I am speechless with rage and despair at yesterday’s Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade. I was at work when the decision was announced, and we gathered around someone’s computer to watch as some of us lost the right to make certain crucial lifelong decisions for ourselves, and we listened as part of the crowd around the courthouse screamed in dismay and horror, and part of the crowd screamed with joy and victory, and I was glad of my Pandemic Mask because it helped partially hide/absorb my Dystopia Crying.

There are plenty of places to go and talk about that decision that resulted in the sudden loss of human rights and bodily autonomy for only a certain segment of the population. You can talk about it here in the comments section, if you want. What I am mostly doing is reposting on Twitter/Facebook what other people managed to say about it, because I can’t think what to say but other people are saying things that I wish to say too. I am also deleting (without reading) all emails from the various Democratic politicians I follow, and I sent an “Our leaders have failed us. YOU have failed us” email to my state’s congresspeople. But otherwise I don’t have anything to say; I am still in the silent internal screaming / gentle hopeless weeping stage, which feels like it started in 2016 and never stopped.

It seems stupid to do a grocery store report at a time like this, but it feels like it’s either “post about how it’s all downhill from here and let’s brace ourselves for the loss of marriage equality, contraceptives, religious choice, etc.”; or else the weird Facebook posts I’m seeing from people I know/suspect are anti-abortion-rights, and who know enough not to rejoice openly, but are posting blithe things asking what TV shows is everyone watching / it’s so hot today! / love this fresh garden produce, or whatever. In a sea of people posting about how if you like to GO CAMPING in a state that DOES NOT ALLOW CAMPING you can COME VISIT ME AND I WILL TAKE YOU CAMPING AND NEVER TALK TO ANYONE ABOUT THE CAMPING, it comes across as nauseatingly obvious that some of us feel like walking into the sea and others of us feel like it’s a beautiful day for celebrating the everlasting union of church and state. A nice mild collapsing-systems post about grocery shortages seems like it might be in the vicinity of what we might want to talk about in between sessions of inchoate shrieking: somewhat anxious, so that it’s doesn’t seem perky or oblivious, but not adding TOO much anxiety to the already overwhelming dread and despair.

I don’t know if you heard the news that sriracha sauce is suspending production. I use sriracha sauce at a slow but steady rate, and consider it pretty essential—but it’s in that category where it isn’t ACTUALLY essential, the way reproductive healthcare is essential, it’s just an emotional support food that makes me feel anxious to imagine going without. But I COULD go without, and/or I could find substitutes. But I don’t want to go without or find substitutes, I want the comfort of PLENTY OF SRIRACHA.

At such times, it is important to find balance: one does not want to HOG the sriracha so that OTHER sriracha fans cannot have THEIR sriracha, but nor does one want to run out of sriracha and regret not buying more of it when one had the chance. So, the next time I went to the grocery store after seeing those articles, I bought two bottles: that felt reasonable. And the fact that the grocery shelves were FULL of sriracha made me wonder if I had fallen for a sneaky marketing trick: perhaps this was just a clever ruse to get people to buy more sriracha! Well, it has a long shelf-life.

In the days after that purchase, I heard more and more sriracha stories, and began to feel that I had not purchased enough. This could be an EXTENDED outage! And I have tried many hot sauces, and none of them are sriracha. And so the next time I went to the grocery store, I bought two MORE bottles, feeling TRULY silly since, again, the shelves were FULL of sriracha; they even had BOTH SIZES, which is not something they always have even in normal sriracha-rich times. By the time I was unpacking the groceries at home, I felt sheepish, and thought maybe I should donate a couple of the bottles to a local food pantry. But then the NEXT time I went to the grocery store: NO SRIRACHA! None at Target, either!! And this morning when I went, again NO SRIRACHA. NO SRIRACHA ANYWHERE. THE SHELF IS FILLED IN WITH KETCHUP AND A.1. SAUCE.

So now I feel pretty happy about my bottles. If I find I am going through them more slowly than expected (the frequent news about sriracha shortages have made me crave it and I have been eating it every day, but that isn’t likely to continue), I can figure out a way to get rid of some—by giving it to a fellow sriracha lover in distress, or by donating it to the food pantry, or by putting it in some sort of fundraiser. (I did that a number of years ago when I had some Necco wafers on hand and the Necco factory had shut down production. Four rolls of Neccos raised $25 for charity! …Then Neccos resumed production.)

That was FOUR PARAGRAPHS about sriracha. (The sriracha is not a metaphor.)

