Turkey and coleslaw on a roll, plus frozen yogurt

MBWF thought she had things to buy at Harmon during lunch and we were already in the car when she realized she couldn’t remember what she needed besides mousse, so we drove into Bronxville anyway and got sandwiches–turkey and coleslaw on a roll, MBWF’s invention. It’s hot out so we ate inside and enjoyed watching these two older women, each with enormous button earrings, who appeared to find each other in line after a long-lost fashion. We followed up with frozen yogurt which we ate out of paper cups while gossipping–I had chocolate, she had coffee. On our way back to the car, MBWF’s husband called from the park wanting to know if we thought he should call the police over a double-garbage-bagged form that freaked out the dog and felt like a body when he poked at it with a stick, spilling maggots. We felt ourselves to be part of the headlines from which a future L&O episode would be ripped until he called back to say it was a dog after all. Then I felt ashamed of how excited I’d been.

 

Smoked tempeh wrap and a lemonade

I stopped into this sandwich place intending to relax and eat and get a bunch of reading done in advance of next week’s deadline. I ordered the tempeh wrap primarily for the avocado it came with and broke with my water-only tradition to get a refreshing lemonade. It is summer, after all. I don’t know if it was the difficult-to-follow Sicilian names (I need M.’s translation help) or the fact that I devoured a novel yesterday and was burnt out, but I couldn’t focus at all, so cut out as soon as I was done swallowing, intending to head south to catch a movie. But as I walked through this too-familiar neighborhood I was hit with memories at Fibonaccian speed and intensity–I’m coming apart on the steps over a fifty-cent cup of deli coffee, she’s buying a whole pie just for me, a plate of pancakes sits cooling in her wake as I choke down a ham-and-cheese omelette–so I hopped on a train instead, bound for a theater in a neighborhood that only ever feels like watching TV anymore.

 

A banana, part of a lemonade, and a few bites of a turkey sandwich

It was confirmed again: I am totally 300.02, and my diagnosis manifests sharply in relation to dental appointments. K. took me for one last soaring lunch before I headed off for my appointment (Dr. Siu’s office is just off the park), but despite my deep breathing and the wonderful view, lunch turned my stomach. I ate the banana just fine–what a soothing food–and drank the lemonade with no trouble, but the sandwich was a near-total no-go. K. also enjoyed the lunch as a flashback to our childhood–You got one lunch and we split it as if we were just the one person! I did what I could and then headed to my appointment. (It turned out to be nothing, really, I was in and out in no time with a slather of ionomer filling, instructions to keep my mouth empty for an hour, and a follow up appointment–and all-banana lunch–scheduled for next month.)

 

Tofurkey on a roll, plus chips and a seltzer

Ever since I detected what feels like the Grand Canyon in the back of an upper-left molar (circa noon yesterday), I’ve been feeling pretty nauseous. Teeth! They’re nothing but bones in your mouth! Hence the seltzer to accompany my sandwich and bag of chips out on the patio with S., the new assistant archivist. I’m sorry she had to meet such a very distracted me–there is horror unfolding in my mouth!–and look forward to future, more attentive lunches. I bowed out about halfway through the hour to call Dr. Siu for an emergency appointment. The receptionist put me on hold for a long time while I slowly sipped seltzer and toted up the remnants of my flex-spending account (Who needs dental insurance? What could happen!) and then came back with an appointment for tomorrow. Dr. Siu’s office doesn’t use hold music, and the extended bleak silence on the other end of the line felt most appropriate to the occasion.

 

Ham and cheese panini with a little green salad

We were so hungry after the utterly mediocre IMAX movie that we popped into the Cafe on One for sandwiches before the credits had fully rolled. I ordered at the lunch counter while K. grabbed us a table against the onslaught of slow-moving tourist children who sulked and yowled and made me glad I didn’t have a surly six year old in my tote alongside my book. I had the ham and cheese while K. chose the turkey, and each came with a little green salad on the side. Later, while we ate and compared jokes and plotted the rest of our afternoon (which K. did with the museum map and a pencil, circling the rooms she wanted to see–Hall of Gems–and crossing out the rooms she didn’t–Parking Garage), we saw a kid walk by with a sandwich and a pile of carrots instead of the salad. Could we have had carrots instead, asked K.? After all, “I’d rather choose a salad than be given a salad.”

 

Greek veggie baguette with orzo salad and chocolate square, redux

T. was pretty much playing at flight attendant, and I loved his fine-dining-drag act–he dropped my meal at my seat with an over-the-top flourish, all your lunch, madame. I ate the sandwich with gusto, marveling a second time at the decision by my inflight chefs to use a slice of feta on the veggie baguette. I have crumbled a lot of feta over a lot of salads in my time, and just would never think to use a slice of it on a baguette. I ate and drank while watching the first of several inflight episodes of Law & Order: SVU, which helpfully reminded me several times over that teenage hooking does not pay. (It may feel like it’s paying when you’re rolling in Louis Vuitton handbags and older men who are rich dentists, but in the end? Does not pay.) I knew better from my flight out than to save my chocolate square for last. It’s actually pretty waxy, despite the fancy paper wrapping.

 

Turkey sandwich plus chips and a frappucino

I picked up a turkey sandwich and chips from a Quizno’s around the corner from the museum (loved Nina Katchadourian’s Accent Elimination) and brought it back to the plaza to eat in the hot sun with my newspaper. K. called to let me know she’d made it to my apartment and was looking at my cats while I ate lunch thousands of miles away in San Diego. After my sandwich, I longed for an ice cream to eat absentmindedly while staring off into the middle distance and waiting for my train, but the absence of lockers at the station meant I had to haul my suitcase along and I’m a little tired of that, so I opted instead for the chillin’ power of a frappucino at the Starbucks just across the street. Can you believe this is my very first frappucino ever in my whole entire life? I can see what all the fuss is about!

 

Veggie melt plus a garden salad

I was sitting on the steps opposite the kebab line pouring my voluminous heart out to K. on the phone when G. walked by with no plans for lunch, so we walked down to Tiffy’s, a diner I’ve been eyeing since Friday. I’ve hit all kinds of walls today, including the hotel-food and cheap-meats walls, so I ordered the veggie melt and subbed in an iceberg lettuce salad for the french fries. G. had the veggie burger with cheese. The cheese was not a slice but a melted handful of shreds–nothing is as advertised in sunny Anaheim! I don’t know quite how to convey my exhausted pleasure at having a relatively normal meal with a person I recognize about work, the future, class anxiety, writing, how hard it is to balance the compromises demanded by living in the world, et al, except to say that sometimes I think I am given precisely what I require.

 

Greek veggie baguette with noodle salad and a chocolate square

So there’s this auto touch screen like you see at the ATM machine, right, and you just choose what you want, including drinks, and the surly nightclub staff-cum-flight attendants bring it right to your seat! Whenever you want it! I chose the Greek Veggie baguette and accompaniments around “noon” when we were roughly over Oklahoma, trying to preserve some semblance of lunch routine. (Which means I pretty much had a turkey sandwich plus chips for breakfast, but who’s counting?) I ate it in about six seconds while watching a re-run of America’s Best Dance Crew on the same touch screen, which also turns into a radio station and an in-flight chat room. ABDC was amazing–I had many feelings watching what those bodies could do. I can’t believe Shane Sparks is a judge, though. I hate his stuff on SYTYCD.

 

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.