beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I have distracted myself today by going looking for little potion bottles.

Specifically I remembered them tiny soft drinks in all the colors, the ones where the bottle fit real well in your hand when you were small, and the flavors were, like, blue, or red, or purple.

I can't just go the last place I saw them because that was a newsagents that closed, and also the 20th century.

Mostly things are cans now so the quest for tiny bottles is frustrating.

Asda lemonade seems like a reasonable size of bottles, but in huge multipacks, and I bet it isn't the good tasting lemon.

Barr has a range of flavors and colorful cans that reminds me of the right stuff, but that just reminded me it has been a while since I quite dared drink things where the complete list of ingredients went like 'Flavorings, Sweeteners, Color'. I mean I could try but it's a real dice roll.

... tizer and irn bru look really tempting but I know I quit drinking them on purpose so it would be handy if I remembered why. Caffeine is a big no, so irn bru is out, but... tasted so good...

Orangina happens in very satisfying to hold bulby bottles, which are, according to their website, called bulby bottles. They don't seem to have a screw cap though so you'd have single use orange potions only.



It's sometimes weird to me how much food changes. Like, the bottles change, the names change, fine, but the contents isnt the same recipe usually and the kind of things you get on shelves now changes ever so.

Food has fashions.



ooh, I just found where sells the mango carrot drink now, I'd lost track of that ages ago, cool.


*wanders off to forage for improbable flavors*

I am getting increasingly frustrated about food.
Entire companies have apparently stopped existing, and along with them the vast majority of what I had been eating.
And whenever I try a new thing, it vanishes again, and I am in no way in control of that.

I just need a week's worth of vegetarian dairy free microwave ready meals. I dont mind eating the same thing every week. But it's getting too damn close to same thing every day, and that's nutritionally inadequate.

As it is there's a ton of variety of vegan meat substitutes, but most of them won't go in the microwave, and that still leaves me with the same three varieties of steam fresh veg and one kind of stir in sauce to accompany them.

I saw an article about bio reactor no kill meat going on sale
and my first thought is
this is going to complicate the menu labels so much

because you just know someone is going to serve this to vegans as a gotcha
like look, no animals suffered, isn't that the point?

and anyone that just cannot digest meat is going to have to Explain.

The basic problem with cupboards is
I will buy bananas
put them away
and then
possibly a week later
go
huh
I bought bananas
and then go on a Quest to figure out where they got to now.

I mean logically there's only so many ways they can be lost in two cupboards
yet I know I have opened both of those doors repeatedly lately
and I do not recall bananas.




So.
My day has not been a paragon of excitement.

Also I ate cake twice and now feel vaguely bad about that when a perfectly clear cake rule exists that I made up and should therefore be good at
but no.

And it wasnt even good cake.




Hope your days involve good cake
and/or bananas.

ASDA keep making themselves less useful, which is Very Annoying.
At this point there is one (1) product I want that I can only get at ASDA
but they won't deliver it to me
I have to go to the Superstore in Norwich.
So I was going to click and collect it
went and reserved a slot
found my entire basket was now unavailable
including the one (1) thing.
ugh.
... then it asked me when I wanted it delivered.
... so then I tried AGAIN to reserve a click and collect slot
and magically many things were back!

But my basket was empty because they'd been unavailable a minute ago.

And my Favourites section is empty. I do not know why.
I have Favorited the one (1) thing.


But with only one item it's not worth clicking to collect
so I tried to unreserve
but that isn't possible.

sucks to be them I guess.

but then I tried to sign out and they make it so difficult. I had to get the mouse out to go through multiple menus to find the option. And then instead of just flipping signing me out it asks Are You Sure and you have to click yet more.

I am in fact sure and I do not want to shop at ASDA at this time
because they keep getting rid of my food and are down to... you know by now.

So.

That was my day.



... Amy's Kitchen vegetarian burgers do not currently seem worth all this fuss.

... they are good though, especially with marmite.




oh well.

I didn't get daytime shopping hours today, apparently they're swamped and holidays are making Difficult, but the evening hours worked and turned out quite nice.

I went to Meditation at the Norwich Buddhist Centre and the teacher was different because usually does Kings Lynn and yoga. So we started with a lying down body scan, and then a posture thing with 7 things to check, and then the mindfulness of breathing for 20 minutes, and then the metta bhavana, which I like because it's twenty minutes of practicing thinking kind thoughts. Thinking kind thoughts sounds easy until you try it. I start out with the feeling from when the TARDIS arrives, the happy to see you feeling, and try to add to that. Not precisely traditional but nice.

So that was fun and I wasn't fidgety today, though happy is not a still thought, happy dances, but that was okay.

Did discover not to leave my nice belt bag in my lap because it's fine for ten minutes and then it's pins and needles oops.

But I started the evening moping and not wanting to go anywhere
and ended the meditation feeling good and thinking good thoughts
so that was a plenty good refresher reminder why I should do more often.

So after that we went and got Ribena at Sainsburys and Pizza at Pizza Hut, because vegan cheese
and I got home and watched Captain Marvel.

