So much for Spring - the temperature soared to 90 yesterday, a harbinger of the blast furnace summer soon to come. You too can play along at home and create your own "Summer in Bakersfield" - just take a plate of manure and stick it in the microwave for several minutes.
Making things worse was the shrimp.
Much worse.
The boyfriend decided to cook an extravagant Thai meal Saturday night, so I was duly dispatched to the market with a list. Make that "markets", plural. I'm constantly amazed at how limited the resources are here, even as you're surrounded by millions of acres of fresh produce. It took trips to three different stores just to find cilantro.
Among the ingredients on the list was a dozen raw shrimp. After my unfortunate sushi experience, I'm leery of buying seafood so far from the sea. But I do as I'm told and picked them up.
The boyfriend started cooking Saturday afternoon and soon amazing aromas were drifting out of the kitchen. Several hours into it he turned to me and asked...
"Where's the shrimp?"
It was nowhere to be found and I thought it must have gotten lost in the car, but a cursory check turned up no shrimp. I assumed it never got bagged, left at the checkout and probably packed up with groceries of the housewife behind me in line. I pictured her unpacking her bags at home, aghast that fresh food had gotten mixed up with her Velveeta and Cream of Mushroom soup.
The boyfriend assured me it wasn't a big deal and he's such a good cook he can easily work around such obstacles. The meal went off without another hitch and was spectacular, as usual. The missing shrimp were forgotten.
Until yesterday.
Turns out they were in the car after all, wedged behind the passenger seat.
The problem was, we used my partner's car on Sunday, and I ended up working from home yesterday with no need to leave the house. So the shrimp had been sitting in the car for three days as the mercury continued to rise.
Rotting.
At 90 degrees, you figure the temperature inside an unventilated car has to hit around 110 or 120.
At any rate, we discovered all this once the boyfriend came home. He found a coupon for a neighborhood Mexican restaurant in a circular left at the door. We decided to treat ourselves to a Margarita or two and decided to take my car.
Or not. The smell was overwhelming and nauseating. And I have a sneaking suspicion it aint going anywhere anytime soon.
We ended up walking to the restaurant. You know it's bad if you're walking in Bako. All I can say is it took more than two margaritas to wash away that smell.
On the bright side, the air in Bakersfield doesn't smell so bad anymore, all things considered.
