more @#$%@# physical metaphors

[chelidon]

Sunday night the Casa Chaos denizens were sitting in front of a lovely toasty fire in the hearth, doing part 2 of our Equinox work -- talking about where we needed balance, what we planned to do over the coming months to achieve that, asking one another for specific things we felt we needed to help us in our work, and so on. Hearth magic is some of the most deeply powerful work I know, if the hearth, and the home, is healthy and strong. Hearth work builds up over time, year after year. You don't say anything in front of the hearth that you don't really mean, that you don't really, truly want to happen, particularly with witnesses there...

So entering this liminal period between Equinox and Samhain, we're sitting and talking about balance, about simplifying, about using the harvest you have and carefully setting aside some of the rest for the future, before it all spoils and rots away, no use to anyone. About looking closely at what really matters, about letting go, about dealing with loss and grief. One of my Lovely Housemates burned paperwork that had to do with her dead partner, with his accident, and with the house she had bought with him just before he died, and had sold just before moving up here. Getting balance, remembering the past and looking to the future, making space, cleaning house, and preparing for a new year to come.

Immediately afterwards, one of my Lovely Housemates called me into the pantry, and we found that something (moths, I believe) had gotten in and infested some open pancake flour, and from there gotten into a whole bunch of stuff that was on all of the upper shelves, and even into some things that were sealed with plastic bags or plastic wrap -- they can eat small holes in the plastic, it seems. So there are nasty wormy squirmy vermin in all kinds of things including...oh, gods. The chocolate. Those little buggers made a beeline for every single block of chocolate in the pantry. And we had a lot, mostly commercial-sized slabs -- we're serious about chocolate hereabouts. Over 25 pounds of Ghirardelli chocolate alone, pretty much the entire supply -- white, dark, milk chocolate, including one huge 10-lb slab, now crawling with worms under the plastic wrap. Bleah. I'm not particularly squeemish, thank goodness, but I think I felt more sorrow over tossing out all that chocolate than over having had one of my major regular freelance gigs evaporate on Friday. Dammit. And one of my Lovely Housemates and myself then cleaned out the entire pantry from top to bottom, tossing out (composting) everything that was infested or just old and stale, taking inventory of everything that was left (still an awful lot of food, spices, etc).

Use it or let it go, even things of great sweetness have their time to be tossed away, harvest when it's time and plow the rest under, pay attention to what's left undone and open, lest it rot and ruin other things as well, and so on and so on. But they ATE ALL THE CHOCOLATE! Dammit.

Grrrr. *sigh* Breathe. Hmmph.

Now I need to go out and buy more chocolate.

[EDIT: my partner just came home with a bar of Newman's Own Sweet Dark Espresso organic chocolate for me. *blissful sigh* :>]

Comments

[moonmelody.livejournal.com]

Over 25 pounds of Ghirardelli chocolate alone, pretty much the entire supply -- white, dark, milk chocolate, including one huge 10-lb slab, now crawling with worms under their plastic wrap.

This is tragic. As a fellow chocolate lover, I mourn your chocolate loss. :(

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it was, indeed. I may have to write a song of lament ;> And build a sealed locker, just for the chocolate...

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

That's what I like. Practical art. ;-)

[mystfemme.livejournal.com]

That's just wrong. (But you have to admit, even the worms have good taste!)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

and PRIORITIES ;>

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Oh, they had exquisite taste...grr ;> I seriously thought about just washing it all off, but they were *in* the chocolate as well as *on* it...bleah.

[kiramor.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you could have melted it down and taken the extra protein as a bonus? Too many bugs, sounds like.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah. If I couldn't get more, I probably would have. Heck, I've put much worse things in my mouth than...er, never mind. But there were a *lot* of worms, and I would have felt not so good about serving it to unknowing guests, which is where most of the chocolate goes to (especially at bardics and parties and such)

heads up

[http://users.livejournal.com/faerose_/]

From the sounds of it your worrmies are the same sort that my mum found in her flour – it took years to get rid of them completely.

I think its coz the eggs are invisible and weeelll it only takes one to start the whole lot of again. In the end she had to invest in plastic containers for “everything” in her pantry coz all the repeated cleaning and throwing stuff out made no difference.

Good luck with your protean supplement. I hope you got rid of all the bugs.

[k-navit.livejournal.com]

I had to move to get rid of those things. They got into dried herbs that were in plastic containers even. It was unbelievable. Fortunately, I didn't have a lot of chocolate in that house, and I was able to avert a tragedy of the level of the one you faced. Ergh.

Sorry to hear about the job -- that's a nasty surprise (or did you know it was coming?)

Re: heads up

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and yep, Tupperware and glass jars for everything that's not in cans or bottles. I've got a bunch of bail-top glass storage jars I used to use to keep bulk herbs in. Wiping all of the shelves down with a bleach solution is another thing I'm going to do. Chocolate and other tasty stuff is just toooo attractive to the wee beasties, it seems...

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try just sealing everything perishable up in jars -- was going to have to do that anyway for the root cellar I'm building in November.

The freelance gig evaporation was a surprise, but there's nothing more true and constant about freelance writing/editorial work than a distinct lack of stability ;> This particular job lasted 18 mo., but changed form in major ways three times (well, four now) over that time, and could have gone away at any point. I've got other gigs, can line up other freelance work, this one was nice, though, in that it was regular, reliable and constant, which decreased the typical "feast or famine" effect. Ah well, life in the biz...

[a-valan-che.livejournal.com]

When I got moths I was lucky that one of the few things they attacked were all my natural feather dusters. I had more of a problem with those little, tiny black beetles that get into flour and such. That was a disaster.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Ah, nature. Gotta love it. Eat or be eaten ;>

[a-valan-che.livejournal.com]

Why did you have that big ol' stash of chocolate?