I Just...Couldn't...Resist

Vaguely there, in the back of my mind, I knew it existed. But it took Elias posting a photo on my facebook wall to inspire me to visit my old neighborhood and check this place out.

Yeah, probably not, but more about that later. 

The above photo of the Zombie Apocalypse Store is the one I posted on my log for a nearby geocache. 

My review? The interior was smaller than I expected, but the store is still well-stocked with guns and ammunition (which I didn't look at because even if I had looked, I wouldn't be able to testify to the quality or value of same), knives, MREs, camping supplies and souvenirs. 

I picked up another Emergency Fire Starter, but beware! It was more economical on amazon.com, and I also think that the amazon version has more magnesium than the Zombie store version (obviously, I didn't know that at the time, even though I had my moderately intelligent phone [thank you, Congolese miners!] and could have checked). So...inflated prices due to the owners know you're willing to pay a bit more for a product that is combined with zombie ambiance. 

There are many, many novelty items related to the store's theme, including bumper stickers, posters, books and movies, t-shirts and even bleeding zombie targets.  

There was a heavy flow of traffic in the store from the time I arrived until the time I left. 

BY FAR, the best part about the Zombie Apocalypse Store in Las Vegas (are there any other Zombie Apocalypse Stores in other cities? I ran a google search for this and came up confused) is the little zombie-shooting range. You stand behind the counter, feed two quarters into the slot and get a fixed number of shots to aim at glowing targets. When you hit your glowing target (I know, because it took me exactly two shots each time to get each zombie), the furniture twirls or the zombie head pops up or some other interactive feature gives you positive reinforcement for your good shot. 

There was also a corner of a display case weirdly dedicated to Twinkies, and a Twinkie recipe book. 

The million-dollar question: is the zombie apocalypse store worth the $1.85 in gas that it will cost you to get from my home to the store? 

The answer is mostly yes, especially if you are a tourist here and you've gotten bored and/or lost money on the Strip, or if you live here and guests who do not know about the Zombie Apocalypse Store are coming to visit. 

The answer is no if you are seriously looking for survival items and weaponry. There are other places in town which have these things at a better value. The answer is also no if you live here and are very busy with like, say, a job or something. 

So that's that. Let me know what you think if you visit the store. Lots of people do, I think, because as I was driving home I noticed about 27 "zombie hunter: kill or be eaten" stickers on various cars around town.

Fresh 52 and the Greeks

$2.41

That's how much it cost me in fuel according to Road Trip America to go to The Fresh52 Farmer's Market, which happens each weekend in extreme southeastern Las Vegas. I don't think I'll be going to Summerlin on Tuesday afternoons anymore if I don't have to.

Don't get me wrong. Fresh52 is just as scrawny, with a majority of the booths selling bread (which I can make at home instead of buy - shoot, after that recipe I got from Pinterest, I'm convinced I should be selling loaves, not buying them), popcorn, pizza and hot dogs.

My issue was that even after my roommate sold me a bottle of Clover Honey for $0.00 so that I would have an emergency supply, I was running out of honey and was about to have a conniption fit if there was not a beekeeper at the corner of Eastern and Silverado Ranch. Lucky for me, a youngish guy with a pickup truck advertising his dislike for some of my favorite presidents and his support of some candidates I think are kind of crazy was hawking one flavor and some little wooden honey dippers. He bent the ear of the person in front of me for nearly six full minutes. The person was clearly not going to buy anything, while in the meantime I was mentally (and maybe even out loud, it's hard to say) chanting honeyhoneyhoneyhoney.

I walked away to another booth where I saw honey bears. Although orange flavored honey probably would have been delicious with that Pinterest cake (ahem, I mean bread...), I decided to go with what I knew. I did what every person who ever went to a crowded bar in their 20s knows how to do: I pulled out my money and waggled it at the salesman to indicate that I actually wanted a product. He winked at me. *shudder* But I got what I went to the market for. I also came home with spinach, asian pears and four really large, beautiful lemons.

How do I feel about buying honey from a guy who wants to string me up and take away my rights? Um...I'll get back to you on that.

In the meantime, while you're waiting for my response to that somewhat accusatory question, check out this article in the Guardian if you haven't already seen it on Facebook. I was just telling my students two weeks ago that Greece was busy getting bailed out just like us. It seems they're cutting out the middle man in Thessaloniki.

Our Europe unit is over, however. We will have to wait until next year to talk about Greece again. In the meantime, we are studying the continent of Africa, and I am following Proverbs of Africa on Twitter.

I will leave you with one from the Congo:
"He who looks for honey must have the courage to face the bees."

Bon appetit.

The Skills to Pay the Bills

Here's my theory about buying things: if you want it for a really, really long time and the day comes when you walk past it in the store and pick it up, you will not suffer buyer's remorse. Buyer's remorse is for impulse purchases, like an extra four boxes of Girl Scout cookies. It is in this spirit that I do not regret last Sunday's purchase.

