Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Canine Capers

My dog has arthritis and it hurts sometimes; she twists her elbow the wrong way and yelps in pain. We are glad those days are rare, but she gets a narcotic pain pill the vet dispensed for just such occasions when she cries. Last night.

Then as I was just trying to get some shuteye, the dogs erupted in outrage, barking from indoors and my neighbor came out and I did too and we spotted a coyote she pointed out, and I ran in and grabbed my BIG HUGELY OVERPOWERED flashlight. (I recommend these.)

Thence, shining my OH MY GOD IT'S BRIGHTER THAN ANY I'VE SEEN light, I spied that the coyote had a partner! Two coyotes! Who slinked away, and I confess they were not so frightened as to run. Hmmph. I need a bigger flashlight. 40, 50 million candlepower, I'm thinking. My only neighbor went inside.

In all the excitement, my dog heads outside the gate and barks and goes on patrol. Oh great.

I call, I beg, entreat, implore. No dice. I of course am thinking if she doesn't come back, she'll succumb to the narcotic pain pill, and pass out, and the coyotes will eat her. She's stepping away at a fair rate trying to get away from Dad, me. Of all the nights she ought to definitely sleep inside on a Carolina evening, this would be the night.

I had to go chase her down in my night clothes. You don't want to know.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Priceless

One of the things the internet was going to do for us was make shopping easier. Thus, every time I forget what I already know and try to shop for anything, starting with Google, I am reminded yet again how clumsy the so-called advertising is.

It is strangely difficult for me to find a price for an item advertised on Google. Or rather, an item I'm looking for. I get plenty of stuff for sale with prices listed for stuff I did not search for, and don't want.

Let's give it a try: I enter this in Google. (Granted, I don't usually search like this but I figured, let's make a new start and see what pops up.) "where do I buy 50 lbs of dried green peas?"

First I hit the third and fifth sites listed. (The fourth site listed was the same as the third (?) so when the third failed, I went on.) I got a blank page with a sidebar and some categories.

The fifth site I didn't get to: it took me to a picture of dried peas only, and for some reason shrank my browser window to the size of the photo. Weird.

So I tried site one and two, which are highlighted in pink. I got a site selling "16 gallon jugs" of dried green peas for "$359.96" Hmm. That's a lot. It really seems very close to the rate paid per pound at th local grocery retail store. But how much really? So I set about trying to figure out how much space a pound of dried green peas takes up. I know the little one pound bags are about a cup and a half... So, I asked Google to help me find the density of dried green peas! I went back to Google and typed "how much does a gallon of peas weigh?" and got a crowd-sourced site which informed me thusly:  How much does 5 gallons of dried peas weigh? Answer: About 600 grams. 

This is, of course, absolutely wrong. On the moon, maybe. Not on my planet. Okay, and not only am I sucked in to this futility, before we say goodbye permanently to the site with the 16 gallon jugs of peas, let us note that this is the picture they thoughtfully provided. You can see, of course, that it is not a 16 gallon jug of peas. It is a sort of generic "peas in a jug" photo. I'm starting to suspect they don't have any 16 gallon jugs like this jug. (If they do, of course I want one. For the jug.)


And here we go! Site #6 rules! Here, finally we succeed! (I'm a bit surprised - this never happens! Rockin' good news!) "
$38.95 per carton (50 lbs). $0.78 per Pound