This week two firecrackers were lobbed into my personal food world. The first one came from — say it ain’t so – Zabar’s, a high end Manhattan deli that’s been satisfying my yen for smoked salmon and herring with onions and cream whenever I’ve felt particularly flush.

It turned out the lobster salad Zabar’s has been selling for umpteen years at the stratospheric price of $16.95 a pound contained — I kid you not — not a spec of lobster. The Sherlock Holmes who got to the bottom of this case was a Times-Picayune reporter in New Orleans who happened to visit Zabar’s to enjoy a typical northeastern nosh. Biting into his “lobster” salad, he quickly recognized the familiar taste and texture of crawfish from his own neck of the bayou. Sure enough, when he checked the container label, the only seafood ingredient listed was “Wild fresh water crayfish.”

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Just popped in with this photo of a snappy pleasure boat on the East River taken on a more serene summer Sunday. This river, like the stock market, can be dangerous to people who fall in or attempt to swim in it. Once in, there are few places to climb out. And the river’s water currents, like stock market movements, can be surprisingly swift, sometimes pushing casual swimmers out to sea.

Similar to fast changing market conditions, the East River’s tidal currents change direction four times daily. To keep you afloat in both river and market, it pays to keep your eye on the ball.

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Like the president and shrinks everywhere and these Grand Central travelers, I’m taking a summer breather for the remainder of August. I won’t be posting on money matters, but will be stopping by to put up a photo or two.

Will of course still be around on Twitter. So stop by and say hello to @savvysavingbyte.

In the meantime thanks for all your visits. Enjoy these final days of summer. I’ll be back with more saving moolah stories soon after Labor Day.

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Money is nice stuff and there are plenty of good reasons to have plenty of it. But there are also reasons why having barrels of money (as in “rich”) can sometimes be a big pain or downright trouble. Here are ten reasons I’m glad I’m not rolling in greenbacks:

1. Nobody is pursuing me with arsenic tinged sweet talk and the goal of marrying me for my money.
2. Friends and relatives don’t see me as a giant money tree and hit me up for “loans” left and right.
3. Institutions and charities don’t see me as a royal bank and perpetually assault me with pleas begging for my “support.”
4. No creeps are planning to kidnap me or a family member to score a rich ransom.
5. I’m not bugged by an entourage of two-legged leeches (a.k.a. hanger-ons) shadowing my every move.
6. Phonies don’t befriend me, motivated solely by what my money can do or buy for them.
7. I never lose a wink of sleep worrying about rejection from elite clubs, uppity co-op boards or windbags who deign to schmooze only with big buck buddies.
8. I won’t have to watch any possible bootstrap start-up venture of mine destroyed by poisonous infusions of big money.
9. I’m not weighed down by the complex chore of managing millions — of deciding what to do with never ending piles of green stuff. Yes, there are money managers galore to handle all these pesky details, but which managers will be a lock on profit and safety and which are Bernie Madoffs in the making?
10. I’m never annoyed by forgetting in which of my houses I’ve left my comfiest sweater, my smartest coat or some crucial documents. I mean what a pain. There I am in New York and that blasted dress that makes me look like a million bucks is hanging in my closet in Monaco thousand of miles away.

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My first run-in with a pickpocket happened in the most innocent of places — an outdoor fruit and vegetable market on Second Avenue. A finicky shopper when it comes to fresh veggies, I was giving some red peppers the old eagle eye, when a nearby shopper suddenly leaned in closer to pick up a pepper in the rear. This action shifted her body closer to mine– so much closer I went on immediate alert. With few shoppers and tons of empty space around us, there seemed no reason for this young woman to plant herself within inches of me. Uncomfortably crowded, I immediately stepped away, putting more space between us.

At that moment I didn’t know if she was up to something or from a culture whose concept of appropriate space between people was different than mine. She was quite young and snappily dressed, a little too snappily to be out on a mundane food run. But she seemed intent on her veggie selection, so I didn’t give her further thought.

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Do I believe in that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Only if we’re talking about Brigadoon. Still, it’s a pretty thought. Here are some other thoughts about gold, work, working and what many do best — thinking about working:

“Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow” ~ Douglas Pagels

“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.  We are all crew” ~ Marshall McLuhan

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work” ~ Thomas A. Edison

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Already at 11:00 AM on Friday, Fifth Avenue traffic at 85th Street is backed up all the way from mid-town. “Security checks,” a doorman says.

In the crush of traffic, the buses aren’t moving so I start walking to midtown, picking up as I go scores of other New Yorkers whose legs today are faster than wheels. So many walkers like that day ten years and two days ago when our worlds stopped along with public transportation. On the bus to work that morning of 9/11, as smoke blackened the downtown sky, we shared information from cell phones and radios. When a woman across the aisle announced that a second plane had just crashed into the towers, I thought she had somehow gotten incorrect information – heard a rumor, a piece of hearsay, had an hysterical moment – or maybe she was just plain bonkers because two planes smashing into two towers was beyond imagination – miles beyond belief.

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Oh boy! Over a week before Halloween and ALREADY the shelves in the 99-Cent store are stuffed with Christmas glitz. Stores roll out their Christmas goodies earlier every year, but this — with Thanksgiving more than a month away — is Crazyville. Or so I think till a little research informs me that 40% of consumers now begin their Christmas purchases before Halloween. And some stores are even starting to load their shelves with holiday merchandise as early as September. So both consumers and stores appear to be jumping the Christmas gun together. Consumers, to spread their purchases out over a longer period of time and stores because holiday sales can represent 25 to 40% of their yearly figures and make or break them.

And just how wide are American wallets predicted to open this Christmas? Optimistically the National Retail Federation expects sales to rise nearly 2.8%.  Retail consultant Howard Davidowitz predicts a paltry 1% sales increase (along with a “lousy” Christmas). A Reuters survey, however, is an even bigger wet blanket, concluding that 27% of Americans plan to spend even less this year than last.

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Can you picture the Wicked Witch of the West living in extravagantly expensive New York or San Francisco? No way. Smart in the ways of low cost real estate, that green faced, frugal master cast her evil spells in a castle far beyond the most distant boondocks, where land and tax costs have always been lower than toad stools. And do you think she ever worried that sky high electricity bills could send her to the poorhouse? Not that big cackler. Her castle was packed from rampart to dungeon with environmentally friendly candles and flaming torches to show the way through spooky shadows.

As for the primo witch of all time  –the wicked old crone in Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs who tempts the princess with her poisonous apple — did you catch her sad sack, witchy duds? Even by witch standards, they were woefully sub-par, consisting of a shabby, shapeless black shawl and hood to cover her warty face and gigantic hooknose. Clearly that ancient old sorceress positively reveled in her own frugality.

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Most readers get to my blog after fairly mundane Google searches. But some of these information seekers arrive with such peculiar, downright oddball queries, I can’t help but wonder about them. Here are a few of those singular queries (in bold italic, spelling and grammar uncorrected):

“Which procedure is less expensive for funeral – creamation or freeze dried” ~ Are we discussing human bodies here or coffee?
“Swedish Body Disposal system”  ~ “Disposal” sounds a bit harsh, but heck, we’re talking about a process inspired by a backyard mulch garden in Sweden –  a procedure that turns a corpse into a pile of powder that is ultimately transformed into soil compost. Don’t know about you, but no way I want Grandma and Grandpa fertilizing my lawn. *

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