Tiny Indulgences

I know, I know, I know: I've been a boring old crotchety untalented hack lately, you don't need to tell me. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don't -- basically, it's weather fatigue (as in, "I am SO OVER this frogging weather!") and work and whatnot. Believe me when I say that I can't wait for the spring, to get some green all up in here, for there to be something, ANYTHING, except a dirty old pile of slowly melting snow in my front yard.

Actually, I am starting to worry that I won't get any of my spring flowers. Granted, I don't have that many to begin with -- the front yard is heavily shaded, so in that patch I only get one tiny little anemic azalea, a couple of daffodils, some forget-me-nots, and then my prized, beloved bleeding hearts -- but I really wonder whether I'll get anything this year, because of all that grossness. Maybe I should look into a grow light and planting something in the house. Culinary herbs, maybe, or hemlock.

So anyway, we haven't been going out much or doing anything much except catching up on our TiVo'ed shows and missing MONUMENTALLY IMPORTANT HOCKEY GAMES, like oh my God of all the times to NOT watch the Olympics after I've been bitching about there being no hockey on the regular channels in prime time? Could I be a bigger butthead? Probably not. And I am really dragging out getting to the point here, aren't I?

What I was eventually going to be getting to is this: thanks to the awesome power of the Internet and also my car, I have made a couple of purchases lately that are very exciting, to me anyway, and so I will share them with you here. Please to enjoy. (NOTE: I paid for all this stuff out of my own pocket, in case the FCC is watching.

1. (Top left.) I got Shae a new bathing suit. In the interest of full disclosure, she already had a suit that fit, but I am not sure how much longer that is going to be true. I found a really cute designer suit at a members-only designer discount site and picked it up for her. I can't find a picture of the actual suit, but the picture is from the same designer, and it features the same color story. (Guess who has been watching "Project Runway" again?)

2 and 3. (Top right and bottom left.) Even when you're home and depressed, you gotta eat, and as much as I believe it is possible in theory, in practice I think it's pretty hard for man to live on Double-Stuf Oreos alone. So once in a while we have to go to the grocery store.

Yesterday we went to Wegman's, which is a bit of a treat for us. We don't usually shop there, since it's kind of out of the way. G put the kibosh on getting any fancy stinky cheeses but I did pick up a small bottle of their house-brand basting oil (2) and garlic-cheese finishing butter (3). And I don't know what else is in those bottles, but there is definitely some powerful magic, because it is impossible to make bad food with these things. I made a marinated pork tenderloin for dinner with roasted baby potatoes and roasted carrots -- the potatoes and carrots were seasoned with salt and pepper only, and the drizzled with the basting oil, and everything was PERFECT. I put a little bit of the finishing butter on my potatoes and it made me want to do the happy dance right there at the table.

These are NOT cheap ingredients -- I think we spent about $9 on both items -- but a little bit goes a long way, and I feel like I instantly became a gourmet cook. And I wasn't too shabby to begin with, so that is saying something, I think.

4. (Bottom right.) We also bought Shae a new shampoo that I have tried on myself, just to see. We're trying the Wen cleansing conditioner (in a different flavor than pictured) because she needs a lot of moisturization, but I don't want her hair to get greasy. So far we love the stuff, her hair felt thicker and healthier after only one use, and it makes a comb so much easier to get through her head. She still probably needs a haircut though, as soon as we can squeeze one in.

So that's pretty much been it for splurges for us, unless you count the $3 I spent at Wegman's yesterday on a 1 pt. bottle of freshly squeezed tangerine juice, which was seriously the best thing ever, and also how come nobody told me that TANG actually tastes like tangerines?