Stewing Around.
Today was super busy at PJP because of the upcoming holiday. If you haven’t seen it posted at the store or online, PJP will be closed on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the holiday weekend. Historically we always close on July 4th and 5th, and then it just seemed completely extra to come in and stock a store full of pie on Saturday when we will likely be pretty slow. Also, this will probably be our last holiday weekend in our current space and we won’t be able to afford to live the bougie lifestyle by taking three day breaks once we are in the new space.
Now that we’ve discussed that, here are few things I’m stewing around about:
I know that I just can’t stop with my disdain for the HVAC at PJP Buttonwood, but GOODNESS. I paid bills this morning and our electric bill was $812.50. For the same period last year, it was $599.46. I don’t know anything about heating and air, but REALLY? I’m sure it needs more freon or yet another filter or better insulation or extra kilowatts of billing or a deep tissue massage, but I honestly don’t feel like I got an extra $213.04 worth of air this month. Just saying.
I was standing in PJP Buttonwood today and began to obsess a bit that our tea towel display says “Made You Smile…Primitives By Kathy”. That’s the company that wholesales the towels, but the quotation makes me cringe. Goal for AtlantaMart next week: find displays that don’t include extraneous phrasing. (Also, we are planning a PJP Garage Sale for August 11th and selling off whatever isn’t going to the new store. My eye is on you, Kathy.)
Almost every day I go to Hyvee and buy bananas so that we can make Banana Cream pie and Banoffee pie. Yet, if I order bananas from the food broker then they come in 10 pounds and stay green for a week, or they come in a box of thirty pounds and we all risk potassium overdose from trying to eat the extras to avoid waste. I’m just saying that the only institutions ordering bananas must be zoos. And schools.
We’ve been short on nine-inch pie tins and today I learned it is because a national company starts their THANKSGIVING PIE PRODUCTION on July 1 and so they are buying up the market of the tins we also use. Frankly, that doesn’t make me as annoyed as it does sad for all those pies and the people who will purchase them in five months.
Finally, it is time to pay for our annual business license. Do you know how that is calculated? You disclose your annual gross receipts from the previous year and then multiply it by .25 cents per thousand. Um, what? I have a Bachelor of Arts and a Juris Doctorate and I needed to text someone and ask how to do that calculation. I’m not even embarrassed because I feel like that entire form is 100% more difficult than necessary. Remember the Flat Tax postcard proposal of 1990s politics? I’m here for a Flat Cost Business License calculation. Or at least one that doesn’t require a Good Will Hunting scene.
