eponymous_rose

In an effort to declutter, bringing stuff into the apartment isn't the best strategy. But bringing it in to take it back out is acceptable. Case in point: a couple weeks ago, someone moved out and I grabbed a box of vinyl records, which I hauled for ten blocks to be offered either $10 cash or $20 store credit. I took the cash.

I looked through them beforehand, and a couple tempted me, but I only kept Abbey Road as an object to enjoy. The rest that didn't get accepted by the used bookstore were hauled another couple blocks to a local library, where they'll be processed for the next used book sale or disposed of safely by professionals.

For hourly rates, it's not very good; for something that only cost me the effort to haul them over there, I think I turned a reasonable profit. A dollar a block.

The lentil soup recipe I settled on called for three cups of lentils. I had one cup each of three kinds of lentils. The solution was exactly that simple. It didn't come out spectacular, but it came out well enough I want to try it again to see if I can get it to come out better, and not just to keep working through the lentils.

A side-effect of my TV viewing still being Rome had me looking at a giant pot of lentils that were cooking down to porridge with some vegetables and herbs and thinking, "Yeah, that looks about the same." I've got tomatoes and more spices than the Romans did back in the day, and I don't think they'd developed rapini yet, but in the ways that matter, it's about the same.

Related, in browsing the drink aisle, I found there's a company called Ancient Drinks selling modern versions of ancient drinks - not that they're saying "modern" on the label, but Rome didn't have maple syrup as an available ingredient, so I don't know what else to call it. Modern lentils, modern posca - and it's still lentils and posca.

Idly, this has me thinking of a conversation from a few weeks ago where an Italian-American related a story of drinking wine with some French people, who commented on the development of glass bottles, and he said that the French had the Italians to thank for wine and related technology. As it was Passover and we were kicking it very old school, I had to say, "Yeah, but you stole it all from the Greeks."

Having now taken steps to divest myself of some old pajamas, it's feeling a little easier to approach some other clothes I look at often. I haven't done anything yet, but I feel better about the prospect of doing so, which is one of the bigger initial hurdles.

Next up: DVD box sets of TV shows and deciding if I want the object of the box set after ripping the media. It'll be a while before I need to start thinking about digital storage space, but at the moment, I'll be happy to get some floor back. There's no point in buying a 12TB hard drive right now - at least, not yet. By the time I can buy what's on the market, I'll probably be able to spend that much on 16TB with no issue.