The first couple of days of Spring Break are over and I have to start being a productive life form for a while. This house looks like a war zone. I haven't cleaned in eons, even by my own lackadaisical standards. I believe firmly that no respectable Southern person ever has a really clean house. The "nice people" of the South regard excessive cleanliness as a creepy Northern trait. If one has no bloodline, one makes up for it in Lysol. Thus, I see absolutely nothing wrong with four inches of cat hair and dust blanketing the whole house, as long as the silver is impeccably polished. Unfortunately, my own argument is getting the better of me. Not only are there six inches of cat hair on every square inch of red velvet sofa, the silver is looking absolutely leprotic.

Knowing that Monday means a frenzy of attempted housekeeping, I spent today doing as little useful activity as possible. First of all, I blew off going to Mass, which is probably not scoring any brownie points with God. Blowing off Sunday Mass is bad enough, but on Palm Sunday it's probably landing me some serious extra time in Purgatory. I then proceeded to fart around for the rest of the day and drive around aimlessly with Steve and Amy.

At some point in the day's wandering, after checking out bookstores, test-driving overpriced cushy mattresses and funky stuff at Sunny's Surplus (they actually have surplus MREs, so I'm thinking I need to have an Armed Forces dinner party soon), we needed some cold drinks and ducked into a Royal Farms store. If you are not from the Mid-Atlantic region you're probably not familiar with this chain. It's a big improvement on 7-Eleven, and it has better hot dogs.

Like all convenience stores, Royal Farms peddles some basic food items for those who discover that they need such things at weird hours of the night. And what, to my wondering eyes should appear, but...

Hauswald's bread. Two days after I waxed sentimental about the old bakery chain, I was confronted with a giant display of the stuff. They haven't changed the wrapper one iota in thirty years. I didn't buy any today (I don't happen to need any bread at the moment), but I may just change my shopping habits to allow the time-honored old brand back into the house. Maybe if I keep haunting the Royal Farms baked-goods aisle, I'll even find some "Let's Streak" cookies.