TUES. MAY 30

An all-writing day, for sure.

I skipped breakfast.

I had a Lean Cuisine chicken/potatoes/stuffing for lunch.

For dinner, I wanted to make something very simple and all microwave -- due to the heat -- so made English muffin tuna melts. I had 3 English muffin halves, w/ tuna and Swiss cheese.

And that was it for the day. Too hot for anything else.

MON. MAY 29

Oh, I skipped Sunday -- well, all I did was go to the movies and eat movie food, so there you have it.

Monday, Sabrina decided she wanted chocolate chip pancakes. I, however, was busy making an apple crumble for the BBQ we were going to. So she made them herself. The first batch was waaaay too watery, and we had to scrape them off the pan and dispose of them. Batch no. 2 was way too thick, but at least she was able to cook them. I didn't have any.

On our way down to the BBQ, which was about 50 or 60 miles away in Orange County, we stopped at a McDonald's because Cory and I suddenly realized we hadn't eaten since lunch on Saturday (earning me bad-mom points up the wazoo). I had a McD's fish sandwich, and appx 1/4 a large fries.

At the BBQ, we nibbled for a while -- I had appx 6 crackers w/ seafood dip on them, 1 handful of chips w/ onion dip, and a few carrots.. The kids swam. The grown-ups talked. Eventually someone turned on the BBQ. I had appx 6 oz. of cut-with-a-fork steak, about 1/2 c. potato salad, a little bit of green salad and I think that's it. I wished someone had brought deviled eggs, but alas.

Then it was the adults' turn in the pool -- or to be more specific, the jacuzzi. The kids swam. The adults talked and jacuzzed. Then someone said dessert. I had a serving of my apple crumble (which looked odd but tasted heavenly) w/ ice cream, and a chocolate chip cookie.

Then we sat around and talked some more. Then we went home. Sabrina asked if we were going to stop for dinner, and we pointed out that if she hadn't eaten her steak, that was her problem. Shortly after that, she fell asleep.

Happy Memorial Day.

SAT. MAY 27

I skipped breakfast today, and actually got to sleep in. What a luxury!

Sabrina and I went to Costco and Staples around lunchtime, and stopped at Fatburger for lunch. I had a 'baby fat' cheeseburger (i.e., about 3 oz. of meat) w/ tomato and grilled onions, and about 3/4 of an order of fries, which I split with Sabrina. There were no free samples worth sampling at Costco.

For dinner, I bought a Costco take-and-bake deluxe pizza, which we ate while watching X2. I had 3 pieces of pizza, plus appx 1 c. of microwave popcorn. And that was it for the day.

FRI. MAY 26

Another all writing day, a bit more productive than I've been having.

I started the day with a Lean Cuisine turkey, stuffing and baked apples. Yeah, yeah, not breakfast food. But it counts when you're writing.

For lunch, I made vegetarian spaghetti w/ Parmesan for Lee and me.

We were supposed to pick up Cory at the airport at dinnertime, but his plane was delayed several hours, and he ended up coming in pretty late (both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home). From what I can tell, the poor kid only got pizza in the airport while waiting to board (that would be lunchtime or so), then they didn't feed them a thing the whole way home. Yuck.

Before we left for the airport, Lee, having noticed I've been doing all the cooking, made cheeseburgers -- mine on rye bread, w/ grilled onions.

And that was it for the day.

Today (Sat.), I have to go to Costco, so either the food court there for lunch, or fast food nearby. I will probably just buy a pizza for dinner (so cheap and so good there!), because tonight we're watching X2 on video to prep the kids for seeing X3 tomorrow.

THURS. MAY 25

Thurs. was another all-writing day -- but at least one where I got something valuable done (or at least I think so -- waiting for Lee's comments now).

For breakfast, I pulled yet another frozie out of the freezer -- chicken nuggets, potatoes, carrots. Hey, I don't really like most breakfast food, so happy to have something like this around.

