My first—and most important—stop was the barber shop at the base, the place I’ve been going to ever since I shifted to Hamilton (I talked about the barbershop in a blog post in April last year). This time, I had my hair cut by the young dude (who I briefly mentioned in a blog post in in May 2022). The guy takes his time and is very good, while the older guy always makes me feel uncomfortable for reasons I can’t explain (I ordinarily get the female barber, partly for that reason; the young guy is seldom there when I am).
I thought he seemed a bit low yesterday, almost sad even, so we didn’t have a conversation. However I got him to smile twice: The first time was right after he asked me how I wanted my hair cut, and I asked him if he could trim my eyebrows, too. He said he could, so I added, “I haven’t learned to do it myself, and I’m now getting ‘old man’ eyebrows.” He smiled broadly and chuckled a bit. I used a similar tactic at the very end when he said he just had to shave the back of my neck and he’d be finished. I said that was another thing I couldn’t do myself, because I have to do it with my back to the bathroom mirror, another mirror in my hand looking back at the bathroom mirror. He agreed that was hard, and then I told him about the time I accidentally shaved off part of my beard, and he laughed, and said, “yeah, that’s the sort of thing people do only once if they’re unlucky, twice if they’re careless.” I said, “and after three times, I’d probably have to go into a home”. He laughed a bit and said, “probably not that—just time to put the clippers down.”
I always try to be nice to people who serve customers all day because times have changed and too many customers choose to be awful to people just doing their jobs, but yesterday I kind of wanted to cheer him up a bit. I think maybe I did.
At any rate, my haircut could’ve easily been a month late because school holidays just ended, and I never go to The Base (where the barbershop is) during school holidays or public holidays. On the Saturday of Easter weekend, the traffic to get to the base was unbelievably awful, reminding me why I made the promise to myself in the first place (I was just trying to get across the road that leads to the base in order to go to the other side of the city).
Next, I went to to The Warehouse to check out their (apparently) new range of storage products. Specifically, I was interested in an acrylic turntable with sides (in the dual photo up top), which are good for storing bottles of things like soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, aioli, etc., in the fridge. I put a turntable with no sides—basically a small lazy suzan—in our fridge at least 8 or 10 years ago, and it’s been great—but it works best for jars, not bottles. The bottles I have on it are constantly falling to one side, making it hard to rotate the turntable to get in the back. I’ll use that old turntable on the other side of the shelf, and just for jars. The new turntable is something I don’t need, but it’ll make my daily life much easier.
While I was there, I picked up two pairs of slippers partly the price for two was lower than buying one pair each on two different days. Also, The Warehouse has a long history of dropping products, so when I find products that I like and will use, I’m better to buy extra. The slippers are replacing a pair I bought around 15 years ago that are now falling apart. I got them at The Warehouse, too—and that particular one was discontinued. Of course. Maybe they lasted too long.
I also picked up a pair of what I call “house shoes”, basically lightweight shoes I wear only in the house to protect my feet and keep them warm. That’s because a stubbed toe can cause a gout attack, and also because when my feet get cold, I feel cold all over. They’re replacing ones that are so worn out that I think they only stay on my feet through stubbornness and bravado. I don’t wear slippers other than first thing in the morning because—well, wearing slippers all day long seems too old-mannish to me. Yes, I’m over-sensitive. I don’t care.
However: I also looked at a couple things I want, but definitely don’t need, and I talked myself out of buying any of those things, including one thing I really wanted, and have wanted for awhile. That’s because due to the current tough economic times I adopted a policy of “buy nothing I don’t need, and make due with what I have rather than buy new” (while still allowing myself some treats, though I’m slowly cutting back on those, too). I’m really lucky that I can weather the bad economy fine at the moment, but it’s prudent to live more frugally when there’s no way to know when the economy will stabilise, let alone improve.
On the surface, that fridge turntable may look like it conflicts with my pollices, maybe even that it’s frivolous, and it probably is. Or, maybe it’s actually somewhere in limbo land—it’s cheap, but not a true need, but also something that’ll make my daily life better. In normal economic times, I’d never feel conflicted about buying a damn fridge turntable. On the other hand, I figured out an alternative for one of the things I really wanted using something I already have. So, I didn’t completely abandon my policies.
My final stop was the supermarket for my weekly shop, which was mostly top ups of pantry staples (like dried pasta), and a few things that I didn’t need quite yet, but that were on special. The are certain things that I buy only when they’re on special (like the brand of margarine I use), and that means I sometimes buy them before I need them in order to save money.
So, it was a productive and busy outing yesterday. That night, I planned to have leftovers for dinner, because I’d made extra on Wednesday specifically for that. When I was younger, my mother used to say, “they’re not ‘left’ overs, they’re planned overs!” It took me awhile, but I think I finally understand what she meant—and I’m now doing the same.
The two photos up top are from The Warehouse's site (linked to in the blog post), and are included here for clarity and explanation. I was not compensated in any way for mentioning the product or The Warehouse. The right side of the photo features items from The Warehouse's expanding own-brand grocery products called "Market Kitchen". I was particularly interested in trying their aioli and BBQ sauce, but I couldn't find it at the closest The Warehouse store to my house. I hope to eventually include them in a future post about own-brand grocery products vs. name brand ones.
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