Monday

Lunch:
Shaved Steak 3 cheese Quesodillas

Dinner:
Big nasty steak and cheese omelet
sourdough

The musical chairs game of moving the upstairs rooms around finished yesterday. There is a seasonal movement of the bedroom, depending on the season. Because the master bedroom has no real heat, its almost painful in the winter. So I use the small bedroom on the sunny side of the house until the temperature stops going near the freezing mark. Then the bedroom and all its trappings run back to the vaulted ceilings of the master bedroom. The editing room moves across the hall into the former bedroom, and the practice space moves into the former editing room. If I were capable of it, this woulod be an excellent time to throw out a lot of accumulated junk. If only...

Sunday

Lunch:
Shaved Steak 3 cheese Quesodilla
Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies (like a half dozen in one sitting)
Charlie Maner White Zin Pellegrino Spritz

Dinner:
Last of the Chuck Roast stew (sad to see you go, friend)
sourdough

Last night there was a big top circus extravaganza in the backyard, with big tents above all the new plants in the ground. Although it was lights out after dark, I know that most animals don't need them, so I spent a few moments thinking about crickets, chipmunks, earwigs, ants and all the other little bastards that live in the environs sitting in bleachers, eating hot dogs, popcorn and cotton candy and watching other little critters do tricks before vomiting that nasty spun sugar and pig parts up into a wee little garbage can.

Saturday

Lunch:
Purple Hull Peas
Sourdough bread

Dinner:
Chuck Roast Stew with carrots, potatoes and english peas
Sourdough

When you really want perspective on how lucky you really are, you have to stop and reset your brain, so that you can see what contributed to what and how so. We are trained to become inured to our successes and more sensitive to our failures and misfortunes. Eventually you can only see the problems, never the pleasures. And since most successes are built on the bones of previous failures, one also fails to see ahead into the future when the present miseries are reframed into one of many single difficult steps up what will at the end look like a very gentle easily scaled staircase. And then you will quote the great Lew Welch, "And so it has all come to this..."

But then a year later, you'll realize you weren't quite as far along as you thought. Not like now...

Friday

Lunch:
Roast with Gravy and Rice
Sourdough

Dinner:
Speck with Greens (courtesy Sel De La Terre)
Shrimp with Chorizo on Herbed Farro
Banana bread on a weird creme anglaise

I went to see a film at my favorite theater in Framingham last night, and while the film was what it was, I had more fun with watching the kids in the theater and lobby have fun on a Friday night. It struck me that the same cliques still form and that the same kids do the same things. No matter how many cell phones and internets and video games you through at high school kids, they are still going to talk trash, make out in the middle of public spaces and in general posture themselves as adults while never knowing how adorable and puppy-ish it makes them. You just want to embarrass the crap out of them and give them a big old noogie.

Thursday

Lunch:
Pizza Pie leftover

Dinner:
Slow braised chuck roast with gravy
Rice
Purple Hull Peas
Fresh sourdough

Beach Day! BEACH DAY! Think I'll take a look in the barn before heading out. Ohhhh, this place is a mess. I knew that, but jeez... OK well, maybe I'll just straighten up a little before I go. Only take a little while. Holy crap, where did all this stuff come from. Oh lord, more stuff got water damaged from the ice storm. Hmmm, I'd better get a couple more of these plants in the ground to take root before it gets cool again next week. Dammit. OK, its time to unload some of this garden crap. How many temporary pots could one ever use? R-E-C-Y-C-L-I-N-G.

What time is it? Oh well, maybe I'll go Monday if the sun is out...

Wednesday

Lunch:
Ramen Noodles with crimini mushrooms

Dinner:
Pizza Pie with bacon, crimini and onion

I don't believe in leprechauns, fairies or any of that nonsense. But there is one little species that I know exists and which one rarely if ever sees and that's the neighborhood cat. You know they are out there because you see the paw prints in the pollen every morning on your windshield. You see the look of terror on the chipmunks' faces when you know they have absolutely no fear of you. You see the security lights around the house trip on most nights for absolutely no reason. You see the catnip and cat mint clumps completely squashed all the time. But no cats in sight. and then one day you're out working in the yard, dragging crap around and sweating like a pig. Something tells you to look over your shoulder. You turn around, and under the brush is a big healthy black cat looking at you. There's a word balloon over his head that says, "yo, human, shut up, you're scaring the chipmunks away, how am I gonna nail lunch?"

