So now! I have a self-imposed deadline of October 3 for finishing my paper. Are you surprised to know that I am procrastinating even now? I have been re-watching episodes of NewsRadio and playing a stupid game on my phone in the evenings, in between plugging away at the paper and lamenting the darkness that is already encroaching way too early in the day. The Brit just left the country for a couple of weeks, so the idea is that the solitude will force me to work. Or will it force me to pet cats? I'll let you know how it all shakes down.
Speaking of cats, Ace has been acting all weird, so I took him to the vet this afternoon. We're not good on routine medical care, either for ourselves or our beasties, so I felt guilty about waiting until Ace was kind of hiding out and ignoring his food and acting strange around his water dish and being confusing about whether or not he wants affection (normally he's all love all the time) to get him to the vet. We'll know tomorrow whether there's anything on his blood panel or urinalysis to be concerned about, but at least the vet didn't palpate Ace and go "yeah it's chronic renal failure," which is what Dr Google, DVM was leading me to believe over the weekend. Happily, I liked the vet a lot and he's in the neighborhood, and even though Ace didn't enjoy the outing, at least he did't completely tweak out in the office. However, he did unleash a fresh piss in his carrier on the way home, which meant I had to dunk him in the tub, which meant he hated me for a short time and cleaned himself for a long time. Now he's been crashed out for about 4 hours. I hope the health news is good.
Here's what I just ate for dinner at 9 PM (very euro):
I often eat the same thing, or some variation of it, for breakfast. That's a Trader Joe's veggie masala burger, which is basically like a delicious spicy hashbrown thing that has no business on a bun, plus some collards, carrots, and chickpeas that I quick saute-braised with curry powder and lemon juice. And that's a little raita on the side that I made with yogurt, tomatoes (from our pathetic yet fruitful plants), cilantro, and green onions.
I also tried making pizza with a chickpea flour crust last week. It was kind of a disaster because my pan was all wrong; I used this recipe, which has you cook the thing on the stovetop and finish it in the oven in the same pan. Still, it tasted great--it had roasted tomatoes, sauteed zucchini and onions, kalamata olives, and feta on it--but it never really crisped up. I'll definitely try again, maybe treating the batter more like a pancake or crepe (socca, which I guess is what this recipe technically is). It's a pretty slick way to eat a pizza-like THING that's more nutritionally dense than your standard wheat crust, and also incidentally gluten-free if you're into that. It would make a great breakfast. Probably tomorrow.
Do you know Laura Marling, and if so, what do you think? I'm listening on Spotify right now. Some of the album skews a little bit Starbucksy but there's this one song they've been playing on the Current lately that is so cool and interesting and I am astonished that she is 21, though I don't know why. Maybe because of the genre? Whatever, her singing is fabulous and the songwriting is inventive. There's bad lip-synching here and I wish she wouldn't clench her teeth, but that's just the voice teacher talking. Here's the song.
Officially, this is enough procrastination.
