Lost in the Supermarket

So I mentioned I'd been cooking. It's probably time to elaborate on that a little. 

I bought a couple of recipe books and I'm working my way though them, it's been a couple of weeks now and I've pulled off some decent efforts. Cottage pie, fancy hot salad, something with lamb and red wine vinegar, and a dish that was essentially vegetables in vegetable gravy, which was without doubt the healthiest thing I've ever put on a plate. I'd like to say I've added several dishes to my repertoire, but that would suggest that I can cook them from memory whenever I fancy, when we all know the only way I could cook them again would be with the same recipe in front of me, because otherwise I would have to store new information in my leaky mindbrain. 

As it happens, so far I haven't had to deal with too much out of my comfort zone in terms of ingredients or techniques, well until this week anyway. Let me be honest about this, it wasn't like I purposely decided to step things up a gear, that's not how I work. I should probably explain how I select the recipes. I get the internet to generate me a bunch of numbers corresponding to the pages available in the books, I then leaf through to the selected pages and choose whichever recipe in the book looks most appetising. If I wanted to wax on (wax off)* about having philosophies and make myself look like an interesting person, I'd say I do this because I believe in leaving life to the fates, to let chance guide you into strange and exciting places. But really, it's because decisions are hard. Anyway, so far, as you have seen, it's been quite reasonable in what it threw up. This week, Pad Thai, Polenta, and some kind of pitta bread wrap with cheese I've never heard of and vegetables from jars.

The actual cooking is not the most fearsome part of this, it's the ingredients. Buying ingredients you've never heard of from a supermarket shelf can be daunting, as it was today.

Now don't get me wrong, this blog isn't about to become an anti-shopping tirade. While in general I'm not a fan of the high street, I really do enjoy the supermarket 'big shop'. Ever since I stopped having to tag along while my parents did it anyway. It brings out the 8 year old in me. I love pretending the trolly is a racing car, i love pushing off and standing on the rail at the back, narrowly avoiding collisions. It's brilliant. As a student I used to love plundering my overdraft and dragging home an elephant's body weight in bags only to discover I hadn't actually bought anything I could make a meal from. I love trying to get a smile out of the check-out girl. And since I discovered the shopping list, I love the challenge of finding what you need in the most efficient way possible. 

Today's list however, was almost more of a challenge that I could handle. 

After grabbing the basics and the straight forward stuff, I found myself with several items on a list, some of which I had no idea where to find, some of which I had no idea what they were. In retrospect I probably should have taken the recipe book with me, it has pictures in you see. After 20 minutes of stubborn male searching I decided to ask a man. He obviously pointed me straight back to the aisle I'd spent 15 of those 20 minutes walking up and down, trying not to look like an illiterate in a library. Further searching commenced, googling on my phone for clues was resorted to, I was definitely getting in peoples way. It was getting dire, I was this close to dialling the phone and crying "Mum, I'm out of my depth, I want to come home.", and bless her she'd have had me a meal on the table when I arrived. 

But, readers, you'll be relieved to know, I persevered I did. And I found every last one of those ingredients. Well, excepted 'Sliced Roasted Aubergines in a Jar', which I think is probably a made up thing. I bought sliced gherkins and fresh aubergines instead, thinking I'd somehow combine them for the same effect. I'm not sure what I was thinking. But regardless, the day was won, as far as I'm concerned.

And on a day when the President of the USA, the new hope for the world, had to redo his inauguration vows, because they'd managed to cock it up the first time, as the whole world watched. I don't feel so bad for being a 30 year old mortal who had a bit of a struggle in Morrisons.

*Don't pretend that doesn't happen in your head too.

Don't touch me, I'm sick.

I read the news today oh boy, 4000.. something something something that rhymes with Lancashire. There's a problem down at the NHS, turns out that this week it has become unacceptable to have mixed sex wards in a hospital, some woman was worried that her recovery might be hindered by worrying about whether she looks good, or whether she was showing her bits to men she didn't know... like she'd never done that before. 

