sandwich

My workday is like a p.b.andj. On whole wheat.

The first slice of bread is the early morning work I do at home. On some days, when my classes start at 9:30, that slice of bread needs to be on the plate and ready for action by 6. If I dawdle and surf the Internet for a few wasted minutes, I can get quite behind.

Then comes the peanut butter. Teaching. At school. The bulk of the day is spent on this, and even when the last class ends at 2:30, I have students in my office and so I am quite glued to the campus for a while. Peanut butter is a sticky substance.

Of course, sometimes I let myself slap some jelly onto this heap. I dash down the hill to pick up a coffee. Bliss. (Except today when it was too windy for it to be bliss.)

I'm typically home by five. Then I have the final slice of whole wheat, and this is the tough part -- I take out the next day's work and I try to make progress. Sometimes I'll have a burst of energy, but typically I am too hungry (no, no time in all this for lunch), too tired, and I have too many emails to catch up with and so progress on anything else is very very slow.

At some point, usually after a glass of wine (which has it's disadvantages as it makes me hugely sleepy), I sit down to post.

The routine is so predictable that it demands an occasional reshuffle. But, those of you who do the p.b.andj. thing on a regular basis know how hard it is to shake an addiction to a more or less workable routine.

Still, today I went with baloney*. On whole wheat, with mustard.

Yes, I started with the slice of bread: yes, at 6 -- no time wasted today, so that I was ready to head out, class prepared, breakfast eaten, etc etc by 8:30. I didn't want to bike (too windy and too late a return tonight), so I went halvsies: bus for half the route (2 miles), walk for the remainder (1.5).

And what a walk it was!










Blew my sanity right out the door. Shush! (Hurricane strength winds noted in Wisconsin.)


Then the mustard -- the classes, one, two, three, and the students, one, and another... and then I did not go home. I worked late and met daughters downtown...





....for an off the square dinner at Kitchen -- the new baby of friends of mine (okay, I admit it -- children of friends -- I'm that old)...


 



So this is the baloney part. Aptly labeled, I think, as the restaurant is especially strong in the meat department.

Oh! Do they do meats well!





Actually, they do everything well. The meat plate, the berry salad, the beans and rabbit, the chocolate with the sprinkle of sea salt... amazing.


The trouble was with the last slice of bread: too tired to slap it on at home. You could say that today it was an open face sandwich.

*metaphorically speaking; I haven't eaten baloney since I was a kid; I don't even know if they still make it...