If you think the week starts on Sunday, then mine started back in Indianapolis. I got up and made a pot of coffee in the room, wrote a blog post, and then got packed and dressed. I checked out and put my stuff in the car, although to find the car, I had to walk up and down a few levels in the parking ramp under the Pan Am Plaza – which seemed kind of desolate to me, and just realized that because they closed the ice skating rinks there last summer.
I found the closest ATM – not the greatest experience – the plastic door of the money dispenser was cracked and loose, and 2 of my $20s blew away, although I got them back. I went to the expensive Starbucks again, and got an iced coffee for the road.
If you think the week starts on Monday, then mine started in Chicago. I got up and made coffee, with my pour over cup top Melita filter holder, and then had two online meetings with students. I had a peanut butter & chocolate Kind bar for breakfast, and then I went to meet John. The plan was get coffee, and we ended up at Le Pain Quotidian. We each got a pot of their coffee, which was better than the cafe au lait’s I had drunk there before – hotter and stronger. John ordered a ham & cheese croissant that was good; I got a carrot muffin that was heavy and doughy.
I drove back to Madison, and got home at about 3:30, 4:00ish. I dropped my bags at home, and then took the car back to the UW Fleet Lot, behind the bike shop and Mickie D’s on Regent St. Walked home on the bike path, and got unpacked. While I was on I-90 in Illinois, the gas gauge on UW Fleet hybrid seemed to be dropping precipitously – so, although I was trying to hold out for Belvidere, I stopped for gas at the exit before, where there’s a giant truck stop. Depressing dark bathrooms, where the stall dividers hang crooked, really crummy paneling and ceilings, in the kind of cheaply built in the ’70s or ’80s structure that can only be knocked down and start over, but the owners can’t afford to. I bought a pack of Reese’s, but then I still stopped at Starbucks at Belvidere, and got a cookie, thus using up just about all my calories for the day. Regardless, I still felt hungry at dinner time, and heated up a serving of the matzoh spinach cheese pie, and ate it with Pasqual’s corn chips. I plugged in my work computer in the kitchen and tried to clean up email, and then re-watched Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones.
On Tuesday after work I took the bus to the Sequoya Library, and then walked home from there. I had this big idea that I’d put the chicken Spanish rice I’d been planning on making into the oven, then go grocery shopping while it cooked. But I didn’t get home till 6:15. I still made the rice, using up the chicken thigh meat I’d frozen since Passover, when the bones were the shank bones on my seder plate, and some veggie broth that didn’t get into the matzoh ball soup, and a small can of V-8 lurking in the back of the fridge, and two hunks of cheese, where I pared off the mold and grated what was left. Oh, yea, and the end of a jar of salsa.
I went out for groceries after dinner, and tried to get just enough to last till the weekend – yogurts, and bananas, and some broccoli slaw.
Lunches on Tuesday and Wednesday were the slightly soft strawberries from Mark’s fridge that he asked us to eat up, with honey & pecans, and a bagel on Tuesday, and a carton of yogurt on Wednesday after I shopped.
Wednesday night, I had two online class meetings, one at 6:00 and the other at 7:30. I had Tricuits with spreadin’ cheese when I got home before the first class, then microwave s’mores on cinnamon graham crackers during my unexpected almost hour-long break between the two classes. After class, I needed ice cream. I scraped off the icey parts of the gallon plastic bucket of Schoep’s that had been in the freezer for too long, and ate what was left with diced candied ginger and maple syrup.
Schoep’s bucket, waiting on top of the fridge, to get added to my collection. They used to be 5 qt. buckets, now they’re only a gallon
Thursday I had meetings all day, both phone and f2f, and the one that went 11:00 – 1:00 included lunch. After my first phoner, I walked up State St. to get a card to send to John’s former assistant coach, from back when he played rec hockey, in 8th and 9th grade. The coach’s wife, who’s a year younger than me, died earlier this month, from some kind of dementia. I hate it when people younger than me die.
A few of us from last meeting of the day, which got out at 5:15, a mere 45 minutes late, adjourned to the Union and split a pitcher of beer and some fried cheese curds. Thursday was cold, but sunny, so I biked. When I got home, I asked Mark which leftovers he wanted – matzoh spinach cheese pie, or Spanish rice. I heated up the last of the spinach cheese pie, and we ate it with coleslaw. I think I went to bed early.
On Friday, I worked at home, trying to get all the emails sent for student practicum placements this summer. I didn’t make it – still have 5 or 6 left to do. We just ate whatever for dinner – I had Jarlsberg melted on ends of bread, with tomato jam and coleslaw. Mark bought tickets for the Barber of Seville, and we went off to that. It was a long show – we didn’t get home until after 11:00. One of the singers, playing Dr. Bartolo, I think realized that his long black robe and flat curled hat made him look a bit like Marilyn Manson, or maybe Jack White – and he camped it up. We had hot chocolate and went to bed.
Post-opera hot chocolate. I don’t think Mark finished his – dumped it down the sink when he thought I wasn’t looking.