Then, a few days ago, I was listening to the radio in the car and they mentioned that MUSTARD is the next anticipated shortage. Well, for heaven’s sake. Pretty soon I am going to need an entire cabinet dedicated to condiment reserves. Mustard is another of my VERY IMPORTANT THINGS (not actually important in the way the separation of church and state is important, but still feels important in its own food-accessory way). Paul makes me a sauce out of mustard, mayonnaise, creamy horseradish sauce, and sriracha, and I go through BOTTLES of it (I use it as a dipping sauce for chicken, steak, pork chops, etc.). (He deliberately makes it a little different each time so that it’ll continue to be a surprise to the palate, but if you want the basic proportions it’s like 48% regular yellow mustard, 48% mayo, and then the remaining 4% is sriracha and/or horseradish and/or spicy brown mustard and/or whatever else he thinks might be good; make sure you get the CREAMY horseradish or else the little shreds will clog up the mustard-bottle spout, assuming you mix it in an empty mustard bottle as Paul does.)

Anyway today at the grocery store I bought six bottles of mustard, and I really appreciated the clerk not remarking or asking questions. (Do you remember the time I was buying chocolate chips and the clerk didn’t know what they were? I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN about that until someone mentioned it recently.) I am going to buy another half-dozen bottles the next time I go, assuming there still ARE bottles to buy, because (1) like sriracha, mustard keeps indefinitely, and (2) unlike sriracha, mustard is eaten by other members of my household.

Something we haven’t seen on the news but have seen in our store: no bratwurst. Not for weeks and weeks and weeks now—and we’ve only been LOOKING for it since we started feeling like grilling, so who knows how long they were gone before then.

I put a question on one of the household whiteboards, and I thought it was a good question, but everyone else just thought they were in trouble. Which: fair enough. But that wasn’t really why I asked it, and it wasn’t meant to be rhetorical/scolding; it was meant to engage them in what I thought was an interesting discussion about the non-obvious complications of sharing a household and chores with other people.

The question was: “Household/community issue: Who should wash the birthday cake pan, when everyone ate the cake?” I am talking about a 9×13 cake pan, where you bake the cake in it and then take pieces out of it until the cake is gone—as opposed to, say, a couple of round cake pans where you remove the cake from them right away. And I am talking in this case about a cake where everyone ate some, and then everyone ate some leftovers.

Here’s why I asked: because at our house, it will not surprise you to learn it is always, always, ALWAYS me who washes the cake pan. And I don’t think that’s fair, when everyone eats the cake, and when I was the one who BAKED the cake, too.

But I was not having much luck coming up with a way it could be NOT always me, because it’s hard to come up with a POLICY. I think we could start with two policy fragments: (1) It should not be the person who baked the birthday cake. (2) It should not be the person whose birthday cake it was. But after that, I get stuck.

You COULD say that the person who eats the last piece of cake should be the one to wash the pan. Two–no THREE–problems immediately occur to me:

1. It leaves out the issue of SOAKING. I would SO much rather wash a cake pan AFTER it has been soaking for awhile. But not everyone in my household can be trusted to return to their soaking items in a timely manner.

2. More importantly, in my own household, where people do not cheerfully chip in and try to do their share but instead try to find wily ways to avoid it, what would happen is that one tiny slice would be left in the pan until it went stale, and then the question would be “Who should throw away the stale cake AND wash the cake pan?”

3. And of course, the person who ate the last slice could be the person who baked the cake, or could be the person whose birthday it was.

By this point I was fairly irritable and thinking that the real solution was to live with different people than the ones I live with. And that’s not wrong, but neither is it helpful for coming up with a policy for this current household.

The only policy I could come up with is this, and it is not as clear or concise as I would like it to be: The person who eats the last piece of cake should put the pan in the sink to soak; the next non-cake-baking/non-birthday person to be washing their own dishes should also wash the pan. This policy would work GREAT in a household of me and my clones! In my actual house it would result in a bunch of people playing chicken with their dishes: “Oh, mine are still soaking,” or “Oh, but yours were soaking first,” or “Whoops, I’m leaving for work/bed for 10 hours,” or whatever.

I am wondering what you think would be best, theoretically, and also what you think would work in your actual household.

