Grocery stores make me sad

The other day at Safeway, a father with his two young daughters were waiting in front of me to check out. Not only were the kids acting like monsters and the dad was doing nothing to stop them, but I wanted to cry  when I looked at the groceries the dad had chosen. He was buying an array of chips, sodas and frozen pizzas, topped off with a pound of red meat. Not a vegetable or piece of fruit in sight. Maybe I was put off by his parenting to start with, but from where I was standing, it was a pretty pathetic attempt to nourish his children.

It's not only the people in the stores that are depressing. When I was doing the 30-day-challenge, I realized that if I wanted to cook food "from scratch", I could skip most of the aisles. In Target, there are at least two full aisles dedicated to bags of candy, but when I tried to find fruit other than a few oranges or bananas? SOL.

Even the foods that are bad for you are advertising themselves as good. For example:

A box of Kraft Mac-N-Cheese that says, "Shhh. There are veggies in here." It claims that the problem with "other vegetables" (meaning it considers itself a vegetable, right?) is their "overt vegetableness". As if "vegetableness" is appalling. And, embarassingly enough, I bought this vegetable version of Mac-N-Cheese. I don't eat it more than once every six months, but sometimes I'm in need of a quick meal (cut me some slack!). And the vegetable one was on sale. Or maybe the "veggie-tising" tricked me too, who knows.

But consider the commercial for Fiber One Cereal Bars. The husband tells his wife, "Fiber makes me sad" after she suggests he consume more. The commercial offers a solution, to eat their candy bar-like treat that provides "fiber beyond recognition".

There is something seriously wrong here. Since when is fiber, an essential part of everyone's diet, a cause for depression?

In his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan discusses the 'national eating disorder' of the US. 

"The cornucopia of the American supermarket has thrown us back on a bewildering food landscape where we once again have to worry that some of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. (Perhaps not as quickly as a poisonous mushroom, but just as surely.)... It is very much in the interest of the food industry to exacerbate our anxieties about what to eat, the better to then assuage them with new products."

Pollan focuses on three types of food (industrial, organic and hunter-gatherer) in order to dissect and compare our different options.

Am I inspired to do a new food-focused 30-day-challenge? Maybe. As I know so little about food and where it comes from, who regulates it, etc. it would certainly be an adventure.

iPhone update: Found a case with a built-in screen protector for $14 on Amazon. Better than $40 but I'm still not happy about it. Won't have data again until October 6th, but I'm able to use wireless at least. My boss also sort of nicknamed me "Texty" Joslin so I probably need to lay off the phone use while at work. It's just.... so.... addictive.

Zipcar isn't so cheap when you speed

I moved half of my stuff the other day from Bethesda to Mt. Pleasant, where I'm staying for about a month while I look for a room in the city. I had too much to use the public transport route and no one I knew with a car was free, so I convinced myself, "It'll be cheaper than a cab!" I decided to try out Zipcar.

It's a great idea. Rent a car for a few hours with very little prior notice needed (depending on what's available, but I reserved mine two hours ahead of time) at a reasonable hourly rate.

But I did find some things that irked me:

• The website only mentions the hourly rate of $7.75. 
• They might sneak in some asterisks with fine print somewhere, but they certainly don't make it obvious that most cars are $9.75 or $11.75 (I've only seen one listed at $7.75). A difference of two dollars an hour isn't huge, but it is annoying. I spent $4 more than expected (that equals one slim sandwich at Potbelly's!)
• You have to return it to the parking spot you got it from
• This is inconvenient to say the least- after I finally got the new-fangled Hybrid I was renting started, I drove to my house, shoved my suitcases into the car, drove back through Bethesda into DC, parked (illegally), threw my stuff inside the new house, drove back to Bethesda during rush hour (of course), finally figured out how to lock the car doors, and then had to hop on the metro to head back into the city.
• Time is limited
• I felt pretty rushed to get all that done in the two hours I reserved, and although it's possible to call and extend, you'll probably be out of luck if someone reserved the time slot after yours
• Traffic laws still apply

This last one might be the most annoying. Here I was, minding my own business being overwhelmed with cars turning left on red in front of me and over-sized buses that refused to stay in one lane, when all of a sudden there came a FLASH of light.

I'm from small-town Indiana, so my thought process was something like, "What the h........? Oh. Damn it."

Speedometers with cameras, aka evil genius, are new to me. And the last thing on my mind was the speed limit, which is probably why I was going 44 in a 30.

My friends are full of information: I can't get a ticket if there is another car in the photograph (there weren't), they can't prove it was me if my face isn't visible the photo (I don't believe that), I can appeal it and some large percentage of appeals go through (it was somewhere between 40-80% but I think they were talking about parking tickets at this point)... in other words, who knows.

