Illuminating life’s trivial problems.

Go to my previous post and scroll down to the comments. There, Zoée has shared five new facts about herself. The first one pertains to Schindler’s List, but it’s not this:

Then, because this blog is about me, you get to read about how I prepared my lunch today.

I often make large portions of chili or soup to freeze into freezer bags. Freezing them in bags allows me to lay them flat in the freezer, and the meal thaws quicker that way. Today, I forgot to take my chili out of the freezer in advance. How was I supposed to get a hot meal out of a solid square of chili encased in plastic?

With a mallet.

Of all tools in the bike shop, I believe I use the mallet the least. It came in handy as I knelt over my frozen bag of chili, whacking it with the mallet until it broke into pieces small enough to dump into a bowl. As I revelled in my quick success, a former co-worker walked into the bike shop and saw my sorry-looking bowl of frozen chili shards. He seemed puzzled and slightly disgusted, as it didn’t seem salvageable. I defended the quality of my meal and explained that I was about to nuke it to perfection.

In retrospect, I should have led him to believe I was planning on mashing it into a chili slushy. I shouldn’t have ruined the intrigue.

It was a good meal, indeed.

Anyway, I am more protective of my baking reputation. People get excited about my cookies. I get excited about my cookies! However, my latest batch was a let-down as I’d forgotten to add the vanilla extract. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons. So, when that much is missing, it changes the outcome drastically. They weren’t terrible, so it was a week of powering through a supply of mediocre cookie dough. When Paddy saw me take a bagged cookie out of my pocket, he asked me if I’d made it.

“Yes, but it’s not that good.”

“How many did you bring?”

“One. I can bring you one tomorrow so that you can be disappointed too.”

When it comes to disappointment, I do not disappoint! Although, I kindly added a second cookie from my new and improved batch.

“One is a disappointment. The other is a delicious delight. Choose the order in which to eat them wisely.”

I think he alternated between the two cookies.

Before I learned that I’d have to spend my money more carefully, I got myself a bike light. I could have visited my favourite store, Canadian Tire, for a $10 light. Instead, I spent 140 Euros to have one shipped from Germany: the SON Edelux II.

So far, I do not regret it. It’s 100 lux, which means it’s not super bright, but it does have a very wide beam. I built my front wheel with a dynamo hub, thinking I’d use it to charge my phone and GPS while touring. I have not done any touring this year. Now that it’s dark when I finish work and my rechargeable light (Knog 250, which you can see still attached to the handlebar in the above photo) was starting to die five minutes into my rides, it made sense to replace it with a dynamo light. My only complaint so far is that the coaxial connector was too bulbous to pass through the internal routing of my fork. Perhaps I should be blaming Enve, who was responsible for designing such narrow openings.

Luckily, the shop has a soldering kit, which gets used more often than the mallet. The chunky connector got lopped off, the wire routed through the fork, and then soldered back together.

*chef’s kiss*

I will need to undo this when I switch to using the usb charger. At least it’s a less-onerous process than replacing a rear flat on a folding e-bike. The wheel was 12″, with a rotor of a similar diameter, and the motor cable was permanently affixed to one side. With the rotor in the way, I risked slicing open my knuckles getting the tire on and off.

Changing that flat was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. I considered killing myself so that I didn’t have to finish the job.

Yet, I made it through the day. Challenges of tomorrow, here I come!