It's Fall and the trailer is perpetually empty these days. Brian lives with his girlfriend (slash wife in one week) at Henry's sister's place a few miles away and Mustard is spending more and more time working on his restaurant-to-be, leaving me the place to myself more often than not. Instead of the suspected outcome of a much cleaner and neater dude-free household, I'm again faced with the sad truth that the dishes in the sink are mine, the dirt on the carpet came from my shoes, and the toothpaste speckles on the mirror only could have come from yours truly. In short, I can't blame these dudes anymore for being slobs and I'm not pushing myself to be cleaner when no one is going to see the place but me. I am, however, getting tons of reading done, writing is underway, and the daunting amount of food piled in every bowl on the counter, tetris-ed in our fridge, and overflowing from half-bushel baskets on our floor takes major precedence over vacuuming the matted sand colored living room carpet. Always.
Since I'm probably venturing West and will probably do so by plane, I've given up freezing the incredible excess of food around this place and have made valiant but ever-failing attempts to limit how many vegetables Mustard and I bring back to the Trailer. Reasonable-Val says, “We only need to bring back the stuff we'll eat the next few days. Piles of food are available Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays-- we don't need to each bring a basket home every time.” But then a small voice asks “but what the hell are you going to eat this winter? Get a U-haul, you cheap-ass and use the money you would spend on plane tickets, shipping your thousand books and kitchen gear, and on future groceries to haul a gigantic cooler full of food across the country...”
Maybe. Anyone up for a road trip? I have loads of kale popsicles for the journey.
So disregarding the voice for one more week, I'm mentally preparing myself for my Monday food-day ahead. Usually I'll go to Market on Saturday, hang out in Bloomington Sunday and then Monday is major Trailer go-time. Me versus the “For Us-es”-- the market rejects that we treat like those little grannies raised during the 30's who fill their purses with sugar packets; we just can't seem to leave the stuff behind. I have bowls upon bowls of winter squashes giving me dour little stares from the countertops, pleading not to be forgotten for yet another day: delicatas, acorns, pumpkins, and spaghetti, all mere days, hours, yikes, from the compost pit if I don't do something about them soon. the first of our tiny little sweet potatoes are tantalizingly heaped up in a bowl next to one of our 3 big bowls of potatoes. Must. Eat. Squashes. First. Sigh. Bread is on the rise, and the fridge is so full of greens: mustards, chois, the last of the amaranth, that a greens pie or three might be in order.
Shit, I just walked back from the bathroom and found another bucket full of squashes and potatoes on the ground, deposited by some dastardly fairy in the night (or flung down at the front door by my sluggish, sleep-deprived post-harvest day self). Greens pies, pumpkin pies, butter crust city. Population: Val.
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