Monthly Archives: February 2004

After a hiatus of several months, I’m back eating cereal again in the mornings. Toward the end of last year I managed to eat myself sick of Rice Crispies after consuming several extra large boxes in the space of a month or so. Admittedly that was partly due to a promotion where you got these Cartoon Network bobblehead things and I was trying to decorate my monitors at work with them. I collected five of them during my Rice Krispie fest, which although two of them are doublers, gives some idea of the consumption rate.

Anyhow, new to the extreme breakfasting menu is Frosted Shreddies – a food product not exactly aimed at my age group (hey, neither are rice crispies), but very tasty all the same. I’m nearing the end of my first box and I’m still enjoying them, although all that sugar coating cant be too good for my teeth. I may switch to the regular version for my next box to save my teeth, but that would be kind of like Baywatch without the hot chicks – what would be the point?

The only downside is the promotion toys – they’re characters from Disney’s Brother Bear which looked like yet another of their formulaic morality tales from what I can remember of the trailer. Regardless of that, the quality of the toys is poor. Not that I’ve come to expect highly detailed, hand-crafted workmanship from toys found in a cereal box, but the bear I got has a facial expression indicating severe constipation (or rapid intrusion of the same region, it’s hard to tell) and the mold lines are painfully obvious.

Fortunately there’s not much room left on the top of my monitors anway, so the saving grace of Shreddies may well be their taste rather than their freebies.

Last night we went to bed kind of late – around midnight or there abouts. When the tv went off and the lights were out, darkness fell and I got into my regular falling asleep position. It was then, in the silence of the night, that I became aware of an erie sound coming from outwith the walls of our house.

At first I was sure it was a bird, like an owl or something, but as it continued I couldn’t help but think the cry was one of distress. I lay still, piercing my ears against the background noise from the main road, trying to make out the muffled wail more clearly.

After ten minutes or so Fliss got up to better listen for the sound and discovered that it wasn’t an animal, but a woman in the house next door apparently crying, sobbing even, and in what seemed like great distress.

Once we knew what the noise was it became all the more disturbing. Why was the woman next door crying? Why was she crying at half past midnight on a Sunday at that? Not to mention that she was sobbing with the heart rending despair usually associated with bereavement.

We know the man next door only as Mike, and although we’ve exchanged pleasantries in passing, while washing the car, that kind of thing, we’ve never really gone beyond that. He keeps himself to himself, we do the same and I guess that aside from the lack of interaction he’s the perfect neighbour. But now the woman who lived with him was crying, wailing even, and for what reason?

As the crying went on for twenty minutes, half an hour, and beyond, I wondered what could be wrong. Could something terrible have happened to Mike?

Just the thought that kind of thing had my mind racing for so long that, before I realised it, the sobbing had subsided and an uneasy silence had fallen upon the darkness. It wasn’t the kind of faux–silence we get every other night, with the drone of the nocturnal traffic and the occasional distant roar of a departure from the airport. This was the kind of silence where I could feel every second ebbing away, and the knowledge that someone nearby was in the kind of distress only eased by the comfort of sleep only served to bring a troubled sleep for myself.

Recently I’ve been throwing together this stir fry concoction for myself after having a flash of inspiration while shopping about a month ago. Not sure how it all came together, I just remember seeing this chili and ginger sauce and thinking man, that would go nice in a stir fry, but knew deep down that I didn’t have the patience for that kind of thing.

Which is when the question hit me – At what point did my life get so busy, so cluttered by the distraction of playing games, watching tv or using the internet, that I couldn’t spare ten or fifteen minutes to cook myself a meal?

What the hell! I decided in response – even if I didn’t go through with it I was only wasting a couple of pounds worth of ingredients. I picked up a pack of noodles, some loose chicken, and a jar of Uncle Ben’s extra spicy sweet and sour sauce. I knew it was a safe bet that Fliss wouldn’t touch this particular culinary delight with somebody else’s bargepole, so my desire for extra spicy wasn’t tempered with the need to make it extra mild for her.

By that point I was warming to the idea rapidly, so much so that I went back for the Chili and Ginger sauce that I’d seen. It was on the shelf beside another bottle of even more ferocious sauce that had a warning on it along the lines of Danger! – Know what you’re fucking doing before you buy this stuff.

My hand hovered momentarily between the two bottles. In for a penny? I dared myself, knowing that Fliss wouldn’t be touching the stuff anyway. However, scorching my internal organs was maybe beyond the scope of this particular experiment. Good sense took hold and I chose the milder version of the sauce, which as it turned out to have plenty of kick to it anyway.

After throwing all the stuff together in the frying pan and letting the heat take its course, I had myself one of the most delicious meals I’d had in ages. Fantastic is an understatement, I mean, I never cook. Ever. I make pasta and the occasional omelette if I’m feeling motivated – if I was a super here my special power would be Microwaving, or taking stuff out of the freezer and placing it in the oven. This whole ingredients and effort extravaganza was revolutionary down in Foxy town.