For lunch, Lee at first said he was going to make hamburgers, then he didn't feel like cooking so he ran out to McDonald's. I had a double cheeseburger.

For dinner, we had lots of leftover chicken from various things, so I chopped it all up and made Baja-style tacos. I had 2 tacos -- corn tortillas, chicken, salsa, sour cream and cilantro.

Later in the evening, while we were watching a movie, I had a medium bowl of chocolate chip ice cream w/ chocolate syrup.

That's it for Thurs. Friday is another all -writing day. I expected we would go to McDonald's or Taco Bell or the like after picking up Cory at the airport tonight, and hearing his stories -- but we just got the message that his plane is going to be several hours late (United. What did we expect.), so I guess it's a late night rendezvous at the airport tonight.

WED. MAY 24

You know, the combination of writing hard and not having to cook for kids really makes one quite lazy in the kitchen. (Takes me back to my pre-kid days, actually.)

Which explains the Lean Cuisine macaroni & cheese for breakfast (yes, breakfast). Followed some hours later by a Lean Cuisine lasagna for lunch.

But I simply couldn't make it a 3-frozie day. So, with Sabrina eating at church, I summoned up the wherewithal to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.

Then, while happily watching Taylor win American Idol (though I would have been equally happy if Kat had won), I had a small bowl of chocolate chip ice cream w/ chocolate sauce.

Clearly writing brings out the worst in my nutrition. Oh well.

And Thurs. is another all-writing day. Though I do believe I'll at least have to cook dinner.

TUES. MAY 23

Sorry I missed Monday -- I was working so hard Tues., I never got around to posting.

Yesterday (Tues.) I actually met a friend for breakfast/coffee -- probably the only time I'll actually get out of the house all week. I had an orange scone and a chai latte.

I had errands to run, picked up some lunch on the way home -- a cheeseburger and fries.

I'm seeing myself doing some nervous eating, as reasons to be nervous increase day by day. So I ended up making a dinner that basically consisted of butter and cream -- oh, and to go along with it we had chicken breasts (sauteed in a basil cream sauce), mashed potatoes, and carrots. Later I had some Moose Tracks ice cream while watching American Idol.

Today is an all writing day.

SUN. MAY 21

Before church, I grabbed an old-fashioned donut -- gobbled half of it before going in to church, ate the other half after.

Lunch after church was made easy by an announcement in the bulletin: The high school group struck a deal with a local Baja Fresh: 15% of the orders brought in through the church for that day would be donated back to the high school group for their mission trip to Mexico this summer. So that's where we went. Needless to say, we saw a couple of dozen folks from Bel Air there. I had a chicken/rice/cilantro/sour cream burrito and a few chips.

I ended up going to Premise last night -- Lee chose to do the stay-at-home-parent duties this time, because he was on a roll with his writing, and because I did it last month. They usually order anemic fast food -- if you get there late, you get a marvelous plate of rice. However, this month, they cooked burgers on the grill -- in the rain!... So that's what I had -- a cheeseburger and a handful of nacho cheese Dorits (in honor of Over the Hedge).

For dessert afterward, I had a chocolate chip cookie and a piece of lemon pound cake that wasn't nearly as lemony as it should have been.

Today (Monday) is an all writing day -- at home all day.

SAT. MAY 20

I skipped breakfast yesterday, knowing we would be going to the movies.

We went to see "Over the Hedge" a bit early, and had lunch at the cafe in the movie theatre. I had a smoked turkey/swiss/tomato sandwich on foccacia bread, w/ fries -- also had a couple of bites of Sabrina's and Lee's excellent hamburgers.

We snuck our own candy into the theatre -- our local supermarket was having a $1 sale on movie-sized candy. I had 2/3 of a movie-sized box of Junior Mints. Also, Sabrina had a couple for a free kids' popcorn, and I had about 1/3 of her kids' sized popcorn (no salt, no butter).

