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.
Those enhanced crossing controls are pretty cool. The ones here also say "Northwestern [or whatever street] walk sign is on" so that you know it's your crossing and not the other one from the same pole.
ReplyDeleteThey're also pretty easy to hear. A couple of years ago, I was stopped at an intersection on a major road in the city, with another car stopped next to me in the next lane over. They roll down their window, I do too, and the driver says "Is your car making that noise?"
There's an obvious beeping coming from somewhere, but it's not a noise my car would make (certainly not audible from outside!), but I don't really think about that. I just say no, but thanks for asking - who knows what it could have been?
Then the light changed and we drove away ... and I realized what it was. That intersection had accessible crossing buttons, and we could hear the beeping all the way in the intersection. (Ours only say "Wait" when you press the button, but they keep beeping to let you know it's still not time to cross. Not sure if yours work that way or not.)