7/22

i'm thankful that i am no longer doing what i was doing a lot this winter, which was trying to cram in three or four hours of work on sundays, which was a bad choice because that three or four hours was enough to render sunday just a prelude to monday rather than the day of rest it needs to be. i'm thankful to understand how the lack of hours this created led me to languish in my cooking, whereas when i had an undemanding job i would think nothing much of spending several hours in the kitchen on a sunday, and to be overly fussy about when we went grocery shopping and how that affected my ability to fit that big chunk of work in while also getting in a long run.. i'm thankful for the easier tetris of the day that not overworking myself has created. i'm thankful that though we were out of milk this morning, we had waffles in the freezer and so i made us scrambled eggs and waffles, even though i regretted eating the waffles after eating them as i almost always do because i use way too much syrup and then feel like death from doing that to myself (i'm thankful that i will just eat dry cereal next time). i'm thankful that there was a window in the rain this morning wide enough for us to go grocery shopping and then i'm thankful that d put away the groceries so that i could go running after. i'm thankful that though two thirds of the way through my run my headphone battery died and it almost immediately started raining, my phone is supposedly waterproof, so i ran on and listened to my podcast on the speaker. i'm thankful to cut through dormant construction sites, which gives both the joy of a shortcut and the illicit pleasure of trespassing. i'm thankful for tinned smoked oysters, which i had for the first time today in a long time on ritz crackers for lunch, a meal which was one of my primary modes of sustenance when i was in college. i'm thankful for the game invisible, inc., which isn't normally my kind of thing but which i've been playing on ipad and enjoying.  i'm thankful for the back issues of the new yorker i read this afternoon, especially this horrific/fascinating article by kathryn schulz on stinkbugs. i'm thankful for the satisfaction of trimming the outside from a broccoli stalk, which is enhanced by my knowledge that d loves the inside of a broccoli stalk best. i'm thankful that she made this raspberry ricotta cake, which is one of my favorite summer cakes, and that soon the house will be perfumed with it. i'm thankful that her monstera died, not because i'm happy it died, but because she was bleaching the pot it was in afterward and the smell of the bleach got her to open the windows, which is something we don't do enough and provides nice ambience. i'm thankful that our street is mostly a quiet one. i'm thankful the cake just came out of the oven.