Random Observations

Just some stuff that's in my head:

::  Everybody hates on Mondays, but for my money, Tuesdays are far more likely to offer up a Giant Bowl of Suck. Tuesdays are just irritating. Everybody gears up for Mondays, because they're depressing by definition, but Tuesdays? They just sit there in the tall grass, waiting to ambush you. Tuesdays are the nadir of the week. You're still close enough to the previous weekend to remember whatever good times you had to see end to go back to work, and you're too far from the next weekend to take solace. Tuesdays are just nothing but grind.

::  I don't know if I'm going to bother watching the finale of Hell's Kitchen. The show is just awful, what with the continuing, and increasingly inexplicable, presence of Elise.

::  In the "Hey, that's never happened before!" department, I got blocked by someone on Flickr! This was really odd. I've never been blocked before, ever. I only noticed because I added her as a contact just the other day, and today I noticed she wasn't showing up on my Contacts page. Weird! I've been defriended on Facebook and I'm sure I've been unfollowed on Blogger, Twitter, and Tumblr, but I tend to not notice these things...I have no idea what my numbers are, in terms of followers, on any of the services that have followers in the first place. I'm kind of intrigued as to what it was about me that turned this person off; I can only assume she took a cursory look at my photostream and concluded that I'm some kind of creepy fetishist. Oh well!

::  I have zero idea of what I want for my birthday this year. And I feel like I should be taking advantage, because I'm hitting one of the Nice Round Numbers.

Specifically, now, some food thoughts:

::  I've been consuming fruit smoothies in a big way of late. My method is this: I throw in a cup or so of ice cubes, followed by a scoop of protein powder (if I've just returned from working out, otherwise I omit the protein powder), then roughly half a cup of milk and half-to-two-thirds a cup of vanilla yogurt. Then I add fruit: usually I throw in a banana, followed either by a peach or two or a blend of berries, mostly strawberry or blueberry. Then I let the blender work its magic, and drink.

My problem, of course, is that the stuff I've been making my smoothies with will very shortly be out of season, and thus either unavailable or too expensive to keep on hand. We're heading into apple season...so, do apples make decent smoothies? I will report back once I've found out, but an apple cinnamon smoothie sounds awesome, doesn't it?

::  I'm also giving more and more thought to vegetarianism. Not as an entire lifestyle, but I'm liking the idea of going meatless one or two times a week. I am already eating several vegetarian meals each week, so doing this won't be a problem. I imagine that beans will have a major presence. I need to start reading some recipes!

::  But no, I won't be giving up meat entirely. Never! And by way of evidence, here's a recent meal I had: a pancetta, Romaine, and tomato sandwich on a sub roll:

Oh, this was heavenly.

::  I have officially come around on fresh tomatoes. I love 'em now. I hated them when I was a kid, but I gradually learned to accept them on sandwiches and burgers and tomato slices on pizza. I'm not sure I'll ever sit and eat tomato slices all by themselves, but otherwise, I'm becoming tomato-obsessed. It's too bad our balcony gets so little sunlight during the summer; we can't grow any tomatoes!

::  Oh, and I discovered hummus last week. I had a hummus, tomato, and leaf lettuce sandwich for lunch one day that was amazing.

OK, that's about it for random blathering....