Dinner and a Movie, Sort Of

Miss Petunia Pittypat, puddy tat and Daisy

Yesterday’s lunch didn’t turn out much better than the hamburger-as-salad experiment. I made a tuna salad salad. No, that’s not a typo. You take some romaine lettuce and chop it up small enough to mix into an equal volume of tuna salad and combine the two. When I really pay attention to what I’m eating I get far more picky about what I eat. Who’d a thunk? The tuna, despite the mayo involved, seemed dry and the lettuce could have used a companion—say, a tomato. Back to the drawing board.

Turns out, as well, that it really cuts down on your snacking time if you have to stop whatever you’re doing in order to eat. I highly recommend using this method (only eating while eating) for anyone who is trying to lose weight.

By the time I got home from work I was positively famished. So I made myself a snack with one of the mini pitas I bought for the mini hamburgers mentioned in the last post. Got out the rest of the perfectly ripe avocado, sliced up the rest of the farmer’s market tomato and produced one of the most wonderfully yummy things I’ve ever eaten. Put a little Hellman’s on that pita and you’re golden.

I took a page from Miss Petunia Pittypat, puddy tat’s book and went out to the porch to watch a little of the Bird & Squirrel Channel. “But wait!” you say, “Isn’t that cheating?” I thought the same thing myself. How is watching nature so much different from watching TV? Turns out the point was moot as it was late afternoon and seems the birds and squirrels are all taking their siestas at that time of day.

Daisy and I opted out of going to the dog park. Well, I opted out. Daisy is always up for a romp with her furry friends. But we had a great time walking around the neighborhood chatting with other friends who were out socializing. We got so caught up in the festivities that before I knew it my Thursday-night guilty pleasure was about to start: The Big Bang Theory. It’s a very silly show but it makes me laugh out loud and I’m a big believer in the healing power of laughter.

No problem, I thought. I can stall on dinner for a mere half hour since I had that delightful snack after work. When I turned on the TV though, it was tuned in to the TV Guide channel and just passing before my eyes was the listing for a movie I’ve been wanting to watch since it came out. The Bucket List. So much for the Big Bang boys; it was a rerun anyway. How I’ve gone so long without seeing this movie is beyond my explanation. If you haven’t seen it, get it. Now.

This posed a giant conundrum though. Clearly, I wasn’t going to wait two hours to eat dinner, so I wound up eating in installments during commercials. Right after Jack and Morgan both found out they each had only six months to a year to live, I toasted up another pita. After they sat looking at the pyramids, I assembled another avocado-tomato delight. And somewhere during their trip I managed to eat. Turns out you can eat a sandwich in three minutes or less but you can’t savor it as well as you can lingering out on a screened-in porch. Same kind of sandwich, two very different experiences. Live and learn.

Enjoy your meals. They’re all you get to eat.