OakMonster's Den

10 weeks. 1 accidental egg. I think I’m doing pretty good!

Breakfast:

• A tall decaf Americano with half-and-half, Sugar in the Raw, and Caramel Sauce…not syrup.  And YES, I like my coffee like my men: tall, decaf Americano, white and sweet topped with caramel sauce.   I was too stressed out to eat anything else that morning.  However, lunch came at me fast.

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Lunch:

• The Vegan Spicy Soyrizo & Black Bean Wrap from Mendocino Farms in my building.  The place gets PACKED very quickly so by 11:45 I was already ordering.

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Dinner:

• Homemade French Onion soup from scratch topped with a slice of toasted French bread and heaps of Gruyere.
• Ghirardelli 62% dark chocolate and a Cutie orange.

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Satisfaction level: Awesome.

Thoughts: I did VERY well resisting a fondue cheese sandwich at Mendocino Farms for lunch, knowing that I was doing French Onion soup for dinner.  Soyrizo was a total surprise. It WAS really, really good!  This place managed to change my mind on 2 vegetarian/vegan items already.  First is the Veganaise.  I’m hooked on that sucker.  I was never one to like traditional American mayonnaise to begin with, having grown up on mostly the sweeter Japanese one.  Veganaise, however, is still very good without that greasy, oily after taste. And now the Soyrizo.  Don’t get me wrong. As one heck of a pork advocate, I’m never giving up the real chorizo.  But dang, that was super good.

Mendocino Farms is great for Meatless Tuesdays because they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan option that are super tasty.  If anyone is thinking of crossing over, I’d try their foods first.  All of their veggie sandwiches I had there never left me hungry.  If I could eat/cook like that everyday, I would consider becoming a lacto-ovo-bacon-vegetarian.  Heh.

Today, the Universe decided that it hates people in my life.

1. Brandon tore his calf muscle

As he changed the oil on his car on Friday, Brandon discovered some coolant leakage. Upon further inspection by the auto shop, there are more than just that. We think the Anniversary accident knocked things loose. So, this morning, instead of waking up to drive me to my stop, the Mister decided to sleep in a little. I left my car 5 blocks down at my bus stop.

As he was walking over to the car, Brandon stepped off the curb and, according to his ER doctor, probably landed wrong on his heel. He heard something popped and he was in excruciating pain and couldn’t put his foot down. Being a Marine, dude sucked it up, hobbled across the 6 lanes to the other side, then his body went into a bit of shock and he sat down and passed out for a second. He then proceeded to hobble some more to the car, got in, calmly called me, and drove himself to the ER about 8 blocks down.

I received the call around 8:30.  By the way, I’m in Downtown LA, 25 miles away, with no easy way to get home at that time.  You see, my special commuter bus runs 3 times into town and twice out in the evening.  If you need to get back any other time, you’ll have to take the Disneyland bus to Norwalk Station and either catch 2 more buses to get to my house or someone else have to come get you from the station.

Thank GOD for my former bus buddy Patty who retired about a month ago.  I called her asked for a ride and she was available.  Now, skip to read #2 and come back to read the rest of this.

Patty dropped me off at the ER and I waited for a good hour before Brandon hobbled out on crutches.  Torn calf muscle, he said, and possible torn tendon but they don’t know that yet.  And now we were off to his physician to get a referral to see a specialist and get an MRI or something else.  His doctor gave him a shot of stuff and sent us home with vicodin.

2. Patty’s car died on the way to rescue me

After she hung up with me, my friend Patty went to finish her errands.  Her car sputtered and died on the way home.  Thank GOD her sister was home, so she drove over to sit with Patty’s car until AAA arrives so Patty could use her car to come get me.

3. A coworker had to go to the hospital

Meanwhile, as I ran from work to come home to take care of Brandon, a coworker apparently got ill enough to need to be rushed to the hospital.

4. Burbank DMV’s computer system went down

My boss took the morning off to go to her DMV appointment.  System was down so no appointment could be kept.  She pretty much wasted her morning.

