Shopping is the perfect antidote to miserable national and international news.

In this post: Shopping sprees.

In case you’re experiencing a negative sensory overload — like yours truly — from endlessly miserable national and international news, the Howdygram would like to recommend the perfect antidote: SHOPPING ONLINE FOR CHEAP BUT WONDERFUL CRAP. Today I engaged in the following mini-therapy sprees. First up: Wal-Mart.

I bought two boxes of blueberry crisp Clif Bars for Sam, two bottles of Sparkle glass cleaner because sometimes a girl needs to shpritz, a sack of Wal-Mart’s store brand foam plates and a jar of Tostitos spinach dip just for the hell of it.

Next I visisted Amazon to buy the whole mushrooms in a jar that Sam didn’t get this morning at Costco. (He accidentally bought marinated mushrooms. Gah.)

Trust me. If you spend half an hour shopping online for Green Giant mushrooms you won’t give a crap that Karl Rove thinks Hillary Clinton has brain damage.

And finally ... FOOTWEAR. I found these swell fake suede mules for huge feet at Roamans.com in a pleasant neutral color that — for once — isn’t basic black. For me the big selling point is the “roomy toe box” because senior citizens with diabetes have to look out for blisters. Even though I never leave the house it’s nice to have new shoes once in while.

And now it’s finally time for dinner! Sam has expressed a serious interest in a couple of bunless microwaved bacon cheeseburgers and I’m considering leftover Chinese followed by low-carb chocolate chip cookies. Thank you for reading this.