So I went to Guelph and made Fufu. I made the batch that used tubers from the elephant's ear plant instead of the yam version, because when I told my mother that I could make Yam Fufu or Cocoyam Fufu, she said, "What's Cocoyam?" and I said "Coconut with yam" even though I hadn't read the ingredients. She thought it sounded good, and when I realized my mistake, I thought it would be a surprise best left after we'd eaten.
Surprisingly anticlimactic food. It was pretty bland, basically a flavour carrier, like bread or pasta,
even if it wasn't wheat-based. What I made was more like a paste, but
who knows if I did it right. Tastes pretty good with dips and sauces. My brother made my day by asking if it was alright if he finished the fufu.
I was hoping it would taste like Malian toh, and it didn't really. Tasted a lot better, but you know... that's not the point. Maybe the Yam Fufu will be different.
I dropped my PSW work. I'm equipped to deal with the hearts and minds of people, not so much their bodies. I'm good enough to be a stand-in PSW, but not as a full-time gig. Didn't have anything to do with squeamishness or timidity. I was fine in those areas, but it's a surprisingly complex job. You require a certain affinity, and it just didn't fit me. Things ended on good terms, but I don't think I'll be revisiting that career path.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Fufu
Guess what I have?
It's fufu!
What's fufu you ask?
It's a combination of yam, cassava, rice, and potato, or in the case of Tropiway, substitute yam with dehydrated tubers of the elephant's ear plant.
I've read enough literature on historical Africa to know that when palm wine and fufu are mentioned, it means we're inside what is now modern day Nigeria.
But looking at the ingredients, I'm wondering if I could make toh.
Toh was a signature Malian dish. It was a type of volcano shaped pastry with sauce in the centre (green, gumbo, or red sauce) and you would rip off chunks of the pastry, dip it in the sauce and eat. It was awful.
But wow, the nostalgia just hit me like a truck. What I would do for a taste of toh. I don't know how to make the sauces, but this has me very excited.
We just got our first hydro and gas bills. We have to pay deposits and installation fees for both, as those are added to the first bill, so it's another establishing fee. After this we should normalize. With deposit and installation, hydro is about triple and gas is... I dunno... five times over what it would normally be? I took the usage total and added it to my rent and in the end I wind up paying about the same average per month as I did at the old place and at student housing.
I just signed up for Air Miles. That's something that, for years, I always thought I might bother to do, but haven't. It just became such a part of my routine at any Sobeys, LCBO, or Staples to reject Air Miles that it never became a priority. But a girl at the grocery was pitching it and offered an immediate sign-up, so it finally happened.
I'm aggravating to fit on a form. She asked me what my address was. When she asked me how long I'd lived there, I said it was my second month. So she needed another one and I gave my old address. When she found out I'd only been there five months she needed my one from student housing. Then she wanted to know what my occupation was and I said I had three jobs. Then she wanted to know what my monthly wage was and I said that my main source of income is working individual-by-individual and depends on need.
I've been playing some Plants vs. Zombies lately. You might remember, just after or around my time in Katimavik, me praising this videogame? Real-time castle defense-style military strategy game, where you play as a garden against an oncoming horde of zombies. Back then, I was neither interested in plants or zombies. Now I'm interested in both! Just makes it all the more enjoyable.
We're dealing with a hard cold snap right now. Like, a seriously hard cold snap. As in, the winter that hasn't occurred up until now is condensing all it's unused cold into this snap. It's painful, but almost a relief. It wouldn't have felt natural to go the whole winter without season-appropriate weather.
There's an intersection that I have to use on the way to the home of someone I work with. First time I got to it, I pressed the button to trigger the cross signal, and I heard someone say "Wait..."
I turned, looked around, saw no one. Thought "Crazy how your imagination can run away with you this early in the morning. Still half-dreaming, haha". After a bit "Wait...". Now I'm kind of on edge. No one around for as far as the eye can see. I stay still and listen... Eventually, "Wait..."
This time I was specifically paying attention to the sound and phrase, and it definitely is "Wait". Don't know where it's coming from though. Fourth time and I realize it's coming from the button. It's an accessible button for people with visual impairments, and you're supposed to wait until it stops telling you to. Other accessible buttons beep until they stop.
It's fufu!
What's fufu you ask?
It's a combination of yam, cassava, rice, and potato, or in the case of Tropiway, substitute yam with dehydrated tubers of the elephant's ear plant.