5. The bus before my usual home bound bus broke down

Ana took the bus into town with me this morning.  She usually takes a different bus or she would drive.  However, she was getting on the earliest bus home.  She waited, and waited, and started to get panicky about the bus home.  As she found out later, when my usual bus showed up, the one she was waiting for has broken down.  So she was on a super crowded bus back, behind her usual schedule.

I’m telling you. Cosmic Fuckery.

I fell off the wagon.

Just a little bit.

Having been up very late on Monday night, I rolled out of bed on Tuesday and made myself an egg on toast.

*sigh*

Breakfast:

• A slice of buttered 7-grain toast topped with one sunny side up egg cooked in a pat of butter along with slices of vine ripen tomato.
• A mug of English breakfast tea

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Lunch:

• A small Caesar salad with no croutons. Hey, I’m already off the wagon on the egg today, I might as well!
• A few spoonful of butternut squash bisque which was absolutely disgusting
• A big chocolate chips cookies

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Dinner:

• A square of veggie Perry’s pizza…with generous sprinkle of Bacon Salt. – YES it *is* vegetarian!

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Satisfaction level: Very satisfied but incredibly guilty.  Grrrr…

Thoughts: I was doing SO WELL!  Then again, lack of sleep contributed greatly to the lapse there.  Otherwise, the rest of the day I did pretty well.

Holy CRAP! It’s all ready been a week?!

My god. Am I a bad blogger!

But I promise to have something much more entertaining than my weekly food journal in a day or two.

For now, on to Meatless Tuesday.

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Breakfast:

• Open faced “grilled cheese” sandwich: one slice of 7-grain bread, buttered, topped with slices of one whole vine-ripen tomato, sprinkled with Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend, and a few slices of snack-sized cheddar cheese, toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
• A mug of full-leaf oolong tea.
• Mid-morning snack: 2 whole grain crackers (they’re like 2.5 inch across!) from Fresh & Easy with generous schmear of whipped cream cheese, my mid-morning snack of choice these days.

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Lunch:

• A bowl of vegetable chili based on the recipe in Food & Wine magazine (which I will blog about later).  In that: heirloom carrots, daikon, red bell peppers, kidney beans, hominy, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and generous shakes of Chipotle Tobasco.  And a piece of 7-grain toast.
• Late dessert/afternoon snack: a Godiva dark chocolate truffle.

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Dinner:

• Because it was a buy one get another one for $2, I got 2 rustica pizzas from Z Pizza: Moroccan (egg plants, pine nuts, feta, basil pesto, caramelized onion) and Mediterranean (artichoke hearts, feta, roasted red peppers, greek olives, pili pili oil).  I ate a few squares out of each.
• A glass of organic peach oolong iced tea.

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Satisfaction level: Meat? What meat?  Nope.  Didn’t miss it one bit.  And I was full all day.

Thoughts: It’s getting easier and easier each week, I have to tell you.  I even didn’t miss the meat too much today.  But I did have an egg for breakfast.  I did crave some proteins for dinner but I didn’t go for my usual burger or ribs, but salmon.  A little weird, I know.  I’m sure I’m going to want me a juicy burger in a few days.

I’m also more conscious now of what I’d eat on a Meatless Tuesday and Brandon has been helpful in keeping me in check on that too.  He’d try to help me think of places I could get something meatless to eat at.

Now, I’ve been thinking about it today that since I’m doing this a Buddhist reason, perhaps I should also not do alcohol on Tuesdays as well to make the whole religious day out of it.  After all, abstaining from alcohol is one of the Five Precepts a good Buddhist should follow.

By not eating meat/eggs on Tuesday, and having not kill anybody, abstaining from taking life is checked off the list.  Abstaining from alcohol? One day a week, I can do that.  Abstaining from sexual misconduct is everyday…although I wonder if lusting after  Taylor Lautner and/or Sam Worthington or dreaming about Jason Mraz counts.  Abstaining from taking what is not given, no klepto here so check.  And finally, abstaining from false speech aka lying. Well, that might be a little hard to swing in a corporate world, but we’ll do our best, won’t we?

Alright. It’s decided. Tuesdays will be meatless AND dry.

Oh boy.

