Rotate the foodstuffs!

I totally did.  In my defense, when I woke up my back hurt a lot (it's still achy), and the thought of sitting in a desk chair to grade or revise was pretty upsetting. But you know what I did do? 

Lots of things.

I went to the farmers' market and got asparagus, tomatoes, and snow peas.  I also got some fresh cheddar curds from Blue Jacket Dairy, which are SO much better than the ones I got last time from a different producer (sorry, other producer: yours were softer and sweeter than I like).  Sadly, they were out of their Gretna Grilling Cheese, which is basically halloumi (God I love halloumi).  Must make it to the market earlier next week.  I missed out on many delicious things, like whole wheat flour and sorrel :(  But hey, cheese curds!  And I'll survive without wheat flour for this long.

And then I made tasty scrambled eggs with veggies, including some chives that, it turns out, are growing in the corner of the garden -- who knew?  We watched Delicatessen with lunch... it's an odd movie, it really is.

Tonight was very relaxing and wonderful.  It's the kind of night I wish I had more often (this is really no one's fault but my own).  First Kevin and I went out for dinner at the Olde Mohawk, in the German Village.  I had a bratwurst sandwich that just about made my cold stone heart melt with joy.  Bratwurst, sauerkraut, onions, swiss cheese, and an absurdly large schmear of Grey Poupon, all on a soft hoagie roll.  I haven't had that delirious combination since I was in Quebec in the summer of 2003 -- no one else I cook for regularly has my insatiable love of sauerkraut.  And then, just when I was standing at the Pearly Gates of Food Heaven, we upped the ante and picked up a couple of iced teas and a smorgasbord of tea cookies and macarons to-go at Pistacia Vera.

Why to-go?  Because we went to see Macbeth in Schiller Park, that's why.  Believe it or not, I've spent five summers in Columbus, and it's only now at the beginning of my sixth that I've finally made it to Shakespeare in the Park.  Why haven't I gone earlier?!  So wonderful.  It's totally free, the acting's not bad, and hey -- Macbeth.  It's no Lear, but it does have the "tomorrow" soliloquy, and some fabulous witchery.  I was, I should note, woefully underdressed.  Not in terms of formality level -- you sit on grass in a park, people -- but in terms of warmth.  It was in the high 50s by the time the play was over, and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  Thank God we brought two blankets.  I think by the time the next show is up (Tartuffe!) it'll be warmer at night, but if I should happen to go back during this run, I'm totally brewing up some chai or Somali tea and bringing it in the pump pot.

And then in and among these things I made seitan, shredded it, and simmered it in a spicy sauce.  And made bread dough.  All this, of course, is prep for our final poetry workshop, a potluck dinner tomorrow.

And that was my totally unproductive yet also productive day.  And I feel good about it, so there.

Phew.  Y'all.  You remember what I mentioned a few entries back, about how I'm coming to realize more and more how my body chemistry kinda governs my moods?  Yeah, well, it does.  And I wrote up that big entry earlier before I'd had a single thing to eat today -- bad move.  I did end up sending off the renewal to the Nacogdoches Co. Tax Assessor-Collector's office from a campus mailbox, but then when I got home (having eaten) and saw all the comments people left me, I decided I had better go ahead and just switch over to Ohio.  So I called down to Texas and sweet-talked the lady in the office into promising me to watch out for my form and check, and to just "rip 'em up and throw 'em away" when they got there.

Now, when you're doing an out-of-state transfer it's not quite so simple as just walking up to the Title Office and getting them to wave their magic wand around -- I just faxed a formal request for document transfer to my lienholder -- but it looks like it'll be fairly smooth.  The people at the BMV and the Title Office were strangely friendly and helpful, so that was nice. (I say 'strangely' because the only time I've ever dealt with a non-surly DMV/BMV clerk is when there's absolutely no one in the office, and that was emphatically not the case today.)

Then just now I called down to my eye doctor's office in Nac, and asked if they could please send me some more contacts.  The lady down there wasn't supposed to -- it's been since November of '05 since I went in there, apparently -- but I asked very nicely if she could just send me a couple to tide me over until I could make a new appointment up here, and she said she would.

So today's moral is: when in doubt, eat some spicy Korean soup* and then turn on just a little bit of drawl.  Works like a charm.  And then read some critical literature on ballads, because you do, after all, have 15 hours of independent study over the summer.


* Champpong from Café Amelea, which just opened a couple months ago (next to Subway near High & 17th).  I'm still a little leery of the place -- I mean, Korean, Chinese, and... Cajun?  -- but the soup was tasty, cheap, and filling.  I'll try it again and see how their other represented cuisines are :)