nat 20s

I made pitas on Thursday. The starter wasn't quite ready yet and still isn't, but I've been resisting buying bread and wanted to eat. I rolled out about six loaves with enough dough that probably could have made ten, if not more. They were thick and doughy, barely cooked inside with a crunchy exterior. Half of them did puff up a little while cooking, and I was able to cut one open enough to make a pocket to fill with hummus I'd made earlier in the week. I had to cut two fully across like a bagel, which still worked to make sammiches.

I spent the afternoon at the historical society and the evening reviewing the material I brought home with me. I'm presenting in March and still don't have an angle but I do have this newfound equanimity to lean on in the meantime. Between baking, brewing, tree tending, garden planning, dating, hacking, and researching I worried one night that I might be overwhelmed. Then I thought that trees and bread make great children because they do most of the work themselves, and the pendulum settled into a whelmed position. I do have basil that's been working overtime, growing leggy and trying to flower in a cold window. I took cuttings to propagate the plants and used the stripped leaves to make a red sauce. I added a can of chickpeas and called it Italian curry, which I ate with Japanese style rice from California.

A cold snap rolled in Friday so we spent most of the day inside eating bread and curry. It was still cold on Saturday, but I was able to walk with the dogs and make it out to the opening of an arcade. I stopped at a comic book shop beforehand to offer some old tabletop supplies I wanted to cycle. Leo and I played Dungeons and Dragons together almost a decade ago and he'd bought a starter pack and books to foster the hobby. Rather than donate them blindly I asked the shop owner if he had any gaming groups that could use them, but he didn't. A customer came up to inquire how much I was asking and I told them they could have them if they were interested, which they were. I handed over what I had then turned to leave. I overheard the new player beaming to their friend how eager they'd been to start, and I granted myself an inspiration point.

I met friends in line to get into the arcade and we gamed for about an hour. We remarked about how crowded it was for the opening and that we had more to look forward to later, sentiments I heard from others as well. I played Mr. Do, Galaga, Asteroids, Ms. Pac-Man, and some flying game I cursed for having been designed as a quarter stealing game, though admission was a flat $5 for all we could play, which a friend paid for me. I only saw an issue on one of the consoles, where it seemed somebody nearly managed to open a browser. We went to a brewery later that also just opened an arcade inside their facility where I had a vanilla porter and played The Simpsons.

I made cornbread yesterday and strawberry jam on Friday. I've barely dipped into the jam, which I'm attributing to the current bread situation, though it did come out tasty. I'd bought the berries for last weekend's date but never ate them and wanted to process them before they spoiled. I had another date last night, and we ate the cornbread with guacamole he brought. The jam abides.

Today I baked a loaf of bread. The dough had barely risen and I overcooked it, but it's edible and now the entire loaf is pre-toasted. I cut it into thirds then cut a chunk in half long ways to make two extra thick slices for a hummus sammich. I scooped out the top "slice" and put my jaw to work crunching through the bottom slice. I have another one baking now and another that will go in tomorrow. The starter is building strength, and I'd rather eat the discard and force the learning process. The beer yeast hasn't cultivated at all so I still haven't pitched that, another project pending attention but abiding.

This morning I made oatmeal with coffee for the liquid. I like oat milk in my coffee but ran out of milk on my first cup of the day. So I thought I'd invert the process and add the coffee to the oats with some maple, ground cinnamon and cloves, and vanilla. It tasted alright but was "thin", for lack of a better word, presumably for lack of fat. If I had coconut oil I'd try adding that but I don't so tomorrow morning's breakfast will be another experiment in pantry scrounging.

I drove my friends to the bar Saturday night. I had planned to stop at the dispensary near them on our way out anyway so it made practical sense. I thought that the $30 cash I had wouldn't be enough but I found an eighth for exactly that much. The cashier told me that with points and discounts the price came down to a few bucks so I asked for another of the same thing, and that's how I wound up with a quarter for $22. The friends I picked up switched to green porch lights for the Eagles so after cleaning the house today I vacuumed the leaves and webs out of my lamps and changed my bulbs, too.