Consumer-a-go-go

This is my very first eBay purchase. Yes, after years, I have finally gotten onboard with the whole "online commerce" thing. See, our house is kinda old, and we like getting quircky old things to decorate it with. Like this mosaic GE kitchen wall clock, circa 1950's-ish. However, I have spotted a fatal flaw in the eBay plan. I paid 20.25 for this clock, plus shipping. (I got in a bidding war, like a compulsive gambler at the nickel slots, raising my bid by mere cents over the course of ten dollars! The excitement ran away with me.) Anyway, I could have gotten the same thing at a garage sale for, like, $2.00. However, this is a milestone in my life, so duly commerorated.

I have been somewhat of an ascetic when it comes to consumer goods and/or services, but lately I've been doing my part for the economy by spending lots of time in some of our nation's altars of consumerism. Mostly for registering, which has to be dually one of the most fun and yet most stressful activities invented surrounding the whole wedding-debacle-known-as-an-"industry" that I have yet been exposed to. Give two people a bar-scanner gun, drop them in the middle of a box store, and let them duke it out over every aspect of interior decor, cooking and lifestyle decisions they'll be making for the next ten or more years. (What if we hate chocolate brown towels in a year or two? We probably will, but my argument was that brown towels would hide the dreaded "tire tracks" with their deceptive brown-ness, like camoflauge! Less laundry for me!!!)

We also saw the movie "March of the Penguins" and all I have to say is: Mother Nature is a Mother&*%^*&! I am really glad that, should Ian and I decide to propogate our species, we won't have to walk 70 miles to our breeding ground, pass my delicate egg to him using only my toes, have him sit on it, without food or significant movement, for 4 1/2 months while I do the 140-mile round trip to get food for the hatchling, then stay with the chick while Ian gets his turn at his quarterly-annual food trip, losing over half his body weight in the process. Should our chick even make it to it's first oceanside trip, we'd still have to roll the dice on the whole sea-leopard thing. Oh well, nine months of pregnancy doesn't seem so daunting now.