Moving Right Along: I Love Tuesdays!

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I know, I know; it's Thursday, Love Thursday at that. But you know what? Yes! I love Tuesdays!

Tuesday has long been my favorite day of the week. During the approximately 300,000 years of my life that I spent working for lawyers, Mondays were horrible for obvious reasons. (Really, you don't know why? Please.) Fridays I always worked late because of all the things that had to be tied up before the end of the week. Thursdays we had to deal with all the people we needed to reach or who ~~were in a panic~~ needed to reach us before the week ended. Wednesday was usually when complications of a beautifully organized week going swimmingly since Tuesday morning would begin to rear their ugly heads. A Saturday when I didn't have to work I'd sleep, yes, all the way through to its companion Sunday, and Sunday was always filled with chores I hadn't done on Saturday plus dread over the looming Monday. Unless I was working Sunday, too. And then Monday, without clean laundry or sufficient rest, would be a compound hell beyond even the expectations of any regular Monday.

So what did that leave? Yes! Tuesday! Beautiful Tuesday! A clean day. All the nastiness of Monday, all the emergencies which arose over the weekend or left trash on my desk as they passed by while I was gone (if I was gone) had been cleaned away. No one was losing his mind with stress about the week ending without his needs having been met, not yet. Tuesday. Almost the whole week ahead with the very worst part over. Me and a neatly organized calendar, with neatly organized stacks of easily accomplishable tasks, a cup of coffee (or five), and a quiet phone.

Ah. Tuesday.

I am super-happy to tell you that I have not worked in an office in, shoot, nine years. Really, so very happy. I had my own business, a freelance graphic design studio out of my house for four years, and that meant I worked all the time, straight through, from the time I got up to the time I crashed, eighty or more hours a week. My week had no terminus, no weekend, so days of the week and weeks of the month as any kind of real division became meaningless, except for billing cycles. Then I went to work for Whole Foods for four years, where I worked late afternoon-to-evening shifts mostly Thursdays through Mondays. Now I'm at home working on this novel.

Do you know what's very strange? It doesn't matter. All along, even without a M-F, 9-5 office to go to, Mondays have still been Mondays, oh yes, in every way. (Well, there haven't been so many compound-hell Mondays, not by a longshot.) Fridays have still been Fridays. Even now, with no structure to my days or weeks that I do not impose upon myself, it's all the same. Saturdays are tired.. Sundays are busy with chores and worry about what each coming Monday will be like. Mondays, even Mondays when I stay home and do nothing but read books, still manage to be Mondays.

I suspect this is because the rest of the world is still following the classic Monday-Friday work week. I think there's just no bucking the dominant order of things, not completely, not alone.

The good news is that Tuesdays are still delicious.

Tuesday at Debra's Natural Gourmet in West Concord is called Organic Tuesday. Tuesday is when the already cramped and tiny store stuffs itself even further with table after table of gorgeous organic produce. Yes, even in February. I'm severely claustrophobic, and seriously, that is a very tiny store with very odd, narrow aisles. I shop there anyway, on Tight-Squeeze Organic Tuesdays and everything. That's how great it is. I have to work very hard not to be a complete jerk to everyone else shopping there at the same time, because it's not their fault I can't breathe and my head is spinning. That's probably good for me, even though it's not easy.

I visited this week so I could get some organic frozen produce, actually, and also to see what else on my list I could pick up there. On top of the frozen supersweet corn, broccoli florets, and petite peas, I walked out with a beautiful box of cherry tomatoes and two gorgeous cucumbers.

In line ahead of me was a hospice nurse who happens to be the sister of someone who still works at the Whole Foods I quit in September. She recognized me. She talked to me of love, of how she has held newborns and dying people, of how the space of a life is just a minute and then it's gone, and if you don't love somebody in that minute, then it's all been for nothing. She told me she loved her job, that it didn't feel like work to her, and that she couldn't believe she got paid to do it.

On my way back to my car, I was faced at the curb with what happens here at curbsides between snows: englaciation. There hasn't been much snow this year, and between the latest snow and this Tuesday I don't think the temperatures were ever much above freezing, so it's not like there was a sheet of slick ice between the sidewalk and the road. There was just this one very long footstep's width, wider than my fake knee can safely accommodate while stepping down, over ice that was pitted but not necessarily rough under a shoe sole, and I wouldn't know where it was slippery 'til I applied some weight to it.

I was wearing my beautiful black boots. This was the first time I had worn them outside on a day with ice to traverse. Though they do have some traction, which is what lets me walk in them on carpet, I didn't know if it would be enough to allow me to step onto this ice and not go flying into the street or butt-first onto the englaciation with all my groceries flying. So I went verrrrry carefully. Rather than test things with all my weight on one foot, I leant forward 'til I was supported by the hood of my parallel-parked car. Then I stepped onto the pitted englaciation of the curb, and then into the completely ice-free street.

While I was strategizing, leaning, and ever so gingerly toeing into this process, a cheery voice behind me called out, "Need a hand?"

