QOTD: "I think that I have never trod / on anything so swell as sod." - Ernest Hemingway
Reading: Ed Gorman, Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff (ed.), Murder Most Feline
Listening to: nothing because Tower Records didn't have any of the CDs I was looking for
Decluttering accomplishments: I cleaned the fridge out and I think I filed a few things away
The single best thing about my kitchen right now is on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. I refer to a six-pack of Schweppes Bitter Lemon! Monday night there were two six-packs and I feel like I have exercised great restraint, limiting myself to no more than two bottles a day. But the really good part of this is how it came about. I went over to the Marina to buy a bottle of rum (which is a couple of bucks cheaper at a liquor store there than it is in the supermarket) and the store had my beloved bitter lemon. Oh, frabjous day! It has not vanished from Los Angeles after all. I can buy cases should I want to! In case you haven't realized it, it isn't hard to make me happy.
Alas, the rest of my kitchen is far less functional. I don't bake very often, so I'd forgotten how annoying my cabinets are. The ones next to the stove are deep, but not very wide, so I end up having to pull everything out to get whatever I need. I admit that I was surprised that I was even able to find the springform pan. I found the big mixing bowl in the process. I couldn't find the electric mixer at all and I ended up just going out and spending fifteen bucks on a new one.
All of that was so that I could bake a chocolate rum cheesecake to bring to our holiday potluck at work today. Last night, when I got out the sugar to put it in the batter, I realized that the cabinet next to the sink is also disfunctional. The shelves are deep, but neither wide enough nor high enough. So stuff ends up where it fits, which means things end up behind other things. I had no idea I had a bottle of orange flower water behind the sugar. I didn't realize that I had three bottles of cumin, two of which were obviously bought because the first one was hidden behind the orange flower water. There are three boxes of corn meal, although two might be intentional since yellow and white have slightly different uses. (None of them were opened, so I have no idea why I bought them.)
This is all rather distressing to my usual compulsively organized self. At least the cheesecake was a major success, with no leftovers at all, despite rather scanty party turnout. And the old mixer still hasn't turned up, so may very well have been discarded after giving up the ghost years ago for all I know.
In other news, I got a very good raise this year. Milo said to me, "I told them they shouldn't give you more money because you'd just go squander it somewhere awful like Nepal, but they didn't listen." I squandered a little bit in advance, buying a few odds and ends for my upcoming trip, like new sandals and a strap to keep my hat from blowing away. I may even do some clothes shopping when I'm in San Francisco this weekend.
Finally, I don't remember how the subject came up, but three times this week I've found myself saying, "I suspect that normal people never wake up in the morning thinking that it would be fun to walk the length of Luxembourg." I suspect that normal people also don't hide orange flower water behind the sugar in their cupboards and buy duplicates of cumin and corn meal.
Copyright 2001 Miriam H. Nadel