Wednesday, August 28 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning everyone! Happy Wednesday. I'm coming to you today from home a little later than usual. Marissa and I stayed up late watching the Handmaid's Tale, then even later to do laundry, so I appreciated the extra forty-five minutes of sleep. In a few moments, I'll wake her up to go to agility class with Ziggy and Ollie while the Rod man and I hold it down here at home.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got some good work done in the morning, then heated up my cheese steak for lunch. It's funny how when they're reheated, the smell vaguely reminds me of a microwaved cheeseburger from McDonald's. I'm sure that's no coincidence, there must be some crossover in how they're made. Or maybe they're just both greasy, beefy guilty pleasures.

I continued working after lunch and finished pretty much everything I had for the day around three, so I started thinking about what to make for dinner. Marissa had just ordered a big bag of this special brand of white rice, going off of a recommendation from somebody we met in Vancouver. So after chatting on slack, we decided to go with salmon, asparagus, and of course, white rice.

After getting home around five, I got Rod in the car to go to Hy-Vee. He was in a pretty bad mood yesterday. Usually he's very chatty on the way to the grocery store, but yesterday he just sat and quietly muttered to himself. At one point, he asked me something about airplanes, but lost his patience with me when I couldn't figure out what he was saying. I think he's finally picking up on my standard phrases I use as filler when there is a breakdown in adult-toddler communication. "Yeah dude, airplanes? They ARE awesome." I can't blame him, that is a little condescending, isn't it? Can you imagine talking to someone with a thick accent or who was new to English, and just responding to them, "Yeah dude, AIRPLANES? Awesome! Thumbs up!".

When we got home, Rod helped me put some of the groceries away, then I started on dinner. To my great relief, the instructions for making rice were right on the side of the bag, so I didn't need to slog through those crummy overly personal food blogs to find a consistent formula. Making rice has always felt so tedious to me - the rinsing, the very specific proportions that differ per type and grain size, the timing. I've committed to learning it, being a pretty fundamental ingredient to a lot of other dishes, but I cook things that I enjoy and it goes without saying why I don't cook rice very much.

This recipe was pretty straight forward. Just 1 cup of rice, 1.5 cups of water, simmer for ten twenty minutes covered, off the heat covered for twenty minutes, then "fluff" with a fork. Oh, how fancy for you rice! I get to fluff you with a fork. In the time and dirty dishes it took to make you, I probably could made a whole batch of philly cheese steaks. Excuse my hostility here, I clearly have some personal issues with rice. Many failed attempts will do that.

After appeasing the fickle gods of rice cooking, I grilled some salmon, blanched some asparagus, then - just for the hell of it - I cut up a french loaf and toasted the pieces on the grill. We ate dinner on the deck and admired the swarms of mayflies that had just spawned and manifested in our backyard. I didn't know about these bugs, but they're a big thing up here. They spawn twice in the summer, and even though they look just like mosquitos, they don't bite. And when they spawn, they're still pretty week, so all you have to do is spray some water on them and they die. I guess it's one of those silly little insects that has adapted for survival with quantity over quality.

After dinner, I put Rodney to bed while Marissa folded his laundry. We read some new Spider-Man children's books that arrived in the mail that day. Reading time turned into improv time as I started doing voices and sound effects for the spider-man story. You just can't read for the Green Goblin unless you're going to be over the top.

After Rodney went to bed, I decided to re roll my bedroom computer before starting on chores. I was doing a very minimal 'terminal only' thing for the past two weeks, but I decided I missed my desktop, and especially my beloved pong screensaver. Have I told you about my pong screensaver? It's a classic game of pong, only the score is matched up to the hour and minute of a clock. As a result, the paddle on the right (team minute hand) ends up just destroying the paddle on the left.

I think it's time to get going. Hope you all have a wonderful day today. Happy Wednesday, friends.