My better – and more sensible – half recently got us a Costco card. I’ve mixed feelings on membership clubs. Not everything you buy in feeding-trough proportions amounts to a good deal. Some items do. Thus, I have a healthy skepticism as to whether the cost of membership is worth the benefit.

Take today’s visit. The cereal we use was pricier, juice a mixed bag and flour a bargain. It’s the last item I want to focus on, spurred by this article on The New York Times site arguing for a green tomorrow through baby steps today.

Both my regular readers know I’ve been baking bread. A lot. Given the volume, buying bulk flour makes sense. At Trader Joe’s, a 5 pound bag of flour costs about $3.50, or 70 cents per pound. That’s cheaper than buying bread at Joe’s, where one loaf can set you back that much. Still, I know the wisdom of bulk from buying at co-ops in the past.

Which brings me back to Costco, where a 25 pound bag weighs in at just $9.49. For those penny-tight-wads out there (like me), that’s 38 cents per pound, or almost 46 percent cheaper. Cha-ching!

Inspired by Michael Pollan’s Times piece, which talks about growing your own vegetables, I crunched a few numbers. Assuming about four cups per pound, 25 pounds comes to 100 cups. I use about six and a half cups per batch. Rounding down, that’s roughly 15 batches. Each batch yields three small loaves. So, for that $9.49, I’m getting about 45 loaves at around 21 cents per loaf.

All this flowery math doesn’t account for feeding the starter I have. Its hunger could eat into the savings, pushing the per-loaf cost up to maybe 25 cents.

It also doesn’t account for the electricity used in baking, which admittedly could be substantial. On the other side of the green balance sheet, I can’t know how much gas cooking at home could save. Remember: If you got it, a truck brought it. For argument’s sake, let’s say those two things cancel each other out. Humor me.

Being able to provide bread for my modest household for under a quarter a loaf is a good feeling. I don’t know if it’s virtuous, as Pollan might hope, but it does re-engage me with the origin of a staple food. That, Pollan might say, makes one baby step toward conservation.

Next step: a victory garden.

I’m torn: I want to run, but I keep gumping up my Achilles tendon. First the right, back in January. For the last two weeks, the left. I’ve been stretching, just like Mrs. Blocletters suggests. I’m feeling better, but it’s still tender. But, damn if I didn’t look at the treadmill longingly on today’s trip to the gym.

The recumbent bike just doesn’t feel the same.

On the plus side, the bike somehow allows my workout less dependency on a good, driving tempo from the earbuds. It’s given me a chance to catch a couple more episodes of Coffee Break French.

On the Politico’s obit for Charlton Heston: Guns and Moses. I’m sure that stroke of genius felt like a revelation from Mount Sinai. As a copy editor, I wish a) I had come up with it, and b) I worked for an organization that would allow such snark to shine through.

Riots tore through Cedar Village near Michigan State University campus over the weekend. Somehow, rioting just seems a little immature if you don’t have a social outrage to fuel it. Poverty. The fact that millions in America don’t graduate high school. Social injustice. Alcohol, as reasons go, just doesn’t fit into that class.

News reports indicate that party-goes begged East Lansing Police officers to break out the tear gas, apparently just for the experience of getting gassed. Como se dice, get a life?

I’m not having a really hold-your-head-high Spartan moment.

I brew wine, so I was delighted to find this video, which breaks it down to Duplos-style blocks.