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Why I hate being single #4: Food

I will say first: I love to cook. I make killer chocolate trifle. The Ukrainian lady who gave me her recipe for borscht said I was a very good cook – high praise. I make cookies every year for Christmas presents, and people anticipate them.

But here’s the problem: When I cook for just me (which is almost always) I always make too much. If it’s something that doesn’t keep well – which happens often, because I like trying new recipes to prevent boredom – I end up throwing away most of it. So I find recently I’m not cooking as much. It’s a waste of money, and time. I’m…enjoying it less.

I have a Costco membership to get the cheaper gas, and it’s good for bigger things that you can store – paper towels, bottled juice, canned tuna. I’ve learned NOT to buy the single servings of amazing greek yogurt or hummus though…because I’ll only get halfway through the box before the rest expires.

Every now and then, I take myself out for dinner, and I’ve learned over time which restaurants are nice to single people, and which will treat me like a fast food customer because I take up too much space and don’t spend enough money. If a restaurant has a bar, I usually squeeze in there, and ignore the rowdy university students on either side of me while I drink ginger ale.

Yesterday, the pain came. Yes, this is how I know my endometriosis is back, when I’m in horrendous pain for NO REASON. It’s on days like that when I should really be eating home-cooked vegetables. But it’s on days like that when I feel least like cooking – which involves standing. So I end up eating take-out instead. Because there’s no one to cook for me, but me.

This would require finding a man who can cook. Which is reason #4 (of several) that my crush on this man hasn’t abated yet.

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Thermometer.

It is snowing in Edmonton, Alberta, today. 29 April, 2013. Temperature high of zero degrees Celcius. Which made me think of Bill Bryson.

If you’ve yet to read anything of Bill Bryson‘s, DO. He’s awesome.

The most recent book of his I’ve read is called A Short History of Nearly Everything. Among other fascinating things, he talks about the Tambora eruption in 1815. News travelled much more slowly then, but the entire world felt the effects eventually — it changed the weather. The average temperature the following summer — the growing season in the northern hemisphere — dropped by two degrees, which meant nothing would grow.

I genuinely don’t believe I’m being hysterical when I ponder if that’s why spring is taking so long to arrive. How many volcanic eruptions have there been the last few years? We can’t even agree on a plan to control the pollution we put into the atmosphere ourselves: what on earth will we do when an eruption like Krakatoa happens? How long would the growing season be delayed, and how many people would it effect?

Just thinking out loud…