We stopped by McRoskey on our way back for a little mattress-testing, which convinced me that I need to switch to a firmer mattress. I called Jason today and asked him to send it tout de suite. (For $350 more, but what is money to a person in my position?)
Tom and I parted after mattress-testing, he to visit his favorite taqueria and I to visit mine. I also went to Community Thrift Store to see if I could get my strap back, specifically the strap to my one-trumpet gig bag. Several weeks ago, in one of my frequent purges of extraneous physical material, I came upon it and tossed it into the bag: “A strap. Why do I need a strap?”
A couple of weeks later, I remembered why I needed it. Before I went into the store, I visited the receiving dock to see if they would have garbaged this item or if I should expect to find it in the store. The receiving guy said he would have priced it, so I went into the store, but it wasn’t there: snapped up already by some strap-starved stripling.
(“Strapling” appears no longer to be a word, at least as I was going to use it; how can this be?)
I went home and ate my tofu burrito with double extra avocado and took a nap. Then I tootled on the trumpet a little and Tom and I watched Half Nelson on DVD. Ryan Gosling did a very good job in the lead role. He’s a nice young man. He brought his mother and sister to the Academy Awards.
I liked when the drug dealer, with admiration, described the little girl as having said to the neighborhood boy who stole her bike, “Get your fat ass offa my bike or I’m gonna f*ck your fat ass up.”
“Did she do it?” asked the drug dealer’s girlfriend.
“She didn’t have to!” crowed the drug dealer.
This reminds me of my favorite sentence in the darkly (very darkly) humorous A Personal Matter: when the protagonist, a teacher, refers to his class as “an inscrutable enemy” a hundred strong.
On Sunday I made Eggplant Stew with Tomatoes, Peppers and Chickpeas, from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It’s very good, and it’s pleasing to look at, with big chunks of vegetables.
And I made Mexican Black Beans from
When it was nearly done, I took the chipotles out, removed the seeds, diced the peppers and put them back in. I meant to remove the ancho pepper at that point, too, but it had disintegrated and the only part that could be recovered intact was the stem; fortunately, the seeds, while faintly tough, are not too hot.
Last but not least, I made a vat of Provençal Tomato Sauce from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, doubling the recipe and adding one and a quarter pounds of sautéed brown Crimini mushrooms and a bit of extra olive oil. The result is blood-red and out of this world. I froze it in one-serving portions.
When Tom came down to do his Sunday-evening taste-testing, he said he wasn’t quite sure about the pasta sauce and would need a second spoonful to be really sure. I returned his container of oats, which I had borrowed to make High-Fiber Health Dessert (melt a stick of butter and stir in lots of sugar, some oats and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla).
I have been enjoying so much High-Fiber Health Dessert, I had run out of oats. When I went to Rainbow Sunday morning, I bought lots of oats and refilled Tom’s container. He said he had to have that exact container back because it has the instructions on it.
After my burrito but before my nap, I had a bowl of High-Fiber Health Dessert (yes, one serving has one whole stick of butter in it), and prior to the movie, I obtained a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for my personal use while viewing. In addition, Tom had gotten us each a piece of chocolate cake at Safeway, so before I opened the Ben & Jerry’s, I told him who my health-insurance provider is, in case of coronary emergency.
When I was loading my groceries onto my bike at Rainbow, a fellow cyclist said, “That’s very impressive,” and that he had seen me in the store and thought the way I’d had my Jandd grocery bag panniers in my shopping cart was clever. All that unexpected appreciation was very pleasant.
Today’s haiku:
once-proud dried ancho
makes ultimate sacrifice
spicy beans please tongue
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