Somewhere down in column B there's lobster Cantonese

[austin_dern]

I knew that it was going to be an antisocial sort of day for me --- on Friday --- when I woke up to the sound of my father banging things around in the living room and the kitchen. This may sound like a strange thing to insist, but I knew from the pattern what he was doing: he was cleaning. You should remember that the last really big joint cleaning exercise we had a couple months ago featured our yelling at one another and the breaking of the Tivo. I believe that latter was coincidental, but it certainly happened while I was cleaning it. In any case it's been a major source of tension.

And the tension was ramped up early on: as I stepped out my bedroom door I found a half-dozen cartons for 12-packs of soda. My father has had all sorts of issues with how I throw out these cartons, in particular that I kept wasting his time by throwing them in the recycle bin. Well, I thought cardboard was recycled around here. He had recently informed me, though, that this was the wrong kind of cardboard and it was supposed to just be thrown out. Also that he had been telling me this for a year and I still threw boxes in the recycle bin.

Yeah. Well, besides ones that I hadn't thrown out before --- he had put them outside the laundry room before, for reasons I couldn't guess --- he also tossed boxes which had, that morning, still had cans of soda in them. My father has some inexplicable obsession with emptying out soda boxes when there are inadequately many cans in them, which drives me crazy because I don't like them rolling loose or being stolen by the cats. Obviously, it was my fault for not throwing out the boxes when they were down to seven cans of soda in them.

So it was a day, for me, of staying in my bedroom and not interacting. I felt generally annoyed enough I even went out to eat, at the one remaining Chinese buffet in the area. It's, unfortunately, not a good buffet. I should know this --- I've eaten there a couple times in the past --- and once again the sweet and sour sauce was too sour, and the food that mix of warmed-over and dry and gummy that makes you think Gordon Ramsey should storm in and yell at everyone, including the customers. I didn't get sick from it, although really, I deserved to. I should've gone to the Arby's and loaded up on cheese fries instead.

Trivia: In a one-gram sample of vanadium, two atoms per week may be expected to undergo radioactive decay. Source: Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide To The Elements, John Emsley.

Currently Reading: The Most Famous Man In America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, Debby Applegate.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

this was the wrong kind of cardboard and it was supposed to just be thrown out

Yeah, it's the same thing here -- that stuff is called "boxboard" and you can't recycle it. You can only recycle corrugated cardboard.

I should've gone to the Arby's and loaded up on cheese fries instead.

Or to Burger King for Cheesy Tots.

[rcoony.livejournal.com]

That seems strange. I don't know how it is around here. I just figure if it's made out of paper, then it goes into the recycling bin. I mean, really, what's the difference? If I'm not sure, then I just hide the cardboard within a stack of newspapers first.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Same here - if it's card or cardboard, it can go in the lawn trimmings bin. Irksomely, their plastic recycling's a bit limited, and no glass at all, which seems a bit daft - at least they're fine with plastic bottles, and any tins or cans, all mixed together.

Every now and then, there is a need for junk food, I find. Not often, with me, but occasionally, the worthlessness of Burger King is just the ticket. ^_^

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I would think paper-like products would be supremely recyclable, and I'm a little surprised that ordinary paper isn't collected separately. But I've never actually seen any kind of official statements about what's recycled and what isn't; it's been just my father's occasional grumblings that I'm doing it wrong.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't try hiding things, although I don't really see where the newspapers go since they're recycled by the time I wake up, even when I woke up by 7 am.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Cheesey tots would have been good too, yes, although I think I might have gone in for a couple of dozens before I was quite finished and ready to go back.

[orv.livejournal.com]

Here we just throw everything vaguely recyclable in one bin and they sort it out later.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's convenient and as far as I could figure out how Singapore did things. (They seem curiously shakier on the recycling programs, though, apart from the strides forward on water.)

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

I felt generally annoyed enough I even went out to eat, at the one remaining Chinese buffet in the area. It's, unfortunately, not a good buffet.

Yuck. At this point myself I've written off Chinese buffets as a dining option. In addition to the problem of food being stale and mediocre around here it's often just food I'm not that interested in eating. Many of the buffets around here concentrate heavily on seafood and/or incorporate substantial quantities of items from the hardcore "fishy-and-pickled" school of Asian cuisine. I'm sure if you like that sort of thing it's great and all, but some of it I just can't help thinking you'd need to eat as a kid to really develop a taste for it.

If I go to a buffet it's almost always Indian. Which can also suffer from the stale and mediocre issue, certainly, but is generally less likely to be actively hostile to my non-fishy tastebuds.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I'm not fond of fish, partly on the grounds of taste although more because it's just too complicated to eat anything with tiny bones.

There is a pretty good buffet about a half-hour from here, although the only other thing in the area is ... well, a shopping mall and where my yoga class is. That's not so far to get to, although I do need to decide to go there first rather than make it a ``I was going to the library and I'm keeping going'' sort of decision.

I don't know of any Indian buffets around here, although there are a few such restaurants here.