Let’s say you’re going to make custard as a midnight snack.

Let’s say you’re going to use Bird’s instant powder.

Let’s say you’re going to opt for a snack-sized bowl (so as to save on the washing up).

Let’s say you’re going to adjust the Bird’s recipe to account for the fact that you don’t have quite two cups of milk in the older container and don’t feel like opening the new one.

Let’s say you’re going to think this is just as well because aforementioned bowl does not hold two cups of milk.

Let’s say you know to be aware of this problem because you’ve made instant custard in a too small bowl before.

Let’s say you’re going to have a very big mess to clean up and very little pudding left in your snack-sized bowl to eat.

Let’s say you’re a bit of an idiot.

Empire Magazine has revealed its list of the “50 Greatest TV Shows” ever. Below is the list and here be the rules:

1. Bold the shows you’ve watched every episode of
2. Italic the shows you’ve seen at least one episode of
3. Post your answers

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

What do we learn from my annotations to the list? I watch a lot of different shows, but not a lot of each of them.

What do we learn from the list itself? That people at Empire Magazine have questionable taste in tv and that their tvs didn’t work before 1968.

Seriously? Where’s MASH? The Cosby Show? The Mary Tyler Moore Show? The Dick Van Dyke Show?

What would appear on your lists if you were writing a similar list?

When you get up early in the morning, totter out of bed to throw on clothes to beat the rush to the farmers’ market, and find yourself outside still essentially asleep in the pouring rain, expect that you aren’t going to be making the clearest of fiscal choices.

I admit that after a long winter of eating apples (nearly every day) and beets, I was ready for spring veggies. But my resolve was weakened by the rain and the sleepiness and I totally just ran from stand to stand exchanging my cash for beautiful edibles.

By the time I came home, the market basket contained:

• Morels (mushrooms only found for a month or so this time of year in our area)
• Ramps (ditto)
• Spring garlic
• Spring onions
• Garlic chives
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Grape tomatoes (greenhouse-grown; we aren’t that far ahead of the Northeast!)
• Cheddar
• Milk
• Blueberry scones from Dani and Eric
• A croissant (to sustain myself while I walked around)
• Pea vines
• Green rhubarb
• Asparagus
• Lilacs

(Forgive me; I meant to take a picture, but I was more concerned with getting out of my wet clothing when I got home.)

No, it wasn’t inexpensive. But I’m going to bet that the omelets Rudi makes with the morels, spring garlic, and ramps tonight to be served with a side of asparagus in lemon butter are going to make me grateful for every penny I spent.

Five hours of hoeing and mulching and planting in the garden on a warm, sunny day + four hours of sleeping curled up in weird positions on the couch as the rain dripped down and thunder crashed = a very sore sprite. Plus I have a cold lodged in my sinuses and I can’t imagine that’s helping.

On other fronts, I went to a Ravelry party this evening where I managed to part with two garbage bags’ worth of yarn. Granted, most of it was a very thoughtful find of Rudi’s mom that I’d never intended to add into my stash. I mean, it was fluorescent worsted weight wool. Electric purple, lime green, neon pink. Okay, a little bit was Christmas colored, but still… I didn’t need it and couldn’t imagine what to do with it. It has been collected and will probably go to Girl Scouts who are learning to knit and who will be over the moon to play with the fun colors. I’m glad.

The other wool I gave away was several gigantic balls of bulky weight grey-green yarn that a friend had sent me when I first started knitting. Her friend had knit a sweater, been frustrated by it, and frogged it, leaving the unknit yarn with my friend. My friend hoped I would be able to make a sweater with it, but I just don’t think I’m meant to wear a bulky-weight sweater. I come with my own bulk and I just can’t see that adding to it does a lot for me.

But I do feel a lot better for having given all that yarn away. I’m eager to get into my stash and see what I actually have in there and to get some new projects underway. I have some linen that I’d like to make a summer sweater with and lots of gorgeous sock yarn that is just begging me to pick a pattern and to start carrying them to work with me for lunchtime knitting. Sweetpea is talking about knitting a lot of single socks between now and midsummer and it strikes me that might be a fun way to go about things.

I decided we hadn’t played the spin up the iPod game in a while, so here are the ten songs my music player thought you’d like to hear:

1. “Splendid Isolation” — Warren Zevon
2. “Whole Wide World” — Wreckless Eric
3. “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” — Warren Zevon (hmmm… I have been in a Warren mood recently, but it seems odd that my iPod picked up on it, don’t you think?) (Also, don’t you think that this would make a (sadly) appropriate tagline for D.C.? Although maybe more in the ’80s than today. Maybe now we’d substitute “Overpriced Condos” for “Money.”)
4. “Rescue” — Lucinda Williams
5. “The Whole World Round” — RedBird
6. “Cowboy Singer” — Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer
7. “Cross of Flowers” — Jeffrey Foucault
8. “Wide Open Spaces” — Dixie Chicks
9. “Mary Blaize” — Kate Rusby
10. “Little Earthquakes” — Carrie Newcomer

Can’t you imagine the movie that accompanies this soundtrack?

What does your music player think we’d like to hear?