Spring Cleaning..

 

As many of you experience this Spring phenomenon, called Spring Cleaning, I was struck by it too…and turned my attention to the refrigerator and the kitchen pantry. Before I can proceed, A Fair Warning for Hubby dear:
You've been restricted from this post!  Keep off MR!!

You see, I am already so guilt ridden and I don't want him to make me feel worse. I dumped 2 huge garbage bags full of stuff. (Or, maybe more.. I don’t want to know, I want to forget.)  Vegetables and fruits from the refrigerator, unused stuff from the pantry, and kitchen gadgets and accessories that I haven't used in years....and so much more found their way to the trash can last week.

I was so sure when I bought the spinach a few weeks/month(?) ago...that I'd make something of it.  I’m obsessed with brain food, well, that’s what the vacant mind does in winter, wants to save the brain from Brain Freeze!

So, boxes of blueberries, Spinach, and other berries found their way to my refrigerator...but, after a while, they didn't find their way to the table.  Either I was too tired to do the 3 tire wash...or, there wasn’t enough time. 

I never make resolutions, but, Its times like this that force me into making one.. The one on my mind right now...to buy the bare minimum to keep my kitchen functioning.

Stats show that Americans are throwing away almost $1000 dollars of groceries every year and maybe more. WE hate doing it. Don’t we? I know, coz, I feel the dislike. It just feels wrong.  The guilt that comes with it. Unbearable! The action itself, Inexcusable!

The  refrigerators have their limitations. Its Ethylene, the culprit gas that builds up, that can make food go bad quickly, so, some refrigerators in the market have this capability of cleaning up this ethylene build up…keeping the vegetables fresh, for longer.  Sub Zero Inc, has bought this tech from NASA. So, every fifteen minutes the air in the refrigerator is cleaned of Ethylene!  The humidity is corrected. Can you believe the technology we’re getting access to? Still…we throw away so much.

First off..why do we buy all that?!  It’s a question I’m trying to solve resolve…for more than a decade now. The children have made this problem even more complicated for me now. My Mom…she was shocked to look at my pantry.

“You use all these?!” , she had asked with utter disbelief.

There is so much food at home….yet, most times, the children, these cute devils, they can’t find food!!!  They make me feel like this incompetent mom…! The pantries are full of 3-4 kinds of cereals and other goodies but, nothing seems edible. WHy?!!  It did seem like that when we were buying them.

I’ve realized, I’m one of the bigger culprits too. WHy do I have to buy all this stuff? I thought I had found solution....to avoid buying extra, to avoid buying for some ambitious-no-show meals.  Mainly, I make sure I don’t go grocery shopping hungry. 

A hungry tummy can plan a lot of dishes which  needs a lot of ingredients...which in turn can make you buy so much. The mind, it knows the ratio of the times I’ve actually made those meals..still..I makes the obvious choice. To BUY!!

When you are standing in front of those aisles of fresh greens, the chameleon in the mind, gets to work. It convinces the reasonable side .... "You should do it! You Can Do iT"  I am trapped.

Hubby dear knows this...he has called me to make sure i had had my lunch before i left.  Do you have a list when you go?  Most times I rely on the aisles to remind me of stuff that I need for my pantry.

Most times, it works…and…Most times, I end up with 2-3 packs of the same stuff . This time, it was the red chilies.  I ended up buying a pack of red chilies which I already had in the pantry … Hubby dear managed to get one from one of his visits to the grocer. So, we now have 3 packs of red chilies waiting to see the light of day…before they are ground.

Anybody looking at my pantry must think….Oh! this family loves hot food. We do…but, not like this.  So, hopefully we are set up with our supply of mirchis for the next part of the year…and now I’ve planted a few, that spring is here!

Grocery shopping can be very challenging.  Sometimes it’s a breeze too.  Especially when you are not hungry.  Then,  the visual of me cutting limitless pounds of okra or green beans is so vivid.  The standing visual, at the counter for 45 minutes to an hour just washing and cutting the vegetables.  Even the “donda kai” or “parmal”, as I call it, doesn’t feel so appetizing compared to  the effort.  I end up picking the eggplant or the squash.

Imagine the effort needed to pick through countless sprigs of methi leaves, sufficient to feed my family of 6, the washing, cutting cooking…OMG!…The Methi Aalo doesn’t’ seem so appetizing anymore too.  The soft fluffy phulkas isn’t enticing too…if I consider the whole package of making the dough, the rotis, and then the clean up.  I’m fine with brown rice. That’s more than half day of continuous standing … and that wouldn’t be all for the day would it.

I might as well really walk outside for 2 hours than hurt my knees and hips standing like this.

But, many times, the hungry belly wins over all this argument.  Even the price isn’t a deterrent.

So, at times….I take it as a challenge and make sure I use up all the veggies I got for the week.  It’s feels like an accomplishment, when I do. I make sure to note it…let the Mr know too, proudly!

