In my last post I mentioned how a local sub shop was changing locations and that it had an unrelated fried chicken business' name attached to it. Well they finally put up a sign at their new locations. Check it out:
To be clear, that "Crown Cleaners" sign was not up before they installed the new Big John's sign. What's the deal? Why do they always attach an unrelated business' sign next to theirs?
Crown Cleaners is a business in Belmont Village. I checked it out recently and they don't appear to be preparing to move, but maybe they've formed some kind of agreement with Big John's.
I also mentioned that we'd had a pretty harsh cold snap and it snowed for two days last week. I was worried about the emerging flowers in our front lawn that we'd planted last year, but check it out
We got blossoms!
Last week, we finally got the process started to get Finn neutered. He needed to get some vaccinations first though, so he had his first session last week. We took him in a carrier over the lightrail, and he was pretty chill both on the train and at the vet. The medication made him feel groggy for about an evening and a day. Since he's usually so hyper it was a little weird to watch him low energy.
I'd forgotten how whiny Kieran is when he doesn't have a playmate. He was following me around with his cat wand in his mouth trying to get me to play with him, begging me to pick him up and carry him around, and meowing incessantly in a high pitch tone. This is all extremely cute, but it gets old eventually. I do play with my cat, but he simply can't get enough attention. It's one reason why we got Finn. I was actually a little jealous of how much attention Kieran gave Finn, but I've grown accustomed to it now, and it was a relief to have Finn back in condition to chase and be chased. Balance has been restored.
Neither of the cats have a negative association with the carrier. They will sit in it voluntarily.
We got a new microwave recently. We went to a Canadian Tire and they had some display microwaves but none for sale. We went to Wal Mart and there were almost no options there either. Lots of InstantPots and air fryers though. Is this a new generation thing? Is the golden age of microwaves over? We went to another Wal Mart and found a variety, but they weren't even in the kitchen appliance section, they were next to the vacuums.
I barely understand what an air fryer is. They're usually sold in the same aisle as the toaster ovens. You start with classical toaster ovens, and then you get to ones that say they have "convection technology" or "air fryer technology". At this stage they sometimes have the inner grill replaced with buckets. Then they change to this taller, thinner shape and they're called "air fryers". The prices they go for fluctuate wildly too. If I wanted an air fryer I would have no idea what to get.
Because they're all in the same aisle and because of the variety of styles and prices, I'd thought that the toaster oven manufacturers just started started branding them as air fryers pretending to be a new technology. I looked it up though, and a "convection oven" is basically a toaster oven with a fan, and an "air fryer" is a convection oven shaped in a way that it has a more concentrated heat source. So there are differences between these three similar things.
I should probably get an InstantPot. I've been stubborn about it because for the longest time, I would hear that having a slow cooker was a real life hack. In the morning, throw some meat and root vegetables into one and forget about it. Then at dinner you have something much better than you could have prepared an hour in advance. I finally got around to getting a slow cooker, and almost immediately afterward that sentiment was redirected to the InstantPot. Apparently the InstantPot gets the same results, but instantly. So I was slow to get a slow cooker, and was resistant to get the InstantPot instantly.
But it's been years since I got my slow cooker, so perhaps it's time to swallow my pride and admit to InstantPot supremacy.
I've heard critics of the Mandela Effect (which I've covered on this blog: http://lairofthegryphon.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-mandela-effect.html) say that in the future, believers will say that at one point the InstantPot was known as the Instapot, and that they're from the Instapot dimension. The real answer would be that InstantPot made a marketing error, and that Instapot just felt more natural in customers' mouths. Let this blog post be evidence that the InstantPot dimension did exist.
Since we got the new microwave, we had to go to Food Basics to get some frozen Jamaican patties. These were a staple back when I really had to watch my money, because they were in a box of 20 and cost $10. That's 50 cents a patty! It was disappointing when, not long ago, they had reduced the number of patties to 18. This last time, it had gone all the way down to 14!
This is how I keep track of inflation. By how many frozen Jamaican patties I can get for $10. Using this system, it would appear that groceries have increased in price by 30% in the last year.
Another staple of my poverty diet was pierogis. I remember in college I would boast that I could get a kilogram of them for $2. Well, how much do you think that's changed? I picked up a kilogram for them during my trip... for $2! Somehow, someway the frozen pierogi people have kept the price and quantity completely stable since I graduated college in 2015!
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