...unless the things you are really excited for are events in the future. Like this mud run I wanted to do, or an immersion yoga weekend or bike ride to raise funds for the local food bank or even the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy (what a cliffhanger!). All of those things are happening in the two weeks after I get my eyeballs surgically shoved back into my skull, meaning there is a 95 percent I won't be recovered in time.
Maybe it's a little bit of self-pity, like I'm complaining about things I won't be able to do but if I wasn't having surgery I wouldn't end up doing them anyway (which is not the case, but could be), but I htink it's just bad timing.
The most important part of my life in the fall, aside from the Big E which begins a week before my surgery so I can go (!), is college football. More specifically, my beloved Gators. Every team gets one weekend off for scheduling purposes, but I like to pretend it's so we devoted fans can give our hearts a rest for just one weekend. Typically, though, there's another game going on that affects our ranking and SEC Championship chances, so it's hardly a break from the heart attack risk. Some people think the bye week is a perfectly acceptable time to have a wedding, and that drives the rest of us bananas because not every single person in our lives is a Florida fan...despite my greatest attempts at converting them.
If I had to pick any time to have surgery in the fall that would impact my ability to look at a TV screen for at least a week, I hit the jackpot. My surgery is scheduled for a Tuesday, and Florida doesn't play for 10 days - thank you bye week! Of course, there's a chance I still won't be able to see straight in time for the LSU game, which also means I will spend my birthday being miserable and cross-eyed, but I'll fight those battles as they come.
On a completely unrelated note, I'm watching "Julie and Julia" and it makes me want to go to cooking school. Neither of my parents cooked much growing up. By that I mean my dad could only make a few things - hot dogs, pork chops, pasta (always undercooked), and stew (which I'm pretty sure my mom prepared and he heated) are all I remember. Everything was drenched in salt but no other seasoning - thus flavorless. My mom could (and still can) cook, but she worked nights when we were little so that she could be home with us during the day, so she mostly made our lunches. As we got older, family dinners became rare with busy sports and scouting schedules. And then in high school, I basically lived off bagels and pudding. I was a cheerleader, so I was obsessed with my weight and figure, and thought carbs and sugar were better than salty, meaty meals. So I refused to eat anything except the occasional shepherd's pie or grilled cheese I could convince my mom to make for me. I also went through a fettuccine alfredo stage, and I still can't really eat it more than once or twice a year after living off it for six months.
What I was getting at is that I basically taught myself to cook. I can follow a recipe and I can buy a bunch of random stuff at the grocery store or farm stand and figure it out. Every time I visit my mom, we make a meal and I love that. It sucks cooking for one, and I don't really like cooking at home because no one ever thanks me or even acknowledges they enjoyed my meal. And when everyone buys their own groceries but won't share, why should I share mine? Also, I think if I cook, you should clean up and vice versa. Guys' brains don't work like that. I will acknowledge that I am not easy to live with, but for christ's sake - if I cook, say thank you and offer to do the dishes!
I'd like to learn the basics of cooking - it takes me 10 minutes to chop vegetables and 20 minutes to make cookies. I'm slow and inefficient. I don't know how to season food without a recipe. And I never seem to be able to grill any kind of meat or seafood without burning the outside and leaving the inside raw. I can bake like no one's business - muffins, cookies, cakes, brownies, fudge, you know it. But cooking on a stove or grill is not my forte.
Because I'm feeling down, I want to remind myself how crazy everyone went over the Nutella and sea salt stuffed sugar cookies I made last week. The RAs at the college moved in two weeks before everyone else, and since the dining hall wasn't open yet, departments took turns cooking them dinner so the RAs could get to know who's who of the staff. The marketing department - all four of us - decided on Mexican. We make pork carnitas, beans, guacamole, four kinds of salsa, queso, rice, and probably more things I'm forgetting. We wanted to offset the spicy dinner with sweet, non-Mexican desserts. My boss made a chocolate cake that turned out really dry because we were baking in a convection oven rather than a conventional oven, so maybe that made everyone like my cookies more than they should have. But they were so good. The students were coming up and saying, "Thank you so much for dinner. Who made the cookies?!" and the next day, several people - who were not at the dinner - emailed or stopped by and mentioned they had heard about my cookies and when would I be making them again. Soon, my friends, soon. But will I share? We'll see...
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