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Three before-and-after images of the California drought. This is why lettuce is $2 a head and green peppers are averaging about $2.50 a pound in season.
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Karl Denninger reminds us that people need to chill the hell out.
How close to perfectly-manicured does your lawn have to be? There is an enormous difference in personal cost, whether you spend the time or you spend money, between a "perfect" (or nearly-so) lawn and one that is a couple of inches too long and somewhat ragged for three or four days out of every couple of weeks. It could be three to five times as expensive in either time or money to have one over the other.It's why the bunker is not 100% neat as a pin all the time; my wife and I want our home to be neat but it does not need to be fit for the cover of Architectural Digest for us to be comfortable. There are, therefore, a few things laying around rather than put away; there are frequently a few dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and gasp! we leave our shoes out in the family room. I guess that just means we're living in squalor or something.
How close to "neat as a pin" does your household have to be? Again, there is an enormous difference in personal cost between "lived in" and "picture-perfect." The latter could easily require, for many people, the hiring of a maid -- the equivalent of putting an hour a day, every day, into cleaning. Double that if you have one or more kids, incidentally.
How close to perfect does your experience in a restaurant need to be? If the food is great and the drinks nicely-made and to your liking, and you're with someone you like, if the waitress forgets about you toward the end of your meal and you wait 15 minutes for the check what did you actually lose? Let's assume you didn't have a business meeting you had to be at; you were headed home afterward. Did you really lose by that or did you gain another 15 minutes with someone you enjoy?
How close to perfect does your car have to be? You "need" a new one every 2 or 3 years? It'll cost you twice as much to operate it, on balance including insurance and depreciation, as something older. Of course it looks nicer and has bluetooth and all the other pretty-pretty things -- but does that define your happiness?
Denninger's point, however, is that a lot of the things that people obsess over are, in fact, a waste of time and effort: "...[D]o you really want to run your personal life that way? These choices make an enormous difference between going to bed with a smile and not, between being*****ed off and disappointed and being content, bemused or even pleased."
I really don't. I'd much rather go to bed happy, even if it means the grass isn't picture-perfect.
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Related to that last, it rained to a stinkinous extent today, on top of the major 40-minute gullywasher we had on Sunday.
*sigh*