And then he's gone, and you finish your job, knowing that when you leave, he'll be back to eat rodents and get stoned in your garden.

Tuesday

Lunch:

Last of the Chili, chugged out of a bowl with tortilla chips in 30 seconds

Dinner:

Whatever I could scrape together and the last of the sourdough (there was bacon involved)

The grading it was done and delivered and the new day has begun. Unfortunately, that part of my brain which says its ok to sleep past a certain hour won't get the message for days. The shift from a normal daytime job to the freedom of the summer is like a natural form of jetlag. The body has a rhythm of stress and relaxation that can't stop on a dime. This in itself isn't too strange. What is odd is that the reverse isn't true, at least for me. I'm able to shift myself back to morning hours within a day or two. So in a way, this month, I'll be heading west very slowly. And then sometime in the early fall, I'll go east very very quickly. I wish I could somehow cross a dateline in the process.

Monday

Lunch:

Chili

Dinner:

Chili

Under the gun, behind the eight ball. I do not like operating like this. Friday. The beach. Mid-70's. Nuff said.

Sunday

Lunch:

Egg sandwich on sourdough with crimini and parmesan

Dinner:

Pressure Cooker Chili (beef and pork with beans)

Rice and tortilla chips

I am surrounded by amazing women. Even the ones without kids. Simple as that. Happy Woman Day!

Saturday

Lunch:

Ramen with vegetables

Dinner:

Pizza Pie with crimini, squash, shallots and onions

Where exactly do you draw the line? And how much of life is 'almost' and 'not quite'? And what will the philosophy of mediocrity, the perspective of 'never as bad as it could be but never as good as it could be', let you achieve? Is there a choice between playing the best hand you are dealt and choosing the game you want to play? Is perfect success worth the risk of failure or is 'maintaining' the actual goal? Why does life always come down to a question of settling, like some enormous game of The Price Is Right?

And, furthermore, why do New England spring temperatures have to fluctuate between 80 and 40 over a 24-hour period for two straight weeks? We get it already!

Friday

Lunch:

Re-Fried Pork Chop Sandwich on sourdough (dynamite, try it sometime)

1 clementine

Dinner:

Last center cut Pork Chop (sadly)

Edamame in the shell steamed

Sourdough with slices of idiazabal (look it up, good and stanky)

I recently pulled my entire vinyl collection out of storage and hooked the old turntable up. Although I've been incredibly busy, I have been having old home week as I grade exam after exam. Its absolutely uncanny how brutally effective music can be at dredging up old thoughts and memories. After a few records I hadn't heard in nearly twenty years, I went to look in the mirror to compare my face with the one I remember. I found that I could literally flip a mental switch and see the 21 year old face and flip it back to see the forehead lines and increasingly obvious bags under the eyes. And the kicker is that I can't tell if I was simply an old man in a young man's body then, or if I'm a young man in an old man's body now. With the sweet grace of Providence, it won't ever make a difference.

Thursday

Lunch:

Roast Chicken on Sourdough

Dinner:

two fabulous center cut bone-in pork chops (almost 2" thick) pan fried

two baked russets

fresh sourdough

Can anyone loan me a cap and gown? I didn't buy one again this year. Dammit. Maybe I'll make one out of curtains like Gone with the Wind. In all this time, with all this money spent on degrees and experience and knowledge, I still have never bought one of those things. I never felt like that was something I even SHOULD be wearing. I'd do much better in overalls, or cutoffs. the only way I'd feel comfortable wearing one is if all professors and students had to wear cap and gown during all lectures. THAT would make the investment worthwhile. Now I'm going to have a thought to smile about all day...

Wednesday

Lunch:

Roast Chicken Sandwich on Sourdough

1 clementine

Dinner:

Bahn Xeo (Viet Crepe with shrimp and pork) (Taste of Vietnam)

Large House Special Pho

The lows this week will be in the 50's. Finally.

The lows next week are predicted to be in the 40's. Again. Finally. Fk.

Tuesday

Lunch:

Roast Chicken Sandwich on Sourdough

1 clementine

Dinner:

Mac and Cheese Leftovers, skillet fried in butter

Edamame (out of shell, steamed)

sourdough

Fat free is an abomination. The only thing that doesn't contain fat is concrete. Why would you want to eat concrete? Fat is good. It carries flavors. It improves the texture. It moves heat into food without removing moistness from it. It evenly distributes and anchors flavors onto food surfaces without negatively affecting the food's texture. It can separate layers of flavor from each other, creating unique new culinary options.

