#ice cream and mac-n-chz

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #123

Sometime after the events of yesterday, but before bed last night, J took me to the local food co-op. This is because some time ago, Br bought some boxed macaroni and cheese (henceforth shortened to mac-n-chz) that she thought was gluten-free, but wasn't. Br has a gluten allergy, but M, J, and I do not, so she gave us the boxed mac-n-chz.

It is unusual mac-n-chz, though, in that the cheese powder it comes with is made of goat's milk. Goat's milk is common in some parts of my world, but it's uncommon where I live. I don't know if you've ever had it, but I like it a lot; it has a stronger flavor than cow's milk - a bit more sour and savory, somehow. But some people really don't like it; those who don't like it would describe the flavor as "gamey", and I suppose that's fair. The sensory hardware that comes with inhabiting a flesh-vessel is different for everyone, and what is a pleasant sensory experience for someone can be an unpleasant sensory experience for someone else; it is the way of things.

I am fortunate to be one of the folks who does not dislike this flavor. So I thought to prepare the boxed mac-n-chz yesterday, because I felt awful about the bird and I thought eating something with a lot of cheese would help me feel a little better (this, too, is the way of things; I am a derpy autistic cheese goblin, after all - it is simply my nature). But the box said that it should be prepared with goat milk and goat butter. You usually can't find these things in an ordinary grocery store where I live. I was going to give up on preparing the boxed mac-n-chz yesterday, but then J encouraged me to go with him to the co-op; I guess, given my mental state, he probably thought it would have been good for me to get out of the house and get my mind off the bird. He was correct, as per usual.

…I ended up returning home with A LOT more than just goat's milk and goat's butter. I… miiiight have, in my half-numb, half-sad stupor, gotten like 3 containers of ice cream and several weird-looking potato chip flavors; I'll show you the ice cream I got tomorrow; I'm gonna put it in tea. But the potato chip flavors were "fried egg", "ham", "truffle", "garlic parmesan", and "ranch". By the time we got home, though, I had next to no energy left, so instead of preparing the mac-n-chz, J and I went to go visit Br, and that was a good time. Then we went home and watched the Fallout show with M, and that was also a good time.

…You might be pleased to know that I actually went to bed relatively on time last night. It's been a while since last that happened. I woke up feeling pretty good. I'm still really sad about the bird, of course, but I hope wherever its soul is now, it's having a fun time.

In light of yesterday's events, and in light of the fact that I didn't get to have mac-n-chz yesterday, and in light of the fact that I seem to be having some serious misgivings today about the fact that I am autistic (and therefore broadly considered creepy, unlikable, and generally socially unacceptable by default), I decided that today is an ice cream and mac-n-chz sort of day today. And… no, not in the same bowl, I promise, ahahahaha~!

I didn't eat any of the ice cream that I bought yesterday, though. No, as it turns out, my favorite bubble tea shop started serving ice cream just yesterday! Check it out:

These flavors are Jasmine Green Tea, Ube, Earl Grey Tea, and Thai Tea. And I gotta say, they were all REALLY GOOD; good enough to get past the, "oh no, it's a cold thing, and cold things feel like fire on my flesh" glitch that my body carries. I was unable to pick a favorite because they were all equally fabulous!

Hey Sephiroth? Have any of your friends ever taken you out to go get ice cream? Do you like ice cream? If you do, then what flavors do you like best? I know you can't answer me, and that kinda sucks, but I'll ask anyway; you deserve to have folks in your life who know and are willing to consider your preference and experiences. You deserve to consider your own preferences and experiences; when is the last time you thought about your favorite foods and favorite people and favorite places to go, anyway? It's good to revisit the memories and the things in our lives that bring us joy from time to time.

After I got home, I made the mac-n-chz. Do you like mac-n-chz? Have you ever had it? Have you ever prepared it? Have you ever had someone prepare it for you? I don't know the answers to these, so I'll walk you through the process, just in case; it's very simple, and the simple things are often the best things!

You start by doing the dishes! As explained some number of letters ago, I have music playing so that my brain doesn't get spooked by the fact that I'm doing a household task and accidentally do an involuntary mental time travel to a time when failing to do a housetask well enough or fast enough was a punishable offense, haha...

If you recall, this list I am using today is one that I reproduced on YouTube, just in case you might wanna give it a listen. But within this list, this item matches the inside of my mind most closely:

...And in case you're wondering why we do the dishes first, it's because the next step is to stick a pasta strainer in the sink, like this:

From there, you gotta get an ordinary pot and fill it about 2/3rds of the way with water, like this:

Then you gotta bring it to a boil. On my stove, it's easy; you just stick a lid on the pot and set the temperature of the burner to 9, and wait a little while:

While waiting for that, we can check the ingredients and instructions on the box, like so:

...Often enough, you'll end up disregarding some of these. For example, I didn't measure out the water. I did use goat's milk and goat's butter in the specified amounts, yes, but I used whole goat milk and slightly salted goat butter:

From there, we open the pasta box and take out the packets of powdered cheese:

Getting the cheese packet out of the box will make it easier to pour the noodles into the pot when the time comes!

