Lunch review

So I've started bringing my lunch to work again as a cost-control and
(hopefully) health measure. My lunches normally consist of:
- leftovers
- 2 mini yogurts
- fruit

Since I'm not cooking much (who am I kidding?) at the moment, I
have no leftovers; therefore I'm buying frozen entrees instead. (Ya gotta
start somewhere.) I finally remembered from the last time I was doing this
regularly that if the frozen entree in question is significantly under 300 g
my body will start throwing a temper tantrum towards the end of the day
no matter what else I feed it -- go figure -- which lets out a fair number
of the PC Blue Menu items, unfortunately. But there's still plenty to be
going on with. I thought I'd start keeping track of what I'd tried, rather
than trying to do it in my head, so that I can remember the stuff I like
and cross the stuff I don't like off my list.

Please keep in mind that my standards are pretty minimal and, after all,
these are frozen entrees.

( Today's lunch details )

House update: Monday

My aunt reports:

Today for lunch, John and I had ham and cheese sandwiches.

John found the molding and finished fiddling with Jen's kitchen counters. Installed molding and edges. Also installed a kitchen light. Also bought a ceramic drill (I wonder how many drills there are now in The House?? 63?) and installed a towel rail and shelf in Jen's bathroom.

Cheers, Helen

Am trying quite hard not to be jealous of Jen's bathroom and kitchen. Oh well, one of us is always going to have more stuff going on than the other...

(no subject)

News flash: Still hot and muggy.

Sat out on the deck reading and eating tomato and avocado slices this evening, and was joined -- well, not so much "joined" as "avoided" -- by a raccoon. My parents' garden is 12 1/2 feet wide (the width of the lot) by about 25 deep maybe, so we weren't all that far apart. S/he snuck out of the little passage by the basement stairs about five feet away from me, gave me an indignant look when I said "hi," and ducked back out of sight. Mostly out of sight; I could still see his/her tail. S/he (can't keep this up, I'll just pick a gender) thought for a bit, and then came out again. I think she was quite young -- she looked small for an adult, and not as roly-poly as raccoons get sometimes. She was obviously trying to keep as far away from me as possible, which meant climbing onto the bench/shed instead of coming around it towards me. She thought for a bit, planning her move, and then started to climb up onto a Rubbermaid box that was lying on its side between her and the shed. It was obviously smoother than she'd thought, because she got as far as the classic "swimmer trying to get out of a pool where the water level's kind of low" pose and then slid back to the deck with a thump.

But she managed it on the second try, quite neatly, and walked along the roof of the shed. This is about six feet long, and runs along the vine-covered fence that separates us from our neighbours. The fence in turn stands alone for another few feet and then meets the neighbours' garage/study, which is a separate building at the back of their garden. (We don't have such a thing; another part of the fence closes off the back of our garden from the parking area and the lane. Quite tree-covered at the back, and vines all the way.) Anyway, back to the raccoon. At the end of the shed she had a choice: down five feet or so to the ground, or up two to the top of the fence. She chose up, and walked along the fence to the garage wall -- the vines are so thick that I actually lost sight of her from time to time, except for the mad waving of the stray vine bits.

Bigger climb up to the garage roof, and I was quite worried because there are wires that come in there and I kept remembering that the monkeys in Kenya used to electrocute themselves by holding two wires at once. (I'm sure if raccoons did such things here I'd have heard about it by now, but logic can only do so much.) She mostly disappeared at this point except for her ears (pale grey on the backs and edges, quite noticeable), but it took her ages to get up to the roof and because there were bigger branches there was more scope for rustle, rustle, wave, wave -- very funny to watch.

At this point the neighbour on the other side came out to get Clara and Lily, who were being very quiet in her garden. They're Cairn terriers and normally very noisy, so I had assumed they hadn't seen the raccoon, but Susan said they were riveted. I dare say they were just waiting for the raccoon to make her way over into their territory, and then they would Pounce. The raccoon was larger than either of them but probably smaller than both together, so I'm just as glad they went in -- could have got ugly if they'd actually met.

By this time the raccoon had decided it was time to leave the roof, except she decided to come further down, and the last few feet she fell thump! to the ground again. I pretended not to notice. She spent the next half hour scratching and snuffling around in the garden, and for all I know she carried on after I went in. They're terrible nuisances, but they are adorable. I hadn't realized that they have this halo of longer dark hairs all through their coats, or that their jaws are so delicate-looking -- most photos of them seem to be taken full-face or three-quarters, to show off the mask.