It's A Love-Hate Relationship

I talked about the table, then didn't show you any pictures.  Here she is in all her 85 year old glory.  Certainly anything made like this nowadays would not last that long, especially since she lived in the garage all that time.

The top is covered with hatchet and knife marks along with square nails that were used to keep her together.  When she got loose, we just added another nail.  Too bad that doesn't work for MY loose parts.

Summer has arrived in Central California with 103 degree temperatures in my back yard yesterday.  The low was 71 .... and this morning, it's HOT.  I tried not to use the air conditioner, which resulted in a horrible night's sleep.  I even turned the ceiling fan on, but then I listened to it creak all night.  I won't do that again.  

I have a love-hate relationship with my AC ... yes I love it, but I hate paying the price.  Those who deal with PG&E in California will understand.  The news reported that just before declaring bankruptcy the higher ups all got bonuses.  They are now making up for lost time.

I also have a love-hate relationship with Costco.  In the old days when I cooked for more than one, I loved going there for the good prices.  You could stock up on stuff and not have to shop for days.  Since they raised the membership fee to over $50 a year, I have to go at least twice now to get my money's worth.  I'm an accountant, what can I say.

Don't you just love the food samples?  You can cruise the aisles and snack all along the way.  If you want lunch, that $2.00 hot dog is the bomb.  Mostly I was looking for ease of prep meals.  The salmon and halibut are at the Doctor's request, the chicken meatballs because they are low fat and the burnt ends with BBQ sauce ... well they just looked amazing!!  

I also have become addicted to pine nut hummus.  At the old ranch now under the waters of Lake Isabella, once a year we would trek to the higher mountains for pine nut collection, just like the Indians before us did.  We ate lots of them before they were in vogue.  

With gunny sack feed bags, we would gather the pine cones that dropped to the ground before meeting back under a big tree.  That's when the fun began ... trying to dig those tiny nuts from the pitch encrusted cones.  Needless to say, we all ended up with pine pitch from one end to the other.  

It was another love-hate relationship.  We LOVED the nuts, but HATED getting them out.  Once roasted over a fire, the shells would crack easily and we would get to eat the yummy treats.  

So when I spotted pine nut hummus being doled out in aisle six, I was first in line.  I really didn't need that quart sized container, but I bought it anyway.  I'm hoping it freezes well.

Costco is also the place to buy copy machine ink, correction tape and copy paper.  The HATE part of the relationship comes when you try to get things OUT of the packaging.  I mean really, who is going to try and steal correction tape?

I worked on this package for a full ten minutes.  Yes I DID use scissors to cut into the plastic coating, but I STILL couldn't get them out.

In a last ditch effort, I took a steak knife and cut around every single one.  LOVE the correction tape, HATE getting it out of the package and figuring out who I should give them to for Christmas.  I doubt I will ever use up eight.

I almost had a heart attack at the checkout stand.  The total came to $389.  Believe it or not, $175 was the ink for my $99 copy machine.  It would have been $260 elsewhere.  LOVE that part.  I'm guessing the machine won't even last long enough to use it up, but I'm well prepared, just in case.  

Once home, I broke everything down into smaller packages.  I should have remembered to check out the vacuum packaging machine.  At least I have 25 meals ready to go, even if it did cost me a small fortune.  Now to figure out what I'm going to do with all that hummus.