Food and Flying Away

One thing I've noticed over the past few weeks, is how much time food preparation takes. Seriously, if you're going to eat healthy on a budget, you can't eat out, and you must cook (unless you're a raw food vegan, which I'm not).

Cooking is an interesting proposition for someone who hasn't done much cooking in his 22 years of existence. My idea of cooking was to crack an egg in a pan, throw a slice of bread in the toaster, then combine and eat.

Not so much.

First of all, eggs on toast morning, noon, and night can get old really, really fast. Fortunately, I realized this fairly early in the process. In fact, I understood that my menu had to contain a fair number of meal plans, otherwise meal times were going to be really, really boring. Of course, a varied menu means that food preparation becomes exponentially more complex in a number of ways:

1. Buying more items at the store (my average shopping list involves around 31 different products)
   
2. More food preparation time (unless you're making a smoothie, more ingredients mean more slicing, dicing, and overall organization of everything)
   
3. More clean-up time (pots, pans, utensils, plates, cups, blender, stove-tops, counter-tops, all have to be washed, rinsed, and dried)

All these little details add up, and I find myself spending a lot of time in the kitchen. It typically takes me 45-minutes to prepare, eat, and clean-up breakfast. Lunch is fast--half an hour is all--but dinner averages something like an hour and fifteen minutes. Sum it all up, and we're talking  two-and-a-half hours every day dedicated to eating. It sure helps to put your mom into perspective. No wonder she starts to despise the kitchen after 20-years of preparing meals.

Time to change the subject.

Sure, cooking is interesting and all, but it doesn't really capture my attention, so my writing on the subject is going to be as dry as... well... crumbs from that toast I was talking about. So, let's talk about something else. How about flying?

Yep, today I nearly went flying. Involuntarily of course. Monday I got a call from my local Staples, informing me that the whiteboard I ordered was finally in stock. Today I decided to drop by the store on my walk home from work. It seemed a bit gusty (I later saw that we were getting 20 MPH gusts), but no problem. Heck, I'm a heavy weight: 145 pounds dripping wet. No matter that the whiteboard is a 4'x6' monster, and that large flat surfaces aren't exactly wind-friendly. Nope, I was ready to throw caution to the winds and carry that sucker home. 

I wish I could say that the two block walk home was straightforward and easy. Not exactly.

For starters, I had difficulty making it out of Staples. The automatic doors didn't see me (or the box, rather), so I had to enlist the help of a humored employee. So far, so good.

The second problem was that carrying the thing didn't work out so well. The board itself is 76 pounds. Add the 14 pounds of packaging, and we're talking an extremely awkward box that weighs almost 2/3rds of what I do. I ended up dragging it the half-mile to my apartment. Not so good, but hey, at least I was moving.

The third problem was the gusts. Yes, unfortunately physics apply to my life in a myriad of wonderful ways. It wasn't the dragging on the sidewalk that was the main problem. No, the main problem was the two busy intersections I had to cross. My crossing trajectory was perpendicular to the wind, so, you guessed it, I ended up staggering to and fro like a drunken sailor, trying to keep my box under control.

It was definitely slow going. But on the bright side, I haven't talked to as many strangers in my entire month here in Corvallis. Yep, I felt like a celebrity. The guy who sticks clearest in my mind was the roofer who tried showing me a better way to carry my burden. The poor fella loaded it onto his back, like a piece of plywood, just as one of those 20 MPH gusts came hurtling along. He quickly agreed that dragging was an excellent mode of transportation.

Just so you know, the board is safely in my apartment. By the sweat of my brow and at the expense of my pride, the board is safely in my apartment. My folks got a great laugh out of the whole story. I'm just glad that no one thought to take pictures... hopefully.

And there you have it. A double feature on food and flying (or trying to). Just remember. These experiences are prime examples of what you shouldn't do. A homeschooler living solo is a very dangerous proposition. Enough said.