Dinner Woes

Our house was really hot when we got home today. One of these days I may start turning on the air conditioning...but really, do we need it? I don't know. It sure is a nice luxury though. Unfortunately, I shudder to think of how it's going to raise our utilities...so I always am trying to turn it off. Today we just left our windows open and the fans going. Sure, our thermostat read over 80°F (nearly 27°C), but there was little we could do after we got home so we just suffered through it.

That meant, however, that we didn't really feel like cooking or eating. So, I had the marvelous idea of having fruit salad. The only fresh fruit we have right now are apples. We ended up opening a can of oranges, a can of pears, and a can of fruit cocktail and halving all three. It wasn't a bad dinner and really kind of hit the spot.

We left the house to go to our various activities: Andrew had to go back to work and I had to go to one of my marathon primary meetings--it lasted until around 9:00.

I beat Andrew home and we chatted for a bit over Google Talk and decided that we were both starving. Fruit salad is a good component of a dinner, and if you ever go to a pot luck at one of my family gatherings, you will be sure to find 3 or 4 different varieties. Unfortunately, it isn't a very good meal.

Luckily, I'm home and he's not, so I was having some left-over pasta salad while trying to decide what else to eat.

Andrew suggested rice. I started making some rice...and then thought that we should have something more vegetabley. We have a head of dark, lush romaine lettuce in our fridge. I commenced to make a salad. I broke off some leaves and started rinsing them off in the sink. All was fine and dandy...

...That is, until I broke off one last leaf. Hiding deep in the lettuce near the stem was a spider!

I quickly turned the water on full blast and held the lettuce under the current. I'm hoping that the spider was sucked down the drain somehow...if not he somehow crawled deeper into the lettuce.

Oh, what was it that Grandma used to do? Did she soak it in salt water to kill all of the bugs? I think so. I'll have to try that. I am morally opposed to having spiders in my salad.

It's not even that I have anything against spiders themselves. I like that they eat mosquitoes...and they can make pretty webs. And I used to make good money off of them.

My sister, Abra, used to pay me to remove spiders from her bedroom. No problemo. I'd get a cup and a piece of paper and trap the spider and release it outside...because squishing things is gross (I just hate that crushing, oozing sound). In return I would get between $1-5, depending on what change my sister had available. It was a pretty steady business.

Now that I'm married though and have someone to rely on, I have become a bit more squirmish. I'm tempted to blame that on pregnancy, but I really think that it's marriage.

Just the other day there was a spider lurking in the bathroom. It was just a little guy, but I called out for Andrew to come and rescue me. Do I really have that big of a need to be rescued from something the size of an ant? Probably not. Maybe I'm just seeking more attention.

Either way, the head of lettuce is still sitting in my sink, and I'm still wondering what to do about it. If the spider is still lurking in the lettuce, do I really want to refrigerate it? Should I soak my lettuce in salt water to rid it of any other extra protein sources?

Luckily Andrew just walked in the door to come to my rescue. My hero!