Monday, July 27

Life's little puzzles

Walking through a Supermarket. Looking for a nice leek, to use for a chicken pie.
Ye gods, $4 for one leek?? I thought leeks are winter vegetables? I thought they are now in 'season'?
I look again, & see it is an 'Organic' Leek. I find the term Organic, an absolute bloody insult. How many plants are inorganic! GrrrrPartially explains the price.

I keep searching, but it seems they just dont have any 'Inorganic' leeks. This is in the 'Fresh Food People' store too. bah!
We call into our local monster "Colds" store. Gom wants to indulge his sweet tooth. I ask him to look for a leek for me. (I am definitely more of a vegie girl!)

I go off to get my meds at the Chemist, & meet him coming down the Mall.
"I have just been to Colds for a Leek" He says loudly.
An old man does a choked snigger, on a bench. I can see his mind whirring over.

Gom gets the leek out of the bag, & brandishes it about. Old jokes about someone being 'rogered by a prize winning leek' spring to mind, & I muffle laughter. "It is a bit of a thin leek!" I say. The old man lets out a small laugh.
"Oh well, who needs a fat leek?"

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Wandering along the aisles of the freezers, just looking, to see what new wonders they have frozen, I spy a large wrapped package, obviously from the Deli Section. I look closer & see it is a fresh, whole, Trout. I begin to wonder why the person dumped it. Did they change their mind, finding frozen fish cheaper? Did they absently leave it there when they were examining something else?

I do sometimes think about that email joke of how 'old people amuse themselves'. You know the one, where they go about putting unwanted items in random trolleys, or rearranging the clothing racks, or mixing up the sauces. Or eating the nuts without paying as they idle through the shop? The Hovering Grape Gobbler, who absolutely pretends he ~I find the gobblers seem to be males, usually~ is not stealing the grapes as he makes laps around the grape displays. Or furtively ripping open a bag of chocolates, & pretending they spilt on the floor, so they hurriedly palm a few.

Or Mrs Bleating Blabber, who yaps on & on at the checkout while the harrassed young girl tries to remain polite as the queue grows longer & she grunts rather than answers, hoping Mrs BB will get the message & move along.

Why is there always one shoe lying in the gutter, or on the road? Where is the other, where is the owner? How did the shoe get there, was it thrown? Did it fall out of the window? Did it fall off the roof of the car? Did some long suffering mother or girlfriend sneak one & dump it, so she will never have to smell the beastly thing again!

But the strange thing is, quite often the lone shoe looks quite new. Quite tidy, one might say. I had a friend who said he was going to begin a collection of the lone shoes he found on highways & byways. I wonder if he ever did?

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A particularly peeving puzzle is the fact that Gom had a watch repaired,~ it had had a broken glass face~ & requested a new battery. We I collected it, it was not set to the correct time, so the lady set the time, I paid & off we went. Next day, it stopped, so Gom reset it, & it went for a while. He noticed it kept stopping, so today we took it back.
Turns out, "We are not watchmakers" & the best they could do, was offer the 'name & phone number of a watchmaker', or give a 20% discount, on a 'tradein' on a new watch. ie, they would keep the watch we had paid to have repaired. ???? Does that sound fair? It seems odd somehow. Why would they want to keep a useless obviously secondhand watch?
My daughter suggests they might want to cannibalise old watches & use the parts? It also has a very nice gold band.

**********
I bought $60 worth of Scholastic books for my Grandson. Six books with an average price of $10 each. I got them all for $2. Three for a Dollar! They were available at a garage sale, in almost new condition. He is thrilled with them, & his reading really is wonderful, considering he is only 6. It is a point of wonder when he begins reading aloud, from the highly 'suggestive' greeting cards, he sees displayed in our local Post Office!! at risk of seeming a prude, I feel like demanding they do not display such things at a level where children can access them! Some of them are downright crude! Which is ok, for adults, but I don't really think he needs to know about such things at his age?He has an above average understanding of numbers too, so he is doing really well at school.

He spent time here this morning, & was in the kitchen talking 'man talk' with his grandfather. "We don't need you here Nan, so run along!"
We burst out laughing!

We have had him for a couple of days, & enjoyed his company. Would have had him more, but his father has been recuperating from a broken rib, so he has been home to care for him.