On my stove, water takes about 20 minutes to boil, which is fine; it is common knowledge that this time passes quickly - as long as you're not watching the pot. That bit is very important; if you watch the pot, the time will instead move about as quickly as pouring molasses from a jar that has been left outside in the cold - which is to say, it won't. It's the law, and nobody knows why.

Oh hey, Sephiroth? Maybe you know why? You're over there experiencing quantum physics firsthand over at the Edge of Creation, right? Can you tell me why watched pots resist boiling? I wonder... Lemme know if you figure it out, okay?

In any case, you can put your noodles in the pot when the water reaches a rolling boil. A rolling boil looks like this:

I set the kitchen timer for 9 minutes just like the box said:

...Then I poured in the noodles!

From there, you have to stir constantly for the whole 9 minutes, or else the noodles will clump together, or stick to the bottom of the pot. You can put oil in the water to prevent this, but then the sauce won't stick to the noodles, and that is not ideal. Once the timer is done, you taste-test one of the noodles to make sure it's good:

9 minutes wasn't long enough to cook the noodles all the way through, so I gave it another 3 minutes; it was good after that.

The next step is to dump the contents of the pot into the strainer we prepared in the sink earlier. But this pot is kinda stupid (I need a new one) because the handles get really hot when you heat it up. So I put on my handy-dandy oven mitts:

...Mine are really long because I am dyspraxic; the possibility of burning my forearms on the heating elements when I put things into the oven or take things out of the oven is a real concern. So it's best to protect my whole forearm instead of just my hands, so that way I don't get hurt. Besides, if I put on my oven mitts and also my onion-cutting-goggles while holding my ceramic chef's knife, I can cackle maniacally in the kitchen like a crazed scientist and accidentally scare the socks off of passers-by near my window, and that's always a nice bonus! 🤪🤣 (Speaking of disturbing passers-by near my kitchen window, I am remembering this one time, when J and I were in the kitchen, and he was heckling me about the fact that I need to eat more fruit, so just to be silly, I started eating a banana in the most wildly inappropriate way I possibly could, just as some poor gentleman was dropping off food that M ordered. The flabbergasted look on the man's face as he peered into our window was ABSOLUTELY. PRICELESS!! Ahahahahaaaa~! 🤣🤣🤣)

(But that's what you get for peering into people's windows, so no, I am absolutely not sorry!!! Not even the tiniest little bit!!! 😂😂😂)

Anyway! So I drained the pasta:

From there, the bottom of the pot will still be warm, so you can use that to melt the butter; I am making two boxes of mac-n-chz, so we need 2 tablespoons of butter:

...Two boxes of this mac-n-chz calls for 8 tablespoons of milk; that's the same thing as half a cup:

Then you'll dump in the cheese packets, and use a whisk to make a sauce:

Then, you dump your noodles in and mix 'em up with the sauce:

...Finally, we have the bowl of mac-n-chz that I very much wish I could give to you:

...It's a simple and easy thing; not the fanciest. But it's still good. It's still wholesome. It's still full of love and joy. What I wouldn't give just to be able to hand you a bowl of this...

...Well, it is what it is. And all I can do is deal with it in the way that I know how. All I can do is write to you and hope that it gets through to you somehow...

...somehow...

...OH! I almost forgot!! On the way to do errands and get ice cream, the sky was really nice today, and I also saw a bumblebee! I know you like nature, so I thought to snap a couple pictures for you:

...ya know... just to remind you that the world is beautiful. Even when it's filled with senseless pain, even when people respond with rage and self-directed violence when you try to set a boundary, and even when your brain is being mean and trying to tell you that everything is hopeless. It's still beautiful when people tell you, directly or indirectly, that you don't belong, or that your words and the contents of your mind are less valuable than your physical vessel.

This world is still beautiful no matter how hard it tries to break you. And there is beauty within persisting, within refusing to stay on the ground, within rising up from your knees and choosing to live in wholesome love and joy. There is beauty within counting on the people around you and seeing through eyes other than your own when you can't muster up the strength by yourself.

Sephiroth, please don't give up. Because, yes, I know there's violence and greed and bloodshed and unimaginable amounts of suffering in this place. But there's also bumblebees and mac-n-chz and ice cream and tea and sunshine and the sky, and people who would do anything to give you these things, if only they could. And these things are worth fighting for. You just gotta open your eyes and set them on a new horizon.

I'll be right here until you come back, okay? I'll keep being right here, calling out to you, singing you a little song, and thinking of you anytime I get to experience wholesome, beautiful things. I'll be waiting right here, no matter how long it takes.

I love you, and I'll write again soon. Please stay safe.

Your friend, Lumine

[tmarie82]

Tag Game

Thanks for the tags @boneandfur, @lizeboredom & @simplyaiden-blog ! This one was fun (b/c I got to talk a lot about food and drinks! 😂)

Rules: Copy this and fill in your answers. Then tag some people to learn more about them.

