The cats are having a hard week. I misjudged the delivery date for their special "sensitive tummy" kitty crunchies, so I had to sub in off brand crunchies that seemed decent enough, just for a few days.

They hate them.

Cat refuses to touch them. Other Cat carefully ate all the crumbs of old crunchies from around the food bowl and sort of tried to eat the new ones, but only made a dent. She is the fat one and I didn't think she'd be picky. Everyone is hungry and unhappy and making sad noises. I'm giving them wet food every day instead of a once a week treat, but it's cat junk food. I had no idea they liked the sensitive tummy crunchies so much. I imagine them as tiny indignant hotel guests.

Cat: "Sir, I was promised a buffet of gourmet crunchies of a certain quality. I was told this was a four star establishment, and clearly it is not. These inferior crunchies are not fit for kittens. I wish to file a formal complaint with management in protest." (pukes)

Other Cat: "Don't like. Is poop. Why."

Welp, I gave up. Cat was miserable. He only eats the gravy from the wet food for whatever reason. So he had a bunch of gravy and then threw up. He gets himself mentally wound up and upset and can't keep his food down, poor thing. Like, it's only going to get worse for him and the replacement order is still days away. Nobody likes being hungry. So I went on a trek to the larger shopping center and found the sensitive tummy crunchies for him. The off brand crunchies went straight in the trash.

Cats are happy now. I had no idea they were that picky. I will make sure we keep extra crunchies on hand in the future.

--

When I went for crunchies I wandered into a CVS. Very rarely do I go in a CVS/Walgreens because they're overpriced (and have grudge against walgreens). I've always wondered how their business model manages to survive. Anyway, I went in to soak up the air conditioning and check for something and I was shocked to see how much of their store was devoted to "anti-stress" and feel-good health products. Sure, there's the usual vitamins and supplements, but they had so many different products in slick packaging aimed at relaxation and sleep and reducing stress. They had detox and cleansing type products that I thought were banished to sketchy MLMs. They had all kinds of add on product for keto, which nobody needs to do keto. I was struck by what a large mainstream industry this health improvement craze has become. It's not just simple dieting = healthy anymore (because we currently all agree everyone is beautiful at any size, right?). The internal improvement now has more focus than the external. There's always been health stores and people seeking out quirky natural remedies. Shoot, my mom had me eating carob treats as a child. CAROB. But the existence of apple cider vinegar gummies seems to be taking it to a whole new level for me. It's a product that makes no sense. It's candy. Are we just buying expensive "health candy" now? I mean I guess that's the natural evolution. "Hey people think sugar is unhealthy and they're buying less candy." "Well, just make a health candy with some plant extracts, jack up the price and sell them that. People love candy, I assure you."

Does the health candy exist because we're in an invisible health crisis (physically and mentally) without good access to real care, or has a new industry just sprung up to insinuate we all need help with "stress" and thus we assume it must be true? Like how whitening toothpaste got pushed? But our teeth will never be white enough and we'll never be relaxed enough? Genius.

The word "healthy" doesn't even mean anything any more. It used to mean "not obese". Now it's more an undefined superlative, like "optimal". There's an enforced compulsion to seek this elusive optimal level of existence. If you're not seeking it, what's wrong? Depression? Whatever your problem, more and better seeking will fix it, probably. And you can speed up your seeking process by purchasing the right gear and listening to the right people (not doctors, tho! Unless you trust fOr-ProFiT medicine! And you should consult a doctor because it says right on the bottle we can't say our health candy cures anything!).

Is "health" the modern religion of a commercial based society? Are we seeing indulgences and prayers sold in gummi form? Do you believe this colon cleanse will get rid of your sins? It's $30. Maybe you need the $50 one.

Loony tunes insanity. Cavalcade of madness. Tootling carousel of shiny obsession.

Meanwhile, nobody can go sit on a beach with paying toll fees and parking fees.

Remember when the RPG Paranoia was a funny, wacky satire? I do. Not sure I could play it these days. Too real.

--

I've pitched to spouse that for a combined anniversary/christmas present this year, we get a berkey filter. They are expensive initially, but cheaper over time compared to other options. I've looked at standard water filter pitchers and such and they are too much of a pain in the ass to get good utility from. We had one at the shop and it grew mold and always wanted a new filter and took forever to fill - I have zero patience for any of that. Plus the berkey can even be taken camping and filter more questionable water sources. I mean, maybe I do read too much prepper stuff but 1) clean water is very important esp in emergencies and even more importantly 2) I hate dragging bottled water up all the stairs. So, we get the berkey and we're set for years and don't have to worry about what's in the tap water. What else could we possibly buy that would be more useful or good for us on the daily? Practical shit, so hot right now.