I've read enough literature on historical Africa to know that when palm wine and fufu are mentioned, it means we're inside what is now modern day Nigeria.
But looking at the ingredients, I'm wondering if I could make toh.
Toh was a signature Malian dish. It was a type of volcano shaped pastry with sauce in the centre (green, gumbo, or red sauce) and you would rip off chunks of the pastry, dip it in the sauce and eat. It was awful.
But wow, the nostalgia just hit me like a truck. What I would do for a taste of toh. I don't know how to make the sauces, but this has me very excited.
We just got our first hydro and gas bills. We have to pay deposits and installation fees for both, as those are added to the first bill, so it's another establishing fee. After this we should normalize. With deposit and installation, hydro is about triple and gas is... I dunno... five times over what it would normally be? I took the usage total and added it to my rent and in the end I wind up paying about the same average per month as I did at the old place and at student housing.
I just signed up for Air Miles. That's something that, for years, I always thought I might bother to do, but haven't. It just became such a part of my routine at any Sobeys, LCBO, or Staples to reject Air Miles that it never became a priority. But a girl at the grocery was pitching it and offered an immediate sign-up, so it finally happened.
I'm aggravating to fit on a form. She asked me what my address was. When she asked me how long I'd lived there, I said it was my second month. So she needed another one and I gave my old address. When she found out I'd only been there five months she needed my one from student housing. Then she wanted to know what my occupation was and I said I had three jobs. Then she wanted to know what my monthly wage was and I said that my main source of income is working individual-by-individual and depends on need.
I've been playing some Plants vs. Zombies lately. You might remember, just after or around my time in Katimavik, me praising this videogame? Real-time castle defense-style military strategy game, where you play as a garden against an oncoming horde of zombies. Back then, I was neither interested in plants or zombies. Now I'm interested in both! Just makes it all the more enjoyable.
We're dealing with a hard cold snap right now. Like, a seriously hard cold snap. As in, the winter that hasn't occurred up until now is condensing all it's unused cold into this snap. It's painful, but almost a relief. It wouldn't have felt natural to go the whole winter without season-appropriate weather.
There's an intersection that I have to use on the way to the home of someone I work with. First time I got to it, I pressed the button to trigger the cross signal, and I heard someone say "Wait..."
I turned, looked around, saw no one. Thought "Crazy how your imagination can run away with you this early in the morning. Still half-dreaming, haha". After a bit "Wait...". Now I'm kind of on edge. No one around for as far as the eye can see. I stay still and listen... Eventually, "Wait..."
This time I was specifically paying attention to the sound and phrase, and it definitely is "Wait". Don't know where it's coming from though. Fourth time and I realize it's coming from the button. It's an accessible button for people with visual impairments, and you're supposed to wait until it stops telling you to. Other accessible buttons beep until they stop.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
49 Pennies
So yesterday I bragged about finding six pennies in one spot. I told this story to my roommates and one of them was all "I bet someone found those in their pocket and threw them on the ground because they're worthless". I said "They've been discontinued for years, you don't just 'find them in your pocket' anymore". To counter me, he produced 49 pennies from an old change jar of his. I told him that I would trade each of his pennies for a coin of a greater value. I took out my own change jar of nickels, dimes, and quarters, and without looking, pulled 49 random coins.
He counted them, pulled out some coin rolls, built $10 out of quarters, and he was still counting. Originally I'd offered to quadruple the value of his pennies, which would've been a toony ($2 Canadian coin). My "coin of a greater value" system was definitely a better deal for him.
Oh well, look at how many pennies I have now! 55 pennies!
Just as a side, I think my yellow roses are going to die. They won't drink water and are withering. Time to get an aloe vera.
Edit: This 49 Pennie post is actually my 649th post on this blog! Spooky!
Second edit: My previous post was six pennies! Put the numbers of each post together... 6 and 49, and this is the 649th post!
He counted them, pulled out some coin rolls, built $10 out of quarters, and he was still counting. Originally I'd offered to quadruple the value of his pennies, which would've been a toony ($2 Canadian coin). My "coin of a greater value" system was definitely a better deal for him.
Oh well, look at how many pennies I have now! 55 pennies!
Just as a side, I think my yellow roses are going to die. They won't drink water and are withering. Time to get an aloe vera.
Edit: This 49 Pennie post is actually my 649th post on this blog! Spooky!