No, fat is good. Just avoid fat constructed by a factory, and accompany every fatty food with a green one and you should be fine.

Monday

Lunch:

Ramen with vegetables

Dinner:

1/2 Roast Chicken smothered in dried herbs from last years garden

Side of Mac and Cheese

sourdough bread

Although the end is in sight, it continues to seem further away. A curious combination of being too busy, too occupied and close to a deadline. Feels like that curious shot involving a rack focus and zoom in which the subject zooms in but the background is compressed and driven further away. And you find your perspective shifting from a known periphery to a lonely, ambiguous, apprehensive state of mind. And then suddenly you move right past it all, like blowing across a state border at 90 MPH. Funny how you only receive the welcome to the state about a mile after you cross the border. Perhaps they are worried you will turn around and they will have wasted the well-wishes.

Sunday

Lunch:

Greasy Chicken Paella (wine tasting at Elena's in Lunenburg)

A most remarkable chunk of basque sheep's milk cheese (idiazabal)

Dinner:

Macaroni and Cheese (made with said idiazabal, parm and cheddar)

sourdough

edamame steamed in the shell

So, though I haven't mentioned it, I wasn't able to get my herbs last Wednesday, because it was still getting too cold at night. New England doesn't allow such things. Even this Wednesday may be too early. Drat. I know the season will come soon enough and that the simple pleasure of walking barefoot out into the yard with a slice of fresh mozzarella, and wrapping it around a big ripe cherry tomato, wrapping a big basil leaf around that and biting into it will come soon enough. As will the sun-brewed sweet tea I make to drink all week. The power of a sudden thunderstorm ripping the sky apart and bending but not breaking the giant maples in the yard. Then the happy wet smell of grass that has just drunk fully from nature's measuring cup and not come up wanting for anything. Soon, but not soon enough.

Saturday

Lunch:

Tuna sandwich (with tuna juice for Chester) (blech, don't ask why)

Dinner:

Filet Mignon with smoked bacon and with blue cheese butter (Monument Grill)

Snow Peas

Some unidentifiable sort of starchy potato thing under the filet

a spongy object with the coloring of fresh bread

The funniest attempt at wine pairing I think I have ever heard in my life

Well, there you go again. You leave a place thinking your life is going in one direction, and then you get where you are going and LIFE smacks you down and grabs you and shakes you and says, "Not SO!" And all the stretching and squeezing and contorting will not prevent it. You can close your eyes, turn around, bend over and put your head between your knees, but when you throw the dart, it hits the bulls-eye and sinks a full two inches into the cork. Just try to prevent that and you'll end up with a boo-boo for which there is no succor. Just let it all go, my young grasshopper...

Friday

Lunch:

Ramen with vegetables

Dinner:

Linguine with garlic in butter and olive oil

fresh sourdough

english peas

The weather is mocking me. If I procrastinate because the weather is nice outside, the forecast predicts rain all week. If its supposed to rain and I plan on doing the things I really don't feel like doing, it turns out to be beautiful outside, and the sunlight is like an opiate, dragging outside into its rich embrace. Which sucks eggs when you're supposed to be editing some damned thing or other. I'll never learn.

Thursday

Lunch:

Last of the Red Sauce over Macaroni noodles

Sourdough

Dinner:

Last of the pulled pork on sourdough

Cole Slaw (my hacked KFC version)

a cold brew

This is the week. Everything breaks. Everything is on a tight timeframe. This is the week in which everyone you know wants something. They all want something minor, but all 600 of them do. And that's fine, because you are made of better stuff and you can field those line drives right up the middle. Flexible. You can take it. Everything manages to get done no matter what happens.

What you can't take is slipping on the commitment you made to yourself to ensure that EACH dinner would be unique and would carry the iconic flavor that made you think of having it in the first place. That within one 24 period, leftovers would either go in the gullet or the freezer. OK, so you ate the same thing three times in a row. Who cares? Well, its a slippery slope, and pretty soon you find yourself gagging down a hot pocket, wondering why you've ripped out the ass of another pair of jeans and running at top speed to be late for another pointless, joyless meeting. Fast food isn't faster, it just makes you able to fit in more of the stressful things that food should deliver you from.

So knock it off. Prepare each meal as if it were a well-paying client that you owed your attention to. Then eat it as if your well-being depended on it.