The tragedy of disappearing food - update

My last post on this topic inspired me to embark on another of my periodical and depressing searches for two of my favourite snacks - rice paper and unflavoured/salted Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Technically the main problem with the Goldfish is that not one of availability so much as location. I am personally aware of several shops where I could theoretically purchase as many bags of Goldfish as I want, they're just all in the US. Rice paper is quite another matter - I know that if it is available, I should be able to get it in this country. So a quick search of EBay revealed not only a distributor of Goldfish, but also some angel who has stocks of rice paper! No sooner had I lamented the lack of these items than a solution is found! Like a flash, I e-mailed the links to the Boy Wonder who had been badgering me for Christmas present ideas, and lo and behold, Christmas day came around and I was presented with a large box containing all the rice paper and goldfish I could ask for! The rice paper was interesting - instead of the normal four coloured packs (featuring orange, pink, yellow and white) these were two coloured packs including such unexplored colours as green and blue and, more importantly, printed with Euro note markings so it's like eating money. I have had monetary rice paper before, but it wasn't quite right as it always had too much flavouring and I am a big fan of the bland. I could tell these ones were different, but the proof was in the tasting, which proved that they are indeed made to the same exacting standards as the stuff I am used to. The only slight downside is the tenacious nature of the ink, which I won't explain further, but even this downside has an upside as it means that I can only eat a limited amount at a time, thus rationing my provisions and avoiding the gluttony I have exhibited in the past. The stuff doesn't even have a 'Nutritional Information' sticker telling me how bad they are for me, but what they lack in substance they certainly make up for in potato starch and colourings, so I think my insides will benefit from a more restricted intake. The Goldfish have only been broken out today - in a display of inhuman strength of will, I have managed to keep them untouched for two weeks, mostly by keeping them upstairs and keeping a range of other easily available snacks within reaching distance to avoid temptation. But today, in the absence of anything more suitable for a work snack, I brought one in and although I resisted their lure until around 10.30 once I opened the bag, there was (almost) no stopping me. They are just as delicious as I remember and I can't believe I have lived without them for so long. Things are going to have to change - either we need to have more holidays when a person can reasonably request hard to come-by snack foods as a gift, or we will have to find a house in between Pepperidge Farm and the press where they print the paper money...

Dreams reflect life...

I am in Amsterdam with friends from school, who are bickering amongst themselves about something I don't really understand or want to get into. Finally they persuade me to come along with them to a concert and when we get there, to my horror, it is a show featuring Mark Owen and Liam Gallagher (I found out I don't know what he looks like as he looked like Vernon Kay in my dream and then somebody had to tell me who he was). I leave the show immediately, but now I am in Amsterdam on my own, and I don't want to be there, I just want to be at home with the Boy Wonder. I resolve not to call him as I know I will cry and make him feel bad that there's not much he can do to help me, and fortunately I come across a Mutley-a-like selling tickets for a boat tour. I board the boat and try to enjoy myself, but all I can think about is 'Why did I agree to this - I knew I wouldn't have a good time and now I'm not.'. In some ways this genuinely reflects the situation I often find myself in - with advance notice I occasionally agree to do something without the Boy Wonder, about which I get a growing sense of dread in the few days before the event and then when I get there, far from what I tell myself, I actually don't have a good time and I want to come home. I don't really get homesick, but I miss the Boy and I can't really imagine anything that I would rather do without him. However, this is generally considered to be pretty pathetic - I have been told so by people when I explained that I didn't really want to attend the Christmas party at work, the fact that he wasn't invited being one of the major reasons. Now why people who I only spend time with because I am paid to do so would think that I would choose to spend time with them over him of an evening, I don't know, but I do resent being told that I should be able to 'manage for one night' when the fact is I choose not to. But apparently, honesty is not what's required of me in this situation - I am supposed to pretend that it costs too much (the option I have gone for in the face of scornful remarks) or that I wouldn't be able to get home, when the truth is, I would rather be snuggled up on the sofa with the man I just married than watching the people I work with getting drunk. Astonishing? Maybe, but I think the astonishing thing is that people really cannot grasp the fact that I am happier with the Boy Wonder than I am anywhere else - I wonder how sad their lives and relationships must be if they long for a night out with their friends which doesn't include their partners, but it wouldn't occur to me to insult them on those grounds. I am aware that people think it is normal to spend a great deal of time apart from their other halves, and as far as I am concerned that's their business. But being without the Boy Wonder trying to have fun against the odds is something which I not only don't enjoy, but which invades my dreams, and anyone who has a problem with it can cock right off...

The thing I wish I’d known

Inspired by my brother and his blog, I started considering this topic and it has certainly given me food for thought:

The thing I wish I had known was that it’s much easier to be happy than to be anything else. I spent years feeling as though I had missed something that everyone else was aware of, or that I was the one who was not in on a universally understood secret. I wanted to be popular but didn’t really have much in common with the people I thought I wanted to be friends with. I wanted to be one of the girls that the boys fancied, but I didn’t actually fancy any of those boys. The things I thought I wanted turned out not to be the things I really wanted. I thought life should come to be and invite me to join in rather than realising that if I wanted something I had to go and get it, and nobody would be feeling sorry for me if I decided to stay in at the weekend because nobody had called me rather than just calling someone and asking what they were doing.

I would also have liked to know that I was good at things which could be made into a career – I was so aimless at school, and then for another three years at university, and then for another couple of years before I found a job that I actually enjoy doing and am keen to learn about. Careers advice seemed uncannily tailored to the jobs which I claimed I wanted to do – journalist, child psychologist etc – regardless of the fact that I wasn’t really cut out for any of them. I wish I’d known about jobs other than nurse, teacher and ‘something in an office’, although I can’t complain that there is anything I would change about my life now (although, obviously, pots of money would make things easier and there would be less frustrating days at work).

On a lighter note, I also wish I’d known that a terrible nostalgia would descend as I approach my 30s – had I known how much I would regret it 15 years later, I would never have given away my Ramona Books.