What with one thing and another, I decided to coddle myself today. We’re having roller-coaster weather (for months now) — it warms up to the 80’s F/26 C then cools down into the 60’s F/ 15 C, then warms up again, and cools down again. We’re in a trough at the moment and it’s a little nippy (high of 70 F/21 C today, predicted low of 36 F/2.2 C tonight). Later in the week, we’re heading for a predicted high of 90 F/32.2 C on Monday, then back down into the 70’s again. . . It’s still bone dry with no precipitation and a humidity of 18%, and we’re under a wildfire watch because it’s windy (22 mph/35.4 kph).
I got a late start to the day because I had a good long lie-in, not stirring out of my snuggly warm bed until noon. Didn’t have to get up, didn’t want to get up, so I didn’t. I had cinnamon toast for breakfast, and made a big carafe of hot Stash Spiced Chai with almond milk, followed not long after by a can of Amy’s Kitchen vegetable soup for lunch which was major nummy-noms. (Amy’s Kitchen has a line of Mexican frozen entrees which I love, and I saw they had soups, so I got some to try. This is the first one I’ve tried and I really like it.) The bread I was using for toast is “artisan,” which is to say, it is fresh-baked in the store from frozen dough, and is sold as “English toasting bread.” It’s a white bread with a nice taste and some substance to it — it doesn’t dissolve into library paste like the crap the Big Bread companies pass off as white bread. (Wonder Bread! — if there’s any real food value in it, it’s a wonder!) This stuff toasts up nice and crisp, so I had two more pieces with just margarine on to go with my soup.
Blue Diamond packages their almond milk in little quart packages that don’t need refrigeration, and that have a nice long shelf life, which I really like. I don’t use that much “milk,” just on cereal and in tea. (I do not like cow’s milk and it doesn’t like me either. The only actual “dairy” I eat is yogurt, cheese and the odd bit of gelato or ice cream.) I like being able to keep a couple of cartons of it in the cupboard without having to sweat the “use by” date. I get the vanilla flavor because the vanilla makes it sweet enough I don’t need to add sugar to my cereal (Kashi Cinnamon Harvest), and I like it in tea — Spice Chai, Earl Grey, English Breakfast — both hot and cold.
I noshed my soup while at the computer working jigsaw puzzles I created from pictures of Anne Bachelier‘s paintings which I’ve downloaded off her blog to make puzzles with. I love her stuff. I just took it easy, listening to SomaFM’s Drone Zone music channel, eating my soup and toast, drinking my chai and almond milk, and working this puzzle of one of Anne Bachelier’s paintings, with her wonderful palette and magical-surrealist imagery, and it was very, very nice. Just a total chill out. Nice way to spend a lazy Saturday.
I leave you with this little parting shot: In searching out links, I ran across this clip from my man Sam Elliott. What he has to say about almond milk struck me as LOL funny. Be warned, though. He drops a couple of F-Bombs, too, if that kind of language bothers you.
The Owl Underground 
Do you know, I’ve never had almond milk. I really need to remedy that — just for the experience, if nothing else. I do love my cold glass of milk, though. My favorite is from Promised Land, which I believe still is an all-Jersey herd outside San Antonio. I need to check that, because a corporation may have gobbled them up. In any event, the milk is delicious — almost as good as the Amish whole milk I can get at Central Market, if I were to make the trek into Houston. It comes with the cream on top, just like it’s ‘sposed to.
I don’t know if you were the one who put me onto SomaFM, but I was listening to their yachtrock station this afternoon — smooth 70s stuff. I need to explore some of the other channels, just to see. By the way — did you ever listen to Coast to Coast. I saw that Art Bell died yesterday. Of course, it was Friday the 13th, which some of his devotees evidently take as a sign of something or other. My mother used to listen to him in the middle of the night, and then couldn’t sleep the rest of the night — not because she really thought the aliens were coming, mind you. It was just that…. well… you know. 🙂
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