For Fun

Kelly and I went to Costco for next week's party purchases. I had decided ahead of time to get a small keg instead of bottled beer. While we were there, however, I spied the large cases of beer across the store, and wondered if perhaps it might make more sense to just get bottles. So I told Kelly my keg plan, and then added, "But let's go look at the beer just for fun." Overhearing this comment was a woman perhaps beyond middle age but not yet looking like a senior citizen, who retorted, "No, for fun you have to DRINK the beer." At first I chuckled, but as I walked further away my laughs got bigger and bigger, as I realized just how hilarious this off-the-cuff remark was. I think what made it so funny was that it came from a nearing sixty, sweet looking woman. Cheers to you, sweet looking late fifties alcoholic woman.

Good Will Hunting

Oh, just when I think I've got nothing to write about, the wonders of North Park appear yet again. It is harder than I would have thought to give stuff away to Amvets in this neighborhood. I scheduled a pickup for today, and naively left the boxes outside our front gate overnight, since they can pick up as early as 8am (and I'm unemployed...nuff said).

Anyhoo, when I got up this morning and took Dexter out for his morning potty, my first discovery was that one of the two boxes I had left outside was gone. Simply vanished. It was the box full of clothes. I was stunned at first, but then it made sense. And whatever, I mean I'm giving the stuff away anyway.

But Dexter noticed something from the front yard just now, and when I opened the gate to investigate, I found a woman rifling through the remaining box. Let me paint you a picture of this woman: 2/3 shirt which exposed most of her flabby belly, which effortlessly hung over her oversized jean shorts, but not enough to cover the pack of smokes poking out of her front pocket. Also, she smelled and acted somewhat drunk. She was pleasant enough (after getting caught) to apologize and admit that it would have been polite to ask first, then said she had some clothes to give away that she was going to bring over to add to the pile. Of course, I'll be shocked when those clothes never materialize.

The haves and the have nots live just a little too close in this neighborhood for my tastes. Time to use some of my available productivity cycles to take an inventory of the apartment and bump up the renter's insurance accordingly.

Fresh Bread

In honor of Martha Stewart getting out of prison, I am going to reveal a homemaking tip for the kitchen. For many moons I have struggled to keep bread fresh. I cherish that first sandwich when the bread is first opened. Just a day or two after that, the bread begins to either harden or do that crumbly thing. Putting it in the fridge delays it a bit, but not much. And the freezer prevents premature aging, but also hurts the flavor and mandates defrosting.

My solution? A ziploc bag. Now this sounds so obvious as to be stupid, but I'm willing to bet a majority of readers do not use this method. I bought some gallon size ziploc bags (the kind with the easy to lock/unlock pink zippers on top). After I use the bread, it goes back in the bag. Then I zip it all but an inch closed, squeeze all the air out of the bag, then zip it fully closed. When done properly, the bag looks pretty much vaccuum sealed.

I am currently enjoying my fourth sandwich from the current loaf, and with no refrigeration, the bread is still wonderfully soft and fresh.

24-Hour Financial Fitness

So far so good with the cat allergies. It’s been a week, and I haven’t had any symptoms. Hopefully this will continue. Incidentally, Lucy is less of a jerk than I remember. I think she’s happy in our new house, what with the front patio and highly perched window views throughout the house.

I’ve been spending some time at 24 Hour Fitness in Hillcrest. I like the yoga classes there. They are sardine packed with Hillcrest’s flexible elite, but the good instructors and rather fast paced (for yoga) classes keep me coming back. That being said, I despise 24 Hour Fitness due to their business model, which squeezes out as much profit as possible with the following cost-saving tactics:

- Sell as many subscriptions as possible, do not consider gym overcrowding
- Hire flabby, out-of-shape fitness instructors who charge patrons by the hour to walk around the gym with them
- Hire muscular “instructors” whose job is really hard-selling new memberships
- Intersperse the music pumping throughout the gym with advertisements for costly 24 hour fitness extras or friend signup programs.

Basically, it is painfully obvious that the gym’s focus is on making money, not getting people in shape. A gym should make money, but should do a better job hiding its desire to make money. For such a well oiled machine, I’m surprised by the inefficiency of their intercom paging. They have a company-mandated way of paging their instructors, which is the same every time (I wish I could ignore it): “Attention all 24 Hour Fitness Staff, Mike please come to the front desk.” Why alert all the staff when you only want Mike’s attention? How about: “Attention instructor Mike.” You never hear a hospital intercom say: “Attention all Cedar Sinai medical doctors, will Doctor Jones please come to the ER.” I figure tidying up the company policy on paging could save the company $200 a year, which would be enough to repair the stair steppers that keep missing their chains and plummeting me and other riders to the floor.