Paul is away for most of a week. This is the first morning, and I have been nesting. I put his towel in the laundry, for a week of not finding it spread out every morning so that it damply covers the handle of the toilet until I have to shove it out of the way. I put out a new hand towel, for a week of knowing I won’t find it on the floor, or with a glob of toothpaste on it, or with dirty smears because he just rinsed his hands a little and used the towel to wipe the dirt off or because he used it to wipe up a spill. I changed the sheets, for a week of not finding his corners pulled almost all the way off every morning. I wiped his toothpaste speckles off the mirror, and will enjoy nearly a week of the shine, without feeling resentment at the immediate reappearance of speckles. I cleaned my glasses, knowing no one will spit mouthwash into the sink so vigorously that it crests over the sides and spreads across the bathroom counter and even splatters the wall and therefore also my glasses, so that when I peer at them before putting them on I can see and feel that they are sticky with someone else’s spit-out mouthwash; and without having to think about how I have painfully raised this topic, thinking it would embarrass him, and had it result in no change of behavior, even though I feel 99.9999% of humanity would agree that the over-vigorous mouthwash-spitter is the wrong one and should stop. It’s funny how much more willing I was to pick up and throw away a piece of trash on the floor, when I know another adult didn’t walk right past it earlier. It was odd how lighthearted–cheerful, even!–I felt about clearing away another adult’s dirty cup when I knew it wouldn’t be replaced with another dirty cup.

I handled Father’s Day in my new way, which is to slightly one-up what he did for Mother’s Day. This year he said “Happy Mother’s Day!,” and he offered to make dinner but on a night we were already planning on getting pizza to celebrate Rob’s graduation, and to be fair I was the one who said I didn’t want to postpone it a week and would rather just skip it. So this year I said “Happy Father’s Day!”; and I reminded the children about it a week before; and when we were running errands on Sunday I saw a bottle of lemon cream liqueur I thought he’d enjoy trying and I added it to our basket. I didn’t plan anything ahead of time; I didn’t clean his car or do any other chores I thought he’d appreciate; I didn’t ask him how he’d like to spend the day or what he wanted for dinner, because I assumed he would do/have whatever he wanted as he does every day.

No, things are not going particularly well, I do realize that. This isn’t me saying “Marriage, amirite??” as if I think everyone’s marriage is like this. Though I’m also trying to avoid acting as if having to deal with someone else’s damp towel is the equivalent of living in inhumane and insufferable circumstances.

LET’S PLEASE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. I finished The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow.

(image from Amazon.com)

I liked it. At some point fairly early on I thought to myself “I’ll bet this was written in the 2015-2020ish era,” and sure enough. There are themes about how non-men are treated by men/society, and about how culturally anything that gives non-men any power or equality (and/or protects non-men from what men would like to do) is spun as being bad/evil and in need of extraction/squashing. Witchcraft was power that was understood to be held by women and passed down by women, and so it made some men afraid/insecure, and when some men are afraid/insecure they get violent/angry toward the thing that made them afraid/insecure. ANYWAY IT WAS PRETTY SATISFYING TO READ. And it made me want to read more about witchcraft.

But it was longer than it should have been, in my opinion. I kept feeling a little burdened by how much of the book I still had left to read. I did really like it, and I WANTED to finish it, and I would recommend it; but I would also recommend getting it from the library, and giving yourself permission to do a little skimming.

Rob has arrived safely in Seattle, and the apartment was not a scam (aside from costing more per month for a studio/efficiency than the mortgage payment we had on our three-bedroom house, but that appears to be normal for the area). That was Wednesday night. We have not heard from him since, though he has participated in his sibling group-chat so we know from his siblings that he is alive. It is starry-eyed baffling to me that he is ACTUALLY IN SEATTLE RIGHT NOW.

Paul and I are both actively working on being cool here. We have decided that even Very Chillaxed Parents could check in after a week, so this coming Tuesday/Wednesday I will send an extremely casual email to see how things are going. I don’t want to make him feel like we’re hounding/pestering him, but I also don’t want to make him feel like we don’t care / like we forgot him. I also plan to explain that although he has grown up knowing his mother Hates The Phone, that that does not apply to her BELOVED CHILDREN, and that if he wants to talk on the phone I am ALL IN.

Instead of doing yoga videos this morning, I looked up physical-therapy knee-pain videos, and tried a few. I will keep trying the exercises for awhile to see if they help. My doctor also said a knee brace would help, but she didn’t mention any particular kind, and I searched “knee brace” and there are so so many options, from “looks like shapewear for fashionably smoothing the knee lumps” to “looks like something a hospital/AI/spacelab would install.” I am overwhelmed. Do any of you have a knee brace to recommend? My guess is that there is variety because there is a variety of needs. And without knowing why my knees hurt, it would be hard to choose/recommend a brace. If it is helpful, my doctor thinks it is osteoarthritis. I think it might also be low-tone / overly wobbly joints. My knees feel a little swoopy, a little tricksy; and all my children have been diagnosed as “low tone” and I think they get it from me (most of my joints bend farther backward than they should, as do theirs).

