Friday, August 07, 2009

Vacation, Day One

Today was a drizzley day. It rained in the morning, was overcast all day, and *humid*.

In the afternoon I wandered over to the farmer's market that popped up on Main Street recently. I bought some fresh bannock (still warm from the oven!) and a small amount of Swiss chard. I didn't know if I was allergic to Swiss chard, or whether I'd like it. I fried it up with some olive oil and garlic. Yum! No adverse reactions noticed either. Success! I now have another vegetable to add to my repertoire! Yay! It seemed rather pricey at the farmer's market... but you can't win them all. (I remember the price was $4.50 per whatever weight unit... I can't remember if it was pounds or kilos. If it *was* kilos, I guess that's not too bad... but I think it was pounds.)

After the farmer's market, I went across the street to check out the thrift shop I had noticed over there, but had never been in. I found a nice dinner plate ($1) and dessert plate (25 cents), and got a free mug with purchase (they were trying to cut down how many mugs they had).

Tonight I cooked real food: Swiss chard with garlic and olive oil, followed by a stir fry of udon noodles, the remaining baby bok choi once I removed the yellowed leaves, garlic, green onions (again removing dying bits), and a bit of stir-fry mix from a package. (Note to self: mimicking parts of a recipe from a book turns out better than packaged stir-fry seasoning.)

I also finished the underskirt I had intended to wear last weekend. (Whoops. Oh well.)

In other news, my neighbour's ex called from jail again. (Poll: Should I stop answering if my caller id says "MTS Payphone"?)

Then, tonight, when a Shaw telemarketer called, I let him sign me up for two months of free cable. After that it's $29.95 for either five or six months. (I wasn't paying full attention, because a TV show I like was on.) I didn't bother asking what it would be after that point, since they don't like to tell you that. I'm trying to decide if I'll cancel after the two free months, or if I'll keep going for the $30 period. I *have* been considering splurging on cable, but haven't wanted to make the financial plunge. However, $30 is an hour and a half of tutoring per month... perhaps I can justify it that way? Well, I'll have to think it over.

Is it wrong to be daydreaming about the Lee Valley lawn edger? It's $95 plus tax, and I live in an *apartment*, for cripes sake! (Looking at the Home Depot site, their's cost $20 to $30 dollars... so I'd have to break 3-5 of those to make the Lee Valley one a good buy. I know I've already killed one cheap one, and I think I may have done in two so far in my brief gardening career.) At any rate, it's not just the lack of a lawn edger that prevented me from gardening today... the rain was the main reason. My landlord said he'd loan me his lawn edger, but he's away for two weeks.

2 comments:

Swaha Miller said...

Swiss chard can be made into crunchy chips with a couple minutes under the broiler.

When Anita was in the NICU there was a period of about a week, when the NICU nurses were getting random phone calls from some prison in California. No one owned up to having an ex there, though.

noricum said...

Fascinating! (Chard chips, that is, not jailed exes.)