I wasn't that hungry when dinnertime came around. Lee made Sabrina some mac & cheese, and I ate her leftovers -- about 1/3 c. of mac and cheese. Later I made myself a Lean Cuisine but somehow it got all stuck together and hard in the microwave so only ate about 1/2 of a Chicken in Peanut Sauce Lean Cuisine.

That was it. Sunday is church -- possibly doughnuts, lunch after church. Sunday night is Premise, so whatever they've ordered for dinner (usually not very good lately).

FRI. MAY 19

Fridays are tough this year, because Cory has to be at school at 7:30. So we raced out, and I ended up skipping breakfast.

I did have lunch out, though. Lunch w/ the Girl Scout leaders. I am noticing this odd lunch trend in L.A. There seem to be more and more of these places where you walk up to a counter to buy your lunch, as if it was a cafeteria, then you carry your lunch to these big communal tables (which is good if you have to spread out a lot of notebooks, etc., as we did yesterday) -- and you'd think it would cost less 'cause there's no waiter service, etc., but somehow the prices are much higher than if you'd gone to any of several reasonable restaurants and had a waiter serve you.

So that's the kind of place we went to yesterday. The kind of place where a tuna sandwich (without cheese, mind you), pre-made and wrapped in a plastic bag, is $8. (Ouch.) And where the salad bar, from which I had a small amount of Caesar salad and an even smaller amount of couscous is $14/pound. (Double ouch.)

However, everything was delicious, and one of the girls behind the counter noticed how hard (and long) we were working, and brought over 3 enormous cookies for us to share for free. I had 2 bites of oatmeal cookie, probably about 7 or 8 bites of chocolate chip cookie, and 1 bite of "melted chocolate" cookie -- and that was because one bite was all a normal mortal could take.

Made it through the Girl Scout meeting -- where the snack mom hadn't even brought remtely enough snack for the girls, so no way was there any for the leaders. It was rough -- the meeting was in Rustic Canyon, where we used to live. Hard to even drive into the canyon.

I made a point of driving the wrong way out of the canyon so as not to pass our old house. Besides, Sabrina and I needed to back into Santa Monica anyway to go to the supermarket so we could pick up snacks for Cory's Boston trip. At the supermarket, Sabrina bought a package of Drumsticks with her own money.

For dinner, I made one of Cory's favorites: Hamburger Helper cheeseburger macaroni -- I had 1 1/2 servings w/ sour cream (I don't particularly like this dish). Then Sabrina offered me one of her Vanilla Fudge drumsticks. I have to say, they don't really look like drumsticks at all. Not that it matters.

Saturday we go see "Over the Hedge" -- possibly lunch at the cafe in the theatre, possibly popcorn, etc. And No Cory -- he'll be in Boston. How odd.

THURS. MAY 18

I was a bit hungry Thurs. after not having eaten Wed.

I skipped b'fast, however. Around lunchtime, needing something quick and easy because Lee and I were hammering out changes to about 30 pgs of plot line (accomplished! whew!) -- I had a bowl of chili w/ 2 pieces of cheese, 3 spoonfuls of sour cream, and 4 crackers.

For dinner, we probably shouldn't have, but had a gift card and went out to dinner. Cory's soccer team won over their opponents 15-0. Actually nothing to celebrate -- the other school was a Montessori school so had kids ranging from 9 to 12 years old playing our 11-year-olds, and some of the kids on the other team clearly couldn't even afford cleats. Our team didn't feel too good. Our coach even kept our best players off the field, to try to slow the onslaught down.

Which meant Cory got a lot of time *on* the field. Resulting in his actually making a goal! (Given that he was playing defense, that tells you a lot about the game.) So that's what we were celebrating.

We went to Sizzler, where I had 2 pieces of fried cod, appx 4 oz. of fried clams, and about 7 shrimp, plus a baked potato w/ about 1 T. fake butter and 1 T. sour cream. And a piece of garlic bread.

