Tofurkey on a roll plus chips plus jello

I sat out front the Pub under the clear, hot sun holding down a table and four chairs all on my own–a dicey proposition in the face of hovering groups of summer writers. Still, I braved the eating-alone stigma and ate my tofurkey sandwich and chips and talked on the phone to K. while she ordered breakfast at a drive-up window in her car in New Orleans. Finally, T. showed up–he’s doing AV for the program, and is therefore entitled to access the lunch buffet (lucky duck). He’s also a poet, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear such beautiful language come spilling out of his mouth: Can I get you anything? Do you want some jello or something? And he returned with a plateful of the stuff, and we regarded it, and we ate a lot of it. It was red and shiny and appropriately jiggly, with that creepy smooth mouthfeel that jello has. I insisted it was raspberry while T. and others who had joined us by now seemed to think it was just red. But really, if you sat with it in your mouth and paid very close attention, the raspberry was unmistakable. I feel a little bit sick.

 

Tofurkey sandwich on a roll plus chips

I was about done with my tofurkey on a roll–enjoyed out front of the Pub with L.–when I got a phone call with some very sad news and was reminded just how fleeting and blessed is the chance to eat a meal at roughly the same time in the middle of every day. How instantly the patterns of our mealtimes can change. So I walked over to this bench that was recently put out on the lawn as a tribute to another kind of life-changing moment–”On this spot in 1965 S. first met P. Married in June 1968, this bench celebrates their lucky encounter.” I took off my shoes and stuck my feet in the grass and got hot in the sun and finished reading the newspaper. Bees were flying back and forth low to the ground amid the clover, but I did not get stung.

 

BBQ chicken, tofu dog, coleslaw, veggie burger, baked beans, and several cookies

All-campus picnic! I had something I needed to finish, so I walked over with MBWF about twenty minutes after the scheduled start time, prompting choruses of “Wait. Aren’t you going to the picnic?” from confused coworkers passing through my office. I loaded up my plate–taking the tofu dog largely because I wanted a platform for a slice of American cheese–and joined MBWF, B. from ACD, and folks from the student affairs staff at a picnic table next to the new dorms. We discussed whether the food was better overall than usual or just the chicken, whether a politically radical person can date a liberal and either way does anyone stand a chance at tonight’s homosexual singles mixer, how long it takes to get from LAX to Anaheim, and which of the cookies were soft enough to eat. I went back for seconds and grabbed a veggie burger, but only ate half and threw the rest in the garbage can. There is apparently a relationship between excess and waste.

 

Tofurkey sandwich and a couple of cookies

I espied the remnants of a free lunch buffet for the Westchester Vocal Institute just inside the Pub but decided in the face of a few sad-looking lettuce leaves and a stack of chopped chicken to go ahead and pay for a tofurkey sandwich on a roll and a couple of cookies. C., C., and I had a ‘working lunch’ with the folks from Yonkers Middle/High School and A., the stone-fox-iest public librarian I have ever met. B. brought us all monogrammed golf shirts celebrating the school’s new Newsweek ranking and we set up the schedule for the coming year. I was totally distracted by a squirrel lunching away out of the trash bin on the back deck. It kept scrabbling away, shaking the bin a little, and emerging with remnants of sandwiches and unidentified gray bits in its scrabbly little claws which it would then chompchompchomp before diving back in for more. At one point it leaped onto a low-hanging branch holding a big piece of a spinach-flavored sandwich wrap in its scraggly little mouth, shaking the tree with much vigor. Such acrobatics!

 

Provolone on a roll with lettuce and tiny tomatoes, plus chips

I’m having one of those days where I fear I might upset the apple cart because the oranges have been driving me crazy for oh my god you do not even know how long, so I hauled myself over to the campus fitness center for half an hour of fat-burning intervals on the Precor, like any other suburban middle class professional woman in her 30s. This was the right call. Then I grabbed a sandwich at the Pub–I just couldn’t face another dish of lentils after last night’s dinner. Due to the nationwide tomato recall, Flik had only a handful of tiny cherry tomatoes for sandwich use. I asked for “a couple,” thinking I’d just mash them into the sandwich, but the woman behind the counter cut them into little slices, giving my entire meal a sort of elfin feel. I also grabbed a bag of chips, ’smokehouse bbq’ flavor.

