100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 2...

Have you ever had a conversation with a play-by-player? You know, one of those people who never seems to get to the punchline and rather draws out the story, excruciating minutia by minutia, to the point that your teeth feel like they wanna fall out, and you want to stab yourself in the left eye with a fork for being sucker enough to have asked them to tell you the story in the first place?

So, like, I sent the kids to go buy this $1.78 red Gerbera
from the flower kiosk around the corner to fill the
MexiCoke bottle that the boychild drank after
he came home from his bike ride with the
Man on his bike, to the beach, on this
one street that goes all the way to
the beach and then all the way
back, and the ride took
them, like, forty
minutes, and
I was all,
like...

Well, after reading yesterday's meal post, I began thinking that at some point in this monthlong process, you, Gentle Reader, may very well be reaching for your fork, because really, how many times can you read someone's play by play of what they ate for the day without wanting to stab yourself in the eye with a fork???

Sooo then I, like, woke up to a lot of dirty dishes, and I mean, like A
LOT, because, you know how you make breakfast, and then you
wash the dishes, and then you have a snack, and then you wash
more dishes, and then, it's lunch, so you make lunch, and then
you eat and then after you eat, you wash the dishes again,
and then when you make dinner, you get more dishes
dirty, especially when you, like, make your own
pasta, and then it's, like, you use this one pot
to make sauce, and then the food processor
to make pasta, and, then you use another
pan to bake the lasagna, and then you
use all these plates, like, one whole
plate for each person who eats
dinner, and then after you
eat you clear all your
dishes, but you
don't have a
dishwasher
?

Well, I don't want to back down from this project, but I don't want to bog people down with it, either. So I'm going to have to figure out a way to change up the content here and there over the next month lest I should be the one reaching for the fork.

But I already know what's on the menu from my kitchen today. I just had half a bagel with a schmear (I rarely eat a whole bagel because they're so dense and take forever to digest anymore), I know the girlchild will ask for a whole one (she has a thing for bagels). The Man and the boychild are having fluffy scrambled eggs cooked in a good dose of butter, and we'll all have some fresh watermelon. That plus coffee for the grown peeps and some milk for the kiddies...

BREAKFAST FOR 4: $3.00 total, $0.75/person

Half for me, whole for Mads...

Always with the fresh fruit. I think it's a Korean thang...

Scramble for the boys...

I'm not addicted to too many things, but I make an
exception for coffayyyyy...

Because the kids ask for it almost every week, lunch will be 16 goi cuon (Vietnamese summer rolls - 4 each) using half the pork butt I bought yesterday, a handful of the shrimp, and the mint and red leaf lettuce which are apt to spoil faster than the other produce I have for this week. The rice paper, hoisin and sriracha from the pantry probably cost about $1 total.

We'll probably have a scoop each of that vanilla ice cream for dessert, too.

LUNCH FOR 4: $10.00 total, $2.50/person.

Two baby scoops of ice cream that will have to wait
'til after lunch...

Dinner is at my folks' tonight, and among other reasons, I'm excited to head up to Huntington Beach because IKEA is on the way, and we're going to stop there so I can gawk in person at this little retro dining set we're planning to get hopefully sometime in the near future. It gets awkward for a 6' 4" man to sit criss-cross-applesauce at a bahpsahng (BAHPssahng) to eat.

Ciao til tomorrow,

shinae