Really? Purple Sweet Potatoes? in Everyday Ramblings

Wow, we dodged a bullet in terms of bad weather. We had snow, we had wind, and it is still cold but so far only small amounts of ice. I took this early today out and about and I did see evidence then of a treacherous slip with one area with a patch of ice and broken glass everywhere. One worries about dog paws.

The reason I took the photo was the shadow of the tree on the white wall. To have a shadow means there needs to be light and there was gorgeous freezing cold light the way it is other places when it gets cold.

It is gray now and a mix of rain and snow is expected in the next few hours.

Yesterday was a dedicated at home day. I did go out briefly midday but stayed in my sweats and didn’t take a shower or put in my “ears” until the evening where I went to take a bath and read.

Except, umm, there was no hot water.

I got pretty worked up about it, thinking oh gosh it is Saturday, it won’t get fixed until Monday or Tuesday and I will have to go out in the ice to the gym to take a shower…

It was a clear indication that any calm or equanimity I am feeling right now is only surface deep.

I am anxious about work, my class, the weather, getting my taxes done. (My Tax Preparer decided suddenly last month that she had too much going on personally to get through another tax season with all the changes.)

When I went to report the water heater problem I saw that I had experienced this once before and blocked it out of my memory. That time it turned out to be an electrical breaker that had been overloaded and needed to flip. So I thought, okay I will do that.

My breakers looked fine, all nice where they should be but I flipped them anyway (and had to reset all my clocks). The husband of our manager came over and took a look but didn’t see anything obvious. Because of the cold cold snowy weather yesterday everyone was home and we talked about the power load in the building.

After he left I went to bed.

And this morning I woke up and was thrilled to find that I had hot water again! I fed the cats and took a long glorious shower just in case.

We will most likely have ice in the morning. But then rain all day so it looks like I will be able to teach tomorrow’s class at least.

I couldn’t remember what I ordered in my Imperfect box last week; I usually order sweet potatoes and beets both. The sweet potatoes are often gigantic misshapen ones that taste just fine and every kind of beet you can imagine, but also misshapen and odd looking.

This week I got four beet-sized vegetables that were a little longer and less round than normal beets but when I cut the tip off I saw a mottled purple flecked with white. I peeled them and thought, this is weird; they are a bit easier to peel than regular beets.

Then I threw them in the steamer basket as I customarily do before I slice them and roast them. But when I checked them after steaming they were soft. Way too soft for beets. And they were this gorgeous even purple.

So I tasted them. Purple sweet potatoes! Who knew? I looked them up. They are a variety grown in California. I had no idea. They are a little less sweet and a bit meatier than regular sweet potatoes.

I pay about $20 every two weeks for my box. It is so much cheaper (and more adventurous) than going to the Farmer’s Market (which is only doing crafts anyway until early April). Just a couple of times I get fruit that is almost past its prime but I couldn’t be happier with my loot.

When I have more time I am going to go to town preparing and experimenting with different recipes.

There are many reasons to be happy today but I am sad I didn’t get to hang out with my sister on her birthday.

Sometimes the best laid plans and the Weather Gods are not communicating effectively…either that or there is capriciousness in play.

My guess, well, you know, the gods…the latter.

Oh and those amazing lights on the PSU campus? They are part of an intercity Winter Festival of lights that I had no clue about. I so hope they do it next year so I can go see. Magical.

Last updated February 10, 2019