lot to say about lots of things. He was tall, imposing, more worldly than I was, and yet he was only a few years older than me. I have memories of him - not necessarily good memories as we weren't friends but mostly cohabitators.

He made fun of my 1st impression as I met my new college roommates in our student supported apartment because I shook with my left hand. I don't know why he singled me out for this stuff. He would tell me how "If you give a Jewish boy $1.50 this week, next week he'll have $5" in a way to tell me I made bad buying choices such as when I bought all 5 Voltron Lions in the plastic version at Toys R Us. He was supposed to have moved out by the time I moved in, but he was buddies with the other guys in the place so they let him crash on a bed in the basement (there never were inspections as far as I know so he never got caught) but he was supposed to pay to each of us who were supposed to be there a portion of the $180 per person rent DeVry was ripping students off with. I never saw a dime.

He spoke about having a cameo in Flashdance and even rented a copy on tape to show me his moonwalking scene while holding an umbrella and wearing a black jacket. He was so much slimmer then... what happened? His name is even in the credits... I once saw him in the DeVry labs using one of those microprocessor breadboard kits hooked up to an oscilloscope and making it display a scrolling rocket animation, while people coming by to see it working, saying things like, "The guy knows his stuff!" and generally being impressed.

He could get part time work at places like Eastland Mall area's Brown Derby, telling me things like don't order things like a salad at a steakhouse because that's cheap food & fills you up before eating the expensive steak. I was always the target of his pranks or at least whatever mischievous thing he could pull in the moment. There's too many things, mostly unpleasant. He picked about the smallest things, any perceived slight, and I ended up on the bad end of it. He picked on me having stuck a potato in a jar in a cabinet (I had hoped to cook & eat it later but with all the distractions I forgot) and later it rotted, stunk, and had to be thrown out. He picked on someone drinking from a bottle of grape juice he had in the fridge & accused me of doing it, like he could go to each of the other guys and ask them but wouldn't believe me if I said I didn't touch it. If I had dropped something outside, he would tap the end of a broom he was holding near it, daring me to pick the object up otherwise he would try to hit my hand. Those are the Frank the Asshole moments.

Eventually the student apartment lease from DeVry was ended, I had to leave (I wanted out anyway), met George Jenkins from Temperance, MI & we decided to split a studio in a nearby apartment community (later I would regret that decision). I managed to get away with Frank's portable chess set with a 1964 half dollar and silver lightning bolt necklace inside. I sold the chess set & necklace on eBay in the late 1990s for a fair amount, kept the silver half dollar for some time.

I had my interactions with Frank, not all of them entirely bad, but not all of them memorable. He was just another person I had to deal with and when he wasn't being an asshole could be entertaining. It was him and his group who took me to my 1st Chuck E Cheese's and then Showbiz Pizza Place in the same night (Eastland Mall area had both). It's surprising to know he ended up in Missouri, got married, had a kid, and started up a business. I don't even know when he graduated, but he did. 42 is still too young to die, even if I didn't fondly remember him. All I had of his existence are 2 photos I shot with a 126 camera, 1 of him getting a Bundy Splash by a friend (his name was Lauren) with Mo from South Africa helping. And the other with him & Mo in the basement with the ping pong table, 1 other guy you can barely see, and Frank's bed in a corner. Like I said, nobody checked to see if he had moved out or to ask why there's a bed in the basement.  

The orange didn't go to waste

I was looking forward to supper tonight because I was finally going to make that Sweet & Sour Orange sauce, deep fry the boneless breaded chicken tenderloin meal I got for free, and then decided to cut up 3 potatoes I've had languishing in my fridge for months into fries & deep fry that, too. The free meal even had some cauliflower & pear cubes for a fruit. At least this time the fruit didn't get microwaved.

The Orange Sauce came together easily & quickly - and the free orange didn't go to waste. The recipe needed the juice & zest of 1 orange (about 1/2 cup) which is what I had. I figure if the breaded chicken wasn't Orange Chicken, at least the sauce would be! AND IT TURNED OUT SO GOOOD! I let this meal thaw out in the fridge overnight, and fried up crispy in only a few minutes. And stayed crispy even after getting the sauce all over it. And what's neat is I even put the cauliflower in the sauce... and the french fries went in the same sauce pan (left over sauce), got coated in whatever was left, and it mixed well with the ketchup I had! Orange sauce & ketchup? It tasted darn good!

Smelled nice in here after baking bread... had a bit of a failure with that, and after having my deep fryer on, still smells nice in here. Good thing I'm not hungry now.

Crock Pot Pinto Bean Chili today...

