Our government seems to think there hasn’t been any inflation. I think that’s because none of them actually go shopping. They don’t scour the grocery shelves looking for a few bargains, maybe something different to eat. As it stands, we eat some version of chopped meat, pork, and chicken. We simply can’t afford anything else. I can’t even begin to explain how weary I am of our diet. I have learned a good deal of Chinese cooking, some Indian cooking. Some Tex-Mex stuff. Jewish food I have resurrected after years of missing it.

All that being said, the cost of food for a week costs at least twice as much as it did a year ago. It was going up even before the pandemic. Inching up, bit by bit. What had cost less than $100 was now $110 or $120. Now, it’s closer to $200 and we are getting less food.

Are the prices going to drop? Or, having raised, them, are they going to stay as high as they are? And how come they keep saying we aren’t experiencing inflation when obviously we are? Are we in “pretend” mode again? If we don’t acknowledge reality, it isn’t real?

Every time some asshole says “people aren’t going back to work because unemployment insurance is too high.” Do they realize what that says about how poorly we pay people in this country? Where working a full-time job doesn’t earn you sufficient funds to rent an apartment and buy food to eat? It isn’t because we have high taxes. We don’t have high taxes, not when compared to any other well-to-do nation. We pay a lot less and we get what we pay for, which is not very much. We still aren’t fixing the roads and bridges. We won’t pay people enough money to live on. We won’t raise social security, so people like us get poorer with each passing year.

Both of us retired 10 years ago. Retired as in Garry stopped working because his station decided they didn’t want him to get his full pension and I was too sick to keep working. That’s what real retirement looks like. The days of the gold watch and the great party with tears from colleagues is so long gone, I don’t know anyone who really retired on their own terms. They took disability, retired early, got “let go” and had to struggle with part time gigs to survive.

Some people had enough money and were able to do it with style, but the rest of us? We struggle. Each year we struggle more. At some point, no amount of struggle will enable us to eat, get medical care, and have a roof over our heads. What then?

If you don’t die young, you will get old. Old isn’t a disease. It’s what is supposed to happen. What happens to us, will happen to everyone eventually — unless they die young.

It’s worth pondering.

Categories: #Food, #Photography, #Recipes, Anecdote, baking

Tags: #Photography, fixed incomes, food, getting old isn't a disease, inflation, Marilyn Armstrong, survival