While I’m on the topic of asking for advice: If you have sliding glass shower doors, how do you keep them clean? I use the squeegee daily, and I scrub them periodically with a scrub-brush and various cleaning supplies, but they always look kind of cloudy/non-shining-clean to me.

School is out for summer, and the remaining kids and I are trying to decide on this summer’s project/plan. Last summer was watching musicals, and we didn’t watch anywhere near all of them, so we could continue that. But I feel like choosing a new mission. I might choose something new for myself, even if the group chooses to keep watching musicals. I am thinking I might read gossipy non-fiction about historical figures, or maybe I will read engaging travel memoirs, or maybe I will study witchcraft (more on this after I finish the book I am reading).

If you and/or your kids have read my dear friend’s new book The Art of Magic, and have not yet left a review, I hope you will do so. (It does not have to be a HIGH-QUALITY or AGONIZINGLY-WELL-THOUGHT-OUT review: apparently even “Wow!” and “Great book!” and “Loved it!” are AMPLY SUFFICIENT.) I don’t think things should work this way: it shouldn’t be “More Media Engagement/Pressure/Popularity = Better Than!!” But it seems that it IS measured that way. And so I wish to do what little I can do to assist, and one of the little things I can do is to nag people to leave reviews. And so here we are. And I thank you so much if you are willing to cooperate with this, because I know it’s a hurdle, and I pledge not to ask too many more times. (Once or twice more, and then stopping permanently, is what I have in mind. So the end is in sight.)

(image from Amazon.com)

Oh! While I have you here, I’d like to ask a favor: if you have read my dear friend’s new book The Art of Magic, would you be willing to go to Amazon to leave a review?

(image from Target.com)

Apparently the thingie Amazon uses for returning/sorting search results doesn’t really care about any product that doesn’t have fifty or more reviews. Which simultaneously makes me think two things: (1) That is a DUMB SYSTEM AND I HATE IT, and (2) I should be leaving more positive reviews. I hate to give in to a dumb system, but if that IS the system, then there are a lot of things I’ve read/bought that I’ve really liked but I haven’t bothered to leave reviews because I don’t have anything interesting or helpful to say. But apparently saying ANYTHING is helpful. And I want the things I like to do well. So, fine. Fine. If necessary I will leave reviews that say “I liked this!!,” with a title of “I liked this!!” (I hate choosing a title for the review.)

An update on the Rob/Seattle situation is that he’s just GOING. He is not going to wait until he has a job: he just picked an apartment (he got a studio because it was taking too long to figure out a roommate) and got a flight and he is leaving in two days. Without a job, without the lead time necessary to get a good price on the flight, without ever seeing the apartment in person or knowing how far it will end up being from the future job (please let there be a future job). He is just GOING.

I am driving him to the airport and I am trying not to say “Oh, and another thing!!” every 5 minutes. Each time I have a thought, I try to first put it through the filter of “Is this something he can figure out for himself and/or ask me about if he wants to know? or is it important enough to be one of the, say, three to five total things I can get away with mentioning to him between now and the time he leaves?” Does he know the apartment will not be stocked with anything, not even toilet paper? Does he know he will absolutely need a very good bike lock?/Does he know how to effectively use a bike lock? Does he know his address, so he can get there from the airport and also so he can ship himself a mattress-in-a-box? Is he remembering he was going to ship himself a mattress-in-a-box? Does he know how to get utilities put in his name? Does he know it’s sometimes cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket than a one-way ticket? Has he thought about whether he can afford the space in his luggage for a bike helmet or whether it would be better to order one to be shipped to him? Does he know there is a size/weight limit on luggage? Has he looked up the nearest grocery/convenience store to his apartment? Is he packing some granola bars or something so he won’t starve while he figures out food? Does he know he should bring an empty water bottle through airport security and then fill it once he’s through security?

