#pantone2955c

[watchingcr]

Welcome to the C1 club! I hope you're having fun :D

Hi, thanks! I am having so much fun, I love this nerdy ass voice actors, and their characters and the story and they have made me very happy!

[ofdemigodsandwizards]

What is your opinion of spinach?

Short answer? I used to hate it, but now I love it.

The first time I remember eating spinach, it was when I was still living in a foreign land. I was about 3 years old. I must've eaten it sometime before too, in the form of a purée or soup or something, but this one experience changed how I thought about spinach.

My mother had made me a tomato and spinach soup. When the spoon entered my mouth, and I tasted tomato, I felt joy.

I harboured a strange and obsessive love for tomatoes. Right from when I was about 8 months old, my mother tells me. Tomato purées and soups were happily consumed. Any tomatoes that I found lying around I tried to stuff whole in my mouth.

They never fit, of course, but I was a tenacious soul and I never stopped trying. This is what led to cherry tomatoes being introduced in my household. For the sole purpose of me eating them whole.

So now that you know about this love, you can imagine the kind of betrayal, sadness and surprise I felt when on the next spoon I tasted the spinach and realised that my tomatoes had somehow been... contaminated.

I drank all the contents of my bowl, though. I wasn't a whiny child. Still, that meal was spent in silence as I tried to figure out what was wrong with my tomatoes and 3/4 of the way through my bowl I might've gotten misty-eyed.

That evening I asked my mother why my soup was different. She said, "Different? It was just regular tomato and spinach soup."

Tomato and spinach soup. Tomato and spinach soup. Spinach.

And thus began my hatred for spinach. I made it a point from then on to always ask what was breakfast/lunch/dinner. I wouldn't be landing myself with any nasty surprises that way. If I heard the cursed word, "Spinach", I made it a point to echo it out loud with all the disdain a small child could muster. "Spinach???", I would ask, with a frown and a wrinkled nose.

I still had to eat the stuff, however. But I made sure to get the smallest serving deemed acceptable on my plate and be done with it as soon as I could, so I could pretend that it never happened.

My mother accepted it quietly, but father was absolutely exasperated. He got me to watch the Popeye cartoons so I'd eat more spinach. It didn't work. He tried to try scare me by telling me that I'd always remain the shortest person in my class if I didn't eat more spinach. That didn't work because I actually liked sitting in the front row, and standing at the front of the line because I was always noticed and my view was always unobstructed.

All that changed when I came back to my motherland when I was about 6 years old and my grandmother took it upon herself to convert me. This tiny Maharashtrian woman was a whiz when it came to food. Her kitchen was always warm and full of people. It's something she still takes deep pride in.

She made me the most amazing dishes. Palak paneer. Hara bhara kebab. Palak kofta. Spinach lasagna. They all had spinach in them.

My game of asking what was for lunch/dinner didn't work with her. She would just smile when I posed her my question, and serve a portion. She'd ask me to guess. I would be too distracted to, I'd always end up asking for second servings. It was only at the end of the meal when I was sated, full, done complimenting and thanking her profusely that she'd reveal it was spinach I'd eaten.

I couldn't find it in myself to be mad because it was great food, and I'd always end up taking a nap after eating a meal cooked by my grandmother.

Today, it's become one of my favourite leafy-greens. If I buy spinach, I make it a point to call up my grandma and have her guide me through the cooking process of a recipe I pick.

I still hate the foreign spinach, though. It's genetically modified and absolutely impossible to stomach.

[thecrackedamethyst]

How long after the Kickstarter is fulfilled do you plan to begin to shipping orders? I'm saving up for the amethyst oracle and I don't want to miss this new deck either!

I’m thinking that everyone should have their deck by August!

[copperbadge]

Cheese, pumpkins, and gender

nefersitra replied to your photo “tienriu: I… I have no words. @levynite, @copperbadge I was kind of...”

I would have said "Philistines. Philistines do wine shots" but I've just learnt that Philistine is comes from the same root word as Palestinian and so that's not cool to associate a lack of culture and refinement with an ethnic grouping. Also, the Philistines might actually be the Sea Peoples and/or the Hyksos who caused so many problems for the Ancient Egyptians.

Yeah, most words for someone we consider classless come from “that foreigner” in the end -- I was going to suggest the Greek barbaroi, which is where we get “barbarian” from and which generally is considered to be a catch-all for “anyone who doesn’t act like the Greeks”, but I double-checked and sure enough the Greeks took it from the way they thought Anatolians sounded when they talked (”Bar bar bar”). 

ameliahcrowley replied to your photo “tienriu: I… I have no words. @levynite, @copperbadge I was kind of...”

Also, how are you meant to eat them? Do you bit into them, letting the wine spill everywhere? Or do you drink the wine, then eat the misshapen, oily, and now *wet* and mildly tannic cheese? Is the cheese just there for presentation and tainting your otherwise reasonable, moderately-priced wine?

All exceptional questions for which I have no answers. Some cheeses are enhanced by soaking in wine during their aging phase, but I don’t think anything can save pre-melted cheese. 

nefersitra replied to your photo “Free GIGANTIC pumpkins to good home.  (This is the infamous Free Stuff...”

Sam, I am curious - are they actual vegetable/fruit pumpkins or fake ones? A friend's granddad grows giant produce for competitions and he says the ones bred for size tend to have the taste bred out.

Yep, they are realio trulio plants. My building has a wide economic range of residents and especially on the upper floors there are people who are just...the kind of people who can drop a lot of money on a giant pumpkin as a decoration and then discard it when the season is over. 

