Things I Do Not Understand:

• Why, other than reasons of general Canadian pride, our neighborhood pet food store is advertising a free can of maple syrup for every 6 lb bag of Royal Canin pet food purchased.  Even though we have a good month’s worth of food left, I am really tempted to stock up.  Because I’m just too cheap to buy a can of maple syrup independently.
• Why the only neighbors who habitually neglect to remove their laundry from the communal coin-op washing machine and dryer are the ones washing enormous loads of socks and underwear, largely lacy thongs.  Wherefore so many thongs?  Wherefore so lacy?  And why must they always be gingerly removed by mine own hands?
• Why the “odor control” bags I accidentally bought for our kitchen trash smell so damn bad.  They smell unpleasant when they’re fresh, and downright foul when items are added to them.
• What, exactly, the working conditions and remuneration for being an eighteenth-century ornamental garden hermit were.  At some time during a rambly overview of eighteenth-century British landscape aesthetics and the picturesque I mentioned to Pete that it wasn’t unheard of for really thoroughly Romantic gardens to incorporate a hermitage or grotto with a resident hermit, which he found hilarious.  I take this as proof that I study the Best Century.

Things I Do Understand:

• How to true a bicycle wheel, thanks in part to the student volunteers at the local university bike co-op.  I am far from becoming one of the assorted male undergraduates busy constructing fixies from rusty Peugeot frames and motley assemblages of spare parts, but at least now I have non-rubbing brakes and a fresh set of brake pads.
• That these may, in fact, be The Best Blueberry Muffins.  Family legend informs me that, as a small child, I’d always ask for a blueberry muffin at coffeeshops and cafes, then scrupulously pick out all of the blueberries before consuming the remaining muffin.  As an adult, I love blueberries, but blueberry muffins are often lackluster–given the choice between a big cookie and a saran-wrapped blueberry muffin, I’ll always choose the cookie, you know?  But these are truly excellent, particularly with the lemony topping and made with some little frozen blueberries I picked up at the supermarket.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 2:23 pm and is filed under bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.