Mid-October madness...

[magnetic_pole]

There's slightly Too Much Real Life going on right now, folks. A close friend just got married in an amazing three-day extravaganza (R officiated), and I just met a big deadline at work. While I'm very, very happy about both, I need to say that I was not cut out for this one-thing-after-another lifestyle. I need more tea and downtime than this!

So rather than a full Friday Five this week, I just want to note that small_gifts is back for its 13th year! Sign ups should go up tomorrow, and claiming will take place on Sunday, October 28th. Mark your calendars!

We're just shy of the twentieth anniversary of the introduction of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, now that I think about it. Together? I think so.

And, in the spirit of starting some discussion every week, here's a question for you: what's something you've changed your mind about?

Comments

[delphi]

I hear you on the Too Much Real Life. (Although congratulations to your friend, and congratulations to you for meeting your deadline!) I feel like big events should do you the courtesy of spacing themselves out at reasonable intervals.

Having had a soft-boiled egg and some toast soldiers as part of my dinner tonight, it occurs to me that I did a 180 on the topic of runny egg yolk somewhere in my life. When I was a kid, I wouldn't touch discrete yolks at all. They had to be mixed with the whites or omitted altogether. After that, I became a little more flexible but still insisted that the yolks be hard-cooked. But now, there is nothing I love more than a warm, runny egg yolk spilling over toast, noodles, or rice.

[magnetic_pole]

How did you find out you liked runny yolk if you thought you didn't like it before? (Serious question--did you have it by accident? Or give it another try? I'm not one to re-try things I don't like, but maybe others are?) I'm glad you've found a new comfort food, though. Just the way you describe it suggests a cozy meal.

And thank you for the congratulations on all fronts! The wedding was a particularly momentous event--it's a good friend's second wedding, and it's got me thinking about new starts and getting things right in middle age. She couldn't be happier, and I was delighted to be there.

Thanks for stopping by, D! M.

[delphi]

Huh, that's a good question. I have no memory of the first time I enjoyed a runny yolk, although I do remember starting to order it regularly the summer between undergrad and grad school, when I was frequenting a diner with a cheap early bird breakfast special (two eggs, hash browns, toast, and polish sausage for $3.99). I'm a picky eater on some fronts, but I will also re-try most things I think I don't like if someone else puts it in front of me, or even if I come across a really convincing recipe from a trusted source. I would wager a small amount of money that I ordered fried or scrambled eggs one morning, was brought over-easy by mistake, and was too hungry to make a fuss.

[magnetic_pole]

I'm a picky eater on some fronts, but I will also re-try most things I think I don't like if someone else puts it in front of me, or even if I come across a really convincing recipe from a trusted source.

You have a very deep vein of sensibleness running through you, D.

I would wager a small amount of money that I ordered fried or scrambled eggs one morning, was brought over-easy by mistake, and was too hungry to make a fuss.

Aha! This would actually make a lot of sense. It's amazing how much less picky I am when I'm hungry.

That $3.99 breakfast sounds lovely. Do those kinds of diners still exist where you are? I'm not sure if they've closed down everywhere or if I just happen to be living in high-rent parts of the world that don't support inexpensive restaurants. M.

[delphi]

That sensibleness admittedly goes out the window when it comes to canned green beans. One of the major privileges of adulthood, in my experience to date, is that I never have to eat another canned green bean.

Unfortunately, I now live the kind of place where the breakfast options are a $3 coffee shop muffin or lining up out the door for ten different kinds of eggs Benedict. That diner in the town I grew up in still looks to be there, though - and the breakfast special is still only $5.49!

[magnetic_pole]

If canned green beans are the first thing that come to mind when you think of exceptions to your sensibleness, you're still quite sensible, D. :)

$5.49! Excellent. Or should I say, "eggcellent?" M.

[liseuse]

There is indeed Too Much Real Life. I dislike it (annual leave is great! Catching up is not!) and want there to be slightly less of it.

Omelettes are a thing I've changed my mind on. I used to loathe them and now I make them fairly frequently as a quick meal. I think it's because when someone was making them for me they wouldn't adhere to the fact that I dislike eggs to be runny in any way, and they were never as firm as i would want them. Now I'm making them, I can make them as firm as I want!

[magnetic_pole]

Speaking of runny eggs... (did you see D's comment above?)

Funny how a number of things I thought I didn't like as a child were just things I was particular about. I'm thinking about eggs and veggies particularly, but that also goes for shopping (still not a fan, but it can be less painful than it used to be), coffee (needs milk), and opera (which just turns out to be an acquired taste). Well, not that I listened to opera as a child. But the few times I heard it, it was so hard to listen to it grated on my ears.

