Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

“But What If I Never See Pomegranate Syrup Again?”

I had a tough weekend. You know, one of those dealing with emotions kind. Exhausting.

I’ve been chasing moths in our pantry for weeks now, and AdventureMan has volunteered to clean out the pantry totally and get to the root of the situation. I am so grateful. He was soon so sorry he volunteered. It’s a mammoth job. I know, I’ve done it before to get rid of our last infestation.

Even that word is a trigger for me. We have a moth infestation translates to I AM A BAD HOUSEKEEPER. I hear my Mother’s judgement. She raised me better. I do the best I can, but . . . I have an INFESTATION. I feel like a failure.

So I listen to my husband huffing and puffing and even cursing now and then, and I don’t feel appreciation as much as I feel guilt.

It gets worse. He wants to have “a talk.” Just the words make my heart pound. But the truth is, he is very kind. He doesn’t blame me for this at all; he just wants to find where these beasties are coming from. We wash every crevice (there are cocoons), inspect every package, put all grains and open-package wares in glass or hard plastic containers, and we crush every sign of the beasties. Yet still they appear.

AnventureMan snuggles up and says “we are buying too much food. We have a pantry full of food, just for the two of us. We eat out often, and cook less. We waste food; we throw out bread that molds, vegetables that shrink, and foods that have expired. We need to buy less food.”

I agree. I know he is right.

“I know it is hard for you to break decades of behavior,” he says, “but we have changed our habits and now we have to change our shopping.”

I agree. I know he is right.

Living on a frugal island in Alaska, then living overseas where we couldn’t get many of the goods Americans take for granted, I lived by two rules:

  1. If you see it, buy it. You may never see it again. This was true in Alaska, Germany, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. During COVID it was briefly true in the United States, as the supply chain went off the wheel, and toilet paper was absent from the shelves as people bought it up like treasure.
  2. If you need it, buy a back-up. This explains why I have excessive amounts of peanut butter, mustard, relish, tuna fish, dish detergent and beans. It’s no longer a question of when the boat will come in, it’s also a question of if a hurricane strikes and we are on our own for days, or weeks, or months.

I agree with AdventureMan. I need to buy less; we need to waste less.

Today, with his felafel salad, he started to grab the pomegranate syrup from the pantry and I said “Stop! We have one open in the refrigerator!” I could see it was getting low, and mentally I was thinking “put that on the list, we don’t want to run out of pomegranate syrup.”

And then my rational brain kicked in. How often do I really use pomegranate syrup? For Muhammara, which I make maybe once every three months. For Fesenjan, which I have made once, ever. And today AdventureMan wanted some for his salad. Our bottle in the refrigerator could last a year or more.

And my lizard brain screamed “But what if you never see pomegranate syrup again?”

September 22, 2026 Posted by | Aging, Alaska, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Food, Humor, Living Conditions, Quality of Life Issues, Relationships, Shopping, Values | , , , | Leave a comment