It's an interesting cycle this this of ours. Fly fishing. Each year things happen pretty much right on time. It starts early January when we try and catch out first striped bass before our fingers snap off from the cold. Then The Fly Fishing Show hits and gives us some life until spring. We wait too long to start tying flies and then its go day. Early spring stripers arrive and its a mad dash to get the boats or waders out. For me, it had been, the June trip to the Vineyard following by a long summer in Jersey. The fall is hit or miss starting with the mullet and then the bunker. The International Fly Tying Symposium hits in November before the anticpated around-Thanksgiving few days of blitzing bass somewhere along the Jersey Shore. And then, like every year, its quit after quit until you fish into January. Then repeat.
Last year I had a decent excuse on why I didn't make the Symposium which was held up in Parsippany. My father had a man lift dropped off at our house and I was able to do things I would never had been able to do otherwise. I just couldn't let that thing sit idle while I spent time shooting the fly fishing shit and buying materials. But his year is different. Today is the second and last day of the show and I hope you get to go to see old friends, meet new ones, and pick up some materials to get you through the long cold winter.
This year I'm not going becasue we are flat out broke. It's funny how you can just find yourself there someday and aren't really sure why. But let's look at this tying show. Get up, start your car it costs money. In my truck probably $25 in gas there and back. Stop for a coffee and a bagel- $8. Entrance fee- I checked but couldn't find it, let's say $16. Stops at Brad Buzzi and the Squimpish booths, and don't forget Collin's Hackle- $160. ( now that may be high, and you don't have to buy, but it's the norm). Grab a $8 beer so you feel normal and that day comes to $217. If you hit Mcdonald's on the way home add another $10. In todays times that's a lot.
And speaking of bagels, let's talk New York. Remember last week when we went to Bed-Sty to visit Juliet, you know the gentrified once shit hole (not people but landscape), well a dozen bagles at Greenberg's on Bedford Ave set me back $28.50. Thank God we bought our own barely used butter and cream chese. We hit two bridges getting to her and that's $18 for each view of the water below. Add the tolls for the Turnpike and some gas and do the math there. And let's talk Ez-Pass. Luckily I only have to travel north three days a week for work. But that adds up also. $7 each way on the
Turnpike, $14 a day plus gas, I'll get to gas later. But that's $14 a day, $42 a week, about $160 a month. Add to that gas which is creeping up as we speak. But then Ez-Pass, along with all of our other bills, are on auto-deduct. So just when you're holding on between checks, WHAM!- there goes another $175 replenishment from your checking account into their's. We decided yesterday morning to bypass the toll going over the Delaware for a cheap breakfast sandwich and hit another deli that makes a good bacon, egg and cheese. After I ordered I wandered around and looked at the
menu board. All of the prices had been covered. My under $5 sandwich was now $7...'That's okay I'll put the pint of milk back". Now gas. Yesterday I glanced over at my local Exxon gas station, and there's goes the prices again. Sneaky how they change them in the middle of the night. That's $4.89
a gallon for regular cash, who carries cash anymore anyway? Now I will say they are always high. Today WaWa in Ewing is at $3.89. I have a 2003 Chevy Silverado 2500, thank God I got rid of that diesel last year. It pulls the boat. It pulls a dump body trailer. We need the dump body trailer to do those DIY projects around the house. Like landscaping and brush removal ect. Right now we are in the process of removing our shitty ass driveway, small piece by small piece. And to get rid of it is $50 a drop, at $22 a ton. Plus the gas in the truck.....it just all adds up. Luckily, for me, Theresa has been doing the heavy lifting while I'm inside working on the dining room and kitchen. And about
inside, what happened to the cost of paint. I, and I hate myslef for it, got sucked into the Home Depot and Lowe's as the place to buy things for the home. I wish they would both go away and we can again get into shopping local. I don't like some of their stuff, especially their paints, no matter who they claim is manufacturing it. So the other day we stopped at Sherwin Williams to get schooled on good paint, as the gallon of Glidden I bought at HD went on like water. So the guy went
into paints and the different lines and the difference between Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. I told him I wanted a really good white semi-gloss. He started from top to bottom. When did semi-gloss paint crest $100 a gallon? Their Emerald line lists for $116.49, top of the line, but WTF? I settled for a middle of the line Superpaint which set us back $52, with 25% off and an extra $10 coupon the guy had. I have to say the paint is nice.
This reality I bet is not mine alone. I know other people who are feeling it the same way. It's just some months are worse than others, and November has been our month. Besides the above, throw in the mortgage, the phone, electric, insurances- car, house, life, nursing liability, and we haven't even fired up the heat yet, home heating oil. Prices now are over $6 a gallon, last year over $5, in 2020 $2.
Throw in some extra November fun. College visit costs, and applicaion fees, $1000 for the boat repair, "Why would you spend that to go out once?", plus $180 for the Boat US insurance to get a tow back in, and a visit from the furnace guy for annual maintanence on the oil burner and hot water heater which is oil run also, another $400, "Cash please". You get my drift.
And lastly food. Luckily we spent enough at Shop Rite to get a free turkey this year. I dug through the frozen bin to find the biggest one and for the 22 pound bird the price was $42.75. We paid $1.17 because we were over weight. But have you really checked the price of food lately. If you just shop and pay than good for you, but shit is expensive. Our kitchen is full with Bowl and Basket products, which is Shop Rite's own brand, but that shit's not cheap anymore. We have been existing
on Marie Callender's Chicken Pot Pies several times a week. They used to be $1.50 a peice on sale and now they are $3.75. Last night, because we both needed "some real food" Theresa suggested Chinese. Sure, we split a sesame chicken, won-ton soup, and two egg rolls, and that garbage came to $28. Well, there goes the budget. Now let's talk about going out.....
Going out to dinner. Who invented that? I remember when I was young you only went out to dinner, at someplace other than a diner, Ground Round, or Friendly's, for a holiday, special occasion, or after a funeral. It has become this countries go to. Feeling depressed, looking shabby, really not even hungry, let me throw some clothes on and get a bite to eat. That bite, costs a lot more these days, and, as Leif and I joke around about, whats the sense when you just go and blow it out the next
day or so anyway. And forget about going out nice, entrees that used to tap out at $28 are now $40. If you go nice and decide to be big money grip and foot the bill, four people will cost you way over $200, who has that? And for what? Food?
If anyone has been job searching than you know how difficult it can be landing a job even in a job rich environmant. Theresa has been in between jobs and she went the route so many others do, searching online and submitting application after application. One of those was to St. Peter's in early October. She recieved a call a week later and after three interviews she was offered the position in late October. That was a happy day for both of us, especially since she'd been without a pay check for a while. But the elation turned glum when she learned her start date would be December 5th, due to the orientation start cycle. So that means her first check won't come until around Christmas, if we're lucky.
So today for me it's paint brush in hand while I listen to the NFL games. I'm back to that now that all the bullshit that went along with pro sports seems to have went away. For lunch we'll divy up the congealed sesame chicken from last night and save the pot pies for dinner. Early this morning I sent Leif the above screen shot from Betty and Nicks. Today is a great day to be out chasing bass, either on the beach or in the cab, but it's just too costly. It would easily be a six hour day and a $60 gas bill. So no fly tying show and no fishing. It's not a complaint it's just my reality that I am sure some other average anglers are facing these days. I belive times are going to get real tough this winter, regardless of what they say on TV, online, and in the papers. The person who knows best is you and what your finances look like. Brighter days for all ahead.