Confused, but up and drinking coffee

Holidays can be confusing. Yesterday seemed like Sunday so this should be Monday but New Year's Day actually was Tuesday so it's really Wednesday. I think. By the end of the day this all will have sorted itself out.

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Not to keep obsessing about coffee or anything, but the one-cup coffee maker I was looking for last week (but didn't find, which is how I ended up with a new French press pot, too), turned up yesterday (see above; not my photo), new on the shelves of our new ShopKo Hometown (it wasn't there a week ago).

Put water in the reservoir, coffee in the reusable filter basket, hit the button and it brews one 12-ounce ceramic cupful. So far, it's wonderful. Better yet, it cost only $12. An extended warranty (?!?) was available. I passed. Since it does exactly what I wanted it to do, it's a happy-camper morning and I have a new best friend forever. Let's hope the thing lasts. But for $12 ....

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The new ShopKo is pretty impressive, or at least I think it is. Bright, well-lighted, fresh and shiny with intelligently arranged merchandise, all inserted in the old Pamida shell.

It opened fully just before Christmas, so this was my first visit to the completed project. I went in search of a new mattress pad and came home with the pad, the coffee maker and a package of file folders --- all for under $50.

The whole operation would fit into the corner of a bigger-town big box. But that's the beauty of it, at least for those of us who don't look upon shopping as recreation.

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I'm sure the new Hy-Vee will be wonderful, too, but I wish that project could be hurried along. The staff continues to behave in an exemplary manner --- and deserves combat pay. Don't mind all the visiting in the aisles (this is a small town) or minor traffic control issues.

But why do some people walk through the front door, pick up their carts, then stop in the only narrow access lane to the rest of the store like stunned steers ready for slaughter and study their shopping lists at great length as traffic backs up behind them?

I want a horn on my shopping cart.

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While others have been fretting about the fiscal cliff, I've been tending to the fruitcakes --- now beginning to cure, wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth in the refrigerator. They're wonderful. Honest.

Too many people confuse the fruitcake parodies available commerically at Christmas --- cloyingly sweet, packed with odd bits and pieces of brightly-colored rubbery stuff.

These contain only dried fruits, reconstituted in rum, lots of nuts and a generous nutty-brown batter base. Of course I have to keep sampling one to see how the other is doing, so in another week or so it will be gone. Then, perhaps, I'll bake more.