Food & Health: August 2004 Archives

I've been reading a bunch of other blogs lately where there's a lot of drama. People struggling with personal issues, trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives, having trouble in relationships, having trouble making the rent.

I feel very detached from that.

Apart from being physically tired from doing heavy labour on the house every day, I have a remarkably stress-free life right now. School is work, but it's not as if I have to be in school every day. And it's not the same sort of work as trying to make a relationship work.

And heck, my relationship is not all that hard, either. We have our moments, but 99 percent of the time everything is perfect, so that 1 percent of the time when we're arguing about how drywall should be sanded (this is the sort of argument you have when you're renovating a house) doesn't rip everything else apart. I've been involved with people who preferred that that ratio be closer to 50 percent drama moments, and I have to say that I don't care for that.

So there's no drama here, except the occasional collapsing wall or disappearing cat. Sorry for being so terribly boring, but I admit that I prefer it this way.

I just ate more strawberry shortcake than any reasonable human being should eat.

This morning, the new roomie John and I went to the Alameda farmer's market, and I made a series of injudicious purchases, starting with a large melon (fortunately, John likes melon, and he eats a lot, too).

I also bought an overflowing pint of strawberries, and six large pieces of shortcake (I only wanted two, but they came in packets of six). Which meant that on the way home I had to stop and get some cream, and dinner tonight was strawberry shortcake. This was a tradition when I was a kid, and I was recently re-reading a letter from my mom mentioning it, so I felt justified.

On the other hand, there's no justification for piling the plate as high as it could go with berries. Or for my wolfing the whole thing down, although it did taste pretty damned nice. The bought shortcake was not as good as my mom's, but it was creamy and tasty (I could have done without the sugar crust, as I was taking in plenty with the berries, but them's the breaks with storebought baked goods). And because nobody else was around, I was able to make the whipped cream like I prefer it: with only a tiny amount of sugar, so it's more buttery than sweet.

Now I am too full to return to my evening's task: taping and mudding the Front Parlour.

I had a sort of spa evening tonight. A week ago I bought a fresh face mask from Lush, so I used that, drank a big mug of cranberrry tea, then had a nice soak in a hot tub with a Big Blue bath ball, also from Lush.

The bath balls are much better when they are fresh. I've used a few after they've gone a bit stale, and this fresh one was definitely better.

I also allowed myself to give up on the crappy book I was reading and pick up the next one on my reading pile. That is A Round-Heeled Woman : My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance, which is delightful only 23 pages in (and a fast read). I found this book in a bookstore in England, with a sign over it saying it was about a proper English lady. In fact, it's about an American woman who is an English teacher, but that doesn't hurt. Also, it's set in Berkeley, which gives it some local flavour.

Now I'm going to make an attempt to get to sleep early, so I can get out the door and buy more drywall mud (I ran out this evening after the store had closed), so I can finish the first coat in the back parlour tomorrow. I will be almost done with this when Noel gets home.