So far I have casually asked if he knows his address (no), which I don’t think should count as one of my suggestions/mentions, since I didn’t actually suggest/mention anything. I have also mentioned the bike lock, and the size/weight limit on luggage. I am thinking about mentioning the toilet paper. I am going to trust that he can figure out food, but will casually mention on the day of travel that he should feel free to put any household snacks into his luggage—oh-and-that-might-be-nice-to-have-when-you-first-arrive; I don’t think that should count as one of my suggestions/mentions, either, as long as I can pull off a very breezy tone.

I had my annual physical recently, and I mentioned that my knees, which have always been A Bit Dicey, are hurting more now, and hurting more consistently, and starting to be less of an occasional thing and more of a constant thing. And my doctor, whom I really like and don’t want to switch away from (I very dislike when I have a Doctor-Related Complaint and the only advice is “Switch doctors!!”—as if there were a limitless supply of local doctors, and as if there were a doctor out there who would not occasionally merit complaint), seemed to be saying that that sucked and that there wasn’t really anything to be done, and that this was just how things would be from now on, except that it would probably get worse with time. She said if it seemed briefly worse, like due to extra work/activity, I could take acetaminophen/ibuprofen/naproxen for a few days at a time but not longer; she said I could try stretching before going to work; she said I could try using a knee brace. She said if I started walking differently to favor my knees, I would probably start to experience hip and back pain; I said “Oh! I AM having some hip and back pain!,” and her response was the equivalent of “Yep.” I am left feeling as if there is not much medical science can do for painful joints, and that this is just my life now. IS this how it is? Middle-aged adults get joint pain and then live with it forever?

Well. There are worse things. One of our middle-aged cats had a kidney just…fail. Like, stop working and shrivel up. Apparently that can happen. The vet was almost shruggy about it—like, well, he has two, so, there’s still one working. Meanwhile I am ready for an entire investigative miniseries on WHY DID IT DO THAT? Looking it up online was not a good idea: a kidney can fail if a cat eats something it shouldn’t have eaten, such as certain plants or household chemicals. So this might be our oblivious fault. Kidneys can also fail because mortal living things have parts that can be defective or can reach their own mortality points. So it might be his kidney’s fault, or his genes’ fault, in which case we would probably say fate rather than fault.

Paul, in an effort to interact with housework, has purchased a robot vacuum cleaner. Well, two: the first one was a very basic model, meant to show us whether or not this was something we wanted in our lives. The answer was “Yes, but this particular one is Too Stupid.” Paul has purchased an upgrade, the kind that won’t fall down stairs, and makes its own map and can be told which parts of the map to ignore. It is still Fairly Stupid. It is currently verrrrrrry carefully, in a thousand tiny little inch-by-inch moves, avoiding my computer chair, which it thinks is a permanent obstruction. I tried to move out of its way so it could go under my desk, but it declined to believe that the chair had moved, and just kept tracing around where it thought it was. Earlier it was obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with getting to the string of lights it has tangled with numerous times, despite us attempting to block access.

What I mostly want is for this thing to run when PAUL is home to supervise it, but when I am NOT, so that I am not driven up a wall by its endless inefficient bumbling and periodic cord tangling and “Robot trapped!” announcements when it is just between two chairs. On principle, I do very little robot interference: if it tangles, it tangles; if it stops, it stops. Paul has indicated that he considers himself to be handling the vacuuming, and I am happy to give him credit for it, as long as it affects my life the same way it would affect it if Paul were using a traditional vacuum clearer: i.e., I might be bothered by the sound, or by something bumping into my computer chair, but I would not have to follow Paul around and manage the vacuum cleaner cord for him, or prep the rooms to make things easier for him, or untangle something he’d vacuumed up by accident, or in any other way participate in the process.

Two friends recently brought over a Sunny Afternoon Sangria & Snacks Driveway Picnic, and I cannot express how perfect it was. Ever since then, I have been wanting sangria, something I have never made before.

What we used for the picnic was Opici Family White Sangria:

image from opiciwines.com

It was delicious, and the box is gorgeous. The only improvement I would want to make is alcohol content: it’s 7%, which is roughly the same as a wine cooler. It was perfect for a sunny afternoon, when at least one person was going to need to drive afterward—but let’s say instead I was bringing sangria to a get-together where we were all staying over and no one needed to drive. What THEN.

I still wish to use a BOX of wine. For one thing, I find boxes of wine delightful to use: the little spigot! For another thing, I enjoy the way a box of wine doesn’t keep TRACK of what anyone is consuming: the bottles don’t pile up; and there’s no issue of someone not wanting to finish off the rest of a bottle, or not knowing if they should start a new one. I know it is more typical to soak the fruits in the wine for awhile, which wouldn’t work well with the box idea—but it was even more fun to do a “choose your own fruits” set-up, where each person put whatever fruit they wanted into their glass and then added wine (via little spigot!).

