#13

Lucky 13.

It’s now the first of March and winter is still with us. Here in the Northeast we have some of the white stuff on the ground and more in the predicted forecast.

So my list of ways to cope with the long winter continues.

Clean something.

Not just organize. That’s another posting.

But give something a real good going over with a bit of elbow grease. You’ll end up organizing in the process.

I chose my fridge.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Only you will take joy in this completed task. No one else will notice. No one else will care. Ever. At all. But you will. You will notice and you will care.

Back to me. I chose the fridge because it was time. Way past time. After the holidays. After the kids have returned to university. After ignoring it. After giving it a swipe here and there.

A refrigerator is a big to do. The big guns needed. Taking out drawers and such. Scrubbing the fossilized lettuce on the clear plastic bin. Gosh, I think it’s lettuce. But who can really be sure.

It’s a place of hope. For that half used something or other. The promise of what could be.

With just one more recipe. In the near future.

It’s like I imagine the would be thoughts of jalopies resting in a junkyard. “Maybe someone out there will need a used part and come get me. So I’m not a has been.”

That promise never happens. At least in our house.

But what does happen, and I will admit it makes me sad and happy at the same time, is this. Sometimes those hard choices about promises are just taken out of our hands. Decisions made for us. Not by us.

At first glance it looks to me like one of those fabulous aerial views showing us beautiful little islands and possible volcanoes in the middle of a Habanero salsa.

Or dead field mice.

Oh my gosh! A picture can tell a thousand stories. Like a Rorschach test.

For the record. I have a ton of glass containers so I am not even sure how that can even made it into the fridge. Please don’t judge me. But it did and happily resided there for awhile. A quiet and unassuming neighbor pushed into the background. Not needing any attention. Until it was time to spruce up the neighborhood.

Then it had to go.

I cleaned that fridge until it looked shiny and new. Every drawer pulled out and washed. Dried up puddles from old vegetable goop all gone. I sniffed containers of sour cream and eyeballed the cream cheese packages. If anything looked like it could be a candidate for the next new antibiotic I heaved it.

I will leave off for now.

Secure in the knowledge that you will wisely choose a smaller cleaning project. That you will never accept an invitation to eat at my home. That you wont ever crave my pumpkin pie.

Have a lovely weekend! If it’s snowing be careful on the roads. If it’s not snowing be careful on the roads.

Spring is almost here.

 

 

 

 

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Monkey Around

Yesterday, I was driving home from the grocery store and passing an area called Ulu Kelang. I call the roadway, on which I was traveling, by the same name.

I’m driven crazy by the fact that it is spelled three different ways. Hulu Kelang, Ulu Kelang and Ulu Klang. But I adapt. Sometimes I’m working hard at pronouncing the “H”sound. Or drawing out the word “keelang.” Other times I don’t work hard at all.

Back to yesterday.

I happened to notice something on the road just outside the high speed lane. Sort of pushed up against the barrier.

Roadkill is not uncommon here. It happens. Just like it happens everywhere.

Bodies of cats, dogs and monitor lizards are often left on the road, in this lovely equatorial heat, for a few days. Me no like. I do not want to be driving down a street, day after day, and see a form get flatter and flatter. Or smaller and smaller. Especially if they’re puppies.

This unfortunate victim was a monkey.

I have been known to question many things. Usually not rocket science puzzles. But the things that really make me curious.

Like why do we spell refrigerator one way and fridge another? Why did the “d” appear?

Why have I never, ever seen a baby squirrel? Our backyard was loaded with squirrels, the huge maple tree being a safe haven, when I was a kid. Never saw a baby.

I’ve also often wondered, since living here in Malaysia, about the monkeys. I’d never seen a dead monkey. Even though there are bunches of them. Not that I wanted to see one! I just wondered.

Where do monkeys die? Do they go deep in the jungle? Do they die of old age? Does the clan take a dead body and bury it somewhere?

Unless a person is a city dweller most folks are probably living pretty close to the jungle.

But I never heard anyone ever saying that they saw a dead monkey.

Well, I don’t have to wonder anymore. Some of my questions were answered.

And then I started thinking.

It’s sort of sad that a monkey gets hit by a car on a highway.

A lot of people here do not like the monkeys. They can be cheeky. Sometimes scary.

I personally steer clear of their groups near the golf course and mostly watch their antics from the safety of my car.

I’ve heard the stories of them entering houses. Going in the fridge. Doing this. Doing that.

Why wouldn’t they?

My friend recently looked up to see one in her kitchen. Her scream sent him scampering upstairs to escape. She then found the second one sitting on her son’s bed opening a bottle of moisturizer.

It’s still sad that a monkey should be on a busy roadway. And die as a result.

It’s a jungle out there.

 

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Waste Not, Want Not

It’s winding down. Only a few more weeks until the big move. Or at least the big packup. Going to visit (hide) at Mom and Dad’s for a week before heading to Asia.

Still unloading stuff. The pantry is not quite bare but it is getting there.

And Rory said that the inside of my fridge looks like an old person’s fridge. So, I guess it’s working. But it’s slow going.

Not wasting is hard work. Way harder than wasting.

I brought over all the canned goods that I had (that weren’t expired) and won’t use (ever) to my elderly neighbor.

The spices made their way to friend Ken since he’s always got something cooking on the smoker (slow smoking grill.) He did ask, “What would you use sumac for?”

Bag of school uniforms being sent back to thirteen year old Annie’s school. At least the ones that don’t have oil stains or tire tracks on them. Honestly, I am like,”Do you attend an automotive vocational school that I don’t know about?”

Scooter, school supplies, stuffed animals and some toys left at the front door of my little friends, Nicholas and Natalia. They are so sweet and precious. Natalia whispered to her mother the other day, “I don’t want Miss Mary to move.” Awww.

Bags of clothes continue to be left on the front stoop for various charities.

I am using up the remaining pantry food. So, if you do peek into my old lady fridge you might spy a half emptied jar of sweet and sour red cabbage. Or some canned Spaghettios. Just depends on what day. And my mood. Sometimes there might still be a protruding fork or spoon in the can or jar. Okay, I’m just kidding about that.

Yes, it would be so easy to throw everything in the trash. But knowing I did my best not to waste and maybe helped other folks not want? Well, that just makes it all worth it.

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