“See….I’ve used up all the veggies I bought last week! That’s how I usually do.”,  

I say unhesitating, without a twitch in my voice…convinced in my own mind that, that is my history. A few weeks of being careful and I’m back to my usual ways.

Today, I had to face reality again…I entered the store…with a strong mind, to buy only what I need. Then, I…saw all the fresh vegetables and ended up with a cart load of groceries again.  Well….Didn’t I make so much space in the refrigerator?!

As I struggle getting the grocery balance right … do you struggle with your groceries like I do. Do you use everything that comes into your kitchen pantry or you end up wasting an inexcusable amount of it?!

Outdated!!

 

Was there a time in your life, as you were growing up...when you felt your parents outdated, that you've outgrown their generation, their way of thinking, their views didn’t align with yours? 

A moment when a thought must have crossed your mind ... to tell your parents..."Papa....the world isn't like that anymore!"  Not that you meant any disrespect..Not that you had any clue or maturity of navigating yourself through life at that point.  I’m sure, you respected your parents, you’d always follow their directions and trust their guidance.. still, you had this nagging feeling..the feeling that is also known as the  “generation gap”.

Well, there wasn't much competition then, in terms of technology..was there?! The only greatest innovations we were using at home, was the TV and Fridge.  Even those were created by somebody so far away from where we lived...that it took years before we could get to experience the magnificence of those innovations.

It was the times when, India was dealing with the concept of empowering women, emboldening the girl child!  Getting them to go outside their homes, to school, to work. My mom was a perfect example to me. Her dad, my grandpa, had encouraged her, helped her settle far from home…to join the mechanical revolution...very forward thinking for dad's of that generation. To see their daughters progress, to see them not just be content being house wives.

Still I did feel it..I did feel that generation gap. Was it that the movies weren't reflecting what was happening around, or was it actually showing the feelings of majority of the society then?

How many of you'll remember the common drama in the movies of those days. Especially, when a women gets raped and the only way the movie ends is with her committing suicide or, the hero makes the bad guy marry the woman, to atone for his sins....

Was that the only solution that was socially acceptable in those days???!!! Atrocious!

That's when I realized I didn’t belong to that kind of society….that thinking.

Today, I feel I'm getting into the shoes of my parent's generation already!!! 

Sure, the social picture depicted in the movies is very different today. IMHO its getting bolder in the wrong way…and its getting socially acceptable too. I know the society in real life isn’t like that, it doesn’t’ function like that..we all have protested and made our voices heard on that issue.

Today, the kids of this generation are well aware of where they stand…more informed, more connected!

My fear, my reason for getting outdated is totally different.

Its the age of the gadgets. We're talking artificial intelligence people!!, Soon we'd have artificial humans, robots, on this planet, in every phase of our lives...with smart homes and smart maids!!

We’ll soon be wondering who is controlling whom?!  Just like the story of the dog on lease very nicely illustrated by Seinfield :-)

There’d be no thought, no idea left unexplored. For example, A thought had just occurred to me a few weeks ago. How nice, if we could harness power from our walk itself…I was amazed to find, there are already implementations of the idea in practice.

Floor tiles of special material have been manufactured that can convert the energy of the friction of our feet with the ground to electrical power. Such tiles have been planted in masses in places of huge traffic, like train stations and other public places…to harvest the walking power of so many people…

There are works in the making to make the treadmill self powering using the same idea…and who knows where this tiny idea can take us!! We may soon contact another life… my worst fear…which I’m sure I wont have to deal with in my life time.

The smart phones and the smart apps generation with the new lingo, with their logic wired, to fit in, even as they are born, their vocabulary that’s going urban by the day...and spellings are getting shorter and shorter!!! Everything has an abbreviation.  You don't need the websters or the oxfords now...You need the  urban dictionary. You need the slang dictionary...not that I ever knew any that belonged to my generation even...still..there is a new dictionary now.

It’s the age of communicating…in a new way. Keeping in touch with everybody at the same time, it’s the age of multitasking. All Information at your finger tips. Quite overwhelming if you have to keep up with all of that from your home.

Hubby dear on the other hand...seems to be sailing along fine and keeping me in tow so I don't wake up one morning and feel ... Some new language...new world came into existence while I slept.

I'm still able to navigate through the phone and use up all the smart apps available, connect with people I thought were just figments of my imaginations. I’m referring to the people from my long forgotten childhood and school. Without FB maybe, I’d have forgotten them..I’d have forgotten all those childhood memories. But now, those memories seem to get fresh. 

Still..these issues are almost non issues compared to what is to come. With the speed with which the world is developing and ease with which our children are adapting to the new world...I can see that day closing in really fast, when my children are going to stamp my forehead with "OUTDATED" material!

What was the point, in your life, when you realized that you have outgrown your parents generation and your views are different from theirs?  What is your fear of getting outdated??