:-D
🚀☄

Higher further faster!

I love the bit where she stands up.

Also the music, though it's funny/irritating that the subtitles just call it all upbeat music. It's very well chosen words matter music.

I love the fight after Come As You Are.

And I was thinking while I meditate that entertainment gives us lots of practice at feeling good about smiting our enemies but not as much practice at kindness and finding the good in them, at least if you're me and filter for whoosh. This movie at least had a whole think carefully for yourself and try ans see if enemy really is. But still. My principles and my entertainment don't always pull in the same direction.

But it's really fun watching Carol.

... now I kind of want the blu ray to see what extras it has.




So that was a very good evening.

baked beans and hula hoops is not a successful combination.
also I am out of both bread and chips.

I added a whole bunch of cheesly to the leftovers of yesterdays quorn mince and dolmio pasta sauce and pasta. Six slices cut up small, heat leftovers for 3 minutes then add cheesly then heat three more minutes and stir. Melty cheese redistributes pretty evenly through pasta sauce and quorn mince. And it all tastes much better. Which is the first time I can say that about anything I've done with cheesly, usually it requires melting to be edible at all, but this time it just tasted good. I shall have to do this more. Especially because using teh quorn mince and teh dolmio sauce means having very many meals of sort of bolognese. Many. All at once. So finding some way to make the leftovers taste better than the first day? Yaays.


Also watched more Buffy the Vampire Slayer, up to Doomed.

( Read more... )


I'm very much liking watching these, and when I get apparently sulky about their relationships and stuff it's in that way where you like watching the story but kind of want to talk to the characters before they do the thing again, only, well, it's repeats, they always do the thing again.

Only mostly though. Like, there's a lot of debate about the feminism of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I'm finding myself dissatisfied around the edges this time because women don't get to be strong and competent and confident. Like, confidence equals fail, that seems to be a sign they're going wrong. Powerful, burdened and apologetic, while spending a lot of time wondering why their love lives don't work, that seems more the thing. And then the guys are... not awesome, yet they live that equation where save the day means getting the girl. Or, well, girl gets the girl too, same way, save the day first. Only this time through I'm like, yeah, but. Because there's probably lots of people saving lots of days, and possibly they should be, like, not a bully? Not a stalker? Not following you after you say no? Not demonstrating they care primarily through beating things up? Especially that last.

But then I don't know exactly what I would want, or what precisely I mean, and it's mostly feeling grumbly around the edges.


I shall continue to watch more happily though.

I have been reading about food banks. More people need more food and the food banks are running out before they feed all the people. It is bad and getting worse and it's because of the government deciding that people need bullying more than they need food and I don't understand how there's politicians sitting there saying it's nothing to do with the government when it's so closely tied to welfare reforms.

My idea of a practice space colony seems more urgent today. Especially the food self sufficiency bit. It would be hard to do, but it is important.

( Read more... )

I have vast empty where knowing where my food comes from could usefully be.

If people want to practice food self sufficiency, such as would be necessary for a space colony, then they need a place to grow things and someone who knows how and a plan that gives all the nutrition they need and a plan that grows... how many percent extra? You can't grow precisely the right amount because then if it goes wrong you have starving.

This morning when I woke up I thought I would start a Dreamwidth community so people could post their ideas about practical practice space colonies, and then go ask some SF writers what they know from their plannings, or possibly from their gardenings. Also maybe ask SF conventions how they organise a few hundred people for a weekend and how that experience could translate to space colonies. But now I'm thinking that's a bit fluffy compared to actual hungry people. There still needs to be a plan with communication, and something that catches the imagination, but it needs nice strong concrete details to be going on with. And probably somewhere to dig.

My planned practice space colony grows all its own food plus a bit spare, and has a central kitchen and dining room, partly because I can't cook and I like eating on a regular basis, but also so it can have a little cafe. That would be the start of the business side while the colony practice gets going. And then if there's anything else to be made and sold then it can go on display around the walls or something.

My plans need a lot of people and some real estate.

Food banks at the moment are drawing on existing religious communities, who have halls and humans. My space colony plan is intended to get a different community interested. But the SF community, while many and variously skilled, mostly hires its real estate by the weekend.

I should go looking to see what existing volunteers are doing. They probably have proper practical things going on already. ... I just don't see me being very helpful to them.

note to self: if you can't remember when you last ate, the answer should become 'now'.
yes, even if the textbook is intersting.

*facepalm*

you know when a Brit says 'pancake' they are not in fact referring to the same foodstuff as when an American says it?

http://www.funsocialstudies.learninghaven.com/articles/pancake.htm
'When is a pancake not a pancake?'
All American children know that a pancake is thick round and dry, and that you add a topping to it. British children will tell you it is thin, slightly oiled and tastes best rolled up with lemon juice and sugar in the middle.

different foods, same name.

I wondered why the ones on tv were so little.

things that come up in conversation when lamenting the lack of lemons (cause the Americans couldn't understand how that could possibly connect with pancakes)

World - big
English - tricky