Memo To Self:

When broccoli is really cheap at the Farmer's Market, there's probably a reason.



Oh well: three heads of broccoli into the compost bin. I had been trying to trim away the nastier parts on previous ones… probably a level of not wanting to waste food imbued in me by my mom. She was born in 1934, so her formative years were during- and post-war Japan, which was a pretty bad period of privation for the civilian population: she told stories of her family roasting grasshoppers for food. But as I was trimming off some of the mushier flower tips, I noticed that there was still brown inside of that cut. [slice] still brown [slice] still brown [slice]. Hmm. [Toss].

Ah the compost bin… the physical manifestation of my failures in pantry planning. Note that it's been cold enough all winter that there's basically a freeze-thawed pile of recognizable vegetable scraps in the compost bin… I can make out carrot peels, apple cores, the guts of a butternut squash, turnip skins, and… wait… is that a finger?

Kidding. Sorry.

The weather for the past two days has been spectacular—highs of 60 F/16 C yesterday; high close to 70 today. However, it's way outside of the climate norms. A bit worrisome.



As for getting things done, the conference paper review is done, on time--one item down. I think I overdid the job: I wrote about 3000 words of criticism on a 4400 word paper. Hope it makes it a better paper though--they had some ridiculously bad figures. They were an example of 'it makes sense to us running the research, so it must make sense to everyone else.' Thus, a set of electrical panels labelled 'Panel 1,' 'Panel A,' and 'Panel 1A.' (As opposed to having useful labels like, say, 'House Loads' or 'Experimental Equipment Panel.' Grr). I guess this is what happens when engineers write papers. Also, I found some of the papers that I need for my project, and hell, it's Friday night: I guess things aren't that bad. And the gin & tonic doesn't hurt.