Pocketmint

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend (well, those in the States, anyway — I hope everyone else had a great ordinary weekend). We had an awesome dinner, if I do say so myself. I am almost done with the cost calculations I promised; I just need to get a few prices from Costco for some pantry staples that I already had on hand.

I did not for a moment consider doing any sort of shopping on Black Friday. Even before my recent focus shift towards non-consumption, when my thrifty streak manifested as Serious Sale Shopper, I never waited in the wee hours of the morning to fight other people for … well, whatever they’re fighting for.

And frankly, I was deeply appalled and disgusted by the news reports. Pepper-spraying your fellow shoppers, really? Did we not learn anything from the poor guy who was trampled to death a couple of years ago? How can anyone imagine this whole consumerism thing has not gone way, way too far?

What did we do instead? We worked on a new 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle that I bought at Goodwill for eighty-two cents, and ate lots of leftovers.

We did participate in ‘Small Business Saturday’, however. Despite it being basically a marketing gimmick for American Express, I support the concept.

Jak and I made dinner plans with some friends, and since I didn’t particularly want to cook again just yet (after the all-day marathon of Wednesday and Thursday), we met at a little family-owned Indian restaurant. The proprietress is this sweet older Indian lady who barely speaks any English; she waits tables while her husband and son do the cooking.

We used to get takeout from there pretty regularly, back when we were both working full-time, but in the last couple of years we’ve cut back sharply on our eating-out. I checked Mint to see the last time we were there, and it was nine months ago.

I know that they’ve struggled; they’ve moved three times since we first discovered them, and their restaurant is often nearly empty despite the excellent food. So in addition to getting my masala fix, I feel good for helping them out a little bit — something that no one in line outside a big box store Friday morning (or Thursday night) could say.