pease porridge gross

Well, I've had a pretty delightful week away from the computer. I'll have some sort of a proper post soon, but for now I will just share two not-delightful things I have learned in the past week.

1) Canned vegetables are GROSS. I know. I should have known this, somehow -- I feel like I should have had some sort of warning sensation in my gut when I contemplated the cans. The things is, I have a natural distrust of anything canned, bagged or boxed. Everything but fresh fruits and vegetables, basically, makes me suspicious.

But canned beans work pretty excellently, and frozen veggies are working out far better than I had thought. I thought I would be open-minded. I thought I would give canned vegetables a try.

EW. Just plain ew. How did I miss the part where canned vegetables have not only already been cooked, they've already been OVERcooked? I am so foolish. I opened the can of green beans and THREW THEM OUT. I never throw out food!

Um. On that note, I accidentally served my boyfriend and his family rice and beans topped with rotten cheese. Man, did I ever want to cry. I'll be throwing out cheese more frequently, now. Or maybe I just won't buy pre-grated cheese -- my cheese blocks aren't stinky yet. We bought pre-grated stuff because I'd been recruiting William as my grater and he really hated it, but I think I'll just grate my own cheese from now on. It's not worth it.

Anyway, back to the canned grossness. I threw out the green beans. I opened the peas and decided there was no way I could add anything of that color and that squishiness to a delicious curry. The next day, I tried the only thing I could think of: pea soup. Blended with some veggie stock and heated with onions, carrots, salt, pepper and thyme, the result was edible... just.

Moral of the story: Canned vegetables will never again feature in Camila's kitchen pantry. That is all.

2) A camera enthusiastically swung on its strap becomes a camera enthusiastically dropped into the red dust of Sedona becomes a camera enthusiastically broken. It was off! The lens was closed! I was holding the strap, I thought we were all so safe!

Oh, it is so sad. It makes sad little noises like whirr-whirr-whirr-whirr tik-tik-tiktiktik when it tries to open the lens... it makes the same sad little noises trying to close it. It won't close at all, now.

This weekend I will take it to the nice camera store next door and see if they can fix it. I do hope they can. I can't afford a good replacement camera. And I'd just learned how to use this one properly!

Oh, it is so, so sad. I just look at it, permanently open, lens staring like the single eye of a dead cyclops, and I want to cover it with a coin or something. Do dead cameras go to heaven?

No! Don't say that, Camila! There's still hope!

It can be saved!

I hope.... *sniffle*