So here is what I am looking for: opinions about the best (1) white (2) boxed (3) wine to use with fruit to make sangria. Also I invite any other comments about sangria, such as what are your favorite fruits to use.

I wonder if we could compare notes on a few minor purchases. And do feel free to ask about your OWN minor purchases in the comments section, for others to weigh in.

1. Body wash. I was using Love Beauty & Planet’s Argon Oil & Lavender body wash, which is more than I’d usually spend but I really liked the scent and it frequently goes on various “buy 4 get a $5 gift card” or whatever sales at Target. I used up the last of my bottle, went to re-order—and it NO LONGER EXISTS. Which I then remembered discovering when I TOOK OUT this bottle, because I re-order when I take the last one. And that explains why I also have Olay Birch Water & Lavender body wash, which is…fine. But not as birchy or as lavendery as I’d prefer. It’s more…body-wash-scented.

I would like to know what body washes you like. It’s fine to mention the ones you use without really thinking about it (I have felt this way about Ivory body wash, or any of the St. Ives or Suave ones), or the ones that feel kind of special to you (like my Love Beauty & Planet). But I am especially interested in the ones that feel a little extra special, and have a nice scent.

2. Ear plugs. I thought I would just Buy Some, but as soon as I put in the search term and saw the results, I thought “THIS looks like the kind of thing where an ear-plug novice thinks you would just Buy Some, but anyone who has USED ear plugs has AN OPINION.” So I request your opinion.

This morning on Life of a Doctor’s Wife, she did a post called Keto Favorites. I began to leave a comment with my own favorites. By the time I started the fifth paragraph, I was wondering if perhaps this was a “Get your own blog” type of situation. Remember a long time ago, in earlier blogging times, when a bunch of bloggers would all do a post on the same topic? Let’s pretend this is in that era, and so I am writing on THE SAME TOPIC as Suzanne, with at least some of the same headings! Those of you who ARE interested in keto foods will have TWO recommendations to look at for each category! And those of you who are not interested in keto stuff can click gratefully away, because there isn’t going to be anything else in this post.

I would like to lead off by saying that most of the following items are Startling Expenses. (I just re-read that post and am enjoying this line: “The annoying thing about my late mother-in-law is not that she’d spend $100 more on sheets while not wanting to pay 15 cents more on tomato sauce; the annoying thing is that she would think everyone who didn’t make the same set of decisions must be an idiot.”) I think it’s safe to assume most of us have participated in Restricted Eating of one kind or another and, at least for me, the thing about Restricted Eating is that at first I hear recommendations for treats that fall within those restrictions, and I add them to the shopping list, and then I find them and I think “TWO DOLLARS PER SAD SERVING????” and I absolutely HUFF OFF. And then X amount of time later, there I am trying them anyway, because I am so desperate to find a substitute for whatever it is the particular restricted-eating plan doesn’t allow. And then I get used to paying that price, and I forget it was so startling, and I go right ahead and recommend it to others for when they reach that breaking point.

Okay, let’s see—Suzanne began with YOGURT, which I had nothing to say about in the comment I was originally writing, but now I feel compelled to match. I did eat some yogurt for awhile, when I was feeling rather ill, but I can’t remember the circumstances, and it’s puzzling because normally if I were ill I would not want dairy. Maybe it was when I was going back on keto after a long absence? I’ll bet that was it. I’m sorry, this is already such a boring story, I will try to get us out of it as quickly as possible. All I remember is that it was a plain unsweetened whole-milk Greek yogurt that had very few grams of carbohydrates per serving, and I put a few mashed blackberries into it, along with some artificial sweetener, and it was nice.

Next: BREAD! My favorite keto bread (1 gram net carbohydrates per slice) requires a financial leap of faith unless you live in the small area of the country where it is sold in stores; otherwise it has to be ordered online in a 2-pack or 3-pack. Also: it involves wheat gluten, which is apparently Very Controversial! (Some people say REAL keto involves NO WHEAT PRODUCTS, but that segment has not managed to make their view universal.) Also, it is white bread, which might not be satisfying. Still: I make grilled cheese sandwiches with this bread and a lot of butter and cheese, and I have waking stress dreams that I am accidentally eating actual bread. (It is not as good as actual bread. But it is CLOSE, especially if you have not had actual bread for awhile.) It is Franz Keto bread, and I buy it on Amazon, and they also have hot dog buns and hamburger buns which makes eating hot dogs and hamburgers WAY, WAY MORE LIKE EATING HOT DOGS AND HAMBURGERS (I buy the one-pack-of-each option, because I don’t go through the buns anywhere near as quickly as I go through the bread) (I am on my THIRD 3-pack of the bread, while still on my FIRST pack each of buns). [Update: I have now tried the Keto Culture bread, which looks very much like the Franz Keto bread, enough that I assume the intent is deception, and is sold at Walmart—and it is good, indistinguishable from Franz Keto, and I can get it for $6-something per loaf.]

