Further proof that I've got too much time on my hands

I have just spent a few anxious minutes taking inventory of the contents of my freezer, mostly to check for things that have been in there for bordering on too long, because my life is so minimalistically empty that I have to manufacture problems like when to eat up the leftover beef stew and split pea soup from mid-to-late January (and -- way up at Difficulty Level "Very High" -- the couple of single-serving-size Ziploc® containers of chicken noodle soup I made and put away in case of colds I never got this winter -- my "Emergency Preparedness" chicken soup, in other words), all of which have about two decent weeks of freezer life in them before irreversible deterioration will have passed the threshold of unreasonableness.

That is, unless you go by my parents' definition of freezer life, which is forever. But I try not to let things go much beyond three months. I think mom and dad just throw stuff away when it converts into a solid block of undifferentiated ice crystal, like some kind of food fossil. Or not. They probably never throw anything out, like Debbie Reynolds in the Albert Brooks movie, "Mother."

Don't underestimate the challenge, though. Because it will get warmer, someday -- and probably it'll shoot up all of a sudden into the upper 80s. And split pea soup does not go well at all with hot weather. Then what? Huh? Then what? That stuff ain't gonna keep till autumn!

Like I said, I've got too much time on my hands. In the words of Mr. Tommy Shaw from Styx.

Maybe in the next post I'll tackle the pitfalls and heartbreaks of the crisper drawer.