Couch Cubicle

I know I have been whining about how we don’t have any food and I also know that both yesterday and today I mentioned going to stores that sell food, so you might be thinking that this doesn’t quite add up.

You would be right.  However, because I am incredibly cheap and also because most of the grocery stores near my apartment are scary and sell produce that is, for the most part, rotting, I cannot grocery shop at a store other than Trader Joe’s.  And we can’t go to Trader Joe’s on a weeknight.  This is because we are too lazy.

So, tonight for dinner I scraped together just about everything that was left in the fridge and came up with this, which I think turned out quite well considering the circumstances:

It is basically whole wheat pasta, frozen shrimp, a zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, scallions, garlic, shallots and some light feta cheese. I am not sure what we are going to eat tomorrow, but I imagine I’ll come up with something with the carrots, lettuce and peanut butter that we have left.

Oh, and don’t forget the ice cream sandwiches:

I got home from work and my Internet service was down. I tried to get on the neighbor’s network, which, by the way, is named “Lady Valentine.” I imagine she wears red and black lacy lingerie pretty much 24/7. (I hope she doesn’t read this and set up a password because my Internet breaks about nine times a day, and I use hers possibly more than our own. Ours is creatively named “Linksys.”) Anyway, Lady Valentine’s Internet wasn’t working either.

So I had to call up good old Time Warner so that a helpful gentleman could make me brush about two inches of dust off my desktop and climb under my desk to disconnect a bunch of hard to reach wires only to then tell me that service was down in my area.

Did you know that you can’t do anything without the Internet these days? Seriously, it took me about ten minutes to even figure out how to get the number to Time Warner without being able to look it up online. I was actually dialing my mom’s number so I could ask her to look it up for me when I realized that I have a blackberry with web access. Whew.

Anyway, on my way home I stopped by the health food store because I have an addiction to food shopping and I picked up one of these:

Soy jerky. Because, as I think we’ve established, I am a big fan of fake meat, and these things call out to me every time I go in this store. Which is about every day. The guy who works there even noticed that I got a haircut over the weekend.

These are pretty good, although I’ve never had real beef jerky so I’m not sure how it would compare. But if you like barbecue, you’d probably like these.

I also had some plain yogurt with strawberry jam and a couple little pieces of walnut:

I fell asleep on the train this morning.  Dead asleep.  Ridiculous.  I mean, it was 9:15.  I’d already been to the gym.  Luckily, I may have been on the only C train in the whole city that actually has a working PA system, and I woke up before my stop because I was dreaming that someone was screaming at me.

So, the moral of this story is that I needed this:

I stopped into a grocery store that I never go to while walking Jack tonight because we are out of basically everything that falls into the “food” category.  I was all disoriented and couldn’t find anything I wanted and stood for fifteen minutes reading peanut butter labels trying to find one without weird ingredients and then ended up at the ice cream freezer (this happens to me a lot, not surprisingly) and walked out with these:

I’d never seen Horizen ice cream before but my other choices were orange creamsicles, which make me want to gag, and nothing, which makes me want to cry.  So I got these and they are really good.  I highly recommend them.  They are a little smaller than the normal ice cream sandwich, too:

Jack just had a major freak out.  We are seriously low on groceries and my snack options were limited to the little butt piece of bread, most likely dry or possibly with a little jam, or a random bag of microwave popcorn I found in the back of a cabinet.  I don’t even like microwave popcorn that much, but I think the choice here is obvious.

Anyway, so I stick it in the microwave and Jack hears it turn on, walks over to it and starts inspecting the situation.  Then the popping starts and the poor little pup flies across the room, runs under the coffee table, jumps up, runs behind the couch, has second thoughts, determines that the coffee table is, in fact, a better shelter, and dives back under it to ride out the two minutes and forty seconds of torture.

I gave him a little kernel for his trouble.   Then I ate the rest:

Sorry for the lack of posting, I was rushed in the afternoon.   Let’s try to back track.

