Umami

Today, I was brutal. I went through L's toys, and I ruthlessly culled them. I was relentless, sparing no thought for personal feeling or random attachment. If she hadn't played with it in more than six months, or it was something I never liked, or it was too young for her, it got tossed into the donation bag. I've got the Diabetes Association coming tomorrow to haul away the stuff, and believe me, they have hit the jackpot.

I am not quite so cruel as I seem. She will never miss any of the stuff I took. I tried to involve her in choosing what things to get rid of, but she tends to be very attached to her things and we ended up with far too much in the "keep" pile, most of which were things she had never been much interested in. Case in point: a few years ago, I got her a felt board and some characters, animals and clothes to go with it. I think she played with it once or twice. But when I suggested getting rid of it, she gasped in horror like I told her I was going to burn her room to the ground and sow salt in the earth. So it's best done out of her sight. She has a birthday coming up, and I really needed to clear out the things she wasn't using to make room for the inevitable influx of toys that will shortly be coming.

Man, typing out all that made me feel like a real first-world asshole.

J and I have been watching a lot of Iron Chef lately (the original Japanese version, not the strange and somehow even more ridiculous American version). We used to watch it a lot, and then stopped for several years, and now we are rediscovering everything we loved about it. It's fun. I don't know which episodes are better: the ones where the dishes are so out there that we are both disgusted and fascinated (cod roe and umeboshi battles, I'm looking at you) or the ones where we are salivating over the presented dishes.

I had mentioned to a few people that I was planning a photo entry today: it's been postponed due to lack of inspiration. Hopefully tomorrow.