June 3
My husband had to be up and out of the house at 6 am this morning, so I made our smoothies the night before and set them in the fridge. He drank his before leaving, but I ended up giving mine to my kid, who was looking around for breakfast at 6:15. So, no smoothie for me this morning. Breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, decaf coffee with half and half, leftover spinach-and-chickpeas, one extra-large hamantasch.
Around 10 I am feeling very restless and make another cup of decaf with half and half. I settle (kind of) and write. More regular coffee at noon. While making this cup, I notice some irregularities in the placement of coffee supplies that lead me to wonder whether I have in fact had any caffeinated coffee yet this morning. Maybe my husband made decaf by mistake. But then why would I be feeling so manic? I drink the coffee while looking up backpacking tips and supplies on the internet, and freaking out about how I have arranged to take kid on a 3-day, 30-mile backpacking trip in four weeks, without having any equipment or having a fucking clue what I am doing. At least it is a flat trail and close to civilization. But: how irresponsible. I'd better get on this.
Lunch (still thinking about the backpacking trip): Whole Foods tequila-lime tortilla chips, slice of 7-grain toast with butter, dish of sliced almonds mixed with Craisins. Lame.
3:00: another cup of decaf coffee, black this time. Thinking about anniversary gifts for my husband. 5th anniversary gifts are supposed to be wood, or silverware. I enjoy finding something that fits into the framework, even when it is not precisely what is intended. Last year "fruit" turned into pie-of-the-month (from which I still owe him two months' worth of pies).
6 pm, I get hungry, have a handful of peanuts. Then the last bits of the bag of tortilla chips. About 6:45, it is time to "make dinner"-- in quotation marks this time, because I am serving a) Wolfgang Puck's canned chicken and wild rice soup, b) slices of Rudi's multigrain bread with butter, and c) some actual cooked vegetables, consisting of garlic, spring bulb onions from the CSA farm, CSA sugar snap peas, and part of a leftover tomato. Part c) counts as cooking, but the rest does not! Note to self: the soup, which used to be a favorite of my kid's before they stopped eating chicken, is kind of gross. I have no idea why kid liked it so much. My husband didn't even finish his, which is downright weird. He also didn't comment on it, but simply poured the remainder down the sink. I would have done the same, if I weren't so damned conscientious.
June 4
So bummed out that I have to work an unplanned shift at the restaurant today. Early morning breakfast (6:30 am): lemon water, coffee with half and half, smoothie made from pomegranate cranberry juice, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, banana, a tasteless squishy plum, a squishy but still underripe-tasting kiwi, canned papaya, and CSA farm lettuce. Not one of my best efforts, as the extremely tart juice in conjunction with the green kiwi and papaya-- the latter of which I always find slightly rotten-tasting-- had a flavor somewhat reminiscent of vomit. At least to me. I had the self-restraint not to mention this to my husband, who commented (confusingly) that the smoothie was "very sweet!"
Work was a gigantic clusterfuck, which is neither here nor there as food goes, and during this epic disaster I did manage to ingest a cup of decaf and a cup of regular coffee, with half and half, along with a rather larger amount of water than usual, due to the air conditioning being broken in the restaurant. I didn't get home to eat lunch until 4:00.
(I never know how much to say about the restaurant. On the one hand, people seem to enjoy crazy restaurant stories. On the other hand, I still have to work there, and have a certain degree of personal loyalty that does not lend itself to exposing all the business's warts in a public forum. I may have to save the wart-exposing for fiction, or "fiction.")
Okay, so it's 4:00 now, and lunch. I have one leftover hamantasch (I think I kind of underbaked them, and between that and the humidity they have become seriously soft); a slice of multigrain toast with butter; some peanuts; and a small slice of blah cantaloupe. Delish! But, it is food. Also, a cup of decaf coffee with half and half. I am so exhausted.
Two hours later, when a little less exhausted, I shower and change and go down the street to the store. Shopping (Co-op): decaf coffee, 3 individual Brown Cow yogurts, quart of plain Brown Cow yogurt, quart of plain goat kefir, half and half, lactose-free 2% milk, Equal Exchange coffee, peach lemonade, grape juice, organic raisins, 3 rolls toilet paper, strawberries, blueberries, 2 containers raspberries (on sale for $1 each!), 1 huge grapefruit. $68.
My husband had to be up and out of the house at 6 am this morning, so I made our smoothies the night before and set them in the fridge. He drank his before leaving, but I ended up giving mine to my kid, who was looking around for breakfast at 6:15. So, no smoothie for me this morning. Breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, decaf coffee with half and half, leftover spinach-and-chickpeas, one extra-large hamantasch.
Around 10 I am feeling very restless and make another cup of decaf with half and half. I settle (kind of) and write. More regular coffee at noon. While making this cup, I notice some irregularities in the placement of coffee supplies that lead me to wonder whether I have in fact had any caffeinated coffee yet this morning. Maybe my husband made decaf by mistake. But then why would I be feeling so manic? I drink the coffee while looking up backpacking tips and supplies on the internet, and freaking out about how I have arranged to take kid on a 3-day, 30-mile backpacking trip in four weeks, without having any equipment or having a fucking clue what I am doing. At least it is a flat trail and close to civilization. But: how irresponsible. I'd better get on this.