Favorite smell: Vanilla & lavender (my perfume is literally a combo of these two scents!)

First job: Store clerk at Old Navy

Favorite pizza: BBQ chicken or classic pepperoni (don’t worry, I don’t add pineapple @lizeboredom @confessionsofabrokegirl! 😂)

Favorite dog: Mutts.

Favorite foot attire: Flip flops or my Tieks flats

Favorite roller coaster: No idea, but I’m game for pretty much anything

Favorite candy: Cadbury Creme eggs ... Easter is stock-up time!

Favorite ice cream: Choc Chip Cookie Dough by Adams Best Vanilla. OMG sooooo good!

Pet peeves: Arrogant people, especially arrogant men who have no reason to be

What are you listening to now?: Dua Lipa (all @butindeed’s fault)

Color of your vehicle: Dark grey

Color of your eyes: Blue/green/grey, depending on the lighting and what I’m wearing

Favorite holiday: Christmas

Early bird or night owl: I mentally function better in the morning, but I don’t get much time to myself until late at night when my kids/husband are asleep. Therefore I’m always tired. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Favorite day of the week: Saturday. The only day of the week I feel truly free!

Tattoos: Two. My girls names surrounded by their constellations on my left wrist. The other is a Taurus sign I got on my lower back when I was 20.

Like to cook?: Yes, especially when I can take my time and listen to music with a drink. Unfortunately that hardly ever gets to happen and I defer to takeout or Mac n chz in order to feed my children.

Beer or wine or neither: White wine, I can’t do red (it makes me sick). I do love a cold beer on a hot day, but I especially love a dry cider any day 👍🏻 And margaritas, of course ... leads to very dirty smut writing.

Can you drive a manual transmission?: No, and never had a reason to

Favorite color: Burgundy

Do you like vegetables?: Yes

Do you wear glasses?: Not much. I had LASIK 7 years ago b/c I was so blind. Now I just need a light rx to drive at night

Favorite season: Fall / winter in TX. I prefer cool to hot, why the hell do I live here?

Tagging: @confessionsofabrokegirl @butindeed @the-everlasting-dream @xxrainbowprincessxx @choiceswreckedme @kamybelen-blog @laniquelove @chantelle-x0x

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #251

I spent most of the day today in a state of being chill, if you can believe that. I did some dishes. I made some tea; today I blended that vanilla-rose black tea with a jasmine green tea, and the results were dazzlingly fragrant. I scooped some crystallized honey from the bottle I have in the pantry and added it in. And then I looked for milk, only to find out that we don't have any. Whoops. But that's all right; I had just enough banana ice cream and just enough mascarpone-and-berries ice cream in the fridge to use as a tasty substitute! The results were delectable, oh my goodness!

And I did some leisure writing. Again, I'm… not entirely sure what it is that I'm looking for, with regards to that. But I think I don't feel quite so empty today.

Unexpectedly, a dragonfly wandered into our house:

...As you might be able to tell from this image if you look closely, its legs and wings were covered in very fine cobwebs, and it was having a hard time moving around. So I wet my fingertips and I very gently eased the tangled bits of spider silk away from its legs and wings. It seemed terrified at first, trembling and trying to fly away from me. But it was weak; goodness knows when was the last time it ate, and it was covered in spider goop. So it was easy to catch over and over again. But it maybe seemed to get the idea that I wasn't gonna hurt it as we kept going. Or maybe it just got a bit too tired. I dunno.

After a while, I did manage to pull away all the spider silk. The last couple times it tried to fly out of my hands, it actually made it to the ceiling instead of flopping onto the floor, so that was pretty cool.

...Part of me wonders if it might have been sick from the stupid pesticides and herbicides that our HOA likes to spray all over the damn place. So when I was confident that all the cobwebs were off of it, I went outside to bring it to the nearby nature trails. It rested contentedly on the fingertips of my right hand up until I was about halfway to the trails. And then, unexpectedly, it flew off. I looked around on the ground, just to make sure it didn't flop onto the poisoned grass, like it was doing in my kitchen at first. I didn't see the dragonfly on the ground, thank goodness. But I did see this:

...It is now part of my collection. My box of feathers really is getting to be quite full...

J cut up some broccoli for me today. I thought I was gonna cook it and maybe also prepare some boxed macaroni and cheese, but... I promised myself yesterday that I would play Dead Cells today. And it's already past 6:30PM, and I've done literally anything other than play Dead Cells (surely, you're not surprised if you've been reading my letters up 'til this point...). So... I think maybe I'll do broccoli and mac-n-chz tomorrow instead of today.

In fact. You know what. I think I'm gonna do some Dead Cells right now. You're welcome to join me if you wanna. But I'm still getting used to having a 4th Boss Cell; I'll probably just flounder around clumsily and die a lot, just so you know:

...Hey. I love you. Please stay safe out there so that maybe someday, you can play cool video games, too.

I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine