Tuesday 12 October 2010

Breakfast:  The usual.  I hope that peacock is coveting the toast and not the omelette.  My husband's brother's family kept chickens, and they fed them food scraps.  In the freaky way of chickens, they ate chicken nugget and scrambled egg scraps with much gusto.  I feel kind of torn about the idea of keeping chickens.  On the one hand, they are really dirty birds (and we don't have an empty field in which to toss their waste).  They often fall prey to our semi-rural varmints, such as raccoons.  And what do you do with them when you go on vacation?  (I guess bribe the neighbors to take care of them in exchange for free eggs?) On the other hand, free range ones pecking around eliminated their gopher problems, ate the snails in the garden, and produced glorious eggs.  (Our niece was grossed out the time her mom had to buy store-bought eggs!)

The Day without a Phone:  Oh, my, life is full of lessons for me lately.  One was how attached I am to my phone.  I forgot it at home.  So I sketched everything.

Mid-morning snack:  Chia powder in coffee with half-and-half.  Glad the chia powder is done, I can go back to seeds.  I think I won't be tempted by the powder on sale anymore, because I realize I really love the seeds and am "meh" about the powder, even though it is lower fat and calories.  I had 5 huge red grapes and 28 almonds from the breakroom.

My lunchtime was spent walking the length of the mall and back, because I had a couple of errands.  One stop was Trader Joe's.  They did not have my roasted and salted pecans (whaaaaa!) but they did have mac nuts and rosemary marcona almonds.  I enjoyed some of these after my errands, along with my lunch.

Oh, and I see the note "Parable of the Nut Bag," which was another pity life lesson:

Once there was a [Pubs]gal whose love of nuts knew few bounds.  She bought a bag of macadamia nuts and cut a little hole in the top, so as to pour them onto a little dish.  In her haste, she tilted the bag way up and all the nuts jammed the hole.  She squeezed the bag and tried to force them out.  Then lo, a thought occurred to her:  "if I tilt the bag back, the hole will become unjammed, I will be able to pour the nuts again."  And thus it was.  She tilted the bag backward, which seemed counterintuitive from the nut-release perspective, then tilted it up not quite so urgently, and yeah verily, nuts flowed out at a steady rate.  And then she ate them, and there was great rejoicing.

Lunch was also 3 oz. steak with sauce, about 2 cups of chard in hot & sour broth ("I just ate soup!" ;-), and about 13 jujubes.

Juju what?

Jujubes!  I found these at the farmer's market, and I'd never had them before.  They have a big pit in the middle, like an olive, and the texture and flavor kind of reminded me of an apple.  I'd read about them in Bailey White's anthology, "Sleeping at the Starlite Motel," and have to admit that I was really curious to try them.  (If you haven't read any of her stuff, I highly recommend it.  "Sleeping at the Starlite Motel" and "Mama Makes Up Her Mind" are the best!  And I love that each chapter is its own story, so I can read a little at bedtime and not feel like I have to devour the whole book.)  They are supposedly a stress reducer, although I don't think they made me feel mellow.  The Livestrong nutrition site does say they're good for your liver, though.  They are also a good source of vitamin C.

Dinner:  Sausage and broccoli with mustard.

Dessert:  Some peanuts and about 13 chocolate chips.  (I shared, even though the Things had their own dessert.)

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And some milk.