You see, I've been spending a lot of time reading books and magazines and watching tv, when the actual purpose of this blog was to document my building a skill set for the apocalypse. I'm looking for a way to produce trade items and/or things to keep myself alive when the grid goes down for good. 

When I was a tweenager, I taught myself to juggle three tennis balls by reading a book. I was thinking of that, and my longtime desire to have one, when I picked up the Learn to Knit Kit at JoAnn whilst I was waiting for David's Bridal to open so that I could get some swatches as I plan my bridesmaid outfit for Ace and Jodi's wedding. True, if David's Bridal had been open when I arrived at 10:30 instead of keeping its doors locked till noon, I would not own the Learn to Knit Kit. But things being as they are, I was unwilling to spend the $4.16 + punitive damages of driving home and coming back later. 

ANYWAY...The question my loyal readers should be asking themselves now is, "SingleGirl, are you training for the apocalypse or training for retirement, with your aspiring-to-knit ways???" Now anyone who has seen the results of my Super Saturday attempts knows that I am the opposite of crafty. But anyone who knew me back on my 30th birthday, when I kayaked in the Colorado River, knows that I am also self-aware. So I also purchased a book called Learn to Knit in Just One Day. I chose Monday. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and suggest that the title of the book be changed to "Learn to Knit in Just One Year," unless it's a very, very long day!

Good thing I bought that book. The Learn to Knit Kit speaks in knitting language and does not provide translation. It's a very entertaining kit. You know how little kids color with GIANT crayons and write with GIANT pencils to develop their motor skills? Well, the kit includes GIANT knitting needles and GIANT yarn. They are pictured here with Amanda's regular-sized needles because that's right, folks...knitting is NOT just a retirement hobby! In fact, it's all the rage with the my-age DIY/etsy set. I am in fact behind the hipster curve in my demographic.

While watching the Medici miniseries on Netflix, I was able to successfully "cast on" 24 stitches, destroy them, and do it again. Twice. As for knitting and purling, well...

...it's three days later, and I haven't gotten there yet. But I'll try again now. And I will post photos of my sure-to-be hilarious results in an upcoming post on some other day. I anticipate that any income I might earn from knitting in the futuristic dystopia will not be enough to pay for the yarn for more knitting. So, for now I will plan on supplementing my knitting earnings by making deals with people who have fruit: if I can keep three pieces of your fruit in the air juggling them for ten minutes, I get to keep and eat them.

Where there's a will, there's a way!
Wish me luck.

The Disappointing Radius of Honey

I've kept the world waiting for this blog post, but it's worth it for the very useful devastating news that will come later.

Although it's been my goal to stock up on food just in case the grid goes down tonight, I'll do a good job of making a bulk purchase and then...eating it. I've been wasting less food, and I'll cite my carrot-raisin salad and tonight's dinner of a nearly-rotten squashed banana with cashew butter and mesquite honey as evidence. I'm still trying to create a balanced pantry. 

My quest has taken me on a $3.29 (according to RoadTripAmerica) trip to the Las Vegas Farmer's Market at Garden Park.  The market takes place at a park so bougie that you're sorely tempted to steal the TP they so boldly leave lying around. The market consisted of a small number of vendors, maybe seven or eight, hocking anemic-looking produce that I didn't buy. Instead, I came home from the farmer's market with a 1/2 pound of raw natural pistachios and some sun-dried tomato and asiago artisan bread that lasted me for a week and inspired me to rotate my soups. There are a couple of other options in town that I'll look into in the near future and report on. 

This past weekend, I took a trip to Joshua Tree National Park with you-know-who (Miss Gokey). If memory serves, and I'll trust Gokey to correct me if I'm wrong, we got caught by the (merciful) end of the longest Burlington-Northern-Santa-Fe train I have ever seen in my natural life, and I come from the Crossroads of America! And then, we sped past a honey stand and got to talking about how it was a shame that it looked closed and how we would stop there if we were taking the same route home, which at that point we were not. But then, as it turned out...we did!

So, on Sunday, I screeched my car into the honey stand. The woman hocking her honey looked positively scraggly, but I thought to myself, "Well, I've already stopped, so..." We got out and tasted the mesquite honey, the wild honey, and some bee pollen. Miss Gokey had been talking about how local honey is supposed to help with allergies. We asked the honey lady, and she was enthusiastic in her support of the idea, which the New York Times unfortunately says is false. Discovery Health, however, supports the idea that local honey can help ease allergy symptoms. Miss Gokey and I then broached the topic of what constitutes "local." 

This post is dedicated to the answer to that very question, and the answer is (according to the same article from Discovery Health)...

...within a few miles of where the allergy sufferer lives. 

For a glorious minute there, I was considering buying local honey wherever I went, and then using it as a bartering tool to allergy sufferers after the apocalypse. Helas, the best laid plans...

At any rate, here are two photos of the honey stand. 

Needless to say, I carried some honey and some natural raw pistachios (gotta love California) over the state line and into the Vega.