FREEZER DINNER

When dinner time rolled around this evening I looked in my fridge and realized I was out of any sort of meat and vegetables. I had nothing to make dinner from. My first though was to get groceries downstairs but then I thought it would be more enjoyable and easier to get some takeout. Then laziness took over. There’s a strong cold front happening in the province now, so it’s freezing outside. I really didn’t want to anywhere. So, I looked in my fridge. It was full of half-eaten bags and boxes of stuff. I really should eat some of this stuff before it becomes too old to consume.

I settled on finishing up a bag of frozen corn and some chicken nuggets in a box that I had opened and sampled once but left for a few months. I boiled the corn in a saucepan but for the nuggets, I brushed them with some oil and then air fried them.

You can’t really screw up frozen corn but the nuggets turned out really good, at least for frozen, months old nuggets. They were quite crisp, not especially juicy but not too dry.

I saved myself some money and effort by eating from my freezer. There are some corn dogs I need to get to next.

PANDEMIC RETROSPECTIVE

We’re approaching a full year of living in the pandemic for the western world. It’s still going and despite the creation of vaccines, it won’t be ending anytime soon. Yet, as human beings, we love to look back on events when come up on arbitrary milestones, like a whole year.

The picture you see above is what my facial hair looked like in the middle of May, two months after everyone started working from home. If you can remember that far back, it was still a very scary time for everyone and people were still very reluctant to venture out. Since I was basically stuck at home, I decided to grow out my facial hair from the beginning. What you’re seeing above is about two months of growth, which is sad because I know some dudes who can look like that after a week of not shaving. I have some weak-ass hairs on my upper lip, which gave me a tired looking “moustache”. The chin part looks ok but the abundance of white hairs makes me look like an old dude because I guess I am an old dude now.

I would have never stopped shaving unless we were in the pandemic and I feel like a lot of men made the same decision. I kinda looked like a hobo. Growing it out was fascinating to me though. At beginning, it didn’t feel that great. It felt prickly and uncomfortable at times. When the hair got a certain length though, it felt softer and easier to deal with. I got into this habit of playing with the chin part of it. Sometimes I’d just rub my hands along my beard because it was just so strange to feel all that facial hair. It was a novelty.

It wasn’t very long after this picture was taken that I shaved it all off. It just wasn’t me and with the warmer weather coming, I felt it make the summer less cool. It was quite fun seeing all that long facial hair in my sink when I shaved it off. I wonder if I should try doing this again to celebrate a whole year of pandemic living!

STARBUCKS

The Starbucks location downstairs closed permanently this week. It wasn’t the only one as hundreds of other locations in Canada were scheduled to be closed by March. This particular location was one of the first tenants in the retail complex below. If I wanted Starbucks coffee, this was where I went. I haven’t been inside that location in over a year and I’m probably not the only one who can say that, which might explain why it closed.

I won’t be going without coffee though. There’s a Starbucks location within the Safeway downstairs. I admit, however, those Starbucks outlets within the Safeway usually isn’t as good as the standalone ones. Speaking of which, there is another real Starbucks location just a three minute walk away. That one won’t be closing, though it is slightly farther away.

More importantly though, the independent coffee scene is strong in my neighbourhood. There is a local coffee shop by the water that has been rated one of the best in the city and next week, another independent coffee shop is opening downstairs as well. I already go to the former quite a bit, looking forward to patronizing the latter soon.

TOOTS

Whatever caused my diarrhea last night continued to provide me minor issues today. I very gassy for most of the day and I might have even farted once during a Zoom call when I speaking. Oh well.

The farting continued into the evening and I had one dodgy poop around dinner time. It actually left me a bit winded afterwards, even though it wasn’t strenuous at all.

It’s time for bed now and I’m feeling a bit better but I can tell I still have some good farts left in me.

BEDTIME POOPS

I’m about to go to bed now but ten minutes ago, I had an instance of diarrhea. It surprised me because I’ve only had two things to eat all evening. My dinner was some air fried chicken. It was cooked well beyond what it needed to be. The meat wasn’t bloody or anything. If anything, it might have been on the overcooked side. The other thing I had to eat were two oranges. Maybe it was the oranges? Most people don’t get sick eating oranges. Who knows. I had an uncomfortable five minutes on the toilet. My body better have completely expelled what was bothering it.

I wonder if I’ll poop myself while sleeping.

BAGEL

In the early days of the pandemic, my regular breakfast item was the muffin. With the switch to work from home, it changed my eating habits and what I bought at the grocery store. I needed something quick and easy to eat before my morning meetings. It also needed to come in multiples so I could buy many of them. Blueberry muffins fit the bill for me. I’d cut one in half, spread some butter on each side and then heat them up in my toaster oven.

That was great for a while but after months of eating a muffin for breakfast, it got boring. My breakfast items were pretty random for a while but then I settled down on bagels. They’re kinda carb-heavy but they’re good enough to get me out of bed these days. I usually buy blueberry or sesame seed bagels. I toasted them up and then spread a generous amount of butter on them. There’s a real great crispness to them once they come out of the toaster oven. I know cream cheese is a popular thing to put on a bagel but it’s not as good as butter.

Who knows how long bagels will grab my attention before I get bored of them. For now, it’s the tasty way of starting my day.

FRIED CHICKEN

On Saturday evening, I ate a whole order of Korean fried chicken by myself and it was glorious. I hadn’t had much to eat all day, so when I got the chicken home, I was pretty hungry. I thought there was enough to eat later but it was so good that I kept on eating until it was all gone.

I felt very full afterwards and I didn’t have to eat again for the rest of the evening. There seems to be plethora of fried chicken places all over the city now. When I was a kid, it was either KFC or Church’s. Now there’s global brands from overseas and local run joint, all serving up deep fried poultry.