Leafy greens

"What should we get from the farm truck this week?"

Well, we're doing a Fourth of July party, so some cabbage for slaw. Oh, and lettuce for the burgers. Hey, they have kohlrabi - wonder what that tastes like? Let's get some. They've got beets - I like beets. We didn't like turnips that one time, but maybe we didn't give them a fair shake. Let's try them once more before we write them off. We're getting feta, what do we want to put it on? How about some baby spinach?

The beets, turnips, and kohlrabi all came with their greens still attached.

I have leafy greens filling one and a half crisper drawers, the entire bottom shelf, and half the middle shelf of the refrigerator. (Incidentally, why is it that there's a "d" in "fridge" when there's no "d" in "refrigerator"? I always write it wrong and have to fix it.)

Plus, the two cartons of strawberries. And the impulse carton of raspberries (which we were warned needed to be eaten in the next 24 hours because the breed didn't last long, a warning we happily complied with). And the remains of a carton of blueberries.

So yeah, there are a lot of berries and leafy greens in our diet the next couple days.

(no subject)

I'm reading a book called Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, which is predictably shrill but interesting nonetheless. It is, however, crystallizing a thought that I've been aware of for some time but perhaps not blatantly thinking about.

I suck at shopping.

I am really bad at a)determining what the true value of something is and b)evaluating how much I want it. I can't remember prices, I'm terrible at haggling, and I regularly fail at predicting how much I'll value something later. Chuckro knows exactly what the normal price of butter is, what the normal discount on butter is, and at what price you buy six pounds of butter on sale and stuff it in the freezer. Me? Not a clue. Been buying butter for years, Chuckro repeatedly and patiently reminds me how much is too much to pay for butter, it doesn't stick.

I have a closet full of clothes, half of which I adore and are wearing out and I cannot find replacements for, half of which are kind of shoddy or don't fit quite right or aren't actually as stylish as they seemed in the store. I came home from Italy with a dress that's really cute but I subsequently realized isn't as appropriate for the office as I hoped, a wildly impractical but super awesome coat I know I paid too much money for because of the aforementioned sucking at haggling, and a purse that's of excellent quality but is turning out to not fit my needs as well as hoped. All of which I do really like but probably only bought because I was on vacation and I knew there was no chance of ever buying them again. Meanwhile, there were a handful of inexpensive trinkets that I didn't buy because I felt like I was spending too much money and now wish I'd gotten.

I make bad snap decisions. Aware of this, I will over research and dither until I get sick of myself and make a bad snap decision at the end anyway. (When I was a kid, this led to endless fruitless shopping trips. I've gotten better about settling so I get out of the store faster, but I don't think the actual success rate of acquiring things I love at a price comensurate with the value I place on the item.) Frequently things turn out well, but they also turn out badly frequently as well. I don't think I've bought a pair of pants I was actually happy with in three years. My coworkers seem to be able to dress themselves without remorse like grown up people do. Why is it that I'm so bad at this?