As for the last picture, I had a eureka moment as I put water on to heat for washing up after dinner. I was having leftover pasta and that stuff is a bitch to reheat as it sticks and dries out. I simply put my meal in a bowl that I set in the pot of hot water, put on the lid, and turned the flame to medium-low. Ten minutes (and a bunch of sunset pictures later), I had a hot meal waiting for me that was a breeze to clean up after!
Since I want to continue downsizing my life, I think about whether or not I need to replace something when the original breaks or stops functioning. I thought of replacing the dishes that were broken in the accident, but decided to first live without them for a while. Guess what? I don’t miss them.
While doing the lunch dishes today, I somehow collided my Las Vegas and Halifax mugs. The Vegas mug won.
The Vegas mug that I won at Circus, Circus wouldn’t have been much of a loss. I have a couple other mugs the same size and that format is ubiquitous anyway.
But the Halifax mug is a real loss. 🙁 It’s an unusual size, holding about one and a half times the fluid of a standard coffee mug. When I bought it, I had been searching for some time for a mug that held that much and which was nice and thick. I’m sure I could find another one eventually, but this mug took a lot of shopping to find. It’s my slow morning mug. I usually limit myself to one cup of coffee a day, but on the slow morning, I get a little extra to savour. Slow mornings used to be Sunday but are now most often Monday.
I’m not going to rush out to replace my Halifax mug, but I am going to keep my eye out for a replacement. I know I am going to really miss it just because of how devastated I was when I noticed the giant chip and crack going all the way down it. Usually, breaking something in the kitchen is no big deal, but this really bummed me out. Monday mornings just won’t be the same without it! 🙂
After putting in a few hours of work on my book this morning, I headed out to the post office where a new battery for my cell phone was awaiting me.
The cell phone has pretty much been dead for weeks, but it took me a while to concede this fact even though the phone will randomly turn off even when it is plugged into a power source. I found a genuine Verizon battery on Amazon for just under $7 with free shipping from a well rated seller. The new battery’s arrival could not have been timed better because the phone shut off late this morning and refused to turn back on!
To my surprise, my O’Reilly’s gift card had also arrived! Walmart didn’t have any refrigerant for vehicle ACs, so I headed to O’Reilly’s to see if they carried such a thing, which they did. Since I’m not sure that adding refrigerant will actually start my compressor, I bought the cheapest kit they had, which was about $20 and included a hose but no gauge.
Next, I moseyed over to the tools to look for a socket wrench kit. Everything on display was way more expensive than I was willing to pay ($50 to several hundred dollars). I crouched down to see what was on the bottom shelf, knowing from my days in retail that you can find very good deals near the floor, and I emerged with this:
It’s a 57 piece set with both metric and imperial sockets. Not the best quality, but should serve me well for the little amount I will use it, and was just $20.
I wasn’t even tempted to have lunch in Port Lavaca since I had my lunch all planned out even before I headed out:
(Lightly seasoned black refried beans, tomato, avocado, a squirt of lime juice over a grilled tortilla.)
It is scary windy out there right now, so I’m staying in, putting as much weight as I can on the passenger side (JOKING), and will wait patiently to see if the can of refrigerant helps my truck at all. As for the socket wrench set, I will be using it to disconnect my truck battery to reset the check engine light. I know why the light went on and the issue was resolved, so there’s no point having it on the dash mocking me. 🙂
Today was really low key. It’s a chilly and windy out there, so I’ve stayed in. An invasion force of pterodactyl-like pelicans landed this morning and have been providing Neelix and me with entertainment all day.
Caroline and her husband came by in the afternoon to tour the rig. Her husband gave me his thoughts on how and where I could add a giant monitor to my office setup. The number one thing keeping me from doing so is that I want to run the monitor off DC, not AC, so that I don’t have to turn on the inverter. He said that it’s doable so I’m going to do a bit more research on that.
Caroline had a nice present for me, a cross-stitch project that she’ll never get to, so I’ve already started on that and will continue tonight with a movie. I found a DVD with eight surprisingly good movies on it for just $5 at Walmart and have been watching one a night. It’ll be nice to have something to keep my hands busy in the evenings now.
Tonight, I cooked up the nopal, or cactus paddle, that I bought the other day.
I took Melissa’s advice, cut it up like a fan leaving the bottom attached, and then seared it in my cast iron pan.
Removing the spines wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I just scraped a sharp knife along the top and then wiped the nopal on both sides with a damp paper towel.
Searing nicely next to a really good pork chop.
Tomate, carne de cerdo con limón y pimienta negra, nopal y arroz.
I thought that my palate had been around the block once or twice, but it had never met nopal before. My first reaction to the stuff was that it could not possibly be of this world. Both the texture and taste were complete alien. The texture is so odd, both mucilaginous (slimy, like okra) and crisp. The taste doesn’t even come close to green beans. It’s fresh, but a little sour.
Truth? I have no idea what I think of nopal, but I was not able to finish what I had on my plate. My taste buds were in complete overload.