(image from Amazon.com)

I have also tried the Kiss My Keto variety pack breads. These would be an option if you want heartier, less-white breads—but be forewarned that the slices are SO SMALL. Like, when I first saw the size of the slices, I felt I’d been ripped off. I did adjust, especially when I resentfully made TWO tiny sandwiches because the slices were SO TINY, and found I actually only wanted one sandwich: the bread may be tiny, but it is nice and filling.

Next Suzanne covers PIZZA and TORTILLAS. I share her feelings about keto pizzas. There are some that are even pretty okay, but you can only have such a small amount. What I do now is wait for my days off, and eat pizza then. (We have a place near us that sells pizza by the slice, which is perfect for this.) Or I’ll budget for half of a Quest Supreme pizza (I add more pepperoni and cheese). Or I make a pizza omelet. Or I make pizza on a tortilla, like she does. I don’t have any strong opinions about tortillas, and am planning to try the ones she mentions.

(image from Target.com)

CEREAL! For awhile I was CRAVING cereal, and at that time I went through quite a bit of Schoolyard Snacks cereal (I apologize in advance for their website, which is OBNOXIOUS and has a very scammy vibe), especially the peanut butter flavor. I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and added a bit of artificial sweetener, and found it delicious once I got past the initial adjustment to it (at first it seemed kind of disappointing and sad). However, now I’ve been OFF my cereal kick, and/or willing to wait until the next day off so I can eat regular cereal.

ICE CREAM! My FAR AND AWAY favorite is the Rebel brand, if you can find it in your area. I especially appreciate that they put the number of carbs PER PINT rather than PER SERVING; I feel lovingly seen. I love most of the flavors I’ve tried (mint chip, cherry chip, triple chocolate, butter pecan, coconut almond swirl; the final two have lots of little nut pieces in them, so they’re nice and filling if you want sweet AND you’re hungry), and I keep a pint of each of my favorites in the freezer so I can pick what I’m in the mood for at the particular moment. By the way, the Coconut Almond Swirl means CHOCOLATE swirl!! They should make a bigger deal out of that! I would not have thought there’d be chocolate in it! CHOCOLATE MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN WHAT I THOUGHT THE FLAVOR WOULD BE. It has lots of little bits of almond in it, plus a CHOCOLATE swirl.

(image from rebelcreamery.com)

CANDY! My current favorites are: Reese’s Zero Sugar Miniatures, York Zero Sugar Peppermint Patties, and Atkins Caramel Nut Chew Bars.

(image from Target.com)

SAUCES! Paul makes me a sauce of mayonnaise, mustard, creamy horseradish sauce, and sriracha. I use it on tons of stuff but especially with chicken and pork chops and steak. He deliberately makes it so that it’s a little different each time, which is nice. I have made it myself, but I am struggling to remember even the basic proportions. It is SOMETHING LIKE: quite a bit more mayo than you might think; about as much mustard as mayo; smallish amounts of horseradish and sriracha. Mix it all together in an empty mustard bottle. Make sure you get the CREAMY horseradish or it will keep clogging up the mustard bottle’s spout.

I also pretty frequently use Ken’s Creamy Caesar dressing as a sauce.

DRINKS! Suzanne mentions having Bubly water instead of wine. I would have gin or vodka or bourbon or tequila, all of which have zero carbohydrates, thinned out with diet Coke or diet Sunkist or diet root beer or something, I’m not picky. But I also do drink a fair number of flavored seltzers. Oh also! Speaking of Pitiful Treats, I will buy the Sparkling Ice brand of highly-flavored, artificially-sweetened sodas (they call themselves “naturally-flavored sparkling water,” and I am not sure when something ceases to be sparkling water and becomes soda, but I’d say these have crossed that line). They’re like a dollar each, which makes them feel Special.

