No Pics, Just Words

Shopping Mojo

We must be doing something right, Dave and I, because we had some decent shopping mojo this evening. First, we went to Costco to stock up on some fruits and veg. Just out of curiosity we poked our head into the tire shop to price some tires and find out when would be a good time to come back and have the tires put on. Turns out the tires were on sale and it would only take 45 minutes to have them put on because there was absolutely no one ahead of us. Dave was hesitant but I gave him a little push and we brought our little car around and while they put the tires on we went in and shopped. 

We've been cooking and eating at home recently, which is a big change from a couple of months ago when we were basically eating out every day. (Our idea then of cooking at home was to heat up a frozen pizza with some green chile tossed on top.) It's fine to eat out, but it gets old when you do it night after night, and I'm getting old too and need to drop a few pounds, so we decided to start cooking and eating at home.  Unfortunately Dave is a dairy-addicted vegetarian, so we quickly found that we were eating cheese-based, refined-carb heavy meals every night of the week. Which: No, thank you. After a few weeks of that, I put a moratorium on cheese and refined carbs and that's where we've been for the last three or so weeks.

Tonight before we went out shopping, we made out a menu: Bean tostadas (yes, sans cheese and with tofu sour cream), vegetable stir fry with quorn and brown rice, asparagus and whole wheat pasta salad with marinated tofu and lemon-tahini dressing, red beans and rice with vegetarian sausage and collard greens, and lentil-potato curry with chard. 

Then we had to go shopping. We hit Costco first and while the tires were being put on, we loaded up on strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, apples, mushrooms, red peppers, grape and on-the-vine tomatoes, cucumbers, Boca burgers and pickles (for my lunches),  asparagus, and caffeine-free diet Pepsi (also for me since Dave never touches the stuff). That was our first stop. At Whole Paycheck, we found vegetarian sausage, coconut milk kefir, a handful of frozen lunches for Dave (as backup when there aren't dinner leftovers for him to take to work), chile-garlic olives, Turbo Dog beer (also for Dave), tofu, potatoes, frozen red chile, and Quorn (chik'n, crumbles, and chik'n nuggets). At Sunflower Market, we really loaded up on bulk stuff (garbanzo and pinto beans, red and green lentils, brown rice, and bulgur), more vegetables (chard, collard greens, bok choy, cauliflower, celery, yellow and red onions, parsley, and garlic), lemons, tahini, and a few more frozen lunches (which were on sale).

Then we came home and were faced with the daunting task of putting it all away in our little kitchen. The refrigerator is absolutely packed and I think I may reorganize the cabinets tomorrow and find a way to store bulk items out of the bags we bring them home in because it's kind of a mess right now.

Studio No Go 

Because our evening was dedicated to grocery and tire shopping, I didn't make it to the studio tonight. It's sad but also okay because last night at the studio I started having one of those crises of faith that one hears so much about these days. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was triggered by losing one of my large greenware pieces. Maybe it was triggered by some seeds of drama planted over the weekend. Maybe it was triggered by looking at my shelves of unfinished work and wondering what in the hell any of it meant. Maybe it was triggered by my trying to handbuild a flower pot and failing miserably. Maybe it was all or none of these things. Anyway, I did what I could last night and I came home and I didn't go to the studio today which is something like not getting back on the bike when you fall off, only not as serious. I hope.

The studio is its own thing and the demons I face down there are studio demons. After ten-plus years of working in ceramics, I've faced a lot of those demons down, have conquered some, tethered down some, have made peace with others, but every once in awhile one of them gets loose and starts to wreak no small bit of havoc. The Brain is relatively knowledgeable about studio demons, however, and either ignores, deals with, or has strategies for conquering small uprisings. It's one of the places where I have absolute trust in The Brain's ability to move forward and to keep making positive effort for the good.

Row-Row-Row Your Boat  

However it is springtime, and springtime brings with it lovely flowers, pollen, allergies, ghosts, and depression. I can fight the allergens and appreciate the flowers, but the ghosts and the depression tend to overwhelm me so I have enlisted help in the form of a new therapist. I think I may have caught it in time this year because I'm not suffering from the same crushing anxiety, panic attacks, and crippling depression that I have in springtimes past. Don't get me wrong: It's all there, always, but recently it's subsided somewhat and there has even been room for a rare good day.

I don't know how good this new therapist is, but I do know that she isn't the perky blond Junior Leaguer that my last therapist was and that is a good thing in and of itself. We'll see about the rest.

Take A Ride on the Reading  

So I bogged down in the David Foster Wallace essays. DFW started writing about John Updike and I don't particularly like John Updike (which, fine, because John Updike liked John Updike enough for the both of us with like to spare), so I just walked away from DFW.   I haven't picked up another book until tonight when a book called Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum caught my eye at Costco. (Actually, Kitty Kelly's unauthorized biography of Oprah Winfrey caught my eye as well, but after reading excerpts online, I decided against buying it--unless I can get it used. I don't like Oprah much anymore but that doesn't mean that I want to see how much dirt a gently-racist, semi-tabloid writer can dig up on her. Not for list price anyway.)

Those Who Save Us looks like a fast, interesting read by a woman who used to make her living interviewing Holocaust survivors. It also passed the first paragraph test, the test I use to choose casual reads. (The test is: Open the book and read the first paragraph. If the first paragraph doesn't hook you, put the book down and walk away. That's only for casual reads, though. More challenging reads get a hundred or more pages. Sometimes more challenging reads get more than one full reading. More challenging authors get more than one novel. But your mileage may vary.)


And that was my day.