Miscellaneous Monday

I don’t know what to write about today, so I’m going to just throw a bunch of stuff at you. Here goes.

Regarding the meme above, this is how I felt when we were in France last year. The names of the towns we stayed in were pronounced completely differently than they looked to my American eyes. Mougins is pronounced ‘MOO-jan‘ with a soft j, short a, and a soft n. Click the link to hear. Vincennes is a little closer to how it looks, VA-sen, with a short A. One of the stops on our train ride between Paris and Vincennes is Nation, pronounced NA-si-on, with all short vowels. My pronunciation of French should be illegal it is so horrific. But I adore France so much, I hope to go back many times.

It’s Monday, and pretty soon I need to go to the grocery store. As you know, I go almost every day. I think I know what I am going to make this week. Here’s what I have so far:

• Monday – Red Lentil Soup with Warm Spices – I will also cook some chicken for Ted to add to his soup. Maya and I will have it with some French bread. I’m toying with the idea of adding some spinach, which I haven’t tried before.
• Tuesday – I’m thinking Turkey Meatloaf for Ted and me (old post, picture is broken, sorry). I haven’t yet decided what I will make for Maya. Perhaps I’ll make her some fake turkey meatloaf, maybe an impossible burger patty with the same sides we have, or maybe I’ll just go rogue and make her some pasta. Or grilled cheese, she loves grilled cheese. I could put some pear inside it, which would be delicious. Hmmm.
• Wednesday – I think I’ll make this White Bean Tuna Salad. It goes into heavy rotation around here, because it is delicious, it is healthy, and it is easy. Also not too spendy, though I do splurge and get imported tuna. Maya is mostly vegetarian, but loves tuna and will eat this, so I don’t need to make a separate dish.
• Thursday – I like to roast a couple of chicken breasts in my toaster oven, and make a green salad. Maya will have her salad with fake chicken (which we call ‘ficken’) I have some homemade Roquefort dressing that is delicious on chicken and salad, though my favorite balsamic vinaigrette is also really good.
• Friday is takeout, and Ted cooks on the weekend, so I believe I am all set. This is more planning than I generally do, and only time will tell if I stick to it or not.

I had a lovely weekend…Friday, Mulder and I started out by dropping Maya off to work, and then we had a nice walk downtown. I like our little downtown, and it’s fun to walk around before the shops open, as it is much quieter. We had to stay until shops opened at 10:00, because I had a return to make. My town is very dog friendly, and most stores will allow you to bring your dog inside, and Mulder is always extremely popular. While we were wandering and waiting, Ted’s mom called and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with her. Um, yes please! So after we finished our errands, I came home and got ready, and then we (I brought Mulder) drove the 20 minutes to her house. Mulder stayed at the house with Ted’s dad, and my MIL and I went out for a delicious lunch. Mulder LOVES their back yard, which is big and has grass and lots of interesting things to smell, and he loves to run around and bark at things. We went to a place that Ted and his mom go to semi-regularly, but I hadn’t been to before, Smith’s Landing. We had a table right by the water, and got to see a group of 5th graders going out on a science boat to learn about the Delta, as well as a couple of large ships making their way from the inland port in Stockton out to the ocean under the Golden Gate. It was lovely.

What else? Well, I watched one of my favorite movies on HBO yesterday, Before Sunset. Have you seen this series of movies? There are 3 films, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. In the first movie, Before Sunrise, Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) meet on a train going to Vienna. He is American, she is French, and it is the mid-1990s. She is on her way to Paris (I think), and he has to catch a flight from Vienna back to the US, and does not have money to stay in a hotel, so is planning to walk around Vienna all night. They are young and why the hell not, so she joins him. They walk and talk and eat a bit and fall in love. At the end of the film, she gets on her train, and they promise to meet in Vienna again in 6 months. In Before Sunset, it is 9 years later. They did not meet in Vienna as planned, nor did they exchange phone numbers, so they have lost track. Celine is living in Paris, and Jesse is now an author, there on a book tour. More walking and talking happens. This is my favorite of the 3 films. The third film, Before Midnight, takes place in 2013, and Jesse and Celine are on vacation with their children in Greece. They are at a bit of a crossroads, with Jesse wanting to move to Chicago to be nearer his son (with his first wife), and Celine contemplating a job with the French government. I wrote a review when it came out (again, the picture doesn’t work, sorry – clearly I am neglectful of my blog when pictures go awry.) I suspect I will be watching the first and third installments as well, while they are available on HBO.

Last note, then I need to get to the store or we won’t have anything for dinner. I am currently reading a book with an interesting premise, ‘The Midnight Library‘. The premise is interesting, sort of parallel lives or quantum physics. When you die, you find yourself in your own library, with a seemingly infinite number of books. One book is your life as you lived it, and the others all branch off from different decisions that you make. The protagonist, Nora, has a lot of regrets about how she chose to live her life. She feels as though she has made bad decision after bad decision. Now she has the chance to see how her life might have turned out, if she had made different choices. If you are in one of these other realities, and discover that that particular option would not have been any better, if you have regrets about that choice, you pop back to the library. So far she’s gone through 2 or three decisions, some larger than others. I’m enjoying it.

OK, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed your weekend, that Monday is kind, and that you have your dinner figured out by now…