Lunch (still thinking about the backpacking trip): Whole Foods tequila-lime tortilla chips, slice of 7-grain toast with butter, dish of sliced almonds mixed with Craisins. Lame.
3:00: another cup of decaf coffee, black this time. Thinking about anniversary gifts for my husband. 5th anniversary gifts are supposed to be wood, or silverware. I enjoy finding something that fits into the framework, even when it is not precisely what is intended. Last year "fruit" turned into pie-of-the-month (from which I still owe him two months' worth of pies).
6 pm, I get hungry, have a handful of peanuts. Then the last bits of the bag of tortilla chips. About 6:45, it is time to "make dinner"-- in quotation marks this time, because I am serving a) Wolfgang Puck's canned chicken and wild rice soup, b) slices of Rudi's multigrain bread with butter, and c) some actual cooked vegetables, consisting of garlic, spring bulb onions from the CSA farm, CSA sugar snap peas, and part of a leftover tomato. Part c) counts as cooking, but the rest does not! Note to self: the soup, which used to be a favorite of my kid's before they stopped eating chicken, is kind of gross. I have no idea why kid liked it so much. My husband didn't even finish his, which is downright weird. He also didn't comment on it, but simply poured the remainder down the sink. I would have done the same, if I weren't so damned conscientious.
June 4
So bummed out that I have to work an unplanned shift at the restaurant today. Early morning breakfast (6:30 am): lemon water, coffee with half and half, smoothie made from pomegranate cranberry juice, canned pumpkin, hemp protein powder, peanut butter, banana, a tasteless squishy plum, a squishy but still underripe-tasting kiwi, canned papaya, and CSA farm lettuce. Not one of my best efforts, as the extremely tart juice in conjunction with the green kiwi and papaya-- the latter of which I always find slightly rotten-tasting-- had a flavor somewhat reminiscent of vomit. At least to me. I had the self-restraint not to mention this to my husband, who commented (confusingly) that the smoothie was "very sweet!"
Work was a gigantic clusterfuck, which is neither here nor there as food goes, and during this epic disaster I did manage to ingest a cup of decaf and a cup of regular coffee, with half and half, along with a rather larger amount of water than usual, due to the air conditioning being broken in the restaurant. I didn't get home to eat lunch until 4:00.
(I never know how much to say about the restaurant. On the one hand, people seem to enjoy crazy restaurant stories. On the other hand, I still have to work there, and have a certain degree of personal loyalty that does not lend itself to exposing all the business's warts in a public forum. I may have to save the wart-exposing for fiction, or "fiction.")
Okay, so it's 4:00 now, and lunch. I have one leftover hamantasch (I think I kind of underbaked them, and between that and the humidity they have become seriously soft); a slice of multigrain toast with butter; some peanuts; and a small slice of blah cantaloupe. Delish! But, it is food. Also, a cup of decaf coffee with half and half. I am so exhausted.
Two hours later, when a little less exhausted, I shower and change and go down the street to the store. Shopping (Co-op): decaf coffee, 3 individual Brown Cow yogurts, quart of plain Brown Cow yogurt, quart of plain goat kefir, half and half, lactose-free 2% milk, Equal Exchange coffee, peach lemonade, grape juice, organic raisins, 3 rolls toilet paper, strawberries, blueberries, 2 containers raspberries (on sale for $1 each!), 1 huge grapefruit. $68.
Eventually, my husband gets home from work and, when I get out the frozen enchiladas I was thinking of making for dinner, I discover that they have to bake for 50-55 minutes. Seriously? So we decide to walk down the street and have dinner at the middle eastern restaurant. This restaurant is uneven. Sometimes we have had food there that is very underwhelming; in fact, for a long time we had a tendency to forget the place even existed. But, on occasion, we've had items-- or entire meals-- that were great. This particular experience was on the underwhelming side. I ordered a glass of cabernet, which I desperately needed. That was fine. We had perfectly okay little dinner salads with lettuce, feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, and olives. We shared some good hummus, with pita bread that seemed thinner and more tasteless than usual. It reminded me of matzoh. Then, as an entree, I chose (irresponsibly, perhaps) a vegetarian okra dish with tomato sauce and basmati rice. Unlike the rest of my family, I really like okra if it is prepared well. I thought this was my opportunity to enjoy okra without burdening my friends and relations. However, the okra was cooked to a mushy, sticky consistency and tasted mostly of tomato-- not inedible, but nothing special. My husband, who ordered a lamb kebob, to my surprise opined that it reminded him of the steak at this restaurant. I thought surely the lamb kebob would be a safe choice. So.
The glass of wine was bigger than I pour at home, and I am a slow drinker, so I was trying (I failed) to finish it before I left the restaurant, and ended up feeling rather stumbly on the walk home. What a lightweight. I took half the okra home in a box, even though I didn't really like it. Did I mention being over-conscientious?
For reasons that are not clear even to me, I have a Brown Cow maple yogurt just before bed.
The glass of wine was bigger than I pour at home, and I am a slow drinker, so I was trying (I failed) to finish it before I left the restaurant, and ended up feeling rather stumbly on the walk home. What a lightweight. I took half the okra home in a box, even though I didn't really like it. Did I mention being over-conscientious?
For reasons that are not clear even to me, I have a Brown Cow maple yogurt just before bed.