PICI

Two Years Later

It's funny, or maybe telling that my best idea for a life-plan remains the same. Except that now the diner is vegetarian.

My mid-year resolution is to write more. SInce I am no longer trotting the globe, I've ditched dirty toes for the time-being and am resurrecting The Sliv. (Better name anyway).

When I get internet in my place and a nice writing station set up, I'll be sure to hit the blog. hard.

Other kinds of dreams

It's 6:52 am and I've been awake for an hour. I slept horribly last night on account of a) the caffeine and sugar I ingested at 10 pm last night and b) some weird-ass dreams.

Picture a pool full of ramen with a dead chef floating in it. The man is wearing a red wet-suit and goggles, Ramen is wrapped around his neck. The scene suggests that the ramen has to be harvested and grows in formations similar to large kelp-beds. In this dream I am both a customer and the ramen monster. As the customer, I watch as my dining partner questions the waitress (who I'm pretty sure is this Turkish girl in my Italian classes--she had awesome butt-length curly black hair) on the pink, fishy-smelling broth. Though I say nothing, it is clear that neither I, nor my dining partner, (unknown character, male) is interested in her food--I believe mine gurgles at me.

Then, as though by way of explanation, my dream pans to the dead chef seen from underwater. My POV has now switched to that of the Ramen monster. I have obviously attacked the chef. The waitress enters the kitchen/ramen pool room and talks to some kitchen minion. I think she's stoked the chef has been strangled by the ramen but nervous about "what lies beneath." Now I'm looking up at her from the bottom of the 15 ft deepish tank. Her head waves into view as she looks apprehensively down into the depths of the ramen pool. At this point, my creepy-ass self zooms up from the bottom of the pool grabs her hands. She screams and I wake up.

Weird.

Dreams

When I own my diner with a rooftop garden, I will be sure to include the following offerings:

Cinnamon coffee and donuts
Bombdiggity pies of all persuasions
Incredible, edible ice cream
Things floral and fruity
Vegetables roasty and toasty
Yolks that are runny
and duh, biscuits.

I can't wait to work harder for less return than anyone else I know!

thoughts on breakfast

This (late) morning, as I poured myself three different types of cereal in my preferred ratio, I thought to all my funny breakfast habits of the past--to my refusal to eat anything but rice pudding in early elementary school, to my shift to frosted mini-wheats with the milk in a separate mug in the fifth grade. (This was a particularly OCD breakfast phase concentrated on preserving the integrity of the cereal's crunchiness and the distinctness of its parts: I would individually place each mini-wheat, frosted-side-up, onto a large soup spoon and then dunk that spoon into my milk-filled mug. This way I didn't run into the problem of unnaturally sweet non-fat milk and bland, soggy mini-wheats. genius.) Then I hit middle-school and became even more of a persnickity breakfast eater in the sense that I couldn't be bothered by it. I would wake up fifteen minutes before leaving to go to school and my cussing, hates-to-be-late, father would worry over feeding me. This usually meant a luke-warm sampling of his interpretation of scrambled eggs on a paper plate in the car. Or, on a good day, sugar toast. Gross.

At a certain point in High School, I discovered the pleasures of a social weekend brunch. Eggs and bacon and bagels and cheese and ham and butter, syrup, waffles... I have few fonder memories than of the times spent with my best girl-friends over hot cocoa and swedish pancakes at the Original Pancake House in Encinitas. In Virginia I added biscuits, potato flour donuts and hash to that list of cardiac arresters and enjoyed them in the ambiance of smoky diners insulated by the rustling of fall leaves and mountain winds.

I can thank Italy for adding coffee to my morning ritual: Thank you, Italy; and Virginia for Escalara Roasters: Thank you, Virginia.

In conclusion, I look forward to my next Breakfast obsession.

Ode to 1954

Today I ate a deliciously crafted BLT alongside a strong cup of coffee, watched "Mad Men" and knitted a baby's hat. The only element missing was layered clouds of cigarette smoke and an ashtray piled with stale butts.