Sabbatical 2013, Day 6

Note: These Sabbatical posts cover only my weekday experiences. I would normally have the weekends off, so writing about my activities then is not remarkable. Also, I will try to avoid doing anything remarkable on the weekends in order to further enhance these entries.

I seem to be falling into a rut: wake up, feed the zoo, take Gemma on a walk, have some breakfast at home, lose track of time until noon or so. Of course, the animals have to be fed, and I appreciate the exercise I get from walking Gemma, but I hoped for a bit more at this point in my sabbatical. I had hoped to walk to a different breakfast place every day, for instance, but I’m pretty tired by the time Gemma and I are home from our 45-60 minute outing. I’d also considered going to the movies, but not much that’s out now is good, and I have to finish my classwork this week.

Today I had some leftover waffles and bacon for breakfast. I watched some TV I taped on Sunday, then I needed a nap. After the nap, I had some leftovers for lunch (finished off the last of my brisket, and some rice). I made lunch for Annette (roasted tandoori-marinated halibut and biryani couscous with peas), then drove Annette back to work.

After that, I was off to Costco. Yes, I go there a lot. They have stuff. If I don’t at least look at the stuff, it will go away and it will be my fault.  Also, Cecilia was out of dentatoochies (her word for dental treats), so I had to go there. We also needed bread, salmon, peas and corn. What I didn’t know until I got there was that we also needed frozen french fries, kielbasa, sauerkraut, and (for some reason) a five-pound bag of gluten-free flour.

In terms of samples, they had chicken burgers (not great), spinach ravioli (they are always sampling some kind of ravioli), onion rings (excellent!), potstickers (they were only steamed, should have been sauteed), tomato-basil soup (meh), bite-sized pizza bagels (good, but not very bagel-y; believe me, I tried two of them), a lovely sharp, white cheddar cheese, and tortilla shells. I had a couple moments of weakness where I  picked up a bag of chocolate chips, and a box of brownie mix, but I put both of them back on the shelf. So much strength for one person in a single day!

Since Costco did not have the proper buns for the kielbasa, I went to another store for those, as well as some other buns for the last of my homemade pulled pork.

Annette finished work early, so I picked her up and brought her home while I jumped in the shower to go to the library and work on my paper. It’s not required to shower before going to the library in my town, but since I hadn’t had one since Thursday night, I figured it was time. Additionally, I’m not sure people were still buying the explanation of my appearance (told them I was in the middle of camping).

The quiet of the library was a welcome and productive change from the distractions of home, but the library has distractions of its own. Apparently I sat in the religion section, as I noticed a number of books on Catholicism nearby, and a tome titled, “Hitler’s Priests.” I stayed at the library for almost three hours, then headed home to cook up some of the french fries and have a beer.