Getting to normal

There a 30+ year-old Bruce Cockburn song called The Trouble With Normal, and he sings, “But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse”. He’s talking about apathy and politics, but also how elusive “normal” is – and that’s pretty much how I feel. Behind on work stuff, not getting enough exercise, not eating right, not doing anything creative. I started moving my recipes to a new Word Press, but it’s hardly there yet.

I feel like I just can’t get caught back up after being out of town last week.

Wednesday – Valentine’s Day, and Florida school shooting – was my first day back at work, so that was hardly normal. I drove to work – also abnormal – because I thought I’d drive out to the Hawthorne Branch public library to take election official training, after my online class where my remote presenter was coming in person because she couldn’t get the web conferencing software to work on the city’s locked down computers. But I didn’t. After work I took advantage of having the car, and went and bought fancy chocolate and stopped at the co-op. We had baked potatoes and salad and cheesecake and chocolates for dinner.

Thursday we went to dinner – Mark wanted to take his girls – me & our student – out for belated Valentines. We went to a small plates place, which I’ve decided makes you tend to eat more because you think it’s less.

I ordered a salad and pork belly with ramen. Hanne got beef and their mac & cheese, which is spaetzel, Mark got the mushroom pasta, and we also ordered two bread plates and the half chicken to share. I had the below martini and a glass of wine, and we even splurged on dessert – an apple caramel cake with ice cream. I felt way too overindulged the next day. Here’s the menu we chose from.

On Friday, I thought about working at home, but settled for a plan where I went in, did a phone interview, then bussed to the library, and walked home. We had Madison Symphony, a German cellist (I liked him but not the piece he played). I made baguette sandwiches for a little pre-concert dinner using a baguette from the freezer, Hanne’s tomato pesto that we bought for her to eat while we were at ALA, fresh mozzarella, acquired for same purpose, chicken from our doggie bag and turkey meatballs. So a light dinner and I got enough steps, Friday anyways.

Saturday I went to yoga, having missed the last two classes. Groceries, then home to meet with Hanne’s AFS liaison. I put out hummus made with almond butter and peeled some clementines. After, we trekked out to Bed Bath Beyond in the snow to get better pillows for Hanne.

I made a radicchio & squash risotto for dinner and then we went to see Black Panther, like everybody else that weekend. I bought the tickets at 9:30 in the morning and the last row was the best I could do. We didn’t walk, unfortunately, since Mark reported that the new snow on top of the old ice was getting slippy and would be worse in the dark.

I liked Michael Herriot’s commentary – and Killmonger was wrong and y’all know it, by Jason Jones – but hey, I’m wypipo.

Sunday was maybe the most abnormal of all. We had tickets for a piano recital in Chicago, Mitsuko Uchida, that started at 3:00. At 8:30 we left and drove to the train, had brunch in Chicago at 1:30, dropped stuff at the apartment, went to the concert, and I was back on the 6:00 bus back to Madison. Home by 9:30. A 13-hour day trip. Whew.