Today was the Monday I didn't have yesterday.
I was off on Monday. That was nice, after five days of dealing with a new employee who was more prone to wandering off, swatting at birds and randomly singing snippets of Mariah Carey songs for no discernible reason whatsoever than actually working. My tolerance meter dove steadily southward until, by Sunday, I was ready to shove a bird up his kiester so he'd have a reason to sing falsetto. Monday, therefore, was a good day.
Today, Tuesday, I was dreading going back to work; however it turned out to be one of the better days I've had there in a while. I was sent to Hell Section, our most primitive greenhouse. It's muddy and the gnats were out in force, but I was alone and nobody bothered me all day. I even got away with listening to my iPod instead of whatever crap radio station the other crews usually have on. And, most importantly, Falsetto Boy was a quarter mile away- well out of annoyance range.
I came home feeling great, despite PMS cramps. I'm usually too burned out to even LOOK at a plant outside of work, but today I brought some herb pots home for the kitchen and set them on the windowsill, planning to find a bigger container to make into an herb garden. The chives and parsley must have been in a funk because, as soon as my back was turned, they threw themselves off the sill and landed upside-down on top of the air conditioner's vents. Husband brought me the vacuum to suck the dirt out of the A/C. I used the hose with an attachment, but there was still enough suction for the main vacuum head to eat the rug fringe and throw the belt. Last time I put the belt back on I broke a nail and gouged two knuckles so I didn't even bother this time, I just handed it to Hubby. (I'm not the "OMG I broke a NAIL!!!! My day is RUINED!!!" kind of person, but I'd just gotten my first manicure in 6 months, to the tune of $30, so yeah, I was pissed. And I was not going to repeat the bleeding knuckle part, manicure or not.)
So, okay, that sucked but I had stuff to do. Moving on...
I started supper and all was going great. Delicious cheese ravioli and Italian sausage, mmm. The ravioli came with a pack of cheese-and-bread-crumb topping. I opened the junk drawer for the scissors, leaned the opened pack against the microwave on the counter, and then somehow gravity reversed itself just long enough for the pack to flip over and empty its contents into the drawer. Now I'm sifting batteries and other stuff out of a pile of cheese crumbs. I'm not emptying the drawer (it's a JUNK drawer, you know what that's like... 40 lb. of miscellaneous accumulated gadgets that don't have a home anywhere else) so I scraped it out with a cardboard battery package and a sponge.
I chatted with a friend online while supper finished cooking, telling him about my mini-disasters. I ended with "I'm going to try to get the food in my mouth, but the way things are going, I'll probably dump it in my shoes or something." I didn't. But a ravioli did make a break for it, leaping from my bowl, bypassing the (easily wipeable) placemats, and plopping down on my clean linen tablecloth. Husband just looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and said "Go to bed."
Since that was the third bad thing that happened since I'd been home, I figured I was safe for the rest of the evening. I said I was going to stay up a while since I go in late tomorrow. Hubby took that opportunity to inform me that the hard drive died in my not-yet-paid-for laptop. And it's out of warranty. Of course it is, why would I expect anything else at this point? Oh, and he dropped the cooling-fan pad and some part broke, but he was sure he could fix that. The $15 laptop pad is now functioning, but the vacuum is still beltless and the hard drive is going to set us back quite a bit. And I'm pretty sure the next time I turn the A/C on I'm going to get a faceful of peat dust.
On the bright side, my nails are still intact.
Ice cream sammiches rock. That is all.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Food Ramblings
Kids, for the most part, are picky eaters. They haven't developed their palates yet, or expanded their food interests beyond Happy Meals and macaroni & cheese. Some parents work around it, some cater to it, and some instill lifelong hatred for brussels sprouts in their kids by forcing them to sit at the table until the sprouts are eaten. (This was my parents' attempted approach; fortunately, my inner foodie took over once I got older and I suffer very little dislike for things I was forced to eat.)
Some kids do retain their pickiness, for a variety of reasons. I know a guy close to my age who, for years, would only eat peanut butter sandwiches. He has a "texture" issue, I think, which I can understand since I have it as well, but on a much less drastic scale. (Tapioca is high on my "oh HELL no" list. And don't put crunchy stuff like pickle relish in my tuna salad please.) Some have allergies (which seem to be more and more widespread these days) and some are diabetic, and some are just reluctant to try anything new for whatever reason.
I was thinking about this earlier as I made myself a bologna sammich. I've held on to a lot of my childhood food favorites in addition to everything else I've tried since then. White bread, mayo, and one slice of bologna was my favorite lunch; I never was a PB&J person and still don't care for it much, despite loving the individual ingredients. Oscar Mayer cheese hotdogs are another one. As disgusting as the general consensus (and nutritional label) says they are, I still have to have one now and then. And just like it had to be when I was young- no bun, no condiments, just stick a fork in it and eat from both ends till it's gone. Cap'n Crunch peanut butter cereal makes the list despite roof-of-mouth damage every time a bowl of the stuff is consumed. Raw radishes are up there, along with dill pickles. As a young adult on my own, I ate Ramen noodles out of necessity, but I still buy them simply because I like them.
There are a few foods I've either never developed a taste for, or completely lost any desire to eat. My grandmother used to make us peanut butter and honey sandwiches, which I loved then, but now? No thanks. I never did like Cheerios in any flavor. I still haven't convinced myself to like raw tomatoes on sandwiches or burgers, but cooked ones I'll eat in anything else. (I read somewhere that it takes a person ten tries before they "learn to like" a given food. Those tomatoes are being stubborn and defying that statistic. I WANT to like them... it just ain't happening.) Miracle Whip is also on the "oh HELL no" list, as are bread-and-butter pickles (the semi-sweet ones). Oh, and ketchup does not go anywhere near a hotdog, thankyouverymuch. That was the only way I'd eat one as a kid, but now the very idea turns my stomach.