I’ve been pushing through work and juggling my social life through February.  It seems I’m making new friends and reconnecting with old ones all the time.  Weekends and evenings were no longer just the quiet moments but full of activities.

There have also been changes at my work.  We have created a new department which roped my marketing team of 2 in with 2 other departments to pursue new directions.  The new Boss Man is first a friend.  Much like my relationship with my boss Nhien, because we are friends first, communications are open in both directions.  It makes for very successful partnership I think, but yet also frustrating.  You see, the new department is like new found toy.  There are constantly “Oooh! I want to do THIS!” and “Yeah, let’s do THAT!” which tend to throw a wrench at both us and another department.

The perfect analogy for my current work situation, which my colleagues agreed on, is that the New Department is like a box of marbles spilled across the floor.  Your day-to-day responsibility is like the door you’re trying to reach.  You want to get to the door but you keep tripping on the marbles and falling down.  You pick up the marble and put it back in the box and keep going toward the door but there will be another marble to trip you up.  You eventually get to the door but you’re now all banged up. AND you’re late.  Eventually, we will all learn to navigate the marbles and manage to pick them all up AND get to the door gracefully.  In the meantime, put on your helmet, kids–it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Now, the Big Event just wrapped up without much of  hitch on Wednesday.  So a huge weight has been lifted but yet more are on the way.  In all of this, I’m trying to squeeze in an hour here and there to study Italian.  I’ve been neglecting homework because I thought I can totally do this without much help, but every week I fall further and further behind.  I’m realizing the reason why I struggle so much with it is because I’m learning a third language on my second language.

To use Hugh Laurie’s analogy of going to the set of House being the only one who has to add an accent, it’s like going to a battle with a fish when everyone else has a sword.  Almost everyone in class is a native English speaker.  Most also speak Spanish even a little bit.  I’m there with Thai being my native tongue and here I am learning a new language on my second language.  My head is translating it front and back and left and right before I come to some conclusions.  However, the benefit of my Thai tongue is that I can roll the R’s and sound the hard T’s better than anyone.

So here I am, trying to be a better student and put in some homework time.  On top of that, I still have to find time to cook–which, sadly, I’ve been able to do strictly on the weekends, to keep the blogs up to date, and to wrap up my tax paperwork.  Hey, at least the office is in order now.  I just have to comb through the pre-sorted bill and reconcile everything.

Oh, and today I had Italian class in the morning, was supposed to be at a salsa workshop at noon, bake a cake, then off to a baby shower at 4 and a birthday dinner at 7.  Thankfully the last 2 parties are at the same place.

At this level, I thought for sure I would go down with a cold after the Big Event.  I ended up with massive allergies starting at the event.  My stomach has been warring with me pretty much for 2 weeks.  And then my back decided to throw a coup as I was having a nice relaxing dinner with Brandon.

It’s like my brain knows of the maddening schedule I have ahead of me today.  So last night on behalf of the entire body, my back muscles decided to throw a tantrum and seized up.

So, no salsa today.  And up until now, I’ve been laying flat on the couch, nursing the stout left in the bottle from making my chocolate Guinness cake with some Ibuprofen.

I don’t know if having been a better eater helps stemmed the physical meltdown I usually have after a stressful period of time.  You know, my usual 24 hour of low fever and energy zap?  Not happening this time.  So the body just went for the most recent injury, my back, and uses THAT to punish me.

Well, I’m soldiering on anyway.  At least tomorrow all I have to do is type up notes for Thrill the World and go to the meeting at 7 p.m.

But then there’s the farmers market I want to get to, dinner I want to make, and the paperwork…FUCKIN’ PAPERWORK!!!

*sigh*

So, how is your week/weekend?

Breakfast

• Half of a giant blueberry peach scone I got from the farmer’s market over the weekend. I ate the other half on Monday.
• A mug of lemongrass-pandan tea.

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Lunch

• An avocado tomato sandwich: 2 slices of 7 grain bread lightly toasted, mayo (yeah..I didn’t think about the egg content…), seasoning salt, a few shakes of Tapatio, strawberry tomatoes, and half of an avocado.
• The other half of the avocado with seasoning salt.
• Split a giant Asian pear with coworkers.

