Treating myself

But it didn’t quite work out.

Yesterday – Thursday – was supposed to be a long day. My schedule was go to campus, volunteer at the book sale, meet a studnet (who didn’t show), followed by back-to-back online class meetings, one at 6:00 PM, and one at 8:00. And somewhere in there, between 4:00 and 7:00, bike over to get my CSA box.

I told Mark & Maja they were on their own for dinner – we had an all leftovers dinner on Wednesday to clear the way for them to order out.

Since I knew I wouldn’t be making dinner, I packed lunch to take to campus. A small apple, vanilla yogurt, granola. And a big slice of the round challah I made for Rosh Hashanah, buttered, and sandwiched with cheddar cheese. It felt like a bit too much food when I was packing it up, and I ate too early – I had my sandwich before I went over to the library, so about 9:30 – and I ate the yogurt at about 11:00.

I got home at about 2:30, with the plan to treat myself to a break in the day, do a little cooking, started this post.

I was hungry again, so I ate more challah, just plain, and the last cherry muffin, and finished the gummy bears. So at that point I had consumed about as much as I should for the whole day, and it was only 3:00.

I made a batch of the Smitten Kitchen brown butter rice krispie treats, and the marshmallows were getting a bit old and sticky, so I ate a few.

I also peeled the four ears of corn I still had in the basement fridge, and cut the kernels off the cobs, and made a half batch, 2 jars, of corn salsa.

I biked over to get the veggie box, and by then it was almost time to get set up for the class meetings. It was not a good zoom night. First I had to reinstall zoom to get it to connect. I think it was because I launch zoom from my account on the University website, since they license it for me, but then it has to open the desktop app, and I had just updated, plus I have a personal zoom, too, so it got confused. So the first session started about 10 minutes late. Then I forgot to record the second session.

In between I came downstairs to see what was happening down here, and they’d decided to order a taco kit from Pasquales. That turned out to be a pretty astonishing amount of food. I don’t think I’ll be making the leftover brisket into quesadillas to serve with corn salsa – I think we’ll be eating leftover tacos for our Tex-Mex fix. I think maybe brisket shepherds pie, instead.

Speaking of Rosh Hashanah, here’s the challah.

Going back to the saga of Thursday, I thought maybe I’d have a glass of wine after class, but instead I just ate. Mark was putting away the taco leftovers when I came down, and said they’d really liked the rice Krispie treats. When everything was cleared away and Mark had gone upstairs, I sat down with my book, and finished the old bag of chips with the tomato salsa I made over the weekend. I mean, Mark bought a new bag of chips, plus the taco kit came with its own baggie of chips, so they never even opened the new bag – it was a public service for me to eat up the old. I also had 3 of the rice Krispie treats, and then kitty and I sat on the sun room couch and I ate a bowl of cereal (well, a cup really, this Raison Bran Crunch in cups that’s really sweet, that I brought home from the food pantry. I bought some buttermilk today, so maybe I can make the last three cups into muffins), and we listened to my friend Jenny on Marketplace. She owns a toystore on the Upper West Side, and was included in Marketplace’s my pandemic economy ongoing feature. She said I’ve got a store full of toys and I’m staying optimistic. Love.

Speaking of books, I’ve been re-reading Stewart O’Nan’s Emily books. I think I told you I read the newest one, Henry, Himself (scroll all the waaay down). I discovered that I bought the first one as an ebook, Wish You Were Here, so I read that, and I got the middle one, Emily, Alone as an ebook from the library, and am almost done with that one. Being kind of amazed at how little I remember from reading both books like 10 years ago. I think I like Emily the best because it’s more in Pittsburgh, and every place she goes, I can picture. Phipps Conservatory, Homewood Cemetary, that she visits in May and feels a little funny that one of the veterans organizations, like the VFW, has put a little flag on her husband’s grave – I felt the same when they did that for my Dad and Mom’s.  And the zoo and the Highland Park Bridge, and the driver’s test track on Washington Boulevard that they turned into a bicycle track. Henry took their kids there to test, my Dad took me and my brother. Took me three tries to get my license but that’s another story.

We decided to have the brisket and apple noodle Kugel and challah Rosh Hashanah dinner on Tuesday, to sort of keep our holidays separate – Labor Day was really the first night of Rosh Hashanah. So, on Monday, we had hot dogs and potato salad and coleslaw, out on the deck.

On Tuesday after Rosh Hashanah dinner, after I wedged the little pod of soap into the dishwasher and hit start, I really looked at the bag, and discovered that the soap pods, of which I had already used at least 6 or 7, were actually laundry soap, not dishwasher soap. I left the machine starting up and carried the bag to the basement to put with all the other laundry stuff, thinking “well, it hasn’t hurt anything the last six times” … but by the time I got back to the kitchen, I hit cancel/drain, and removed the laundry pod. It had already started to dissolve, and I had to scoop it out with a spoon. I put the spoon into the dishwasher, rinsed my hands, and went up to Mark’s and got some real dishwasher soap.

Maybe I get that glass of wine tonight, it is Friday afterall.