peanut butter jelly time!

My kitchen cabinets are woefully understocked, as I discovered today while I cleaned and organized them. My canned goods amount to one can of chicken noodle soup and one can of slices olives, which is somewhat short of the week's worth of non-perishable food items suggested by all the 'survive the next big earthquake' checklists that I like to read and promptly ignore. There were also ten pairs of shoes strewn about my living room, but none next to my bed where I could slip into them in the case of broken glass. Granted, since my bed is under my window, the only broken glass will already be in my bed, which is a rather horrifying thought. My refrigerator contains around forty bottles of beer and alcopops, as well as several containers of random condiments and some milk that is on the verge of expiring. I have most of a loaf of bread that I bought before I went to Seattle, but thanks to the miracles of ultra-processing, Safeway bread lasts for several months and could probably be considered one of those non-perishable food items that I should be stocking up on. It's no wonder I've been eating out to much--my 'home-cooked meals' are currently limited to Easy Mac, oatmeal, granola bars, bread with some random condiment, or a cup of tea. Ew.

So, I found myself craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich tonight, and luckily I live within walking distance of Safeway, so I ran over to get the necessary ingredients. I came back with more than I had intended--yogurt, cottage cheese, milk (yes, I'm inviting lactose intolerance, but I seem fine with all of those delectable foods), apples, salad greens, dressing, and ice cream. I'm still far from being able to whip up a pleasing meal, but it's a start; I should do more staples-stocking this weekend, if I get around to making a list. The peanut butter (crunchy) and jelly (grape, in a squeezable plastic bottle) sandwich was the best thing I've had in awhile, and the cold, non-rotten milk was heavenly. It's funny that I enjoyed this more than the Spanish omelette that I had at a cafe for my 2pm 'breakfast' (you can tell I took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in!)--but I was annoyed that I paid $10 for an omelette and a diet coke when I could have made the same thing for a fraction of the price. Or, gone back to India and had four or five lackeys make me the same thing for a fraction of the price. Either way, there are times when I'm fine paying $10 for breakfast because I live in California and everything is expensive here and I really didn't feel like cooking anyway; there are other times when $10 seems like highway robbery. Today was a highway robbery day, so maybe that will encourage me to cook more in the future.

Despite my rather late start, I managed to thoroughly clean my kitchen, do the dishes, and reorganize the refrigerator and my cabinets. I also unpacked a couple of the boxes still in the living room. However, I had made the mistake of browsing at Walgreens while waiting for some prescriptions to be filled, which led to the even bigger mistake of buying a romance novel. It was 'Match Me If You Can', Susan Elizabeth Phillips' latest effort, which has just come out in paperback. Her storylines are becoming a bit formulaic (granted, this is to be expected of romance novels)--but all of her stories are rather similar, particularly the ones in the series she has going about the fictional Chicago Stars football team. In a nutshell, a brainy, adorably-insane girl falls in love with a drop-dead gorgeous athlete with a surprisingly-large brain to match his killer instincts. Basically, it's like porn for women--while porn for men is dominated by hot chicks and average-looking guys, these novels contain absurdly-handsome men and women who sound like they might actually be real women (even though they aren't). Unlike porn for men, however, there is much more plot and much less sex. And, while Phillips' storylines are all the same, her dialogue is always snappy and amusing, so her plots can be forgiven. Of course, despite all my good intentions to put my house in order, I threw in the towel around seven, and read the book straight through (with that one break to buy peanut butter and jelly). Now, I should consider going to bed, since I do want to accomplish things tomorrow. Goodnight!