Rolling With It

Yesterday, I passed a test, I think.

First, I managed to lock myself out of the library at which I am the sole employee. Specifically, I left the key in my car, which my husband borrowed and then failed to return at the expected time. When I went to get the spare key, the keeper was also late for work, so instead of being 10 minutes late and opening on time, I wound up being 45 minutes late, and opening half and hour after I was supposed to. “How is this a test?” you ask. Well, here is my take: I did not get all freaked out, creating a blamestorm on my husband who changed his Saturday routine without warning me, while driving my car. (I might have gnashed my teeth a bit.) And when I found myself sitting outside the wrong library at opening time, still waiting for rescue, I realized, “This situation is out of my control. There is no point in getting my knickers in a knot. Something will happen, and then something else will happen, and I don’t know what those somethings are.”

And, unsurprisingly, somebody eventually showed up, handed me a key, and I went and opened the other branch. I even laughed about something completely unrelated on the drive from the one library to the other. It could have been a very bad hour of my life, and it wasn’t.

Also, the keys to the library will now hang on the hook with all the other keys.

Test the second went like this: There is a Celebration in my life this week… something about being married 15 years. So, we made dinner reservations. I don’t know when I last had a dinner reservation, and we decided to spring for the best restaurant in town. I was going to completely go against my norm and have (vegetarians cover your eyes)… lamb. I miss lamb. I like chickpeas, tempeh makes me sing, and I can do marvelous things with eggs and cheese. But I was going to be deliberately… oh, something. Decadent. ‘Cause I’ll be darned if I’ll eat the pasta primavera again.

Only when we turned up, we found out that they were having their “vegan and raw food” night. Ha ha. Nice one, universe. We stayed. We ate. We were ravenous. It is my opinion that they had made the mistake that I see the unfamiliar make with vegan food. Not enough fat! Not enough calories! No protein! A portobello mushroom only has 70 calories in it. Needs nuts! Or a tahini dressing! Or half an avocado! Please, gods, more food! (Or it’s possible that the portions are just really small at fancy restaurants, since we once had to get pizza on the way home from a 9-course meal. And I generally can only eat half the meal at a regular restaurant. I once ate for two days off a single breakfast from an American diner. It’s a mystery. Do rich people need less to eat? Do they live on air and cheerios, like two-year-olds? Or are they all sneaking off for pizza, too?)

Anyway, so, that didn’t work out so well. We stopped at the grocery store and picked up a chocolate cheesecake and some chicken wings to go with the very nice wine that was had treated ourselves to. (We had geared up for the transgression. We were having it, darn it!) Much laughter ensued, and we assured ourselves that we can get a perfectly lovely vegetarian meal at our own house. Lamb not required.