Welcome back from your annual leave! The downside of a decent time away from work is the transition--getting out the door in the first place, then catching back up again. But at least Floyd's around to comfort you? (Did he stay with a friend while you were away?)

Thanks for stopping by, L, and absolutely delighted to see your sign up over at Small Gifts! M.

[liseuse]

Eggs are such a hot point for preference! I have plucked up my courage and been an Adult so many times when ordering eggs how I want them. Sure, scrambled eggs are theoretically supposed to be runny but if I'm paying for them I don't have to have them runny. That was a long lesson in the learning!

I'm largely an unfussy person (mostly because everything when I was growing up had to be how my mother wanted it and it was far easier to agree than argue) but yes, there are some things that I will only eat/do in my preferential way. I really think opera is a grown up thing. It's so orally confusing! I only got the hang of it as an adult - and when I realised I was actually allowed to just go "yes, I am enjoying this" or "no, I do not like this" rather than having to have a reason why.

He stayed with The PSF so he had a whale of a time!

I have been planning my Small Gifts sign up for weeks! I was determined not to miss sign ups this time! I mean, pinch hitting is great and totally put me on the pinch hit list but I wanted to participate in the usual way this year!

[magnetic_pole]

I know what you mean about eggs! Such strong opinions. I think perhaps because their textures can be so different depending on how they're cooked, and often what people react to most viscerally and most negatively is texture?

You are SO unfussy. I only discovered opera later on, too. R took a class on opera in college that got her interested, and she introduced it to me. I'm not sure I ever would have gotten interested, on my own.

Aw, Floyd. Glad he enjoyed himself.

I'm delighted to see a dozen people signed up over there already! Every year Min and I debate whether we should keep going--in part because of the timing of the fest, right during the end of the semester for me, and because neither of us is very active fannishly right now--but every year we decide a couple dozen new R/S stories is actually just what the doctor ordered. :) M.

[liseuse]

Texture is really the key to most things I (and I imagine other people) don't like. Runny eggs? Blech! I don't like avocados because of the texture. I feel like the taste is fine, but I want the texture to be harder and more like a pear, the slimy texture makes me recoil in horror. And I like parsnips in soup or mashed, but I hate roast parsnips because of the texture difference between the crunchy exterior and slimy inside.

Sometimes I am a bit jealous of the US college system and the chances to take classes on things like opera!

It's always such a fun fest! I'm a bit terrified, actually, because I've also signed up for Yuletide for the first time in yearrrrrrrs. I haven't posted a fic in aaaaages.

[therealsnape]

Congratulations on both, and especially on meeting the deadline, which is always a feat.

I hear you on too much RL. I know the feeling of badly needing tea and downtime. I have my tea downtime tomorrow afternoon, and I really look forward to it. There's a cranberry muffin to go with it, baked with my own fair hands, even. A leftover from having a friend to tea yesterday. But today was frantic. Fun, but frantic. Downtime tomorrow.

I'm thinking on the mind-changer. Right now mine is culinary, too: I used to hate liver so much I looked up the word in a dictionary for my first trip to Italy, so as not to order it by mistake. Fegato. These days I look out for it on a menu, I just love it.

[magnetic_pole]

Downtime, tea, *and* baked goods sounds like a treat! I bet your muffins are excellent.

Thanks for the congrats. Deadlines are more of a challenge for me than they should be, but I'm working on it.

I asked D this above, but I'll ask you, too: how did you discover you liked liver if you thought you didn't like it before? Did you have it again by accident? Or give it a second chance?

Thanks for dropping by , TRS. M.

[therealsnape]

I can't remember exactly - I think I must have had them in a restaurant as part of a dish, or when I had dinner at someone else's house. So then I must have eaten it, and I really liked it.

Also, here's the link to the cranberry muffin recipe, because I just realized it's dairy-free. And very good. It says 'cream cheese' in the title, but the cream cheese is added as a blob on top of the muffin before baking. I left it out, because it would have meant shopping, and they were very good without it. Better probably, they have a wonderful tart taste because of the cranberries. Cranberry Muffins. Sorry about the European weight - that was part of the attraction to me, no difficult calculations to halve the recipe. About 15 minutes work and 25 minutes oven time!

[magnetic_pole]

Aha! Yes, being served something as a guest is definitely a good chance to reevaluate some of one's assumptions above certain foods. :) Oddly, sometimes just having someone else's food makes things taste different. I've never really understood why.

I'm bookmarking this muffin recipe! Thank you. Muffins are among my least favorite baked good when purchased in the store or at a cafe because they always seem to be old, but fresh-baked muffins are such a treat. M.

[lash_larue]

I used to think that turnips tasted bad.