I'm looking at making more beverage concentrates, like the shrubs and maybe soda syrups for spouse. We already have the soda stream. If we have good filtered water on hand, we should be set. We could probably eliminate dragging heavy beverages up the stairs entirely!! I made a test shrub and tried it yesterday and it hits the same spot as kombucha but is much easier and faster to make. Love it. So I'm thinking I just do that. Why not make drink syrups for spouse? He likes mountain dew, obvs his taste buds are nonexistent and I can probably switch him over to homebrew syrups easy peasy.

I got a set of weck jars. It's a german canning jar with a separate glass lid, rubber gasket, and metal clips to hold everything together. The rubber gaskets are cheap to replace when they wear out and everything else is washable/reusable. The jar is wide mouthed and has no crannies to make it difficult to wash. I got small jars (11.5oz, No 975) because I like the idea of experimenting with multiple small batches of different flavors. The problem I had when I brewed kombucha was sometimes I would get stuck with a combo that didn't turn out nice. It sucks to go through the whole process, invest a week in the brewing, and hate the result and have multiple bottles of it. Doesn't encourage experimentation. If you don't experiment you won't get the good stuff.

I made a turmeric and ginger shrub to start. I found out quick that there's multiple different ways to make shrubs. I picked a recipe that has the ingredients infuse in apple cider vinegar overnight, then boiled in a saucepan to reduce. Strain the contents and then add sugar and honey. I picked that method because it was much lower in sugar than others I read, which in some cases were equal parts vinegar and sugar. For this trial shrub I used 1 cup ACV, 1 tbs ground turmeric, 1/4 cup fresh chopped ginger, 1tbs sugar, 1/2 tbs honey. Yielded ~4 ounces of shrub. I poured a pint glass of fizzy water and added 1oz of the shrub result and I thought it was pretty tasty. Could use improvement but still tasty. With such a small batch, if I hate it I can just toss it with no guilt.

I started one yesterday in a weck jar - 1/2 cup thawed frozen peaches, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 clove, pinch of flaked red pepper, rest of the jar filled with ACV. Gonna let that one sit in the fridge for a few days. Now I'm low on ACV so I can't start more, but I have ideas. I've learned to buy my spices at international groceries, because it's so economical. Those pretty, tiny jars in the supermarket are for suckers. I have sandwich baggies of spices, would take me years to use up in food. Perfect for making shrubs.

Base shrub recipe.

I will fiddle around with different variations until I find the best technique for me. But I think it's a good launch point.

--

So there's this Clearview AI company that can use a photo of a person to find their other photos shared online (and thus their identity) via facial recognition. Law enforcement agencies are using it so it must be great! Find all those shady criminals! You know, thanks to the pandemic, I find face masks tolerable and I've accepted I'll be wearing them quite a bit in the future. I'm working on this detachable ear loop idea with magnets. If I can just figure out how to wear my giant earrings paired with a mask without fuss, I will be good to go for this delightful brave new ridiculous garbage world we find ourselves in. (I guess they can use facial recognition with masks now, but I like to feel I make 'em work for it.)

Sometimes I'm like, I should buy a faraday pouch to put my phone in when I don't want it actively pinging anything. Then I come back to reality and think, that's so silly and paranoid, ha ha! Only tinfoil hat conspiracy loons do stuff like that! I mean it's not like they have incentive to correlate facial data with your GPS and phone signature and build a whole sekrit profile for you with all your local and online interactions and then manipulate the internet on a granular level to control what price you are given for items and what information/services/opportunities/advertisements you're allowed/forced to view. Your boss certainly wouldn't be able to pay to pull up that raw data either, ha ha! Say if you were exploring the idea of starting your own business, or interviewing for a new job, he wouldn't get hints about that, surely. If he fires you unfairly you just dip into your savings (you're not one of those worthless poors are you?), get a lawyer and sue, right? That makes it all better?

When I catch myself romanticizing the wild west and how people seemingly had so much more freedom and options back then, I remind myself that today is the wild west people will romanticize about in some future timeline. We have more freedom than we know.