The Sodom of Dairy

I spent some time thinking of different ways to start this post: Segues between waiting for the painting to start and life in Rossland, comparisons between life in Rossland during the winter and life here outside the ski season, I even considered some kind of Ouroboros reference to how I've ended up sitting around at the Mountain Shadow Hostel just like I was when I first arrived here. But I've decided to give up on those poxy attempts to sound clever and just come out with what this post is going to be about:

The milk here goes off really fast.

I have drunk more off milk here in Rossland than I have in the rest of my life put together. In fact, I don't think I've even drunk off milk outside of Rossland, but here its a pretty regular occurrence. During the winter I probably ended up drinking off milk every fortnight or so, and I've been back for five days now and my milk is already sour. I can't decide whether to be baffled, disgusted or outraged. A friend back in Canberra used to describe leaving milk out of the fridge as a "milk sin". If so, Rossland is the Sodom of dairy.

It's not clear what causes the milk to go off so fast. It's the same brand of milk as is available elsewhere in Canada, and I haven't had any problems with that milk outside of Rossland, nor heard of any problems from other people. One factor is that the local supermarket has a loyalty program and a pricing structure than incentivises buying milk in four litre bottles. Since I consume a fairly unholy amount of milk, I can normally get through four litres before the best before date comes up, especially if my housemates or fellow hostel bums use a bit as well. But the best before date on my current bottle of milk is the 26th of May. That's six days away, but lo and behold, this morning the milk tumbled from the jug like runny, lumpy porridge.

Perhaps the refrigerators that I have used, both in my house and in the hostel, don't work properly? I know that the problem became worse in my old house after the energy efficiency people from the power company gave us a thermometer that told us whether our fridge was too warm or too cold. I must admit that the reading on the thermometer didn't seem to make as much difference as the mere presence of the thermometer in the fridge. Perhaps milk is allergic to magnets?

To my surprise, the milk today actually smelt and tasted OK. It was certainly lumpy, and perhaps the tiniest bit sour, but certainly not enough to prevent me from eating my cereal. After all, I could blame that sourness on the cranberries in my granola. Yes people, I have cranberry granola. It absolutely is as good as you think. Yes, you should be jealous. In fact, I've actually mixed cranberry granola with raspberry granola (and before you ask, the cranberries and raspberries are the real deal, not like the "berry clusters" in fruity-bix), so basically I have the greatest breakfast cereal that you could possibly have that doesn't have a toucan or a monkey or any other jungle animal on the packet.

To be honest, having such fantastic granola is a mixed blessing. Being so delicious means it's certainly too good to waste, which means that if I do happen to pour sour milk all over it, that milk has to be extremely sour before it becomes OK to throw the contaminated granola away. Plus, I usually have a banana in my cereal as well, and damned if I'm going to waste a banana.

You know how people always say that travel opens your mind and teaches you about yourself? Well one of the things I've learnt from travel is how long I'm willing to leave food out of refrigeration and still eat it, and how bad milk can smell and taste before I refuse to put it on my cereal. The lessons I have learnt are not the kind that make other people think highly of your standards of hygiene. I've drunk milk that doesn't go down the sink properly when you decide it was probably not worth keeping the rest until tomorrow and pour it out. I just pretend it's sour, unpleasant yogurt.

Anyway, today is supposed to be the big day for the painting. Brad has done his procrastacleaning, readied his tools and is supposed to be starting the preliminary drawing today. With luck, this will actually happen. Soon. Or something.