Popcorn and Christmas cookies

L. and I faced off in two games of Scrabble (I lost both; how did that happen?) and ate popcorn and watched television and were generally lazy daze. Christmas vacation!

 

Onion, egg, and cheese bake, spinach souffle, chicken-apple sausage, and cookies

I felt the approving nods of my elderly train companions as I sat on the train clutching my foil-covered casserole dish, an onion and cheese egg bake that I made all by myself for brunch at A. and C.’s house, with L. and A., who was visiting from Boston. For two people with a joint paper due in January, A. and I talked remarkably little about David Wojnarowicz. I shouldn’t have worried over the casserole; we scarfed it down in six seconds while waiting patiently for A.’s souffle, which emerged from the oven looking exactly like the photo in the magazine.

 

Chicken club sandwich plus cookies

The poster for the brown bag lunch event said we were welcome to bring our lunches, but I felt like the only person there with half a sandwich sticking out of my mouth, I was still chewing when it came around to my turn to say my name, garbled around a gullet full of last night’s leftovers from delightful dinner with C. A box of assorted Pepperidge Farm cookies sat in the middle of the other table, and no matter how longingly I willed a Milano to levitate into my greedy, greasy little paw, they just sat there, piled in their fluted paper cups, waiting until the speakers were done at which point the box was passed around the group. Since we were in a circle there was no escape from all the shaming eyeballs, which meant I only took two instead of the fistfuls I really wanted.

 

Pita sandwich, green salad, chips, and cookies

Spent most of the bumper-to-bumper LIE traffic anticipating lunch. Would it be an assortment of sandwiches? Would there be a cookie tray? Would the plates be paper or that black plastic you see so much nowadays? It was all true, down to the flat black plastic. I stood patiently in line and loaded up a plate and made small talk about the continued limits of my bite capacity and the extraordinarily long timeline for print publication. Then I stepped out onto the muggy Post campus and called L. for a touch of real life, standing in front of the pin oak with its informative botanical sign, a bar or two of reception if I angled just right. Then I came back inside and had another one of those cookies with both chocolate chips and M&Ms. Who’d retreat from that?

 

Chicken sandwich, variety salads, three cookies

Can I have another cookie? I asked D. after the yearbook photographer finished taking our picture. (I’m the one sitting with my ankles crossed next to the Dean of University Libraries, smiling a ridiculously large smile because I just love things like this.) Sure, she answered. The camera adds ten pounds, and you’ll want to look recognizable to the students, right? I’d been prepping my joke since I heard about the lunch accompanying the last staff meeting of the academic year:  So, this is what passes for a free lunch in this economy?! but it didn’t really go over–the spread was tasty and expansive, P. brought it in from Sheepshead Bay instead of relying on campus catering.

 

Pasta with green peas, plus two butter cookies

There’s a whole class of things I would never eat if left to my own devices but will devour with alarming speed when offered up at an office snack table: taffy, Italian butter cookies, more than one bagel at a time. And those pale little cookies that come in the round blue tin, nested in fluted white paper cups, all different shapes but (I think) they all taste the same. I ate a squared-oval and and a pretzel while waiting for my pasta to heat up in the microwave. Then I took my dish back to my cloffice and forked peas into my mouth while finishing the last of my play for this week. I can’t tell what would best restore my masculine honor: to show mercy to a scorned rival, or to stab him multiple times in the heart and legs. I’ll surely know more after class discussion tomorrow.

 

Cheese and tomato sandwich, a banana, and four shamrock cookies

I woke up this morning and stretched out my weary arms and counted the great blessings of my life as the sun filtered in through the windows, the sky barely pink. One slumbered on next to me, resisting the daylight. Another perched on the windowsill stalking pigeons that will never come in. And I forecast a third: the box lunch special. But when I finally made my way downstairs, I was confronted with a damnable wintry mix and only my broken umbrella. So I grabbed a sandwich and a banana downstairs without leaving the building and balanced both along with a small plastic dish of mayonnaise, a plastic fork, two napkins, and mom on my cellphone (call me later! you’re breaking up!) back through the hallways to my cloffice, stopping short to buy four shamrock cookies for a dollar in support of a Habitat for Humanity student bake sale. The turkey looked totally suspect so I threw it away. And because my life is chock full of plenty, I got an email from L. Want to set up a Skype date for next week? May this run of luck never end.