Despite spending Friday snowed in at Birmingham’s (and coming about a foot away from my car skidding into a farmhouse on the drive over,) and watching St. Patrick’s Day pass me by as I put a seven hour shift in at the bookstore, and then going down for dinner in the city on Sunday and spending about as much time on the train as actually in the city, I can’t think of an interesting framework to make all the stuff from this past weekend blogworthy.
Also, I’m still fighting off the cold from hell. I got home from work at 5:30, turned up my heat (extravagant!) and cuddled into bed to fight off the headache from hell (loosely associated with the cold from hell.) My quick hour-long nap just ended at 10:00. I was a little disappointed to wake up and find that for the first time in a week, my throat’s not sore. Probably because I finally made a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning. There’s no better way to assure that you’re going to get better than to commit to a $20 copay to find out why you’re not better yet.
Upon this 10:00 awakening, I was surprised to find I wasn’t hungry for dinner, but I had a huge craving for salt. Thankfully, I have a few carrots and some celery and a package of Ramen in the kitchen, so I was good to go. After three agonizing minutes, the soup was ready to eat, and I decided to kick it up a notch by shaking in some veggie Parmesan cheese I’ve had in the fridge for a while. The only thing? The once off-white cheese product came out with some bluish-green chunks. Can fake cheese get moldy? I tried to pick out the chunks, but when one adds water soluble cheese product to soup, the “cheese” has a tendency to disappear. I picked out as much off-color cheese product as I could, but I don’t think I got it all. It may be gross, but I actually ate the soup, but here are my reasonings:
1. It might not have been mold, because the “cheese” wasn’t that old.
2. I got most of it out.
3. I boiled the soup an extra minute just in case.
4. I know that tomorrow I’ll feel fine if I go to the doctor, and I’m sure that means mold can’t touch me, either.
5. It was my last carrot, my last stalk of celery, and my last packet of Ramen. It was either soup or nothing, and out of respect to all those people who lived through the great depression, I just can’t waste food.
I can’t even call for help if I need to, because I just realized that my cell phone is still at my office, 100% charged. It’s right under the desk where lies the piece of paper with the doctor’s written address on it. And despite the fact that I have a key to the office, there’s no way I’m driving down there and walking through a spooky warehouse at night just so I can know where to drive tomorrow and then call Birmingham to bitch about being sick. He’ll just tell me to gargle some salt water and hope that the moldy cheese has penicillin-like effects.
Posted by lizgwiz on March 20, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I’m sure the mold, if mold it was, had antibiotic properties. See, you saved money on drugs!
I have similar thoughts about food going bad, like…can sauerkraut go bad? It’s already fermented and rotting, right? I can tell you, though, that white bread, kept in the refrigerator, will NEVER go bad. I don’t buy white bread, but someone brought it over for some reason, and I never finished the loaf. I kept checking, for months and months, and not one particle of mold nor the slightest sign of decay ever appeared. White bread is not actually food, apparently.
Posted by -R- on March 20, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I would have eaten the soup too.
Hope you’re feeling better today!
Posted by NancyPearlWannabe on March 20, 2007 at 4:09 pm
No worries- I’m sure that extra minute you boiled it removed both the disease-causing properties as well as the antibiotic properties, making it neutral.
Posted by rdl on March 20, 2007 at 10:19 pm
maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t cancel that appt. cause your sore throat was better. It’s tues. evening now so we’re all waiting to hear how you made out.
hope you’re feeling better.
Posted by Kirsten on March 21, 2007 at 3:42 am
ugh, i had that cold a few weeks ago. i do believe it made me eat tator tots off the floor.
Posted by Noelle on March 21, 2007 at 12:27 pm
lizgwiz – When I was growing up, my mother always bought white bread and put it in the freezer immediately so it wouldn’t go bad. It drove me nuts because I love fresh, tasty bread. Nowadays, I leave my wheat bread out probably a few days longer than I should. It’s amazing I haven’t died yet, really.
-r- Thanks for the vote of confidence!
NPW – Now that it’s two days later, I think we’ve learned it’s possible to boil off mold.
rdl – I am feeling better, but for the whining of Birmingham, who seems to have caught the bug.
Kir – I’m not sure what virus induces one to eat tater tots off the floor, but to be on the safe side, I’ll keep my house tot free if I feel that I’m coming down with something again!