"Ha! I need a brain," I replied.

"Okay, then!" said the voice, clearly unsure whether or not I was being hostile.

I turned around and grinned at the lady from whom the voice had issued. She, too, looked like a nurse or other health care worker; she was wearing one of those snap-up poly/cotton smocks in bright pink like a cardigan over what looked like a cheerfully decorated scrubs top. "I don't suppose you have an extra one of those on you?"

"Afraid not," she replied with a relieved grin back.

"No one ever does," I mock-sighed. I explained that I needed a brain so I would remember to wear shoes with whose depth of traction I was already well acquainted before leaving the house on an icy day. We laughed. We wished each other a good day. We went our separate ways.

This, by the way, was a perfect interaction between a putatively disabled person and a stranger, not because I cracked wise and she laughed (eventually), but because, seeing the putatively disabled person having obvious difficulty, the stranger offered help, but took no offense when the offer was refused, nor did she urge the putatively disabled person to reconsider, nor did she attempt to throw guilt upon the putatively disabled person for refusing. Also, the putatively disabled person understood the offer as an attempt at kindness and certainly did not get mad at the stranger for offering. At no time was pity effused, only honest human compassion practically expressed. At no time during this interaction was anyone physically threatened or even the slightest bit impeded by anyone else. Does everybody see how easy this is?

Okay, enough on that. Moving right along...

Tuesday continued to be its usual lovable self. I got everything done that I needed to do. I even made muffinettes (strawberry-corn; recipe and photos follow). And then I had a big adventure!

I know I've mentioned that I hate driving, that I really hate driving. Oh, and I'm bad at it. Oh, and I am really, really bad at it at night in New England, where we do not have (IMO) sufficient barriers between different directions of traffic on highways nor -- though I do like not having to live with the level of light pollution I got used to suffering in L.A. -- sufficient streetlights. I can hardly see a thing, what with the glare of oncoming traffic and the really dark darkness against which I can't use my highbeams because of the oncoming traffic that isn't blinded to my headlights by proper barriers.

However, as with everything else, there was something I wanted to do in Cambridge, and I didn't want to spend six extra bucks and stand on outdoor platforms in strong winds and temperatures below freezing waiting for trains, so I sucked it up.

It was Tuesday! So everything went perfectly! Of course!

Well, you know, perfectly for real life. People still drove terrifyingly poorly on Fresh Pond Parkway and Massachusetts Avenue. But, look, nobody got hurt, at least not in front of me, I made it where I was going with time to spare, and as far as I'm concerned, that's pretty perfect.

There was even a parking space free right in front of Porter Square Books, my destination. Also, I had enough money to buy Patry Francis' very first ever published novel, The Liar's Diary, and a cup of tea. I was burbling over with spazziness from the brief but hair-raising rush-hour drive, so I sat in a corner of the café to wait for Patry's reading to begin. And that's when a very nice gentleman who appeared to be some mathematical or scientific smartypants type from India said "Hi," and started chatting with me. (I base my assumptions about Mr. Smartypants on the work he had spread before him and his accent. I could be wrong on all counts.)

Mr. Smartypants began to tell me a little story of his day. "You know that song in the Maria Sharapova commercial? Well, this morning, I was walking around my office singing it and I didn't even realize it."

"Ugh, they get into your head, don't they?"

"Yes, and my office is all cubicles. So everybody heard me as I wandered around singing, 'I feel pretty, oh so pretty,' to myself. But they didn't know I got it from the commercial."

"Awesome!" I laughed. "You know what, though? Why not proclaim it to the world? If you've got it, flaunt it!" I meant, if you have a positive attitude, why not flaunt it, but I'm not sure that was communicated. "So, did you wear the serious, psych-out tennis face while you did this?"

"No, honestly, I wasn't even conscious I was singing it." We laughed some more. "So, did anything interesting happen to you today?"

"Well, it's about to. I'm here to listen to an online correspondent read from her very first published novel ever. I'm her official internet stalker. We've never met in person before, but I'm very excited for her. She's worked very hard for this and is an excellent writer." I looked up for a moment and noticed Patry had come in and that it looked like people were gathering in the back of the store, where seats were arranged facing a mike. "And now, I think I should head back there, because it looks like they're setting up. Nice talking to you. Cheers!"

I think there were about eight people gathered to hear Patry, including her husband and the store manager or owner, so it really turned into more of an informal chat. There was a sense of everything being brand new, of breaking new ground, of hope. Two people who'd shown were cousins, and two people were friends, and there was one woman who had just wandered in off the street and didn't even know what a blog was, but was very excited to learn about that, as well as to hear about Patry's book, her history as a writer, her process -- and to discover that her local bookstore had live, in-store readings by authors at all! It was a perfectly charming hour.