The Free Stuff Table doubles as the “this won’t fit in the dumpster” table, literally -- if you ask the building maintenance guys what to do with something that won’t fit, they say “put it on the free stuff table, I’ll deal with it on trash day”. 

onlysilentawe replied to your photo “Free GIGANTIC pumpkins to good home.  (This is the infamous Free Stuff...”

I will send you a roll of tape if you will promise to tape down the edges of those signs. Just knowing they exist like that, no matter how far away they are, is driving me bananas.

If it’s any comfort, they get replaced every few months, and those are probably due to be replaced soon. It just happens -- the wall isn’t a good surface for taping on and the room isn’t insulated (plus the big cargo doors are often open) so the paper curls no matter what we do. 

seniorvpofscrewit replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of...”

I always assumed you were a guy, but at the same time I kind of think of copperbadge as a genderless internet phantom sharing some knowledge haha

I am honored to be considered a genderless phantom librarian! 

pantone2955c replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of...”

I... never realized that I headcanoned you as a woman. My bad.

I’m not bothered! It happens all the time and it’s a rational assumption to make given how heavily fandom skews female.  

strixus replied to your post “Wait, are you a guy? Sorry for the awkward question, but I kind of...”

I now really want the cross over fic of Bucky somehow ending up at the Weasley's during Yule.

“I don’t know who brought him, Mum, maybe he’s one of Charlie’s weird coworkers. You’ve never minded when Harry visited for the holidays!”

“Harry's a friend! I had to knit a sweater overnight just to make sure the poor thing had a present and he hasn’t taken it off since. I don’t mind feeding him and he’s been a lamb, but I’d like a little warning, Bill!”

“Well, don’t look at me. He looks like an Auror type, maybe he’s one of Ron’s friends.”

“Oh Merlin, there goes your father.”

“Dad, no, don’t ask him about the arm, that’s rude!” 

[doctorofwhut]

pantone2955c replied to your post “pantone2955c replied to your post: My Burpee seed...”

Garden layout? Personal favorites to grow and maybe stuff you learned after some trial and error? I'd definitely want to know if there are any plants you prefer to have indoors.

Okay, I just finished reviewing viral hepatitis serologies and actually feel like I have a handle on them* so *cracks knuckles* lets talk plants. 

(*This is actually a mistake, I will have forgotten them all AGAIN in three days time.) 

I’ve always been a 100% container gardener due to my living situations over the years (grew up on a hill as a kid, lived in apartments as an adult). This limits what I can grow but maybe not as much as you think. 

Two Three Four Five Some rules of container gardening: 

1. Good potting soil is worth paying for. 

2. Never plant mint in a container with any other plant. 

3. Plant something that will attract pollinators to your garden (I like Zinnias). 

4. Accept that your plant will outgrow its container. This always happens and for me it always happens in late July/August when my tomatoes heavy with fruit and massive and I know I don’t have another bigger container to plant them in.

5. Good drainage is important. I usually add additional drainage holes and mix liberal handfulls of Perlite to my soil. 

6. There’s approximately six hundred billion articles out there about the pros and cons about different container types but honestly sometimes I just buy 5 gallon paint buckets from Wal-Mart and drill holes in them so you’re not going to any refined advice from this corner of the internet. 

****

Once I was wandering around Wal-Mart at 9 o’clock at night and thought the seed starter kit and lamps they were selling looked like fun so here we are I guess I’ve advanced in my plant hobbies to the point that I like to grow plants from seeds. Other than that I don’t keep plants indoors due to limitations of natural light (thanks to some shit window placement choices from my landlord).

If you’re a new gardener, don’t mess around with seeds. Go with any healthy looking plant from a nursery or home improvement store of your choice. 

If you do want to mess around with seeds, make sure you do a little research about what you should start in a seed tray (tomatoes, zinnias) and what you should start in the ground (zucchini, squash, carrots). 

****

Until now, I have literally just arranged my garden based on my whims (the glory and freedom of containers). I’m really hopeful next year I can build some raised beds and angst over spacing and such. 

**** 

The thing I’m BEST at growing is tomatoes. I’ve done it since I was like 7 and my mom let me pick out a tomato plant every year. Now I’m 26, living on my own, knee deep in my 27 tomato plants and happily bitching about aphids to anyone who is foolish enough to ask. I especially love cherry tomato varieties, like Sun Gold or Black Cherry 

I’m also pretty fond of herbs, usually put them in the breads I bake. 

I’ve been experimenting a lot over the past with different vegetables. It really is just trial and error. Some notable errors include: 

1. I had no idea last year that I was supposed to note down what day I planted the carrot seeds and pull them 90 days later. 

2. I had no idea I needed to hand pollinate my zucchini. 

3. I had no idea how to tell when my onions were ready to harvest. 

4. I had no idea that the Foxglove I bought wasn’t going to flower last year because it takes two years to come around. 

But that’s why I love the internet. I just googled stuff and tried to figure it out. Sometimes it turned out okay, sometimes it didn’t. 

[dmitrimolotov]

Asks!

Tagged by @pantone2955c Thanks! :)

Rules: Tag 9 people you’d like to know better/catch up with.

Last Song: A Soreness so Familiar It Soon Becomes Unquestioned by Crywank

Last Movie: The Devil All The Time

Last Show: Been swinging between The Good Place and Hannibal

Currently Reading: Good Omens

Currently Craving: Motivation 🙃

Tags: anyone who reads this and wants to keep it going.

[prideprejudce]

Early morning cereal controversy isn't what I expected when I started following this blog, but I can't say that I'm disappointed.

that's the most controversial thing you’re gonna get from this blog i’m afraid 

[brenna-ivy]

Guess: You prefer vanilla to chocolate.

False! Chocolate all the way! :D