Chicken salad sandwich and a coffee

C. and I work mere blocks from each other, and yet it took this long to be ladies who lunch. Worth the wait! I got there first (otherwise I wouldn’t be me) and C. came just moments later, risking life and limb by crossing against the light. (Guess she’s almost a New Yorker now!) We each got the chicken salad, me the regular and C. the ‘curried,’ and sat and ate and talked about the peril of the office kitchen. Apparently, her place has some dishwashing drama. We just have a sink in one room and a microwave in the hallway with no place to stack dishes, so we mostly get upset about people microwaving in inappropriate dishes. (No plastic! or, Plastic is fine!) We also talked holidays, since we’ll both be in town for them. There may be ice skating in our future.

 

Bagel and coffee

I hate the guy who works at the cafe on Sunday. His eyes are permanently rolled and about what I don’t know. I come to his store and ask him to make me a coffee and then I’m going to give him two bucks for it and leave? What is my problem? I had it with milk and lots of sugar and took the last bagel with me too and ate and walked and walked and walked under this sky so clear it’s like glass today.

 

Barley soup, plus coffee

I’m still kind of scared to just up and ask for a plastic spoon at the coffee place on campus. I mean, what nerve, what gall! Can you spare a plastic spoon? So I bought a cup of coffee as pretense, mixed in milk and sugar, sort of bouncing a little to Eric Clapton’s version of Crossroads on the radio station, walked back down the hallway towards my office, and realized I’d left my hard-won spoon on the condiments table. Hightailed it back and it was still there, though kind of sticky on the handle because I’d set it down in a puddle of simple syrup. The soup took five minutes to heat up after defrosting all morning in my cloffice–L. had predicted it would take five hours in the microwave. It was full of chunks of mushrooms.

 

Chicken salad sandwich, plus coffee and popcorn

Is a convocation day lunch truly free if you have to cobble it together out of mini beef patties and hot dogs and ice cream sandwiches being served at little stations spread out all over campus, wading through lines and trying each time to impersonate a student so nobody knows you’re trying to get away with something just in case it’s really not for staff but only for students? I decided instead to just take out the fat wallet and get a sandwich a few blocks away. I brought it back to school and ate on a bench listening to the supremely danceable college radio station, waving hello to people I knew, picking the chicken salad out of my sandwich because the bread was too hard. The popcorn stand was sitting right next to the door to the library building, so I grabbed a paper sleeve of that and poured it down my gullet on my way upstairs. Total flashbacks to high school sporting events.

 

Tuna and white bean salad, plus coffee and a macaroon

After holding out as long as I could at the desk for a colleague who was trapped by the inevitable difference between one’s scheduled doctor’s appointment time and actual material time as we Westerners read it on clocks and watches, I called in reinforcements and headed outside with a tuna and white bean salad that I made all by myself using my own hands. That’s the kicker to growing up vegetarian–things like tuna salad and hot dogs and chicken breasts are always wowzers when they don’t happen inside restaurants. There was marveling; there was too much lemon. I read the paper on my Kindle, caught up on K.’s first day at school on the phone, warmed up from the office AC chill. Then I hopped around the corner for coffee and a macaroon, shaken from the glass jar on the counter into a little paper cone they’d fashioned with a staple.

 

Soup and half a sandwich, coffee and cookie

Getting whatever I wanted since I’m just like that these days, I headed to the place nearest my house and cobbled a lunch special off the menu. The soup was labeled new spring pea and worked out to like five bucks a cup. But it tasted just like peas! I paired it with the blue cheese and pear sandwich. It tasted just like a sandwich! I ate and read the London Review and so impersonated the chattering classes that when the gentleman came to clear my plate, I complimented the soup and asked for an americano and whatever cookie you have today, my good man. My companions at the table to my left were a mother and daughter, the mother visiting from Argentina, listening patiently and asking leading questions as the daughter filled her in on all the microdramas that accompany scheduling permaculture workshops at the alternative space and developing yoga-meditation practices for local juvenile detention facilities. And then when her mother went to pay the check with her American Express Black card, the daughter talked her into leaving a smaller tip.

 

Chopped salad and a cafe au lait

It was like no time had passed at all, I smoothly split a pair of Italian tourists so as not to break my desire line through Grand Central, picking up salad and coffee and train ticket and nabbing a front-facing left side window seat on the 12:25 local to North White Plains. I balanced salad and coffee and the New York Times like a commuter pro, listening for that musical line I’ll apparently never forget: Fleetwood, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, Crestwood, Scarsdale, Hartsdale, White Plains, North White Plains.

 

Chicken gyro sandwich, plus a brownie and a cup of coffee

I sat quietly in my chair watching the others eat their $25 boxed lunches (not worth it at all; I was so envious) at round tables while Lorrie Moore charmed me into taking an extra copy of her galley, despite the disapproving looks of my neighbors. I am so excited to sit and read it. Hungry, I skipped the yammering of confessionalist Mary Karr and hit the gyro stand in the Javits Center food court. It was alright, certainly lunch enough, but I wanted something sweet. Figuring they’d have something free at the Librarian’s Lounge, I headed down there and picked up brownies and coffee and stood in the long, snaking line to get a copy of the new George Pelecanos book. I told him I loved his work, even though I haven’t read it yet.

 

Ham and cheese sandwich, chips, and a cup of coffee

Total realness office worker lunch: Ran to the bank at noon. Deposited delayed health insurance reimbursement check. Jangled insensibly large collection of office keys. Checked watch. Crossed back to campus. Ordered small ham and cheese sandwich on wheat, no mayonnaise, honey mustard. Considered jalepeno-flavored chips, chocolate chip cookie, selected baked chips instead. Hoped that made me good. Jangled insensibly large collection of office keys. Ordered a coffee. Smiled at the man at the register. Asked how he was doing. Told him I was good. Asked why it has to be raining after last weekend. Smiled. Checked watch. Went back up to cloffice. Closed the door. Wished for windows. Ate. Wondered what I might be forgetting. Paged through Google Reader. Checked watch. Loaded and reloaded email. Gathered things to not work on during my desk shift. Popped two aspirin. Chugged last of lukewarm coffee. Threw away the cup.

 

Turkey sandwich, red velvet cupcake, and an iced coffee

I ate my turkey sandwich from my left hand and scribbled notes with the Dixon Ticonderoga in my right, moving swiftly through the last of my assigned reading for what has turned out to actually all complaining aside be a terrific classroom experience. (Not grade-grubbing, I swear.) Still, as much as I enjoyed thinking hard after a day of feeling lots, I felt jealous of the folks jumping in and out and grabbing drinks before heading back out to the sun in the park. I’ll get there, I’ll get there. I was plumb out of cash so had to build out my order to the ten-buck credit card minimum. Hence the cupcake, no other reason in the world. According to a recent Facebook Status Update, people keep asking B. to make samples of red velvet cake, even though her salted caramel could run rings around any red velvet I’ve ever tried. But the people apparently clamor, so I went with that for my treat. Yeah, I don’t really see what all the fuss is about.