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Snack

• Beard Papa’s Cream Puff, courtesy of best boss/friend in the world.

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Late Dinner

• Room service at the Marriott Downtown LA: Chicken rigatoni, hold the chicken, with extra mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and ricotta insalata.
• A chocolate chip cookie.

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Satisfaction level: Very high.  I have to say I didn’t really miss meat at all.  But then again, I was preparing for a work event we were putting on Wednesday morning, so a) I wasn’t really that hungry, and b) I didn’t really care if I was hungry–I didn’t have time to.

Thoughts: I was really surprised that I didn’t miss the meat.  I mean, not even when I got to the hotel absolutely starved.  I didn’t even think to break the deal and get a burger.  As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to having some vegetarian pasta for dinner all day.

I think this whole eating meatless is growing on me.  Being conscious of what I eat does change a lot of things.  I’m sure I annoy people to no end with my new found path.  But hey, I still succumb to factory-grown bacon and I still cook the commercially-farmed chicken because I can’t find any ethical one close by.  A little bit is better than nothing at all.

Asian pears (thank GOD they are still in season because winter fruits are sooo boring!) from farmer’s market over Trader Joe’s blueberries from Chile.  But…well…what the hell, I had a couple of the blueberries anyway.  (Nhien brought it.)

Breakfast

• Ritz crackers with cream cheese
• A mug of Ecchaenacea Defense tea with honey

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Lunch

• A few bites of brown rice and garlic tofu with vegetables from Pick Up Stix before the fire alarm went off in the building.  I came back and just ate the tofu about half an hour later.  Mother fuckers on the 33rd floor really need to get fined for all their burnt popcorn, I swear to god.
• One of my home made dark chocolate covered–are you ready?–Not Quite Nigella’s recipe of salted maple honey bacon caramel.  A failed experiment, the caramel did not set but I found another delivery vessel that works perfectly.  Hehee.

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Dinner

• Garlic mashed potatoes with cheese and green onion, mac and cheese, sauteed vegetables and a little bit of a salad.  All the sides I ordered for our barbecue family pack from Maderas Steak & Ribs.  Everyone else was having baby back ribs and chicken.
• Lots. Of. Wine. 3 kinds to be exact.  Amount consumed among 3 ladies and one taster comes down to one full bottle and half each of the other two.  It was a Fresh & Easy twitter tasting party.

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Satisfaction level: Pretty high.  Breakfast and lunch were both interrupted so I got hungry here and there.  And PISSED off.  But oddly enough, I didn’t crave meat like I did last week.  However, dinner was very, VERY satisfying.

Thoughts: This week seems effortless.  And less junky.  LOL.  And I’m very happy about that.

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MORE on the fantastic all-girls wine tasting night here which was an awesome cap to each of our Day from Hell episodes.

Breakfast & Through out the day Snacks

• Starbucks decaf soy caramel macchiatto.  I ordered a tall but they gave me a grande.
• Starbucks chocolate croissant I never got to finish.  We had birthday party today in the office so I was saving room for cake.

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Lunch

• Brown jasmine rice with 2 sticks of barbecue “beef” skewers and 4 cherry tomatoes.  The skewers look like poop, seriously like a log of poop.  It did have very meaty texture, though, and less soy tasting.  Unlike the marinaded “chicken” I had a while back.
• A mini red velvet cupcake…more like a shot of cake and frosting…from Big Man Bakes at the office birthday party I threw and a very thin slice of pineapple rum cake the Big Boss brought back from the Caribbean.

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Dinner

• Red Robin queso and chips…and a couple of fries. I swear that bowl is bottomless.  I had my fill and it didn’t look like I made a dent!  That was washed down with a strawberry lemonade.
• A side of guilt.

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LOST snacks

• A glass of Jacob’s Creek shiraz.  Very appropriate, I know.
• Coconut truffle from the box of XT Patisserie treats Nhien sent me for Christmas. Again, very appropriate.

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Satisfaction Level: Very satisfied albeit the GUILT!!  Seriously.   I had a choice to get a Gardenburger or a soup and salad but noooooo.  I got queso. AND fries!!  Not to mention all of the products with eggs in them that I completely ignore and dove in headfirst like the cakes.  Meatless in the worst way today, folks.

