Week 18

The week began with a drive to the cemetery in Spangle where Luna and I picked up Joel after a long bike ride. He's testing portions of a century ride route for later this summer. I enjoy a cemetery walk, and so did Luna.

In general this week felt good because it felt normal. Some days were nice, some especially nice. One night I had trouble falling to sleep because my mind was racing with worry, but I fell asleep quickly other nights. I worked out three times: two cardio sessions and one barre session. On Friday, we dressed up after work and took the dog for a walk while holding a cocktail mug.

We ordered breakfast burritos from the Compass Breakfast Wagon on Saturday morning, which sustained me for many hours of hard labor in the front yard, where I dug around and prepped my beds and covered them in 20 cubic feet of mulch. Next week will bring a similar activity for the backyard.

Fancy cat

Reading

Americans go into situations expecting things to go well. When they don’t, we have meltdowns. The French go into situations expecting things not to go in their favor, so they’re prepared when they don’t. That way, things can only get better. I had a lot to learn.

I flew through David Lebovitz's L'Appart this week, which documents his experience renovating an apartment in Paris. I am terrified enough about any home renovation for my century-old home in the states; this takes it up ten notches when you factor in hundreds more years of history, French bureaucracy, and general French culture. I felt my blood pressure rise while reading this book, but as a follower of David's blog, I knew everything ultimately turned out OK. And there were some great recipes sprinkled throughout.

Making

We've officially entered #MeMadeMay2020, the month when knitters and sewists celebrate their handmade wardrobes. I'm participating as long as I can, even though I won't have a full 31 days of different clothing items to show off, or complete outfits every time (I've yet to make pants, and most days have been too cool to wear dresses).

Days 1 and 2

This week I wore two different versions of the Willow Tank by Grainline studio (with jeans and a jacket), pairing one on Saturday with my new Bojagi shawl (it's a little too matchy, but it worked).

Recipes

Color me uninspired. I made banana bread (this one, with crystallized ginger and chocolate) like everyone else on the planet, and then tried to find ways to eat more spinach.

Mujadara is better than it looks. It's lentils and rice cooked together with warm spices, and topped with caramelized onions or leeks. This recipe (from Melissa Clark, of course) adds in spinach.

I also made eggs Florentine for lunch, which was a nice treat.

Joel made a tasty pasta with tomatoes and ground sausage, and then the rest of the time we just tried to figure stuff out based on what we had around. I hate going to the store. But I did go for a quick trip on Thursday for emergency supplies, which included Rice Krispies and marshmallows and you can figure out the rest.

Listening

It was quiet on the music front, aside from a Friday morning jam session with The Police's Synchronicity album, and Saturday cocktail hour with Paul Simon's Graceland. Old favorites.

Watching

Upon hearing the news that Irrfan Khan died this week, whom we've loved in Slumdog Millionaire and The Lunchbox, among others, we set out to watch one of his movies on Friday night that we'd never seen before. We decided to watch Puzzle, a story about a woman who's dealing with a midlife crisis and finds a sort of escape in doing puzzles, leading her to enter into a competition with a puzzle partner who is presumably Irrfan Khan. I say "presumably" because we hit play on Hulu to watch, and the movie redirected to the Argentine version. We thought it odd that Irrfan Khan would be in an Argentine movie, and we kept asking each other, "So where does Irrfan enter the picture?" and saying, "Maybe this is where he comes in," we watched the whole movie and enjoyed it. But it was without Irrfan. The Irrfan version does exist, somewhere, but it was a weird fluke on Hulu, which shows the Irrfan preview but plays the Argentine movie. 

We also tried out the Middleditch & Schwartz series, a live comedy show of long-form improv. It was impressive and we laughed out loud.