Strange Places

It's no secret that I hate CFLs. They don't last as long as advertised, which doesn't make them cost-effective; they don't work in some of my lamps; and you have to treat them as hazardous waste which I get enough of at work thank-you-very-much.



Hence, the stockpile.
















I finally broke into the stockpile this weekend. I have a hard time going to sleep anywhere near my appointed bedtime (10 pm), and I wondered whether the fluorescent glow of the darned CFLs wasn't partly to blame. So I switched out all the CFLs in the living room. It's only been one night so far, and I got sucked into Heaven Is For Real because when you get to the last 40 pages of a book you have to just keep going, right? At least I do. Books are another big reason I get less sleep than I'd like.


But I notice the light in the living room is more peaceful without the CFLs. They must flicker at a frequency I can't see but can indeed sense.


Upshot is I need a bigger stockpile.


Despite the fact that I'll work 26 days in a row this month, work has been pretty peaceful. I'm running experiments and haven't had any major disasters. One of my oxygen lines was disconnected last week when someone came in during the middle of the night to steal something (yeah) but the cells survived very well.


I'm also taking a half day on Friday to bake cookies for church. I signed up for a service project to make care packages for foster kids at a college in the City, and the organizer asked for homemade cookies. Now, if there's something I can handle, it's cookie baking. Through some recent circumstances I have become the owner of six full tray baking sheets, so I can make six dozen chocolate cookies without even cycling a pan. Being from a large extended family means I'm very used to making large amounts of food. In college for the trombones' Turkey Fry each year I would make around fifty pounds of mashed potatoes. You get used to it.


Maybe that's partly why I'm also used to eating leftovers. I was talking with someone this week about how I only cook once or twice a week and eat leftovers the rest of the time. I do have one limit, though. I don't like eating the same thing for lunch and dinner repeatedly, so if I've cooked two different meals I alternate which one I take for lunch at work. But I gather that other people my age really don't cook as much as I do. Based on how many restaurants my friends from church are familiar with I'm definitely the odd one out. I've gone to various restaurants around here for work lunches, four Thai places with my sister, and the ramen place with my mom and my sister (separately). I guess I get my fill of eating in restaurants alone on work trips.

More than my fill of eating in restaurants alone.


Plus I'm cheap. I admit it. Or "frugal". I heard someone say frugal is when saving money only affects you but cheap affects other people. So I think I'm frugal. My sister would undoubtedly argue that.


Though I'd kind of rather be cheap than frugal because frugal reminds me of the Frugal Gourmet and how he was accused of molesting those kids.


That might be a leap, but I also dislike using the term "unpack" in reference to a concept rather than luggage ("Let's unpack that idea a little more for the next few minutes") because it sounds like the reverse of this exchange from the Simpsons:


Krusty: Try my new Krusty Ribwich. Mmmm. I don't mind the taste.
Marge: Oooh, a new hamburger sandwich.
Homer Simpson: Wow, I can't wait to pack that into my colon!


My brain is a strange, strange place.