Now I think they are an effective emetic.

L

[magnetic_pole]

Ha! That's how I feel about raw tomatoes. They only taste worse, the older I get. M.

[minervas_eule]

Something I changed my mind about: well, you are not going to believe that one...... but until fairly into my 30s I did not especially like organ music (would never think of attending an organ concerto) and thought of Bach's works as boring ^^ (told you this is a real Sensation :-) )

[magnetic_pole]

Really?!? That *does* surprise me. How did you start to enjoy both, do you mind if I ask?

Bach has been a slowly developed taste for me. I didn't listen to classical music when I was young but in college discovered my parents had a record collection of classical greatest hits, which I enjoyed. And my college dorm was across the street from the music school and a performance hall that had very inexpensive student tickets. I didn't appreciate it enough while I was there, but I did attend concerts fairly often and started to understand and appreciate classical music more. Bach took longer than the Romantic, and opera took even longer. Organ music is still challenging for me. :) M.

[minervas_eule]

I got started on opera, sung in German as a child; once I knew all the opera plots by heart I did enjoy them sung in the original language, too; then I persuaded my parents to enroll in a classical music by mail-Club, who would sent one LP per month; I discovered the romantic area sinfonies and program music (Tschaikowsky, Ravel, Debussy, Bruckner and so on); with 15 I became a member of the local choir and fell in love with the romantic and classical choir repertoire (Brahms and so on); by and by I got to know and love the "modern" (early 20th c.) choir and sinfonie music as well; then we moved to Lübeck and I had to "learn to swim" in Bach and his contemporaries-repertoire.... I feel one usually has to "study" Bach to love him, if one is not an exceptional gifted musician (the Mendelssohn siblings loved him as little children already); Bach's organ works I appreciate the most when I stand next to S. at the organ to turn pages and can follow the score and listen at the same time (only one of it does not do the trick: I can't "hear" the music just looking at the score, which S. can, naturally, and I don't hear the art of the construction if I don't see it written out); and organs are just the most individual and amazing instruments, one has to be lucky to make aquaintance with one of the great ones to fall in love with them;

[magnetic_pole]

I love hearing about the classical music by mail club! The world of music recording has changed so dramatically in our lifetimes, hasn't it? I think about it a lot with respect to images--when I first started teaching, we were still using slides from a slide library, and often you could only find a handful of images of even well-known buildings. Now there are more architectural images available online than one person could ever assimilate. It's got to be changing our way of looking (and listening) and designing (and composing).

Thank you for telling me about your music history! It's such a key part of who you are--I feel as if I understand you a bit better after reading it. M.

[liseuse]

Heh, I love Bach and some opera, but wow I can't stand Romantic nonsense! I am a big an of organ music, but I think that's a childhood spent in church and going to church organ concerts for you!

[magnetic_pole]

I am a big an of organ music, but I think that's a childhood spent in church and going to church organ concerts for you!

There's really something to be said for being expose to things early on! M.

[semielliptical]

Almost 20 years since Prisoner of Azkaban came out! I think I first read it a few years later, as I didn't pick up the books until after Goblet of Fire was published. While I enjoyed the books from the beginning, it was PoA that got me interested in finding the fandom.

I have also changed my mind about quite a few foods. I ate a very limited range of vegetables as a child, and continued that into my early adulthood. Now I will eat almost any of them (though I wish my CSA hadn't given me beets again this week.) I also have changed my mind about what I'm capable of doing in certain areas; 10 years ago I would not have believed that I could become a long-distance runner! Maybe I will learn to change my mind about other perceived limitations.

I hope you have a little less Real Life and a little more downtime in the near future!

[magnetic_pole]

PoA is a genuinely excellent book, if I can detach myself from my general affection for the series and evaluate the books with a more objective eye. I think I discovered the series between GoF an OotP, too. I read them all very quickly and didn't appreciate PoA until HBP came out and seemed so flabby in comparison. Years later, reading them again, it really stands out.

Did you ship R/S after PoA? Did you know about fandom at that point? I think you did--I remember when I first found your rec lists, you seemed like one of the veterans in the fandom.

You've definitely become impressively healthy over the years! And I like that comment that you've changed your mind about what you're capable of. That's a great way of framing it.

Thank you! I'm looking forward to November 3--my first weekend without travel in a while. It's not so far away, is it? Hope you're getting some downtime, too! M.

[secretsolitaire]

Late comment is late:

When I was a kid, I thought Brussels sprouts were the most horrendous and disgusting food on the planet. Well, those and lima beans. Now I actually like Brussels sprouts, mostly because I've tried them roasted or otherwise prepared well. I also think I just have a lot more of a taste for veggies in general than I did when I was a kid.