Jess:

At the gym today, I saw a teenage boy and girl holding each other near the water fountain. The boy had to be 6'5" and the girl's head only came up to his chin. She was holding him so tightly it looked as though she were trying to melt into him. No matter how hard she clutched, it seemed, she couldn't get close enough.

I envied them both. What a wonderful feeling to find shelter in the arms of another. My memories of it take a while to conjure because it's been a while. And I miss it.

The macaroni for my dinner is cooking as I write this. I hope I don't get so stuck trying to fix the syntax on some sentence that I forget the time until the macaroni cooks to mush. Check the watch again. About three minutes left. Luckily macaroni is forgiving. I have about a three minute window where any time within that span the pasta will turn out fine. Maybe it's my palate that forgives. Another time check. Gotta go.

I'm back. Miss me? Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying so even if you didn't mean it. Because I know you were worried, yes, I did make my "Macaroni Window." It tastes fine. Macaroni and cheese, it is. It did come out of a box, I confess. However, in addition to the genuine powdered cheese that comes with the box, I added some mozzarella cheese from a bag that I bought separately.

It's really easy. After you cook the macaroni, you dump it into a colander to get most of the water out and then dump it right back into the pan. Don't worry that you haven't drained all the water; you'll need some to mix with the powdered cheese.

Forget what the directions on the box say. Just take the powdered cheese and pour it right on the still steaming macaroni and mix it. I tried stirring it with my fork thinking I would save myself some dishwashing but it wasn't working well so I broke down and got my thingamajig that I was going to call a spatula but just realized is not a spatula but something else. It's the thing that you flip pancakes with, whatever that's called. What’s that? It’s a thingamabob not a thingamajig, you say. Thank you. By any name, it works great for mixing macaroni and powdered cheese.

Once you've done that, you take some of the mozzarella and pour that on top of the concoction you've already got and stir it in. The macaroni's still hot enough that it will melt the cheese as you stir it. In a couple of minutes -- voila! -- you've got macaroni and cheese.

After my workout (and some sitting around doing nothing except watching "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" on one of the TV's in the workout area -- it's the one where Buffy's mom dies, so sad) I went to the nearby Meijer store. Meijer's is like one of those Wal-Mart superstores, except the name, of course, that sells everything from mouthwash to motor oil.

It also sells mozzarella cheese. I picked up a bag of that (on sale!) and decided that while I was there I should get some yogurt too. In the dairy section I saw cottage cheese on sale also ($1.49 for 24 ounces, down from $2.19 -- jackpot!) and I wished I had gotten a cart. But I hadn't. So I made my way carefully to the checkout line clutching my cottage cheese to my chest.

It wasn't a girl, but I got to hug something. If you can't be with the cheese you love, love the cheese you're with -- isn't that the song?

Pardon me while I go back to the kitchen and re-fill my plate. I know you can hardly stand to wait to see how this tale turns out but it will only take a moment. Hang in there!

One box makes two heaping plates of macaroni and cheese but lacking company to eat the other one; I'll handle it myself, thank you. It occurs to me as I chew through the second plate that man's intestines were not designed to digest that much cheese at one time.

Could be why the Meijer sells the motor oil.

Excuse me one more time while I... you don't want to know what I'm going to do this time.

Freaky! I come back and see my cat sitting on the corner of the bed then on my computer monitor there's a picture of Annie. She's in the photo slide show screensaver and it was her photo being shown at that moment. I'm catatonic.

I won't tell you where I went but while I was there I finished a crossword puzzle and a roll of toilet paper. The key to finishing the puzzle came when I figured out that the seven letter word for bell tower is "steeple." Because I filled in all the other clues around it, I learned that a cream colored dog is called a "Samoyed," as in annoyed, which is what you'll be if its barking wakes you up in the middle of the night.

Actually, I have no idea if Samoyed rhymes with annoyed. If I saw one, I would say, "There’s a cream colored dog. I wonder if he tastes like milk." But, then, what did that have to do with crossword puzzles?

Indeed, what did this have to do with anything? Pardon me now while I go do the dishes.

What excitement do you have to report this week?

John

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