On Eating

On work and eating

So, the short one is that someone STOLE MY APPLE out of the work kitchen. Not out of the fridge, not off the table, where I left it in a pile of fruit sitting on a paper scrawled with the words "free- eat me" or any such thing. No! I left it on my plate, next to the toaster, where my toast was busily toasting, and while I was out of the kitchen for a (ahem) short personal errand, someone took my apple. Brigand! Of course, because I am a pragmatic nerd, I had three more apples back in my office. In your face, apple thief.

The next one is longer, yet even more inconsequential. Every year my gigantic company holds a charity roundup kind of thing, where they politely lean on you to consider donating money to a huge list of causes. And each year when it's charity campaign time, they provide a meal (free food!) and various local charities come in to present information about who they serve and how. Last year there was a pancake breakfast, which was not half bad. The posters are up for this year, though, and here's what we're getting: a "chili feed." Something about this choice of names is making me feel very ambivalent about participating in the lunch. I see from the poster that the Olympia site is getting a "pizza luncheon"- that's appealingly innocuous. But "chili feed?" I know we will not all be huddled around a trough eating chili with our hands, but this is the image "chili feed" leaves me with. Maybe I will bring some baby wipes.

On home life and less eating

Jim has been out of town all week and is coming back today. I was musing last evening that I felt like I had only just (the night before his return) actually achieved "flow" in the single mom thing. We had a whole night of loving calmness and stories and good listening and very well-eaten dinners. I felt like I was finally on top of my game! Then I remembered that it was the morning of the same day that Muriel cried for fifteen minutes (seemed like that long) because I wouldn't heat up her soy milk. This was one of those ridiculous instances where when it's all over, I think, really, that's what I took a stand on? Not heating up soy milk? But then, once you have made a choice, you feel locked in, like if you give in to the crying, everybody loses, or whatever. She got over it eventually and drank the cold soy milk (in the way that she had been doing for weeks).

I much prefer having my co-parent around, of course, and not just for the co-parenting. Mr. Khooler was sorely missed by all of us. But the interesting part from the eating point of view is how low-pressure dinner is when it is only the tots and I that are eating. The planning, the shopping, the cooking- all came down about eight notches. I haven't drawn any conclusions from this, or made any plans. But it was convenient to have that area lowered a bit to accommodate the slight increase in parenting responsibility (kidding, Honey!). Welcome home, dear itinerant trainee. And Happy Friday to you all!