 

Grilled chicken sandwich and surprises

They were all standing at attention, a clutch of bright red gingham squares beckoning from a table on the lawn just across the street from the library: box lunches! Like Christmas! MBWF, hard at work all reunion weekend, took a box for herself and snaked one for me too. We took them inside the Pub and unwrapped them like the glorious presents they turned out to be: grilled chicken sandwich, little dish of coleslaw, apple, bottle of water, bag of chips, two chocolate chip cookies, a plastic utensil and napkin sack, and a bag of trail mix! I felt like a giddy little kid. We ate with C. (who skipped the box for a small plate of vegetables) and shared stories of unlikely bird visitors–MBWF and I saw a falcon perched atop a McDonald’s in the Bronx last night; C. welcomed a lone white dove to her garage who was still there this morning. At some point about halfway through the bag, I lost interest in the salt and vinegar chips and I just threw them away. If I get hungry later, I still have the trail mix. Such abundance! Such waste!

 

Cheddar on a roll with lettuce, tomato, and jalapenos, plus chips

Past performances for the Belmont came out this morning, so I perused them out by the Pub over another Flik sandwich (I failed miserably at planning my menus this week; I blame NYSHEI) and a bag of sea-salt-flavored potato chips with two of the graduate writing program folks. As they chattered softly about the superiority of Southern produce (they’re from Virginia and Georgia), I re-confirmed my opinion that Big Brown is just plain faster than all the other horses in the field, unless you want to put your money on a relatively (I think) untested horse by way of Japan. I also took my first look at the undercard and made my picks in races six (Abraaj) and seven (Bayou’s Lassie). The big chestnut oak (at least I think that’s what it is) is in full leaf and it’s breezy and cool and I had a few flashes of my fantasy of Lexington in the spring. Next year, next year.

 

Provolone on wheat with lettuce and tomato plus chips

Due to the tiny number of people on campus during the summer, Flik has drastically limited their lunch options, and that sadly meant I had to have a different sandwich today (no tofurkey, no rolls) and the jalapeno-flavored chips (no salt and vinegar or plain). So I took my provolone on wheat out to one of the new tables on the patio and sat down alone until T., sitting with a group of writing graduate students, said, “Would you like to join us?” So I did, and was treated to an earful of gossip about people I don’t know and a lengthy discourse on the brilliance of crows, one of whom spent much of the hour cawing from the rooftop. (Did you know they can retrieve food from a bottle using only a long piece of wire?) When talk to turned to the presidential election and the perils of food aid programs (apparently, food aid programs produce dependency; don’t get me started), I excused myself to talk to to H. on the telephone about our evening plans.

 

Hummus finger sandwiches and inexplicable guacamole cups

I’ll straight up admit that that was some seriously unseemly gullet-stuffing at the post-commencement ‘light snacks’ buffet. Jessica Lange’s speech exhorted us to be present with our senses and ready for unexpected opportunities, and trying to eke out a free lunch seemed a suitable tribute. They rolled out the savory carpet this year! I managed a full-sandwich equivalent of tiny hummus and vegetable sandwiches on white bread that seemed a little stale, but edible, and supplemented with phyllo dough guacamole cups. They were both very strange and very strangely popular: the second a Flik worker put down a fresh plateful, we were like a nest of starving baby birds. Squawk! Squawk! Can’t get enough of the guac cups! I washed it all down with a pink lemonade and took a sugar cookie for the road.

 

Tofurky sandwich and a bag of chips

Handing off copy to L. last night took longer than I thought, so I had to buy my lunch today–tofurky on a roll with mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato, aka My Sandwich At the Pub. I had a bag of oatmeal raisin cookies in my hand but at the last minute opted for a bag of chips instead. Salty! MBWF went to lunch with M. today, so I was on my own. I read the Arts and Metro sections of the paper in the dapple by the administrative building and enjoyed feeling like the cover of a college viewbook. I dropped a chip on the ground and was just going to let it sit there, but a little bird swooped in and took this chip, roughly two thirds its size, into its beak and flew wobblily off under a tree to do some snacking.