(image from Target.com)

CHIPS! Suzanne mentions not being able to find a good tortilla chip, and I have not been looking for tortilla chips, but thought I would comment on chips in general. For side-dish chips (especially alongside a grilled-cheese sandwich), I like the Quest chips, especially the Nacho flavor—but they are 4g per bag, so then I tend to eat just half a bag, which is okay, because they are so expensive. Another expensive option is the aforementioned Schoolyard Snacks, which in addition to cereal makes cheeto-like puffs, which are 2g per bag. (Again, apologies in advance for their DREADFUL site, which is so flashy and distracting and scammy-looking I can barely focus long enough to place an order; honestly, I have been there several times this week trying to order more cheese puffs, and I just can’t get past the flashing and pop-up videos and the “Are you still there?” that scrolls across the tab. I would not have originally been willing to order from them except that I did, and it all worked out fine. And don’t be swayed by their “free $10 gift card with order!!” thing: unless things have changed since my last order, the card expires at the end of the same month you placed your order, even if you ordered on, say, the 26th—but even if you ordered on the 3rd, would you really be placing another order so soon? Just pretend the gift card doesn’t exist. Anyway I wish Quest or someone would make something similar so I could buy that instead.)

(image from Target.com)

Eternal Life, by Dara Horn (Target link) (Amazon link).

This is a book about a woman who is 2,000 years old and can’t die but can only regenerate. I liked it while I was reading it (though I thought it was weird how often she shuddered/snarled/panicked while talking with her family members on tricky topics such as her age—after 2,000 years, wouldn’t she be better at this?), but felt the ending was unsatisfying, in a “But…wouldn’t it make more sense if…?” sort of way. I liked it enough to be interested in trying another book by this author. (I went to make a note on my To Read list, and found I already have another book by Dara Horn on that list: The World to Come.)

(image from Target.com)

Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos (Target link) (Amazon link). I wrote about the first book in this series here. It continues to surprise me how a book that doesn’t seem like it would be my thing (chummy cool-girl narrator speaking to the reader, including telling us pretty often how tiny and beautiful she is) is VERY MUCH MY THING. It’s as if the author is TRYING to write fluffy, lightweight, silly books but keeps accidentally failing. Like, she INTENDS to write a Classic One-Dimensional Mean Girl, and accidentally writes a multi-layered sympathetic character you want to be friends with. I thought the first book had an uneven, first-novel feel to it; I thought this one was much better. My main complaint is that the author keeps trying to write characters who are exceptionally funny or exceptionally brilliant or exceptionally good at witty dialog—but then, since it is the author herself writing those characters’ jokes/thoughts/remarks, it comes off wrong, because she’s essentially praising HER OWN writing. That’s an area where I’d suggest telling rather than showing, or else showing without telling, but not doing BOTH. I ordered a used copy of this book from EBay so I’d have it later; my library doesn’t have it anymore, and I know I’m going to want to re-read.

Someone very dear to me has a new book coming out next month, if you would like to pre-order it and/or get on your library’s hold list!

(image from Target.com)

The Art of Magic (Target link) (Amazon link).

It’s categorized for kids 8-12, grades 4-7. I don’t normally read books in this age category anymore, but of course I did read this one, and I genuinely enjoyed it. There are a lot of books my kids liked that I could not tolerate reading to them, but this is one I would have liked reading to them.

I am going to do a giveaway, and I’ll pre-order so you should receive it on or near its release date. (U.S. addresses only—but if you KNOW someone in the U.S., I can send it to them with a note that it’s from you.) To enter, tell me one of your favorite books from when you were this age/grade. I loved the Anastasia Krupnik books, and also pretty much any of those books where A Girl Has a Problem (eating disorder, periods, unrequited crush, parents divorcing, unpopular, summer camp, scoliosis). I’ll pick three winners on Saturday, April 23rd.

[Update: I ordered the winners’ books from Target, to avoid using Amazon. And today, on the release date, I got a bunch of notifications that there was a “new estimated delivery update,” which would be May 17th. This is…frustrating. One of the POINTS of pre-ordering is to get it on or very near the release date, not LITERALLY TWO WEEKS LATER. I’m trying to decide whether to switch all the orders to Amazon (which delivered one of the copies I ordered from them YESTERDAY), or whether to hope Target will soon send a NEW batch of delivery-update emails and deliver the books at a reasonable time.] [Update: Target still says out of stock, so I switched to Amazon. I try to avoid them, but…they have the books, and they will ship them now, and they will do it for free. So they win.]