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Yesterday seemed to be really cold, & the best way to keep warm seemed to be cooking in the warm kitchen. I made pies, a huge pot of vegetable soup, meals for 2 nights & kept nice & warm while everything simmered & baked. I seem to have had an awakening of my love of cooking. I wonder how long it will last!

Perhaps it is all the cooking excitement with the MasterChef TV series. We didn't watch it often, but I admit we watched the final, & I enjoyed most of what I did see.

Another puzzle is the stop/start love affair with my patchwork progress. I am continually inspired by the blogs I read, however I have a presently patchy progress pattern.



Phoebe Snow, Touch Your Soul.

13 comments:

persiflage said...

It is soup making weather. Yesterday I made pea and ham soup and tonight have chicken stock simmering.
As for leeks, well, you have said it all. It is a vegetable I have seldom used. In this season there are pathetic bleats beseeching soup, soup and more soup.
As for the grape testers, etc, I think you came out of the same moral and religious teaching that I did. I cannot taste a grape, etc, and look on appalled and askance as others do so.

Tanya said...

Garage sales are so nice. And thrift shops. I feel like I am treasure hunting and occasionally find a treasure! Alas, Japan doesn't have garage sales and the thrift shops have "discount" prices so I even have to watch my wallet there. Books are the best!

The Sagittarian said...

I adore leeks! I bought some parsley for the evil rabbits yesterday but he supermarket had mislabelled it...normally pay 99c for a huge bunch of parsley I found they wanted to charge me $1.85 for a leek!! Luckily I knows me onions....

Marja said...

My hubbie just bought some leek plants for the garden Yep organic leeks at our place
Oh I loved the scolastic books W always had great buys at primary

ancient one said...

Too hot for soup here... high 90's and thunderstorms this eveining...

Most grapes are underwraps at the stores I frequent. I guess these groceriers know how to put a stop to the grazing.

Love hearing about your grandson. He's growing up so fast. "Man talk" LOL

Pauline said...

Mmmmm - soup. Though it's a tad hot here for soup at the moment. We've been having temperatures in the 80s and frequent high humidity.

I have leeks growing in the garden, or at least trying to grow in all the wet this summer. I chuckled at your cross out of the word organic. The word, when used here commercially to describe vegetables and fruit, refers to the lack of pesticides used and the predominance of chemically untreated soil. Why naturally grown organic food is so much higher priced is a puzzle to me. There may be more work to it but one doesn't have to pay for chemicals and the soil and resultant produce are in much healthier conditions. You'd think the prices would be set to encourage people to buy organic rather than the other way around. I tell you, human beings are an odd, odd lot.

The Fibers of Life said...

Oh Meggie, it's hard to think about "soup weather" as it has been in the 100F for almost a week. I guess that really shows the differences on this side of the equator. I love leeks too. They have a really gentle flavor that adds a lot to almost everything. A good friend uses them instead of onions and think I like that.
Grocery grazers, yes we have them here too. It has always been tempting to make mischief in the grocery store but then I think about the clerks who are not well paid having to take everything back to where it belongs. So, what did you do with the trout?
MaryLou

Cathi said...

Grocery grazers abound here as well. It got so bad here that one had to check packages of cookies or crackers to make sure that the grazers hadn't already had a few. The grape tasters appall me -- aside from the fact they're stealing, they're also eating fruit that's not been washed and who knows how many people have handled!

Anonymous said...

Any and all references to leeks should always remind one of Benny Hill.

Anonymous said...

I saw a picture for a gorgeous recipe of a chicken and leek pie last week. But someone had ripped out the recipe - I was so wanting to be the ripperoutter myself. I was ripped off instead.

Maybe you would share your recipe?

quiltmom anna said...

Funny story about the leeks, Meggie- Would have loved to have seen the man's face too..
What a great find of books for your grandson- He'll soon be able to read your blog VBG
Regards,
Anna

Warty Mammal said...

So many mysteries! Sometimes one sees perfectly good sneakers hanging off powerlines. I've wondered how that happens.

The books sound like a wonderful deal. So much in the way of riches for so little money!

Q said...

I am in th emiddle of summer and eating from the garden. I did laugh about the leek!
Phobe Snow is one of my all time favorites. Thanks for the song!
Sherry