I don't remember if you'd posted this already, but where do you get your coupons, Hil?

There are a bunch of printable coupon sites. coupons.com is the easiest to use, and has the most coupons. You need to download an app that keeps track of how many times you've printed. There's also smartsource.com and redplum.com, and mambosprouts.com and hopster.com for some of the more "health food" type stuff. (There's also commonkindness.com, but that site is ridiculously finicky about when it will print.) I've also usually been buying two papers each Sunday. There are also services where you can order coupons for a few cents each, which can be useful if you want a whole lot of one particular coupon, but I haven't used any of those yet, because they all have a minimum number of coupons per order, and I haven't yet found anything where I wanted that many of them.

As for knowing what to do with them, there are a bunch of websites that put out lists each week of the sales at each store and what coupons are available for those items, plus a whole lot of blogs that either focus on particular stores (usually the national ones like Target or Rite-Aid) or that post about the deals at all (or most) of the supermarkets within some region. I found out about the Swiffer deal at Target from one of those blogs -- there's no way I would have, by myself, realized that the Swiffer things were all part of a "Buy 3, get a $10 gift card" special, and noticed that one of the things was really cheap to begin with, and also remembered that there had been some coupons for it in the paper a few weeks ago, plus found that there were also some printable coupons, because I didn't have enough from just the newspaper.

Headline 'o the Week?

Woman's car attacked by self-identified 'high elf' battling evil

The last thing the woman from Northeast Portland probably expected when she got up Tuesday morning was that she would be attacked by a sword-wielding elf.

But that's what happened around 7 a.m. as she drove her red BMW by the intersection of Southeast 7th and Morrison.

A man dressed in chain-mail with a helmet, shield and carrying a sword and staff ran into traffic and started attacking her car.

She called 911, reporting that "a pirate" was attacking her car.

When police got there, they detained Konrad Bass of Glendale, Oregon.

Bass told officers that he wasn't a pirate but a "high-elf engaged in battle with the evil Morgoth."

Morgoth is a character created by JRR Tolkien in a prequel to the Lord of the Rings stories. In the stories, he is the character from which all evil grew.

Bass, who was cited for criminal mischief and transported to Providence Hospital, also told officers he had taken LSD.

The woman's car had several puncture marks.

I had to see the original link to see if "alcohol was a factor."

Also, I'd never heard the term "high-elf" until now.

Oh Steph, man that's hard.

high elf

heh

coming down from that trip is gonna be a bitch.

Oh Steph, man that's hard.

I totally understand the general idea of letting the people in your life do the dumb stuff they're going to do. No one is my puppet (YET), so even when I think "Well, *I* would do that differently," I have to let them do their thing.

But the problem is when "their thing" seems so directly harmful. I know I can't make Tim's dad do what I think he should, but the way he's continuing is just contributing to the morass he's stuck in, compounded by very real dementia. And I can't force Tim and his brothers to have the hard conversation they need to have before something bad happens. Argh.

The last thing the woman from Northeast Portland probably expected when she got up Tuesday morning was that she would be attacked by a sword-wielding elf.

I'm sending that to my brother. (He and my SiL are very likely moving to Portland within the next year. He needs to know what he's getting himself into.)

In somewhat related news (to my question above, not to people's difficulties with relatives), do other editors ever get actually angry at stuff they're editing? Not because of content, just because it's in such shit shape?

I think my parents, having dealt with the decline of my mother's parents, learned some lessons about aging. At least, I hope so, but I can envision my mother being equally as stubborn as my grandmother was about not moving out of her house.

YES, Dana. Also, insent to your profile address.

do other editors ever get actually angry at stuff they're editing? Not because of content, just because it's in such shit shape?

Hell yes.

Pretty much what I've found from couponing is that you'll save a lot more at the drugstore than at the grocery store, at least percentage-wise. If you're not too particular about what brand you use, then you can get stuff like deodorant, body wash, soap, shampoo, etc., for free. For most OTC meds, if you pay attention to the sales and coupons, and buy them when they're cheap if you know you're going to use them eventually, you can get them at about 50-75% off. For groceries, I usually end up saving somewhere between 30% and 50% -- the coupons and sales aren't for as high a percentage of the cost as the drugstore ones are, and there are almost never coupons for things like produce. (Although, once in a while, there are, and there are some savings apps that will pick one or two produce items each week and give you 50 cents or so if you buy them.)

I'm in denial.

Also cold, bored, not looking forward to my goal review in four minutes, and I feel greased out by the burger which doesn't usually happen at the Counter.

I don't have what it takes to make it through an entire day anymore, it seems. Embarrassing.