I've heard it will be $40. I've also heard it will $125. Either way, the fact that I was in a Zipcar doesn't give me immunity. I'm pretty sure they can track me down.

As for now, all I can do is wait for this ominous ticket to arrive in the mail. In the end, I still like Zipcar, will use it again and would suggest all my friends use it instead of owning a car, but in this case I should've just cabbed it.

iPhone update: I don't like how the phone is so fragile. It's made of glass, so you are forced to buy a case (around $20) and most cases don't come with a screen protector. Those by themselves are around $20 for 3, so unless you want a broken, scratched phone within weeks, you have to spend an extra, unexpected $40. All part of the plan, Apple?

Saving Money When Eating Out

A friend shared this link with me: Saving Money When Dining Out

I like this article. It's like a stealth mission aimed at enjoying oneself, damn it, even if that means putting a little extra work into making eating out cheaper.

I haven't used many restaurant coupons before, like Groupon or others, because I usually just tell myself that I don't need it. In reality, I eat out anyway but without a coupon, so I might as well admit to myself that restaurants are enjoyable enough to be a "necessary" expenditure once in a while. And if there's a way to do it a bit cheaper, I'm all for that.

Some of the most interesting advice: drink beforehand at home. Hey, wine by the glass is expensive, so get a little sauced on the cheap and THEN go eat. Just don't get too drunk or you'll end up eating way more food than planned and/or making a fool of yourself in public. Neither is advisable.

Also, an iPhone update: It came and I think I love it. However, I accidentally went over my data plan in the first 24 hours and racked up about $200 in overage fees (not going into details here, I'm embarrassed enough admitting it). I almost cried, but instead called customer service and they dropped the fees; however, I won't have a data plan for this entire first month. So I think I love the phone but I'll have to wait around 26 more days before I can say for sure.

Consumer I am

Forgive me sanity, for I have sinned. I bought an iPhone. And what's worse is that I am really excited for it to get here.

I spent the last week running around DC, lost, trying to look at possible apartments to move into. I realized after having to pay for coffee multiple times to use internet on my computer (and also carry my computer around) to find an address or figure out where I'm going, I was over it.

(I would put up a photo of my post-it note of step-by-step directions that I wrote out to take me from house to house to house yesterday, but I already threw it away in disgust at how much unnecesary work I put into that.)

Also, I waited for 45 minutes for a bus last night that was supposed to come every 10 minutes, completely clueless if it was even coming at all. I said screw it and caught a cab only after a girl with an iPhone came up and said the bus still wasn't arriving for another 13 minutes.

There are some things I'm worried about though:

• Becoming dependent on the phone
• Having entertainment/distraction too easily accessible
• Being too reachable- I wouldn't have an excuse to not check my email

But the truth is, I need to be reachable in DC. Things happen quickly. I don't necessarily like it but it's reality. 

I've lost opportunities for apartments because I didn't get an instant update of new places available. I've wasted countless minutes waiting for all forms of public transit and missed countless forms of public transit by minutes because of my lack of Smartphone (see what I did there?).

Bottom line: Nothing is evil in its pure form, even an iPhone, it all just depends on how it is used. As long as I watch myself and don't allow any of the above worries to blossom, it will be okay. I do need to be careful, and I am sort of shocked at myself, but I feel confident that it will make life easier.

I'm ready for that.

Maybe not Mondays

I'm debating this Money-Free Monday idea. It turns out, something I didn't realize earlier, that Mondays act like my Sundays since I work on Sundays. Therefore, I don't do a whole lot, especially since I have to wake up around 5 am on Tuesday. If I don't do a lot, by default I'm probably also not going to spend a lot.

So I'll debate this in my head for now and try to think of an alternative.

As for now, here are some awesome ideas for free, fun things to do in DC:

Free for All Shakespeare

• I waited in line for about two hours for tickets for this last night and they stopped giving them out 8 people ahead of me. Bummer for me, so get there around 4, but it's free theater. Worth it.

Free Summer Saturdays at Corcoran

• Last chance to get free admission into the Corcoran Gallery of Art; 10 am-5 pm; usually $10.

Free Language Classes through GLN

• Today is the last day to put your name in the lottery for language classes for the upcoming fall. There's a list of classes offered and times on the site. The class requires a fully-refundable deposit of $150 (as long as you keep attendance up). Pretty sweet deal.

Anyone headed to NY for Labor Day Weekend?

• There's a free show featuring lots of DJs and Brett Dennen in Montauk, NY. If only.

More to come. I'm busy house-searching on top of a changing work schedule, starting volunteering and taking a class, so I'll update when I can or when something relevant happens.