Things I enjoy now that I hated as a kid include the aforementioned brussels sprouts, asparagus (a relatively recent development; my sister said they tasted just like boiled peanuts, and danged if they don't!), grits, baked ham with pineapple (Mom used Spam slices, hence the hatred), and spinach. That last one came from my husband the northerner. I grew up with "greens"... turnip, collard, mustard... good greens. He grew up with canned spinach, which to me is an abomination when the fresh stuff can be found. He doesn't like my greens and I just don't get that... they're so much better! But in order to compromise, I make his spinach sometimes, and compensate another time with a big ol' pot of collards. And I've learned to like canned spinach, so that's a small victory, I suppose.
We've really had to adapt to each other's preferences, the hubby and I. He's not too terribly picky though. He likes boiled potatoes with green beans and hot bacon dressing (a sweet-and-sour glaze that I never would have put on a potato, but it's a local thing I guess) and pickled beef tongue (which he makes when I'm not home because the smell alone would drive me outside anyway) and head cheese (just, ew) but he isn't fond of white rice, anything lemon, or teriyaki sauce. He thinks I'm weird for eating pickle sammiches, but he can root around in deer innards, emerge with a slimy kidney or two, and think "supper!" Who's weird here? The guy who watches Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods and says "That looks good, I'd try it" to almost every episode, yet won't eat a pierogie? Or me, who will happily nosh on eel sushi rolls but can't stand salmon in any form? It's been interesting, to say the least.
We've come a long way from our childhood tastes, yet some things just never change. In my house you'd probably find a box of Fruity Pebbles next to the shredded wheat, Hershey's syrup in the cabinet with the liquor, and Spaghettios stashed in between the kidney beans and bags of jasmine rice. We may not always eat right, but we eat fun, and wasn't that the great thing about being a kid?
Banana popsicles rock till the end of time. That is all.
Some kids do retain their pickiness, for a variety of reasons. I know a guy close to my age who, for years, would only eat peanut butter sandwiches. He has a "texture" issue, I think, which I can understand since I have it as well, but on a much less drastic scale. (Tapioca is high on my "oh HELL no" list. And don't put crunchy stuff like pickle relish in my tuna salad please.) Some have allergies (which seem to be more and more widespread these days) and some are diabetic, and some are just reluctant to try anything new for whatever reason.
I was thinking about this earlier as I made myself a bologna sammich. I've held on to a lot of my childhood food favorites in addition to everything else I've tried since then. White bread, mayo, and one slice of bologna was my favorite lunch; I never was a PB&J person and still don't care for it much, despite loving the individual ingredients. Oscar Mayer cheese hotdogs are another one. As disgusting as the general consensus (and nutritional label) says they are, I still have to have one now and then. And just like it had to be when I was young- no bun, no condiments, just stick a fork in it and eat from both ends till it's gone. Cap'n Crunch peanut butter cereal makes the list despite roof-of-mouth damage every time a bowl of the stuff is consumed. Raw radishes are up there, along with dill pickles. As a young adult on my own, I ate Ramen noodles out of necessity, but I still buy them simply because I like them.
There are a few foods I've either never developed a taste for, or completely lost any desire to eat. My grandmother used to make us peanut butter and honey sandwiches, which I loved then, but now? No thanks. I never did like Cheerios in any flavor. I still haven't convinced myself to like raw tomatoes on sandwiches or burgers, but cooked ones I'll eat in anything else. (I read somewhere that it takes a person ten tries before they "learn to like" a given food. Those tomatoes are being stubborn and defying that statistic. I WANT to like them... it just ain't happening.) Miracle Whip is also on the "oh HELL no" list, as are bread-and-butter pickles (the semi-sweet ones). Oh, and ketchup does not go anywhere near a hotdog, thankyouverymuch. That was the only way I'd eat one as a kid, but now the very idea turns my stomach.
Things I enjoy now that I hated as a kid include the aforementioned brussels sprouts, asparagus (a relatively recent development; my sister said they tasted just like boiled peanuts, and danged if they don't!), grits, baked ham with pineapple (Mom used Spam slices, hence the hatred), and spinach. That last one came from my husband the northerner. I grew up with "greens"... turnip, collard, mustard... good greens. He grew up with canned spinach, which to me is an abomination when the fresh stuff can be found. He doesn't like my greens and I just don't get that... they're so much better! But in order to compromise, I make his spinach sometimes, and compensate another time with a big ol' pot of collards. And I've learned to like canned spinach, so that's a small victory, I suppose.
We've really had to adapt to each other's preferences, the hubby and I. He's not too terribly picky though. He likes boiled potatoes with green beans and hot bacon dressing (a sweet-and-sour glaze that I never would have put on a potato, but it's a local thing I guess) and pickled beef tongue (which he makes when I'm not home because the smell alone would drive me outside anyway) and head cheese (just, ew) but he isn't fond of white rice, anything lemon, or teriyaki sauce. He thinks I'm weird for eating pickle sammiches, but he can root around in deer innards, emerge with a slimy kidney or two, and think "supper!" Who's weird here? The guy who watches Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods and says "That looks good, I'd try it" to almost every episode, yet won't eat a pierogie? Or me, who will happily nosh on eel sushi rolls but can't stand salmon in any form? It's been interesting, to say the least.
We've come a long way from our childhood tastes, yet some things just never change. In my house you'd probably find a box of Fruity Pebbles next to the shredded wheat, Hershey's syrup in the cabinet with the liquor, and Spaghettios stashed in between the kidney beans and bags of jasmine rice. We may not always eat right, but we eat fun, and wasn't that the great thing about being a kid?
Banana popsicles rock till the end of time. That is all.
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