snadblog

The day before Thanksgiving, Emily and Mom were making a pumpkin pie to bring to dinner at our house. Mom had dumped the can of pumpkin filling into the mixer bowl and then thrown it away. She and Emily didn’t get much farther with preparing the pie before Mom realized that she needed the instructions from the label on the can. So, she went to the trash can to get it.

“Grandma, why did you throw that away?” Emily said. Mom explained, “Well, I forgot how long to cook it. It’s okay, we’ll just set it here out of the way.” Emily came right back with, “Grandma. You really shouldn’t be digging in the trash. Let me write that down for you.”

See, Emily has been making great strides with her writing lately, and is eager to write at any opportunity, especially when it’s something important. Pumpkin pie instructions were a great excuse to write. Of course, she couldn’t read everything on the label, so Mom had to dictate a few things to her, but Emily truly made it her own with some lovely illustrations.

When she was done, Emily put the paper on the refrigerator, announcing “Here, Grandma. Now it’s right here where you can see it and you can stay out of the trash. Got it?”

Grandma was so proud that she had to show everyone the paper at dinner the next day :)

I’ve been meaning to write about something since this summer when I visited Canada for a wedding. I keep putting it off, but last night something happened that made me sit down this morning and write about it once and for all. That “something” is toilet paper. Specifically, Canadian toilet paper.

On my very first visit to the “washroom” (as they say in Canada) during the trip, I immediately noticed that the toilet paper was narrower than it should be. It wasn’t filling the full width of the dispenser. It was skinny. Too skinny. It bothered me. Then I remembered that the last time I had visited Canada, I had noticed the same thing. I’d forgotten about it before, but this time I was going to investigate. I told my hosts and traveling companions about it. “This toilet paper is skinnier than back home!” I announced. Their faces were confused at the prospect, and perhaps concerned for my mental capacity for noticing such a thing, and caring enough about it to tell them all. I was not to be deterred, though. I took a sample of that crazy Canadian toilet paper back home with me to the good ol’ USA to compare.

And I was right. The Canadian toilet paper is significantly narrower than ours!

The first question, of course, is “Why?” It’s got to be a metric, thing, right? So I got a ruler and measured.

Wait a minute… the Canadian one is an even 4″ but the U.S. one is an odd 4 3/4″?

Okay, what about the metric side of the ruler…

Huh? The U.S. side is a nice even 11 cm but the Canadian side is a crazy 10.2 cm?? This makes no sense. How is the U.S. using even metric measurements but Canada is tending toward inches? is this just coincidence or some crazy Bizarro World trend?

I figured it was just a regional/cultural thing, and set the idea and photo evidence aside, knowing that eventually I would share this info with you. Then, as I said before, something happened last night that brought this issue to the surface.

I bought a giant package of toilet paper to stock the house, and as soon as I pulled the first roll out of Northern Quilted out of the bag, I realized that it was skinnier. Oh no! The Canadian way of bottom-wiping is infiltrating the U.S.! Our toilet paper is shrinking up and freaking me out as it sits on the now too-wide dispenser! Sigh. Again, I wondered “Why?”

The way I see it, there are two possible reasons. The companies are shrinking up the TP either to be “green” or to save money. I like the idea of it being a green initiative. When “doing the deed”, you’ll never notice that missing tissue. It saves on production cost, on sewage costs, and over a year’s time, can save on quite a bit of wasted tissue. I like it. One problem, though — have you ever seen a company do anything “green” and not take credit for it? If the good of the planet were behind this decision, wouldn’t there be advertising to that effect all over the package? But there isn’t a word about it to be found.

Which means it has to be a cost-cutting initiative, and that bothers me. I am annoyed enough already at how expensive toilet paper is, and now they’re giving you less bang for your buck. I did a little poking around the Web and found that narrower toilet paper is a growing trend. They even sell toilet paper dispensers marked as for “narrow roll only”.

So I give up. Toilet paper is dwindling. Might as well get used to it. Sigh.

P.S. While we’re on the subject… is anybody else freaked out by those Charmin bears who somehow manage to make it “cute” that they can’t wipe their butts without pieces of toilet paper sticking to it? Or that they can race across the beach because they have to go so bad that they must run? Or that they choose between “soft” and “strong” varieties depending on the degree of their poopiness? Gah, I hate those commercials. Gross.

While recovering from an eye irritation, I’ve been forced to wear my glasses instead of my contact lenses for the last few days. That, in and of itself, is horrific, because I hate everything about my glasses — the way I look in them, the way they feel on me, and the way I see through them. But my eyes do feel better having been given a rest, and I’ll be back in my contacts soon.

However, I had no idea that being “on a break” with my contacts would lead to an incident last night as I was slicing onions. Not even chopping — just gentle slicing. The waft of onion aroma hit my eyes and startled me. It stung. It burned. My eyes started to tear up. I couldn’t believe it! I have never, ever, teared up at onions before. In fact, I’d sort of secretly scoffed at all those “wimps” who I’d ever heard complain about onions making them cry. Onions? Make ME cry? Bah. I’m too tough. Y’all are a buncha babies.

But last night I realized that my contacts have been onion force fields, protecting my eyes from their evil vapors. I’ve worn contacts since 8th grade, which is pretty much my entire onion-chopping life, so I don’t think I’ve ever chopped an onion without them before. It’s quite possible that my eyes are extra sensitive right now, from the irritation as well as their sudden, naked exposure to the world, but I am still amazed at the reaction. As the tears were streaming down my face and could barely open my eyes, I finished those onions as fast as I could, all the while apologizing to anyone I’d teased before.

Then I poured some cajun seasoning into some flour and the spicy air got me sneezing and eye-watering all over again. Ugh! Give me back my contacts, please!!

At least the onion rings I made were fantastic! :)

I tore the tomato vines down over the weekend. They were mostly dead and dry and gross, and had really taken over that corner of the deck. It looks so much better now that it’s all clean again.

As I was doing that, I had plenty of green, frostbitten, or rotten tomatoes left on the dirt in the bed, and I left them there. Hopefully some of them will seed and sprout next spring. I’ve had that happen before, so maybe with a hundred or so rotten tomatoes left in the dirt, a few of them will take.

So with tomato production at a most definite halt, here are my final counts of harvested tomatoes:

• Brandywine: 12
• Regular red tomatoes: 21
• Yellow pear tomatoes: 288
• Red cherry tomatoes: 667

Laugh if you want (har har Laurie) but I kept these counts because I really wanted to know what I ended up with at the end of the season. That’s 988 total. Allllllmost 1000. Maybe next year :)

The condo we stayed at in Sanibel last month had a guest book for guests to sign. This was my favorite signed page:

We had a wonderful while reading this. I was suppose for hours but only sporatically laughed for minutes. On the Island. I also seen lots of lizards and one was dead.

I’m just saying.