pillows of rice and beans
A couple trips to Costco ago, Shobhit suggested we buy a couple of pillows they had on sale -- $10 each, as I recall; that's so cheap it's practically free, which honestly made me distrust them. They did appear full and soft, though, and the pillows we had at home, which have been in use for I don't even know how many years (certainly since before Shobhit first moved away in 2010), had flattened too much for his taste. At first I resisted, and then I was like, fuck it -- they're only ten bucks each.
Predictably, these new ones are already even flatter than the old pillows, and last night, when Shobhit went to bed quite unusually early due both to his cold still going strong and his having to be to work this morning by 7:00, he suggested bringing the old pillows back and combining them. I even crammed both old and new pillows inside his one pillowcase.
I grabbed my old pillow as well. Thinking it may prove to be holding my head too high and I may want to discard one quickly in the middle of the night, I did not cram both mine inside the pillowcase, and instead just set the old pillow underneath the newer one inside the pillowcase. I did have the thought that, maybe, if having my neck at too harsh an angle on the flattened pillow contributed to the pain in my upper back the past couple of days, perhaps this would make it easier on me.
And I think it did, actually! I would say the two pillows combined did bend my neck slightly too far in the opposite direction, but it was still far more comfortable this way. I did wake up this morning with a dry and scratchy throat that suggested it may have caused me to snore more than usual -- something Shobhit does constantly and regularly keeps me awake (a few days ago I texted him a video I took -- but never posted anywhere -- of him snoring on the living room couch, which he did not much appreciate), but whatever; I was unconscious! In fact, I slept much better last night than I had the night before, distracted only by Shobhit's coughing fits right before I came to bed. I'm sure he coughed regularly through the night as well, but luckily it never woke me up this time. Most importantly, today my upper back is far less sore, and it's a whole lot easier for me to tilt my head all the way back -- I could not do that at all without it being excruciating two nights ago. Now it just brings back a little of the soreness when I do it.
I think today I actually will cram that second pillow inside my pillowcase as well. That should function well for a while.
This morning Shobhit's coughing was much phlegmier. While that is, of course, pretty gross -- it’s a change, and indicates to me that his cold is progressing and presumably means he is, however slowly, on his way to recovery. I'm kind of amazed I don't appear to have caught anything from him. I should knock on every piece of wood I see for a while, huh?
Last night was pretty uneventful, except that I walked straight to the Capitol Hill branch library, where I sat and read the last 16 pages of the book I was reading, The Master and Margarita, having read the previous 15 pages or so while walking there. Shobhit drove straight there on his way home from work after getting off at 5:00 and just sat and waited patiently until I finished. Once I did, he even said, "See how patient I am?" Yes, Shobhit, sometimes, you can be very patient. When you're making a conscientious effort at it. And, it was very nice of him. He then drove us both home from there.
We made beans and rice with sautéed vegetables for dinner -- with lots of water to make it soupy. Shobhit wanted to call this "chili," but he needs to learn what chili actually is. It is not soup.
chili [chil-ee] noun: a thick sauce [emphasis mine] of meat and chilies
Granted, chili recipes can call for adding water -- to cut down on dryness or merely get to "desired consistency," which I'm sure Shobhit would argue was what he was doing. Nevertheless, I maintain that the dish is far more accurately described as "rice and beans" (or even, in this case, "rice and beans soup") as opposed to actual chili -- even if we did add veggie sausage to it. Shobhit's always all about creating as much volume as possible without adding calories, and the quickest way to do that is by adding water. I'm all about small portions and really don't like all my dishes to be so watery. At the very least, usually when he makes these types of things, they are made in a way so that it can be dished out with the water minimized, which he always does for me.
I added cheese on top of our dishes, and I feel like the dishes -- even mine -- turned out to be a bit too watery for that, but whatever. We then watched Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and a couple episodes of Roseanne. I spent an hour and a half or so after that in the bedroom, finishing up the draft of the Winter 2018 Social Review posted this morning.
. . . And then? My leftover rice and beans for lunch today turned out actually to be a little too rice-heavy. OH, THE IRONY!
[posted 12:19 pm]