Hopefully, Patry will come and read in my town on the 24th, and hopefully I will be able to assemble a "Liar's Party" afterward at my home with tea and goodies and my most literary-minded local friends. But for now, because Patry had mentioned once on this blog that she loves muffins, I'd brought her some of the little ones I'd made that afternoon. Later I was relieved to hear that she and Ted (her husband, driver, photographer, roadie, and obviously avid groupie) enjoyed them on the train home. Of course they did! Why did I worry that it could be otherwise? It was Tuesday! Nothing major could go wrong. Muffins made on a Tuesday can only be enjoyable and enjoyed.

I had two more tasks to accomplish after this. There is a wonderful taqueria in Porter Square, and I say this with all confidence despite never having ordered any tacos there. It's maybe a hundred steps across the parking lot and down a back alley from Porter Square Books, in the same building with a Pier 1 or Crate and Barrel or some other yuppie home decoration emporium, and it's called Anna's Taqueria. Anna's burritos are sooooooooo good. My half-Mexican true love, who hates snow and ice and icy weather, and who had confidently lent me the car even though I'm a terrible, terrified driver, especially at night in New England, had requested that I bring him a chile verde burrito, so I marched over there and got one for him, plus a grilled chicken one with black beans and salsa for myself. Then I remembered I needed butter, something I'd forgotten to pick up at Debra's, so I grabbed some at the local Shaw's. And then I drove home.

And nothing terrible happened! I didn't slip on ice! I didn't crash on the highway! I didn't accidentally melt the butter in my Hello Kitty backpack by stupidly putting it in there with the hot burritos! See, it was Tuesday.

We ate our burritos, my true love and I, in the bay window of our little yellow living room, grunting companionably with pleasure, pausing only to wipe our chins when absolutely necessary, sighing with satisfaction afterward. He went back to studying for his classes at Harvard Extension, so he can exponentially increase his own smartypants-ness, which is actually a somewhat daunting thought 'cause he's pretty damn huge in the smartypants department already. I cooked and packed his lunch for the next day, checked my e-mail, and toddled off to bed a happy woman.

It had been a perfect day -- perfect for real life, that is. My cats are still dead, the war's still on, I still have cancer, and there were some specific stupid and stressful things that happened to us on Tuesday, too, things I'm deliberately leaving out because in the end they turned out to be unimportant. Overall, though, as real life goes, it was a perfect day.

Tuesday -- I love Tuesdays. This is Love Thursday, of course, and that's not bad, either. I wish you many happy ones, including this one, and many perfect Tuesdays, too.

Maybe these will help:

Perfect Tuesday Corn and Fruit Muffinettes

1 C whole corn meal
1 C flour
1 jumbo egg
1 t sea salt
¼ C evaporated cane juice
1 T baking powder
1 C 2% milk
¼ C canola oil
1 6 oz. bag frozen strawberries (defrosted, drained and cut into approx. ¼" pieces) or blueberries (still frozen)
turbinado sugar for sprinkling on tops (a very nice finishing trick I learned from Shuna)

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.

2. Whisk together corn meal, flour, salt, evap. cane juice, and baking powder until well blended.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, egg and milk until thoroughly combined.

4. Dump dry ingredients into wet and gently whisk together until everything has been thoroughly blended. Gently stir in fruit until it has been distributed evenly through the batter. Color streaks where the juice unevenly dyes the batter are okay; just try to work it so that every spoonful of batter has roughly the same volume of fruit in it.

5. Grease up some mini muffin or, as I call them, muffinette pans. Using a tablespoon (soup spoon not measuring spoon), fill each muffin cup with one heaping spoonful of batter. Sprinkle every cupful of batter with a pinch of turbinado sugar for a tiny tad of extra sparkly-crispy magic goodness.

Muffinettes magically sparkling under turbinado garnish.

6. Bake muffinettes 15 minutes. Best served warm.

I made this recipe, which is adapted from my mother's recipe for corn bread sticks, twice this week, once with blueberries and once with strawberries. I ended up with exactly 27 muffinettes each time.

Inferior muffinette redeeming itself as a vehicle for jam.

The blueberry version came out under-delicious because I made it on Monday with yogurt instead of milk (blech -- too sour, though well textured, such that the resulting muffinettes did make excellent vehicles for jam). The strawberry version came out perfectly because I made it on Tuesday and did not use yogurt.

Another plated pile of perfect strawberry-corn muffinettes.

Note: I recommend defrosting fruit that comes in larger pieces and chopping it up to blueberry size because if you don't, you end up with a number of muffinettes with cancerous bottoms, like so:

Muffinette afflicted with strawberry cancer.

Now truly, this is the best kind of cancer in the entire world. It is delicious, all gooey and caramelized around the edges. However, wherever it occurs, it will complicate extrication of a muffinette from its pan. If it occurs in the middle of a muffinette, the muffinette may split because the cake-to-goo ratio may not be sufficiently cake-y to provide any kind of structural integrity. And even though you have greased your muffinette pan, when fruit cancers occur in the walls or bottoms of muffinettes, sticking will occur, and so will mess. It's a minor point, however. I can only say that I find muffinettes made with evenly distributed small bits of fruit far more equally luscious from muffinette to muffinette, plus way easier to plate and clean up after, any day of the week.