After taking out my trash around noon (and glad I did it then), I came back to wait for my pinto beans to finish their 3 hours on high in the crock pot for another round of Pinto Bean Crock Pot Chili. So after 3:30, I turned it off & got the rest of the ingredients ready - browning the 1 lb of ground turkey, chopped onions & celery (as green peppers were too expensive), adding minced garlic, crunchy chili garlic sauce, and the rest of the spices. Plus it finally gave me the chance to finally use up the 8 ounces of mushrooms I bought back on the 3rd! They were fine, needed rinsed & sliced. Once I got everything in, the green crock was full.

Got to taste the residue from the crank chopper to break up the browned ground turkey which is where & when I add the dry spices. That gave me an idea of how it's going to taste when done. Fat spreads flavor! I had some burger grease in the skillet when I browned the turkey. 3 - 4 more hours on low & it already smells good in here! 

Addenda from Friday

Additional notes from Friday's shopping:

    It was cheaper to buy a bundle of celery ($1.94) than it was to buy 2 green peppers ($1.27 EACH). That thing of Ralphie May and $97 salads was prescient. Salad dressing? I remember in 2019 when Walmart bottles of blue cheese were under a buck. Today it's $2.32. What the flipping hell happened? I could go to Dollar General for $1.50 bottles but I don't have the stamina to run around anymore. 1 store & done. I might shop at Aldi more but I don't get their ads in the mail anymore. Meijer doesn't seem to send out ads either.

 
    I verified the $10 packs of Friskies canned food & I really should have gotten 1 plus another pouch of treats Poofball likes but the aisle was busy & I wanted to avoid that much activity. I didn't even check out the toy area nor buy any snack chips. The only thing special I got was the 1 pound Reese's bunny because it was half off & I was looking for marked down Easter candy. They had so much unsold Peeps & plastic eggs & basket "grass." Might as well take it out back & torch it. Heh.

Friday night's supper was French bread pizza as has been my tradition to buy a $1 loaf from the bakery extras cart & make it with that. Saturday was more Crock Pot Lentils. Sunday I'm still sleepy & tired. Serviced the cat pan already, now have a letter to print & an envelope to mail. Got some physical stuff & floor mopping to do for the next week or so. Bought a new mop on Rent Day.

Anthem Food card doesn't help pay for just anything...

First time shopping for groceries & using the cheap ass Anthem Blue whatever food card. I wanted to know what it was going to pay for, but I selected "healthy" foods anyway, or what I thought would be considered as such. It's cheap ass because it doesn't provide $25 every month, but instead is loaded with only $150 for 12 months. United's card was DOUBLE that.

My list: 1 gallon 1% milk, 3 loaves honey wheat bread, large jar of natural peanut butter, bag of shredded queso cheese, and 1 bag of spicy frozen breakfast sausage patties.

THE CARD REFUSED TO PAY FOR THE MEAT. I don't have a list of what it will or won't pay for, BUT EVEN THE UNITED FOOD CARD PAID FOR MEAT.  United card did not pay for carbonated pop, cookies, snacks, pre-made desserts, or candy, and I expect this Anthem card will act the same, but not paying for frozen meat? I will try again with fresh packed meat next month and see what it does. Then I will have to see if I can get a list of stuff of what their program considers "healthy." Likely stuff such as produce. THEY'D BETTER NOT BE TRYING TO FORCE A VEGETARIAN AGENDA. I will NOT have it.

UPDATE: I found out the meat it wouldn't pay for was considered Processed & Frozen. If I had picked up fresh packed meat, then it would have paid for it.

Small excitement

Our previous building manager who took 2025 off for tax reasons (not really) finally saw my note I've been leaving with my rent payment for the past 3 months & TODAY got the form finished for my stated rent increase which I can now copy & send off. I was only $1 short from the actual amount.

Absentee ballot arrived today, filled out, mailed back with 2 stamps on it. Bought a dress shirt off Big Dude Clothing for an upcoming passport photo as I intend to renew that soon. I didn't have any solid color neutral shirts for such a thing. At least Big Dude gave me 10% off.

And I was rewarded for my efforts to attend to extra curricular activities with still cold & frozen food stuffs on the donation table - a bag of mixed vegies with Arabic writing on it (which I've seen before) & 4 single plate frozen microwave entrees. 

I needed some comfort, so I made mac & cheese

After the month of March I had, I needed some comfort, and with 2 bricks of cheese & free macaroni, with the 2 cans of evaporated milk I got on Friday, I was going to get some! Whipped it up under 30 minutes thanks to the miracle of parallel processing - letting the macaroni cook slowly in a small pot while I got the roux, milk, and cheese going in the Dutch oven. When I heard the milk & roux start plopping, that was the sign to get the shredded pepper jack into the pot, turn off all the burners, drain the macaroni, and get that cheese melted in. Add 1/2 of the macaroni, stir to combine & coat, get the remaining macaroni in, and combine. Not much while hot or warm - this comes into its own when cold. Yum.