Gift Honoraria

Some honoraria and minor awards have accumulated.  Gift cards for serving as a research subject.  Minor awards for OLLI contests.  I've not redeemed any of them, but carry a $50 Bill with a portrait of US Grant in my wallet.  Not every place accepts them anymore.  A Target card.  Some Barnes & Noble cards.  Now an Amazon $50 voucher sent online from a research project.  Plus a $25 Visa card as a rebate for replacing my tires last year.

I don't need any stuff, or particularly want any stuff.  Not that there isn't stuff that I like owning.  My fondness for pens knows no limits.  I bought two cartridge pens from Amazon in the last year, one to replace the first that malfunctioned.  I have multiple sets of daily and weekly planning pens that I rotate.  They have five colors:  Black= Most tasks; Blue=My home; Green=professional; Red=Financial; Purple designates which tasks each day have identifiable endpoints.  I would perhaps like a set of Flair pens in those colors.

In the past I have purchased harmonicas, which I almost never play.  Perhaps I would return to my childhood violin if I had a functioning bow.  They run about $40.  Or a new instrument.  For $50 Amazon could introduce me to a recorder, bugle, or bongos.  Mandolins, ukeleles, and low end guitars exceed budget.  All but the violin bow exceed any serious desire to acquire them.

In retirement, I have enough clothing.  Anything suitable as office or synagogue wear has been replicated many times over.  One pair of jeans, perhaps two, seem worthy of repair of one and replacement of another.  I have shirts, daily pants, shoes to excess.  Though I really like the white New Balance shoes I bought there last year.  Maybe a parallel pair in black would get worn to different places than where I currently wear the white ones.  

There are logos.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Eagles, SLU, Mizzou.  Some of my cards channel me to Barnes & Noble which sponsor enough college bookstores to create irritating markups for mugs and t-shirts.  The cards together would not subsidize one of those black and maple chairs with the university seal that we sit on while waiting in the Dean's office.

Perhaps Judaica.  My home is already fully functional.  I bought an Atarah for my tallit online many years ago.  I forgot if the purchase came from Amazon or a site dedicated to Judaica.  And Amazon gave me the best price on a Mezuzah Klaf to replace one damaged from my office.  But I don't need anything.

Finally my kitchen.  When I need something, or see something that would enhance my performance there, I just buy it on sight.  I added a set of milchig storage bowls on sale at my usual supermarket.  My milchig mandoline failed, a super flimsy item.  I could justify replacing that if I had more occasion to slice vegetables used in dairy preparation.  I seldom do that.  Cookware I have to excess.  What I need for entertaining I have to excess.

Plastic cards sit either in my wallet or in the containers with which they were presented.  An online card is a first for me.  That I need to redeem lest it float in cyberspace, never fulfilling what the research grant that purchased it intended for their subjects to enjoy.  I need to make a decision.