Thoughts: Um. Yeah. I totally suck at being a vegetarian.  The guilt alone will kill be before anything else.

Special Thanks: For those who’ve witnessed/read about my ordeal last night, please give thanks to the handy guide I used to battle the problem.

Formerly known as “Veggie Tuesday”. 

Breakfast:

• Granola with blueberries from the farmer’s Market with milk
• English Breakfast tea.

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Lunch:

• Roasted eggplants and red pepper dip from farmer’s market and one pita bread. Well, I didn’t really get to have lunch that day so I ate what I could in a meeting.

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Dinner:

• Trader Joe’s frozen entree of Paneer Masala with spinach basmati rice. Yum-may!
• A couple of flutes of Fresh & Easy Ogio prosecco with lemon sorbet–a Scroppino without the vodka.

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Satisfaction level: Moderate.  The lunch for thoroughly disappointing because I have stuffed grape leaves waiting in the wing.  No time for the worker bees that day.  I was *this* close to say fuck all and get a burger for dinner at that point,  not because I miss meat but because I was starved.  However, the hearty paneer was VERY satisfying as a meat substitute.

Thoughts: A viewing of Food Inc. also motivated us greatly to go out to the farmers’ market on Sunday.  (Will post about that over on the food blog soon. It’s going to be an epic post.)  We stocked up the fridge and the fruit basket to the brim.  This time I had the mind to actually plan my Meatless Tuesday while I’m at the market on Sunday instead of panicking on Monday night because I had nothing veggie to eat.  So, now I have more than enough to last me all week. LOL.

I’m getting a hang of this vegetarian business.  I even wrote a rant to Fresh & Easy about their lack of vegetarian/vegan selection of the grab-and-go meals.

Breakfast

• A small bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and milk.
• Mid morning snack – a few bites out of the 2-lb. tub of Fresh & Easy low fat strawberry yogurt.

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Lunch

• Homemade mac and cheese, half of Barefoot Contessa’s recipe.  Essentially shells, gruyere, and cheddar with a pinch of nutmeg. I also infused the milk with thyme and garlic.

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Dinner

• Brandon made us Top Ramen…
• Dessert: Ben & Jerry’s Neapolitan Dynamite. Lots of it.

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Satisfaction Level: Satisfied.  Didn’t miss meat once!

Guilt Level: Very high for the lack of veggies when they could totally be had.  Oh, and the ice cream gorge.

Thoughts

I took a mental day off on Tuesday (keyword there is MENTAL) and had an ortho appointment in the morning.  I pretty much stayed in all day except for when I ran the books out to mail for Operations Paperback. I mean, I could have gone to the store and get some fresh ingredients to make ratatouille as inspired by the previous night’s Heroes episode.  But I didn’t.

And of course, the blues got me diving into the arms of Ben & Jerry.  I usually enjoyed a couple of bites for dessert anyway.  However, I went to town with that.  Then again, I did avoid the wine which was my original idea for dessert.  One shouldn’t consume a depressant when depressed, a lesson I learned the hard way after my mom died.

That brought us to the blues.

A friend has been waiting for her grandmother to pass away for a few weeks.  This weekend was it.  Having had talked about the experience with the friend all week, it was like reliving the days with my mom again.

Obviously, once I got to work and found out the friend’s grandmother had passed away, feelings beyond my control were set in motion.  I was sad for my friend’s loss.  I was sad for my own loss.  Which brought me to miss my family, my friends, and overall being home.  I was sad for things I don’t have in my life, an interesting form of envy.  You get the picture.

I hid behind my pile of work all day as an excuse to not be social.  Thank god for that because I would’ve started crying.

The next morning, I cried in the shower. For not much of a reason but all of the above.  I knew I couldn’t go to work like that.

Grief is a VERY odd thing.  I mean, soon after my mom’s death?  I get it.  The random sadness and the crying.  2 years after and I’m still affected by some stranger’s death?  That I don’t understand.

Then again, I *am* doing this veggie Tuesday thing in honor of my mom.  So, I guess in someway it’s all related.