And I’m pretty sure that light isn’t an oncoming train!
Today I have felt human the entire day. I was tired and I’m still weak from not eating much this week, but I’m better. Thank GOD. I made myself toast for breakfast, ate applesauce a few times, and for lunch and supper I made myself a bastardized version of Congee. Congee is a traditional Chinese dish which is basically rice porridge. It’s often served at breakfast but can be eaten any time. The basic recipe is a small amount of rice and a large amount of water. You’re supposed to use real rice but all I had was the instant kind. Luckily I found a recipe where someone had used leftover cooked rice and I figured it should work since instant rice is basically pre-cooked rice anyway.
I used half a cup of rice and three cups of water. I brought them to a boil and then turned it down one notch so it would keep boiling but not bubble over. It takes about 20-25 minutes of boiling for the water to reduce and then I was left with a small pot of porridge goodness.
When you get it in Chinese restaurants (*real* Chinese restaurants, not fast food court takeout crap) you can get countless varieties – it can come with chopped chicken, sliced beef, fish, combinations thereof, vegetables, seasonings that are spicy or sweet, whatever. But if your stomach is upset, just the plain Congee with a bit of salt and pepper to taste is great. It doesn’t have much taste but it feels wonderful in your tummy and it’s guaranteed comfort. I can’t believe I haven’t eaten it in about ten years.
So anyway, after eating it for lunch and making more for supper, I feel much better. I have a serious lack of protein in my body right now so I’m hoping to take care of that tomorrow, but at least everything I ate stayed where it was supposed to. I’ve also been drinking a lot of water and some ginger ale so I’m not dehydrated any longer. I may even have a cup of tea soon but NO milk in it. That Kraft Dinner episode scared me right off of dairy until I’m 100% sure that it’s safe for me again. I figure if I don’t have any more trouble, I should be okay to have some coffee tomorrow but not until I come back home.
We’re going to hit a second hand bookstore tomorrow because it’s been forever since I’ve been in one. I have four great books on my desk right now that I got for free, basically, because sometimes my reviews get me Amazon gift certificates as a thank you gesture. Free books? Woo! I got myself Memoirs of a Geisha which I’m almost 100 pages into right now and I love it. I wish so much that I could just curl up with it and read it without interruption because that world is so foreign to me and I’m loving every word of it. I also really want to read Wicked next, and then move through my other two, Love in the Time of Cholera and The Other Boleyn Girl, but just because I finally have some books that I want to read doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to go to a bookstore and find some more, especially since they’re cheaper.
When George and I worked at the studio, there was a secondhand book and CD store around the corner from us and we used to go there regularly (he took me there on our first date, total keeper). I could easily spend over an hour in there. It wasn’t big but it was well organized. There was another one downtown but it was total chaos in there with fiction and non-fiction and horror and bodice-rippers all piled pell-mell onto the shelves. While that can be fun if you have a lot of time to browse, the one near the studio made it a bit easier to narrow down your searches. I loved sitting on the floor in the corner and pawing through the horror novels and the young adult stuff. I miss that store.
So tomorrow should be a good day for bookworms, I can’t wait – and thus there will be no coffee with milk before I go because I don’t want to have to rush straight back home!
