Devouring the words and picking over dinner

2006-04-10 - 4:07 p.m.

Post-taxes last night I finally polished off the last of Memoirs of a Geisha. Wonderful book! And dozed off for a quick nap with the cats, who were all too willing to have me join them in naptime.

As I made dinner I started reading Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree. And, bibliojunkie that I am, I finished it before I headed to bed. An indulgence in words.

Dinner was pasta with peas and shrimp, dressed with olive oil, garlic, basil and parmesan. As I stood over the pot of boiling pasta, adding in the frozen peas, I got a flashback to my past.

When I was 18 and first moved out on my own, I was truly struggling. I was making $5/hour when I first moved out. I managed to swing some raises but still had to watch my money extremely tightly so I could buy a car and have a hope of getting to a real job.

I remember grocery shopping in that time, struggling to bring down the cost of a bag of groceries as far as possible. My most common dinner was pasta with peas. Typically egg noodles as they were cheapest. Dirt-cheap way to survive. We bought kool-aid for drinks around the house because it was cheap, lightweight to carry home, and somebody else paid for the sugar.

I got a credit card with the tiniest credit limit possible so I could start establishing some credit in my name. I was still working at the ice cream shop when I bought myself a very used Oldsmobile and I got a secret co-signer for the loan since I still wouldn't qualify on my own. Hell, I don't blame the bank...I was still wearing pink uniform shirts and a brown, polyester apron to work each day.

So a boiling pot of pasta and peas still brings me right back there, even now when I'm dressing it up with the luxury of cheap, frozen shrimp.

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