Phoning It In

For today’s post, I’m sharing the last four pictures I took on my phone.

1) You might be squinting right now and saying, “Is that some kind of bug?” and you would be correct. I was staying at my brother’s to be there for my nephew while my brother, who has a PhD, was involved in some very important work stuff. I, being retired, was more than happy to fill in. We were going to have one of my nephew’s favourite meals, ‘Thai-Inspired Beef Bowls’. It was in a bag in the fridge from one of those ‘meal kit’ places, and on Monday night, I got it out and started to prep it. I poured the rice into a pot, and one of the grains looked very dark. I put a different pair of reading glasses on (one for REALLY close-up viewing, unlike the pair I was already wearing, which was for medium viewing, and also unlike a third pair in my purse which is for ‘things that are approximately four feet away’), and I scrutinized the rice. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe that rice grains have legs. I called my nephew over for his opinion:

Me: Hey, do you think that’s a bug?
Nephew: Definitely.
Me: It looks dead. I could pick it out…
Nephew: You could.
Me: The rice has to be boiled anyway. That would kill any bug corpse germs, right?
Nephew: It would.
Me: Then we’re in agreement?
Nephew: We are.

Seemed a shame to waste a meal that had been so obviously packaged with care. And the ‘inspired’ part? I’m going to try making this at home—without the bugs.

2) This ad is confusing. Mainly because I never get cranky when I drink. But these boxes…and I’m not sure how it works. Do you put the drinks IN the boxes? Do they play music WHILE you drink? No wonder they’re cranky. I’d be pissed off too if people kept clogging up my wind-up mechanism with alcohol. And they’re all in perfect condition except that one…is a plate. It always amazes me though when, rather than looking up the actual term for a thing, someone chooses to just post an ad like this:

Box Owner: I need to post an ad for these weird alcoholic boxes but I don’t know what that thing is called that winds them up.
Random Friend: You could look it up.
Box Owner: Looking up things makes me cranky—oh wait!

3) I took this screenshot from LinkedIn. After my last post ABOUT LinkedIn, I got a message teasing me that people had been looking at my ‘profile’. I get these quite often but they won’t tell you WHO was actually looking until you give them money to upgrade your plan. But now I think LinkedIn is just f*cking with me, because the Canada Revenue Agency is the government taxman, like the IRS, and the Attorney General oversees the court system and I HAVE COMMITTED NO TAX CRIMES, LINKEDIN SO NICE TRY. The other two companies make sense, but when I saw the last one, I was inordinately excited, like why is a steakhouse looking ME up? Cuz it’s usually the other way around and maybe it’s a sign that I should go and get some steak.

4) This is the cutest cat on the planet. Period.

26 thoughts on “Phoning It In”

  1. Today I learned that a lot of food coloring is made with ground-up insects and water. Does anyone else find this unsettling? It instantly transported me back to childhood summers when I’d be sipping on bright red Kool-Aid, and the adults would call it bug juice. Oh, the irony!

    Now that I’m older and wiser, whenever I think about the Kool-Aid Man dramatically crashing through a wall, debris flying everywhere as he yells “Oh yeah!”, my immediate, grown-up response is, “Oh no!”

    Is it just me, or is there something about drywall dust mixed with ground-up bugs and sugar water that seems unappetizing?

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  2. I would have handled the bug the same way, Suzanne. 🙂 I have a big garden and there are days when I find a little fellow, covered in dressing, crawling out of my salad bowl. He’s been washed, spun in the spinner, and tossed with croutons. 🙂

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  4. I just checked and the 200th birthday of Louis Pasteur was in 2022. So it’s been more than a century and a half since he scientifically established that boiling things doesn’t just eliminate germs but he kept containers of boiled broth for years. And people said “Thanks, Louis, we’ve all been wondering what that word ‘pasteurized’ meant on our milk cartons.”
    Also I have three Dalmatians who are saying “Black and white cat? We approve.”

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  6. I keep rice in the freezer for 48 hours to prevent those weevils. I do it with pasta as well. I would have done the same thing as well, washed, boiled and your good. Ilana is a gem, she’s so freaking cute! Don’t tell Charlie or Wayne, they are very insecure lol.

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  8. Gah! I’m sorry but that rice would have hit the bin faster than you could say Jack Robinson. We’re paranoid about food safety and all of our lettuce is washed – in dishwashing detergent – because of the snails and slugs that abound in our garden. Cute cat though. 🙂

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