The end of the world as I've known it

The world absolutely must be coming to an end. You know how I can tell? I've been to grocery stores four times in a little over a week. To make it even more stunning, I actually bought groceries, for me -- my refrigerator, my cupboards.

As if that weren't a sure enough sign of the Apocalypse, I've actually been cooking. So between the meals I've cooked for myself, and the far superior home-cooked meals I had over the weekend (by far superior cooks, namely my daughter's mom and aunt), I've had home-fixed meals every day for more than a week.

What makes all that so stunning, is that I don't cook and rarely keep food in my house -- unless beer and chips and salsa qualify as food.

I'm hoping in the long run I end up spending less money on food that I normally would eating two or three meals a day from fastfood joints. There could potentially be some health benefits as well I supposed.

But there is downside to having food in the house. I find I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm hungry. I eat when I'm full. I eat way too much and too often.

So, I've got to figure out how to balance this whole having food in the house thing with not trying to each something of everything everyday until it's gone.

I've also got to get better at doing dishes, as I find I make meal selection choices based on what dishes are not sitting unwashed in the dishwasher (or sink) that I can prepare dishes in (or on).

Yea I know there are people who fix meals and do dishes everyday, I've just never been one of those people. My college roommate and I had the same affliction. How we ever had any dates, or allowed any women into our apartment is still a mystery. We didn't have a dishwasher, but had one of those double-sided sinks. We would get both sides of the sink filled, stacked a foot or two above the rim. We'd wait until every single glass, plate or piece of silverware in the house was used. And that might not have been so bad, but we would sometime run water over the dishes after using them (to keep the food from sticking). Of course running water in pots, pans and dishes in a sink filled with stuff dishes and food scraps would lead to mold forming after several days or weeks without actually doing the dishes.

It was pretty disgusting, especially during fruitfly season in late spring and summer in an apartment without air conditioning.

It's a wonder we didn't dye from some sort of mold-borne disease.

By comparison, I've come a long way in the years since, thanks mostly to having built-in dishwashers in most of the places I've lived in the years since. But I still suck at housework.

But hey, I have food to eat and have actually been using the burners on the stove to cook with on occasion, although the oven portion of the stove is still a virgin. Heck, the way things are going I may actually break out the George Foreman grill and buy things like mean and vegetables.

It's a scary world. Fortunately, the end must be near.