No, I did not get enough sleep. Again. Is this extremely dumb? Oh yes, it is.
On the bright side, my thumb continues to get better. Phew.
Yesterday was spent mostly getting ready for the barbecue we had been invited to. Husband picked tons of stuff from the garden and we changed plans on what to cook and eat when several times. I had decided to skip running and call walking to and from train stations exercise.
When planning all the salads we also realized that we were lacking a key ingredient (we also lacked another one but didn’t find out until it was too late, oops) so I first walked to the health food store.
Then there was the washing, sorting and chopping. When you use stuff from your own garden it is often twice the work, at least. For example you have to wash each leaf of salad individually to get rid of all the bugs and dirt. We had to chase ants out of the zucchini blossoms as well.
In the end we could have done with more bulgur and black olives so this was our lunch:
I made up for the difference in chocolate.
Then we got busy making tabouleh and green salad and packed sun screen, bug spray, water, two bottles of alcohol-free beer and our swimming stuff.
In between the boy woke up, was very underwhelmed by what was offered for lunch, and when I told him that I could understand but that having delicious home-cooked meals just sitting there on the table for you is a bit of a privilege, he said that he would cook more often but that we didn’t have the ingredients. So I told him he was free to put things on the grocery list any time. And what he would want to cook in any way.
Turned out one of the things on his imaginary list was pasta with tomato sauce, so I told him to go and make himself some, we have everything in the house that’s needed for that.
And then I talked him into making himself lunch. And we got talking about herbs and spices and that he can’t expect everyone to have a whole cupboard stuffed with spices. In our house a lot of them aren’t even labeled, you have little glass jars of herbs that my husband grew in the garden, picked and dried and then you’re expected to know what’s in there by smell.
The boy told about visiting his friend last week and that they went out to buy him at least a few spices to cook with. That friend seems to be the kind of person who thinks adding things detracts from the genuine taste of the thing. Which feels weird when you grew up up in a house where sometimes the food is more green herbs than anything else. (That would be the boy, not me. My mother used to own a very small range of spices but has become a little more adventurous in recent years. That’s what watching cooking shows can do to you.)
My husband and I set out to catch train and were hit with a wave of heat. I felt very smug for adding freezer packs to our bags. The train ride went well, on the way we overheard a gentleman behind us talking with his son (I assume) and my husband said, I don’t know what that language is. It sounds like Indian but different, and the gentleman called over, „It’s Punjabi.“ A little embarrassing but also informative.
We walked from the train station down to the Wörthsee in oppressing heat and – were the first to arrive.
All in all things were very nice, as always with barbecues the fire was started way too late, and as always my husband and I seemed to be the only ones who were hungry but we just started on the salad early.
And then I wore my new bathing suit outside for the first time ever and went swimming in the lake for the first time in years. It was very nice. And cold. And – unlike my husband – I had even remembered to bring bathing shoes because it’s all gravel there, all the way into the water. Which reminds me that I have wanted to get nicer ones for a decade or more.
Meeting people is something we don’t often do outside of work so it always takes a bit of adjustment. There were only eight of us, most of them my husband’s age and also most of them went to school together. I sometimes find it baffling to hear how other people think about life and what kind of explanations they give for things. Like, „My marriage failed because I have Venus in Taurus, my wife and daughter are both Taurus but my Venus is all in 90°-angles to the rest of my horoscope.“ Sure. That explains everything.
We left pretty early because we still needed to trek up the hill and catch a train but there was still time for a short detour down to the lake:
At home we unpacked, very happy that we hadn’t need our mosquito deterrent, talked briefly, then I sat down, did not drink another real beer (the choices at the barbecue were warm, tepid water, warm beer or warm red wine, so I had a beer once our own reserves were empty), watched some Duolingo and turned the lights out past midnight.
I’ll be taking things slow today, methinks.
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