Asking an adventurous pesco-vegetarian, a finicky omnivore, and the master of Lipton side dishes and grilled cheese to decide amongst themselves what meal they can collectively cook and eat is somewhere between comedy and challenge. Last Tuesday Laurel came over to make dinner with Kat and I, and after a limited amount of fussing we wound up taking a stab at a spinach quiche recipe that my mother and i have been making for years now. The quiche met all of our pre-requisites … meatless, cheesy, and relatively basic in preparation. We added a side order of perogies and suddenly we had a healthy (and rather yummy) meal assembled within the span of an hour. While serving up the food i lamented that i wanted a cookbook that was “Vegetarian, but with meat. You know, like, a cookbook for lapsed and reformed vegetarians.”
We all got a laugh out of my meandering description of the perfect cookbook, and yesterday while wandering in and out of used book stores in New Hope with Elise i actually found what i was looking for. Almost Vegetarian is a smartly compiled book that veers between rare herbivore delicacies and more modest meaty fare, peppered throughout with tips on advanced preparation and vegetable shopping in green ink. I bought it immediately, for a surprising eight dollars, considering it’s in absolutely perfect condition.
I love those coincidental moments that life offers up, as though a bookstore was fated to carry a particular book on a certain day just because i was too inarticulate after baking for nearly an hour to describe what my ideal cookbook would really feature. Chalk one up for serendipity, i suppose.
people
As quickly as this strange week began it ended with Elise and I fitting two guitars into her backseat ontop of a puzzle of luggage piled ontop of Kat and Jason. I was back up the stairs before they pulled away… maybe in a rush to attempt to write it all down, or maybe not really wanting to see them all leave.
The plan started out simply enough. Kat had no intentions of flying back to California for break, and instead was going to split her time between Jason’s oft-mocked farm somewhere else in Pennsylvania, and Elise’s in New Jersey. The plan was for her to crash here for a night or two inbetween destinations.
Of course, i know better than anyone else that plans change, and then you make other plans. When initial Jason-related plans fell through Kat decided she’d spend a few extra days here, and then Elise decided that she didn’t really want to go home for more than a day or so, which meant that Kat and Elise were effectively staying in my apartment for the entirety of the week. Add Jason driving in to Philadelphia on four separate days to hang out and Kat’s friend Nika flying in from California yesterday morning, and we had a house chock full of people.
Even with my normal roomies and all of their various guests here at any time, i never feel like this house is full. They are rarely my guests, even if they’re my friends, and so i can float in and out of their conversations on a whim to retreat back to my room and play guitar, blog, or sleep. This was different… not only because all of the guests were mine, but because Lindsay and Erika were largely absent for the rest of the week. The result was the bizarro perception that Kat & Elise were my roommates … they have their own roommate interactions down to a science after six months in the dorms, Elise and i have our own special back and forth banter, and Kat and i have a comically natural ease around each other.
So it was a week of living outside of my life while being directly in the middle of it … a week of inside out. A week of making breakfast and dinner, and calling to say when i might be home, and running to the grocery store because we had drank all of the milk. A week of belting out Ani songs with Kat for hours in a row, and of Elise making wry commentary on … well, on just about every silly little thing i’m prone to do on a day to day basis.
Everything’s back to normal now… everyone’s back from their various Spring Break exploits, sitting in my living room basking in the glow of the credits of Jay and Silent Bob. And, you know, for a minute i was a little bit jealous of the fact that none of them spent the entirety of the week in Philadelphia. But, honestly, i had a vacation from my day-to-day existence too, and i didn’t have to pay, fly, or drive to get to it.
My apologies for the many silences i’ve left you with in the last week — hopefully i’ll be back to normal starting tomorrow. If you can call this normal ;)
It’s the same old house to me, really, no matter what. I’ve only been here for a little over half a year, but even the slopey ceilings and bare brick walls started losing their effect on me a while ago, and now nothing about it is thrilling. I suppose it’s hard for thrill and comfort to cohabitate in one place for too long, and now it’s just become ‘home’ rather than anything else. It’s a place for me to be weary, and to watch teevee, and to cook dinner. But, this morning we were all in the kitchen having waffles, ice cream, or both, and Elise looked to her left and said “it’s colorful.”
Following her gaze my first thought was that she was just looking out the window at the siding of the house next to us, which is just about anything but colorful — no matter how sunny it might be on the outside. But, it wasn’t the window she was staring at, but its sill. Our kitchen windowsill has become our makeshift house wetbar, and even at its current low tide it’s a cross-sectioned rainbow of apple green Pucker, the deep blue bottles of Skyy and irish cream, and the too clear Smirnoff letting the sun fall right through it.
“Colorful?” I pondered it more than i asked it. I suppose even the most routine of comfortable things are still thrilling in the right light.
A half hour later Kat was framing up a picture of the shadows that our blinds cast against the curtains, with Elise coaching on what to leave out of the edge, and inside it felt like we had rewound back past spring to last summer, and the wonder i had in my eyes at this place when it was empty and unfinished.
I am enjoying all of the seasons i have collected, as much as i am enjoying the spring that has now officially arrived.
“What are you doing?”
“Hooking up Super Nintendo?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what i do when i’m sick.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Do you know how to play Secret of Mana?”
My fan is acting in the place of crickets and i peck as softly as i can at the keys. She yells at me for beating on her keyboard sometimes, because i seem to be under the impression that the harder i type the more effective my words will be. She’s asleep, i think, and here i am being gentler with my own keyboard than i usually am with hers.
The fan is acting in the place of crickets because everything has been rendered silent by the cool air it is pulling in from outside, with just enough chill in it to remind me that it’s not quite spring yet. I love wrapping myself up in that air and my blankets, but i am always sorry for it in the morning when i am redressed in a scratchy throat and dewy skin.
Erika has disappeared for the night. Lindsay has flown off to another state entirely. The neighbor has his lights off and his blinds closed. Kat is across the house from here, silent if not asleep. The fan and my tiny clacking keys are the only sounds in this room other than breath slowly sighing, and when i remember to breathe. It is only me that’s left to tiptoe to my bed, careful not to interrupt this perfect peace i have found myself situated within.