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voting and vegetables.
Sep. 5th, 2006 09:17 pmA few weeks ago, M and I started talking about voting in Sweden. He didn't vote the first time he was able to because he was feeling somewhat disillusioned regarding politics in general and Swedish politics in particular. Also because he was feeling somewhat lazy. This time around, there came up in various conversations a couple of things that made him want to vote. However, the Swedes stopped acknowledging us in recent years. After he moved, they sent him various official documents now and then, but then they stopped, for some reason. We talked about it now and then, but those documents were typically.. well. Uninteresting, at best, so we didn't worry about it. Except this year he wanted to exercise his civic duty and he didn't have the paperwork. I am the research and responsibility drone in this household and his Swedishness is one thing that I can't really take over from him due to language difficulties and a lack of understanding of The System, so.. anyway. My mom was giving me a bunch of stuff at the house this weekend, and mentioned that she also had some mail for us that she figured was junk but she had kept for us. And... dum ta dum.. they had the official voting paperwork! It was our first address after he moved, so they're still sending stuff there. (As it turns out, they like, don't have a chip implanted in him that tells them automatically what his address is at all times. More the pity.) Boy, did we feel a little dumb about that. But now he is both voting and changing his address with the handy-dandy included form. Though I read an article today about why voting is a waste of time.. not that it will keep me at home in November. (Oh, neat! They will send you a signed bookplate for your copy of Freakonomics for free! That's really smart!) Which reminds me that I have been meaning to buy that book. How can I not be enamored of it when the logo is so smart?
Now, on to the next thing. Since we've been in the house, we have been totally into buying stuff on sale. Cranberry juice on sale? Buy eight! Buy twelve! We never had space to do that before, though I have had to smack M around upon occasion to remind him of it. (Couldn't find the post where I linked to that first one. Hmph.) But now that we're in the house, we have more space than we know what to do with. We have two entire rooms without furniture to speak of, and a large walk-in closet of just storage space. With shelves and everything! So we have gone a little crazy buying things when we see them. And the house also came with a large upright freezer in the basement, which we cleaned and have been slowly stocking. Just a couple of weeks ago, we went to Sam's to pick up a few more things for our stocking purposes. It's been a lot of fun, adding a stack of (cheap!) pizzas, twenty bags of frozen vegetables--M's thing--a bulk bag of chicken breasts, an entire pork tenderloin sliced into a dozen pieces, a dozen frozen meals, and a turkey (given to M from his previous employer last year). Why is it that everyone gets a pained look on their face right at this point and says, "oh, I know where you're going with this?"
Yes, that's right. We lost it all. The door sticks, and it got left slightly open for one entire day--enough that a bag of frozen peaches (sliced by Boyo and me while I was peddling produce) had melted and started leaking across the floor. M, when he found it, immediately shut the door and we didn't survey the damages until the next day. The chicken, the beautiful unopened chicken.. had defrosted enough that it had that pink flesh look, with wire shelf ridges embedded into them. There were clear pink meat-type juices pooled and frozen at the bottom. It smelled like death. We discussed whether or not anything was salvageable, but finally we decided that it was worth the money lost to not die of salmonella. Then M was all "well, we'll keep it and I'll just eat this stuff but I don't want you to." (Modern day romance.) I try to be a little obsessive about food safety and I just couldn't stomach the idea of eating any of the stuff and I sure wasn't going to let M eat stuff that he was clearly afraid of as well. We waited until trash day, but last night we cleaned the thing out, keeping an informal tally of the cost of the food. We threw away about $150 in total. It makes me somewhat ill... but not nearly as ill as food poisoning would have, so I know that we did the right thing, at least. Besides that, there were three boxes of dry batter mix in there that wouldn't have spoiled... and I threw them away anyway because it smelled of dead chicken. I think a lot of stuff would have been ruined by the smell if nothing else. So there's my sad tale of woe and waste.
Now, on to the next thing. Since we've been in the house, we have been totally into buying stuff on sale. Cranberry juice on sale? Buy eight! Buy twelve! We never had space to do that before, though I have had to smack M around upon occasion to remind him of it. (Couldn't find the post where I linked to that first one. Hmph.) But now that we're in the house, we have more space than we know what to do with. We have two entire rooms without furniture to speak of, and a large walk-in closet of just storage space. With shelves and everything! So we have gone a little crazy buying things when we see them. And the house also came with a large upright freezer in the basement, which we cleaned and have been slowly stocking. Just a couple of weeks ago, we went to Sam's to pick up a few more things for our stocking purposes. It's been a lot of fun, adding a stack of (cheap!) pizzas, twenty bags of frozen vegetables--M's thing--a bulk bag of chicken breasts, an entire pork tenderloin sliced into a dozen pieces, a dozen frozen meals, and a turkey (given to M from his previous employer last year). Why is it that everyone gets a pained look on their face right at this point and says, "oh, I know where you're going with this?"
Yes, that's right. We lost it all. The door sticks, and it got left slightly open for one entire day--enough that a bag of frozen peaches (sliced by Boyo and me while I was peddling produce) had melted and started leaking across the floor. M, when he found it, immediately shut the door and we didn't survey the damages until the next day. The chicken, the beautiful unopened chicken.. had defrosted enough that it had that pink flesh look, with wire shelf ridges embedded into them. There were clear pink meat-type juices pooled and frozen at the bottom. It smelled like death. We discussed whether or not anything was salvageable, but finally we decided that it was worth the money lost to not die of salmonella. Then M was all "well, we'll keep it and I'll just eat this stuff but I don't want you to." (Modern day romance.) I try to be a little obsessive about food safety and I just couldn't stomach the idea of eating any of the stuff and I sure wasn't going to let M eat stuff that he was clearly afraid of as well. We waited until trash day, but last night we cleaned the thing out, keeping an informal tally of the cost of the food. We threw away about $150 in total. It makes me somewhat ill... but not nearly as ill as food poisoning would have, so I know that we did the right thing, at least. Besides that, there were three boxes of dry batter mix in there that wouldn't have spoiled... and I threw them away anyway because it smelled of dead chicken. I think a lot of stuff would have been ruined by the smell if nothing else. So there's my sad tale of woe and waste.