So yesterday afternoon, I had this bowl of cucumbers and tomatoes:

And a bunch of grapes, which I didn’t photograph.  Then for dinner, Chris and I went to Chipotle and I got a burrito bowl:

Then we went to happy hour for a drink, and I had a beer at the concert:

Bad pictures, I know.  I didn’t have time to get batteries for the camera until this morning.

I also succumbed to grilled cheese and Sun Chips when we got home.  I am about 50 - 50 on this.  Sometimes I can resist, sometimes I can’t.  Last night, I definitely could not.  But you know, I did a lot of dancing and some pretty vigorous arm waving at the concert.  Exercise makes me hungry.

I saw a woman on the train this morning with Guinness Book of World Record fingernails. Like eight inches long, bright purple and pink striped, curled under ones.

I took out my Blackberry to snap a picture for you, because I’m nice and I just knew that you would want to see these babies, but then I chickened out. I’m sorry. I bet she scratches pretty hard.

And now that I’ve got your appetite all revved up, I need to tell you that my stupid camera’s batteries already died. When I got it I called Chris and I was like, guess what, it uses regular double A batteries, isn’t that cool??? And he said it wasn’t because they would probably die all the time. I’ve only had it a week and those suckers are done. I hate it when he is right.

So I ate a bunch of grapes after dinner last night and also one of those little soy ice cream sandwiches, but the pictures are stuck on my dead camera, sorry. I do have this coffee that I had this morning, from the Flavia machine because I was running late:

Alright. I’m going to the Jay-Z concert tonight. I’m not sure if I should be, though. I just had to Google his name so I didn’t spell it wrong. I can never remember if the “J” is spelled out. Chris is crying right now.

I just introduced myself to our new neighbors. This is a big deal, mostly because I am not friendly. However, they have access to the backyard, so when I walked outside and saw them moving in, I knew I had to turn on the charm if I want to be invited to a barbecue this summer. Which, by the way, I do. I love hot dogs.

So I was all like, “Oh, can I carry your bike for you?” and “Let me help you with that” and “My boyfriend will be happy to tell you how to set up the Internet.” (Chris - we’ll talk about this later.)

Also, I was wearing blue sweat pants and a hot pink tank top that says “BACHELORETTE” in silver bedazzles, so I’m pretty sure I made a good impression, anyway.

I would have offered them some of my lunch, too, but I thought that might be over the top. You like how I transitioned there, to the hummus, feta and vegetable sandwich I had for lunch?

A bunch of the insides fell out, so I had to eat them on the side with some balsamic vinegar:

And then later, I started eating these guys:

So then I just made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a snack:

Can you call a sandwich a snack? I don’t know, but I did. I learned something about myself today. Whenever I don’t have egg whites for breakfast (usually I have toad in a hole, or whatever you want to call it, and two Morningstar sausages) I am starving all day. So now I have to eat this same breakfast every day for the rest of my life. I’m a little upset.

We are back from our trip and I, for one, could have used one more day to relax.  I can only imagine how Chris feels, considering that I did not get behind the wheel once all weekend.  Not that I didn’t volunteer, but last time I drove there was a little incident involving a red light and a wandering mind.  Let’s just say I’m no longer trusted in the driver’s seat.

We had fun, though.  Jack did a little of this:

And a little of this:

And, when we got home, a lot of this:

Chris and I, we mostly did this:

So this morning, I got back on track with a banana and peanut butter smoothie:

It’s a really nice day today, and I think I’m going to work outside on my stoop and let Jack romp around in the 4ft by 4ft bed of rocks we like to call our “yard.”

We are headed to WV this weekend to witness another marriage, let the pup frolic in the countryside, and breathe a little fresh air.

My usual routine for the trip down is to fall asleep soon after we get out of the city, wake up about ten minutes from my parents’ house, and proclaim, “Wow, that trip went by so fast!” to Chris, who, after driving for five and a half hours, must then grip the steering wheel just to suppress his annoyance.

Not today, though.  Today, I am prepared by this:

And also these:

Car snacks!  No Combos for me my friends.  Not today.  Although I may have to stop for a little Chex Mix.  Mmm…sweet and salty.  We’ll see how it goes.