Funky lobster, outrageous oil and bots.

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Lobsters are greenish brown when alive and scurrying around on the bottom of the ocean. Though every once in a while a fisherman will haul up a genetic mutation cotton candy blue, a yellow or an orange.

Those are rare, 1 in 10 million to 1 in 30 million.

But the other day?

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Now that’s rare.

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And wonderfully bizarre.

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People have been bitching about high gas prices for months, but in Maine…. where most houses have oil furnaces? We’re going to start bitching about heating oil now. Last year it was $3.42 a gallon…. today? It’s almost $6.

Our house uses roughly 200 gallons a month in the dead of winter … December through the end of March… and that’s set to a median temperature of 69 degrees, not the 73 my always cold husband would prefer. At today’s price of $5.96?

That’s $1,192.

A month.

Can we afford it? Yes. But it still hurts. And how about all the Mainers who can’t?

Something’s got to give.

Heat shouldn’t be a luxury.

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The hummingbirds are gone and these silly sparrows have taken over the feeders I need to bring in. Sorry guys, you’re too big.

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Since no one has ever said my weekly useless news posts “highlight crucial nuances”? I’m guessing the bots have started commenting.

🤣

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36 thoughts on “Funky lobster, outrageous oil and bots.”

  1. Here in Canada people cheer every time the minimum wage goes up. What they don’t realize until after their first paycheck arrives is that they still don’t have any money left over. Because prices for all essentials keep going up faster than paychecks can handle.

    To the naked eye, we look like we’re doing ok. Let me say it out loud here: We are barely squeezing by and both kids continue to live at home despite having jobs. We know for certain we are unable to retire unless we sell everything and move to Saskatchewan. Or some obscure island maybe. 😵‍💫

    The political systems are screwed.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Did they kill and eat that lobster or put it back where it could maybe spawn more weird ones? I grew up with oil heat but most folks around here converted to natural gas later. But prices? I was in the woods for five days and when I came out gasoline was 50% higher than when I went in.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. What a unique lobster. It almost looks fake. As for heating oil, when we lived in California our AC electric bill in the summer was $1,200 a month. We moved to Arizona almost six years ago to a bigger house and our summer electric is closer to $400 a month. I’m grateful for the move! Electric rates were set to increase 25% in California the month after we moved.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Wow. I’m continuing to like the state of Arizona. I paid property taxes this past week and they went down! Also our state income tax in CA was more than 10% and it’s 2.5% here.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. We have brother and sister cats, now 9 years old. One has tiny white ankle socks and white loafer shoes (front and back feet). Otherwise tabby heab to fail. The other has regular white socks, and white waders up to her butt. Easy to see in good
    light, but in low light and lying down, hard to see the difference — from the left side.
    From the right side, one is still a tabby. The other was has a tabby head and tail, but the body is tortoiseshell fron shoulder to hip, right down her backbone. The way we describe her, she went between the paint lines rather than rather than through them. She is very unique.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. A couple decades ago, electricity got super expensive in most of SoCal, but not Long Beach due to some weird contract. No… our natural gas prices went insane. Nearly everyone I knew had to shut off their built-in wall heaters. I remember waking up because my bed was against a wall and when I rolled over, touching the 45⁰ wall woke me up. A LOT of bakeries went out of business because they couldn’t afford to cook. Our electricity rates caught up about a year later – horrible double-whammy for citizens and mom/pop businesses.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. Nothing anymore! But I guess that’s everywhere. I’m really lucky that I bought a house, then paid it off early. It’s a money pit (or would be if I maintained it), but at least it’s a paid off shelter. We’ll see if El Niño changes that!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Yes, you’re very fortunate there. What we’d call a starter home or fixer upper, California is selling for $1.2 m. I’m astounded any normal working people survive.

        Like

      3. I’d say it’s worth it for the weather but this year SUCKED and we’re currently in a routine Oct 100+ heat wave (though I seem to be the only one who remembers that this heatwave is normal).

        Liked by 1 person

      4. We left Palm Springs for Scottsdale and it’s actually cooler here. Prices are much better, especially electricity and gas. Since we moved in 2020 home prices have doubled. It was a good deal when we made the move.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. That heating oil cost is insane. We used to live in a home with oil heat, and took advantage of a yearly contract where high and low cost estimates were locked in, and you paid an estimated cost monthly throughout the year instead of just when you filled your tank.

    Liked by 1 person

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