Dinner tonight: steamed spinach, toasted pita bread, eaten with hummus and a yogurty veggie salad made with diced carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Mmmm healthariffic.

Today my roommate and I borrowed a city car share Golf and drove around doing shopping errands. Got to make a trip to the rarely-visited Target, where I scored a hair straightening iron and assorted personal care items, plus forty pounds of kitty litter.

Then to Pier One for a terrycloth-covered bathtub pillow, a bedside carafe that the cats can’t drink out of or tip over, and a beautiful stripey window panel in hopes of spring to come sooner than later. Got ten bucks off my total with a coupon, too.

Later on as I was putting things away and then getting started on cleaning my room (and the rest of the house) I remembered a “news” story I had seen on TV a few years ago about some woman who was very good with coupons. She collected coupons and offers and rebates and so on from all over the place, then she would go to Costco or wherever and get giants cartloads of crap, but come away having only spent five dollars or something — thanks to the coupons.

But, somehow, this story didn’t really strike me as all that clever. Okay sure, you basically managed to get a lot of free stuff. But look at what that has made your life into. She lives in a house that is not only CRAMMED with stuff, but also with coupons and junk mail. Her home is overflowing with crap; useless objects. Couldn’t she live simply and not live a life of acquisition? That’s how the hoarding starts, the people who end up buried under mountains of newspapers and trash.

With that in mind, we watched a report on “60 minutes” tonight about this guy, who is a professor at Harvard, who has also written some books. Fascinating character, truly embodies Zen. It is wonderful, just wonderful to know that not only are there people like this in America, but that they are teachers.