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Winter update
via Watawa life by Robin Kelsey on February 29, 2008
What a tough winter! Most snow ever. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of it.
Here’s a cheerful fake flower to make you feel better.
New stuff
I decided to get some new stuff. I don’t buy that much stuff, but one thing led to another. First my microwave quit working.I’m hooked on microwave ovens. How else do you heat up a cup of coffee? Cook a frozen dinner? Microwaves are essential for modern living.
I wanted to get a new one at once, but I don’t have a car and they don’t have microwaves in Chinatown. I looked. Lots of rice cookers, no microwaves.
No problem, I belong to Vrtucar car-sharing. I blogged about it here. But I couldn’t get a car. Somebody was using the one at Somerset and Cambridge ALL THE TIME. I think they were taking it to work and then going skiing after work, and then going to the movies in the evening. Grrr.
Vrtucar is going to have to invest in a few more cars if they want to hang onto their members. There should be two cars at Somerset and Cambridge. I complained by email that I couldn’t get a car, and all I got back was a bunch of mealy-mouthed spin about how it was all under control. I like Vrtucar but I think they are going to have to try harder.
I even started thinking about buying a car. Heck, I’m not getting any younger. This could be the last car I ever own. ‘Haven’t I paid enough dues?’ I asked myself. My middle name is Green, but I can’t save the planet single-handed. ‘You deserve to have a car,’ I told myself.But I put that on hold for now. I kind of hate cars, and I resent that you always have to pay to park them. Plus they wear out whether you use them or not.
Yesterday I gave up and reserved the Vrtucar at Gladstone and Percy, a 15-minute walk from Cambridge and Somerset. Close enough when you’re desperate for a new microwave so you can have a hot cup of coffee.
It’s so rare for me to go shopping that I started thinking about what else I could get. I started thinking of getting new stuff as a spirit-lifting winter activity.
I decided to get a coffee maker.
I’ve never actually had a coffee maker. I’ve had every kind of coffee pot from perk to drip to Melitta to Bodum, but I got thinking it might be nice to have one of those automatic coffee makers that make your coffee for you while you’re sleeping and then keep it warm for you. If my coffee maker would keep the coffee warm for me I’d hardly even need a microwave. (But I’d still need it to heat up the frozen dinners.)
And I decided to replace my ratty old shower curtain. So that was my shopping list:
1. Microwave
2. Coffee maker
3. Shower curtain
4. Bunch of groceriesI always get a bunch of groceries when I have a Vrtucar.
I was planning to go to Future Shop at South Keys. They had a Panasonic in their flyer for $120. It was the coldest night of the year, so I left a bit early in case I had trouble starting the car. But it started right up, and I arrived at South Keys 20 minutes before Future Shop opened.
As I was driving I introduced a complication into my shopping trip, in the form of Wal-Mart. They have coffee makers and microwaves too, and they also have shower curtains. I was thinking if I went to Future Shop for the appliances, I’d still have to go somewhere else for the shower curtain. And Wal-Mart might be cheaper than Future Shop. But I really hate going to Wal-Mart.
When I arrived at the shopping centre I was still 20 minutes too early for the other stores, so I started with the groceries. Partway through getting the groceries I realized that I could get everything at Loblaws. So I did.
They had a microwave a lot cheaper than the one at Future Shop. And they had a pretty spiffy looking stainless steel automatic coffee maker for only $35. That’s cheaper than a Bodum! How do they do that?
And they have shower curtains. That whole back part of Loblaws superstores is all about bathroom and bedroom stuff. So I picked up a blue shower curtain with coloured fish on it.
Here’s my cat checking out the new shower curtain.
I’m pretty happy with my new shower curtain, but I’m undecided about the other stuff.
Here’s my new microwave. (Who, that guy? That’d be me. On assignment.)
The microwave is ok, except that I don’t know how it works yet. With my old microwave, if you pressed 1 and then GO, you got one minute. With this microwave you only get one second.
What can you heat up in one second? Nothing.
It’s beyond me why the microwave industry can’t get together on this. It’s like Apple and Microsoft. There should be standards for unimportant things like computer operating systems and microwave ovens. Just make it simple, and make it work, and then make them all work the same. Quit screwing around, that’s what I say.It’s possible that I’m going to have to read the manual to figure out how to use the microwave. As someone who writes software manuals for a living, I consider it a humiliating defeat to have to read one. Grrr.
Here’s my coffee maker.
It’s pretty slick, and it has lots of nice features. For example, if you’re in a hurry you can pull out the pot while it’s still dripping, and it stops for the duration. This actually works - it doesn’t drip at all. And it has a special setting for when you’re not making a full pot. They claim it adjusts the brewing time for better aroma. That’s what they call the setting, ‘Aroma.’ I think that works too.
But it has a fatal flaw. The coffee isn’t hot enough, especially the first cup. It gets better later on from sitting on the warmer, but the first cup is really not much better than lukewarm, and by the time I put in a lot of cream, as is my custom, it’s not hot at all.
I realize I could pop the first cup into my new microwave and zap it with an extra 30 seconds, but first I’d have to figure out how to set the microwave for 30 seconds. And I’d be using two appliances just to get a cup of coffee.
Grrr. Maybe I’ll go back to my Bodum.
Red apron
As I was walking back from dropping off the Vrtucar at Percy and Gladstone, I noticed a new business in that little strip mall where the Blue Nile Ethopian restaurant is. It’s called the red apron.
What they do is, they cook organic gourmet meals and deliver them to you fresh. Delivery is free if you live downtown. They do this in the middle of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, or you can get all the meals delivered to you frozen on Thursday if you’d rather. But then there would be different vegies to make them freezable.
It’s not exactly cheap - but compared to what? Restaurants? PC frozen dinners? Toasted bagel sandwiches with bacon and egg and a bit of lettuce and tomato? (Yum) Raisin bran??????
I went in and bought a dinner out of the freezer, just to try it. It was “Caribbean spiced pork tenderloin, sweet potato polenta, and mango salsa,” and it cost $14. It said it served two, but it was so good that I ate it all. (I’m sure you wouldn’t do that.)
I also bought a loaf of bread, which was extremely good. They have gourmet condiments and fair trade coffee too. I think the red apron is pretty interesting, especially for modern downtown people who don’t know how to use their microwaves.
Here’s their website: http://www.redapron.ca.
The Senators
I told you so.Shared by: