On Sunday night, I took a big hunk of pork out of the freezer. Frozen solid, it was going to take some work to defrost the meat, so I could turn it into pulled pork sandwiches on Monday. I put it on the counter, even though you are absolutely not supposed to defrost meat that way. I figured it would be fine for three hours before bedtime, when I would put it in the fridge to finish defrosting.
I forgot about it. It sat there all night. In the morning, when I remembered the pork, it was way past frozen and was disturbingly room temperature. After consulting with friends, I tossed it in the garbage. I was too afraid of teaming bacteria to make it into a meal for my family. Nobody wants to eat old pork.
Because I’ve been rather down for the past week, I didn’t have the mental energy to come up with a Plan B meal. We ended up at an overpriced burger joint in town, where I picked at a salad and had a glass of wine.
I thought I had an awesome work opportunity for the fall, but it didn’t happen. Tant pis. Stupidly, I had already figured out the bus schedule and started finding babysitters. dumb. dumb. dumb. I should have known that my age and my untraditional career path were unforgivable.
Anyway, I’m regrouping. Starting with thinking about dinner plans for tonight, I’ll run to the supermarket. I’m tackling some real-life chores that were put on the back burner for a while. I’ve got to finish off some work projects this week, and then we’re going to NC to visit Steve’s folk for a week.
In the meantime, I’m going to blog. This place always helps me think through tough matters. I’m off to see a school presentation on the budget and then I’ll be back to share some links and pictures.
Be good to each other.
Apt. 11d 
I thought you had abandoned us!
My current problem (of possible interest to people here (I figure you don’t care about a lot of my other problems) is that I can’t get E’s school to allow him to take AP Calculus B/C next year. He’s missing a prereq and I’ve told them I would arrange for him to get the math skills he needs, but they are still refusing. And I am not at top fighting capacity due to all the other crap going on. Sigh. He doesn’t want the B/C grade or the credential of having finished it. He wants to be in the toughest math class with his nerdy math friends.
I tried to tell them that the worst that could happen is that he would fail, and I’m ok with that, and I don’t know what their issue is. 😦
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Bummer, Laura. So discouraging. I find that whatever’s going on with work (new job? no? will old one lay me off? where is that damned job offer?) really messes with my mood and outlook. I keep linking it parenting a kid with autism, I couldn’t excel there, now I can’t win at work either? GAH!
No advice, just hair-pats.
I would have cooked the pork on higher heat than usual and called it a day.
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Gross.
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I’m sorry, that sucks.
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It does. Still, easier to deal with that kind of reshuffling when nobody in the house has food poisoning.
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I. Instant pot! Takes care of ALL your bacteria problems. As long as it doesn’t smell bad when you put it in. https://www.quora.com/If-you-cooked-rotten-food-say-meat-until-the-bacteria-was-completely-dead-would-you-still-get-sick-if-you-ate-it
2. Quick defrost: put it into a plastic bag, and into cold water. Draw out the cold much faster.
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Meat irritations like this make me want to go completely vegetarian. A couple of weeks ago I was all geared up to make a new chicken dish, and when I opened the package (not past the due date) it smelled bad. Not terrible, just bad enough. After five minutes of alternating smelling and saying to my SO, does this smell bad? how bad does it smell?, this piece smells okay, but this one definitely seems off; another 5-10 minutes of conversations about whether if you wash off chicken it then might be fine, I sent him to the store to buy more chicken.
Sorry about the job. Have fun at the school board meeting!
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I’m guessing school board meetings are kind of like smelling bad meat to check if it’s ok.
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When I wrote that, I was the old meat. But feeling better today thanks to roses from husband and poems from friends, so now I’m thinking the bad meat is the rotten, rigged system.
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We have a process when we have a piece of meat that we aren’t going to be able to cook before it gets too old. We put it in the freezer for four years then throw it away after looking admiringly at the freezer burn.
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I’m sharing you a poem
Instructions on Not Giving Up
Ada Limón, 1976
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
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Thanks for the poem! I needed that.
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I’m sorry about the job stuff. that’s no fun. But you are such a brilliant writer and all-around-interesting person that I suspect something else will materialize if you are looking.
I love the poem. But we’ve got another snow storm barreling towards us here in the midwest, so no happy thoughts of spring for me today. 🙂
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