If You Love Numbers, Today is 11-12-13

Before the Arctic cold front roars through North Texas, a trip to the grocery store was a chance to put down the book and run by the lake on another beautiful fall day. And since one grocery store is on one side and the other on the opposite side it was not a chore.

I've always been a good shopper. Saving money at the grocery store is not a task for me. It's a competitive  experience. But, it also helps to know pricing and marketing techniques. For example: a simple can of black pepper. On a normal day, I will pay $2.29 for 1.75 ounces. It's not a good price for pepper but it's a good price compared to what else is available. Since I was going by a particular store where I shop maybe once or twice a year, yesterday, I was hungery  for sizzle steaks and onions. Sizzle steaks are not a popular product here in Texas. It's basically a northern thing and stores up north slice, bag (two pounds at a time) an quick-freeze.

So, I stopped at the store where I seldom shop. No only did they have the aforementioned, they also had the biggest can of black pepper you could believe for $1.99. Four ounces! A bit more than double from what I had been getting at 1.75 ounces.

I bought a bag of sizzle steaks in bulk. They are not true sizzle steaks but they come as close to what I cook that I have found in Texas. They need to be sliced about half again as thin to be true sizzlers. Also, the shoulder blade cut roast were packed two in a package for half the price that I had been paying from my regular store.  There were several items that were what I would consider way out of line. But, I found enough that I'll be back again with a list in hand. I get a kick out of the Walmart commercial where the guy takes the woman with her Kroger receipt in hand on a comparison shop on how much she could save.  Of course you never hear about the items where Kroger was much cheaper (and they can be on many things) than Walmart! And you never will. I've found things at Kroger where they were a bit higher than some stores, but shopping is an art and you must watch deals, know prices and follow the rules of avoiding  certain areas of the store.  

What makes me irritated the most is when a store advertises turkeys! Oie Vey!

 One store listed a price per pound, but only if you purchase $50.00. Another had their little twist to get you in the door. I found my turkey for $0.59 per pound but I had to dig for it in the freezers. But my irritation  comes from a sign that says 10-15 pounds here and 16-22 pounds here. I found mine at the very bottom of the 16-22 pounds.  It was a 10 pounder! Don't you just love that part of holiday shopping?  But, with a hard freeze tonight before our first frost, I can slow cook the roast today. That puts steam in the kitchen and warms up the house with warmth in temperature and in smells! Oh! I'm also making yeast rolls  today, too. That will really add to the smells of fall and pre-holiday days.

At the lake, what appears to be the wedding alter from a Kelt wedding over the weekend stood out against a deep blue sky.

A Pagan Wedding Alter with sprig of  Hemlock

 

The straw wreath

The Overview.
Yes, it was hand made and made with modern screws and power drivers!

Churchill and Napoleon: A Lesson in Two Dogs--Well,Three

The White Rock Boat House c.1934

The French and the English are connected through bloodlines that bind them  for more than two thousand years through  tribes of  Kelt's. Rome tried to conquer England in what? 46 BC by building Roman alters over the Kelt's alters. The Kelt's worshiped at those alters with little difficulty. When the Romans pulled back to Rome, the Kelt's torn down the Roman alters and continued to worship at their own alters as they had done, during and after the Roman occupation. Rome thought they had conquered the Kelt's, but what they had really done was to enforce the power of worship on the Kelt's more than ever before. Had the Kelt's been a race of people, they would have conquered the Romans in battle, spirit and mind. Riding naked on horseback with their long blond hair flowing in the wind, they had prepared for the battle by having days of drunken orgies before riding off into battle. The Druids knew how to prepare their warriors and did so regularly.

During the reign of Napoleon, the little man knew his history well. He prepared and he lead with determination. His determination. Unlike the Kelt's warriors, he dressed impressively, but his determination was none-the-less much the same and he never lost that desire to be bigger in deeds than he was in statue, though some of his statues in bronze are pretty impressive in size.

Churchill, a tenured statesman and Prime Minister, had a statesman attitude and mindset. While Churchill had some American blood, he still was that Englishman's gentleman at nature and cigar's did, indeed, make the man, but it never changed his beliefs.

Growing up, our number 3 and number 4 dogs drew their names from their personalities. Mine was a German red dachshund  named Napoleon and my brothers had a  French brown and white basset hound  named Churchill. To this day, when I see either breed, I recall easily the fun we had with those dogs in names alone. People would just walk away shaking their heads after stopping to talk and asking their names. You could see the fake smiles melt away  as they realized the dogs and the brothers were not kidding. They just didn't know how to respond to such real but shockingly unexpected answers. Their minds were not ready for what they got in honest reply. That's the way my two brothers and I are today. We laugh about it. My nephew thinks I'm hard on his dad I know, but his dad, my youngest brother, just take the banter and quips in stride as we have always done.

So, don't you see, name you dogs with a distinction in modern history A name that is or can be enshrined. I once had a friend who's dad was a big burly man with a deep voice and had that distinction of a boss-- if you know what I mean. One Christmas, she got a little white puddle puppy. When it came time to name the dog, they--the family--named it "Cheers" When asking Guido what he thought of the name---he paused and said:" The neighbors already think I'm crazy. Can't you see them when I open the door and yell out,'Cheers!' ".