Now I can't help but think the NHS has better things to be worried about, life and death stuff, like life and death. To have to turn attention, resources and badly needed money to separating the sexes in wards, no doubt leading to badly needed beds going unused because they are in the wrong ward, along with all the admin and re-organisation costs going into it, because a few people are over-sensitive about who they sleep in the same room as, as a pretty sad thing to consider.

Obviously that people are self-centred is no surprise to any of us, but over tolerance of this is just as sickening. Bigger pictures are important, you're not the only person in the world, you're rarely the only person in the room. Of course, at this rate, soon you will be the only person in the room, all the time, every moment of every day, because your tolerance for the needs of others, for the needs of the many, have been whittled away by the indulgences of groups and institutions so scared of losing face, or court costs, that they'll let your germ-free, insular, arrogance dictate the way life happens around you until you finally die from rejecting your own personality.

Grown ups too.

Mid-Life Stasis

Life has changed since the end of 2008. It wasn't a deliberate, conscious change. There was no intervention, no epiphany, no dramatic decision that things just had to change. It just happened, though it was sudden, then gradual, but not slow. 

I couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. This was the start. Well, I slept for 2 hours, then woke up and couldn't sleep again till the sun had come up. There was no reason for it, I wasn't excited about Santa, I didn't have an early appointment to meet, all I had to do was get up sometime before 3pm and drive 5 minutes down the road to be fed and watered, as is the tradition of the season.

But this persisted until New Years Eve, awake all night, asleep for the regular 8 hours, then awake all night again. I figured it might be because I was worried about something, or my mind was cluttered, so I figured I'd use the time eliminating all possible causes, I organised my life, completely. Every box, every CD, every piece of paper, every cable,  every computer file, everything. I discarded everything I didn't need and organised everything else, got up to date on my accounts, on my washing, on my planning. Everything. 

Then comes New Years Eve and the traditional obscene drinking that, despite being a semi-intelligent, almost self-aware, being, I didn't manage to opt out of this year. The resultant hang-over and paranoia, resulted in 24 hours in bed, missing entirely the first day of the year. Which, I'll be honest, wasn't a great start. But it did do something, sorted the sleeping patterns. Well, when I say 'sorted', it wasn't a return to the status quo of 4am bed, 2pm rise, it was actually a development to what is often considered 'normal sleeping patterns', up at 9/10, tired by 1/2, bloody crazy if you ask me.

And that wasn't the end of it.

No. Worse than that. I actually changed into one of those people. You know, those people who say "I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep". Those blithering idiots who clearly have a malfunctioning brain. After all, getting back to sleep in a morning is the easiest thing in the world. You wake up, you feel tired, you remember the all round horrors of being awake, you assume outside your window the weather is dismal, you recall the rather nice dream you were in the middle of, you roll over, and, zzzzZZZZ, in full on cartoon style. Well. Apparently. Not any bloody more. No. Eyes open, mind and body become alert. That's it. No choice, no option, no logical process resulting in a return to living in your glorious head. Nothing but... the start of the day. Ridiculous.

Now. Turns out, when you're getting up, awake and alert, in the AM after 7 hours sleep and you have a whole day at your disposal before the evening and the dark bring easy excuses for laziness and indulgence, there's a lot of hours to fill. Even more so, you're naturally 'on a roll' as it were. You may as well do some proper shopping for proper ingredients, you may as well look through some recipes and cook some real meals, with vegetables and everything. You may as well be a fully rounded human being who is choosing a natural vitamin enhanced life full of garden colours and omega bloody 3.

Well, you're doing that everyday, it's only right that you do some exercise too, maybe turn the TV off and catch up on your reading, bit o' fiction, bit o' fact, bit o' learnin'. If the TV is on, get yourselves some documentaries, check the news, figure out what a recession actual is and why it's happening. I even, and get this, had conversations with people. By golly. (Is that racist?). By something anyway.

Then, in a moment of pure nonsense, I applied for a job. I real one, with the council, in an office, with a salary, 9 to 5, responsibilities, shirt and tie. And I found, and still find, my self excited about the idea of doing it, if I'm lucky enough to be offered it.

I've been 17 years old for the last 13 years. Overnight I became 30.

Well, let's see what happens next.