Second edit: My previous post was six pennies! Put the numbers of each post together... 6 and 49, and this is the 649th post!
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Six Pennies
I realize that in my past blog post, I repeated my commentary on my flavoured vitamins from a previous entry. Oops.
We got our new furniture. We now have a couch and a loveseat from the thrift store. One of my roommates got a coffee table from his family. The Planned Parenthood office is changing location and is having an office sale, and we scored two chairs and a four-shelf locking filing cabinet.
I'm really excited about the filing cabinet. Because of my work, I have documents of a sensitive nature such as consent to release information forms. I'm sure it doesn't matter, as no one I work with would know what system I have in place, but if they did, I'm sure they would feel a bit more secure knowing their information was behind lock and key. It's a good home office addition.
We have proper curtains now, too. If you'll remember, we were using a set of bedsheets from a raffle win as curtains until recently. When I went into the store to buy them, I wasn't sure what the measurements were that I needed for the living room window. So I went to the bedding section and checked what the measurements were for a king sized set of sheets, since that's what we'd been using.
Since we were using that shoddy replacement for curtains, I started paying more attention to what other people use as curtains. I found a place where they were using a carboard box, and a few places that looked to be using tinfoil. Turns out there are worse substitutes than bedsheets.
Recently I found six pennies on the ground. In the past, I've blogged about my oddly good luck of finding the discontinued Canadian penny twice in fairly quick succession. But this time I found six on a sidewalk all in one spot. So weird.
A group of kind of "thug" themed people were walking behind me when I ran across these. I momentarily hesitated about jumping on them, in cased this might make myself look less "thug".
Didn't worry about it for too long. I am officially less thug and six pennies richer.
We got our new furniture. We now have a couch and a loveseat from the thrift store. One of my roommates got a coffee table from his family. The Planned Parenthood office is changing location and is having an office sale, and we scored two chairs and a four-shelf locking filing cabinet.
I'm really excited about the filing cabinet. Because of my work, I have documents of a sensitive nature such as consent to release information forms. I'm sure it doesn't matter, as no one I work with would know what system I have in place, but if they did, I'm sure they would feel a bit more secure knowing their information was behind lock and key. It's a good home office addition.
We have proper curtains now, too. If you'll remember, we were using a set of bedsheets from a raffle win as curtains until recently. When I went into the store to buy them, I wasn't sure what the measurements were that I needed for the living room window. So I went to the bedding section and checked what the measurements were for a king sized set of sheets, since that's what we'd been using.
Since we were using that shoddy replacement for curtains, I started paying more attention to what other people use as curtains. I found a place where they were using a carboard box, and a few places that looked to be using tinfoil. Turns out there are worse substitutes than bedsheets.
Recently I found six pennies on the ground. In the past, I've blogged about my oddly good luck of finding the discontinued Canadian penny twice in fairly quick succession. But this time I found six on a sidewalk all in one spot. So weird.
A group of kind of "thug" themed people were walking behind me when I ran across these. I momentarily hesitated about jumping on them, in cased this might make myself look less "thug".
Didn't worry about it for too long. I am officially less thug and six pennies richer.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Cell Phone Charger
I believe this February the 1st marks nine months of survival independently out of school!
I take vitamins D and B12, and I take melatonin to help me sleep. My D is chewable orange flavou
r, my B12 is peppermint, and my melatonin is chocolate. No more flavourless vitamin experiences for me!
We've got furniture coming in. There's a thrift store called Worth a Second Look in Kitchener. They have really good prices on furniture, and more importantly, they deliver! This solves mine and my roommate's problem of not being able to move anything. It's happening this Wednesday.
Here is a pic of that cellphone charger situation I was talking about. See? To get it to charge, I need to tape a pen to the base of the charger, then tie a rubber band (although we're using two in this pic) to keep everything in place,
I take vitamins D and B12, and I take melatonin to help me sleep. My D is chewable orange flavou
r, my B12 is peppermint, and my melatonin is chocolate. No more flavourless vitamin experiences for me!
We've got furniture coming in. There's a thrift store called Worth a Second Look in Kitchener. They have really good prices on furniture, and more importantly, they deliver! This solves mine and my roommate's problem of not being able to move anything. It's happening this Wednesday.
Here is a pic of that cellphone charger situation I was talking about. See? To get it to charge, I need to tape a pen to the base of the charger, then tie a rubber band (although we're using two in this pic) to keep everything in place,
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