That was it. The kids got ice cream sundaes w/ their dinners, and Lee helped himself to one, but I passed -- I think Sizzler's chocolate syrup tastes like it has artificial chocolate in it, so not interested.

Today (Friday) I have a Girl Scout leaders lunch to attend. Then a Girl Scout meeting this afternoon. And tonight, we get Cory to bed early because he goes to Boston at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow. Oy.

WED. MAY 17

This one's easy.

I was so upset, I didn't eat today.

TUES. MAY 16

We continue the month of May with even more bad news yesterday. Really, what does it matter what I eat when everything else is going to hell in a handbasket...

But here we go. Sabrina's leftover 1/2 bagel w/ cream cheese. The leftovers of the egg/sausage/potato/peppers thing from the night before. A baked chicken breast. Rice w/ carrots and onions. A piece of corn on the cob.

I'm home all day today, watching my life slide down the drain. Kids are at church tonight, so I don't have to cook dinner.

MON. MAY 15

Hmmm... Did I misdate yesterday's post? I have a funny feeling I did. Well, *this* is the real Monday post.

Yesterday (Mon.) I had a physical therapy appt. in the morning -- stopped at McDonald's afterward and had their new Asian salad -- quite good, actually, esp. for $4. Nice combination of flavors -- sesame/ginger/orange. I skipped the edamame, of course.

That was early, though, and I was hungry later. So in the afternoon I had the leftovers of the beef paprikash and noodles from the night before. Mmmm.

I made a breakfast dinner. A stir-fry of eggs, sausage, peppers, potatoes, cheese. It was good, even if Cory didn't think so. I also made crescent rolls -- and out of sheer nervous eating (we still haven't heard about the meeting we had last week - oy) -- I had 4 crescent rolls.

Later Lee had a candy bar and gave me 3 squares of chocolate. And that was it.

Today I am home all day. Probably will make some kind of chicken and rice thingie for dinner.

SUN. MAY 14

Sorry for missing Sat. -- I was just not home either day and didn't really have any time to speak of on my computer.

Yesterday (Sun.) was Mother's Day. This was the first year my mom wasn't staying with us. She has always come up for the kids' Grandparents Day at school, but there is no way she could handle it this year -- She would make a huge loud fuss about not being able to see or hear during the opening presentation, and she wouldn't have been able to handle the physical walking around the school, and would have been embarrassing to the kids because she wouldn't remember anything that happened two minutes before. So she didn't come. And she didn't remember ever coming before, so that wasn't a disappointment to her. Our dear friend Jack took her place.

We have traditionally gone to church then driven Grandma home and done the big buffet brunch thing at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, which is near where my mom lives. But this year we felt that she would not be able to walk carrying plates of food very successfully. Also, she tends to pile her plate with food and eat every bite whether she wants it or not, to the point of making herself sick.

So this year we went to church in a more peaceful manner -- unfortunately, they were out of doughnuts!

So we went to the restaurant owned by the couple that caters our Christmas party -- about 10 miles from my mom's, so that worked out. (The fact that we had a $50 gift certificate had no bearing on our decision, of course.)

The afternoon was lovely, though the service was slooooow. I had 5 miniature hot-off-the-grill English muffins w/ pear/strawberry/hazelnut butter (wouldn't have had so many if the service hadn't been so slow!...

Then had a clear chilled fruit soup, then a v. flat grilled potato thingy topped w/ about 2 eggs' worth of scrambled eggs, w/ appx 3 oz. of smoked salmon. It was delicious, but not much food, I have to say. Dessert was sort of a wash -- I ordered the chocolate beignet, but when the chef came out to say hi to us, he let us know that his apprentice chef in charge of desserts had left the eggs out of the beignets, which explained why they were so dry -- I actually only had about 3 bites of it. But I also had about 4 bites of Cory's "Twix torte" -- a cake made out of candy bars! -- which was so incredibly rich that 4 bites was all anyone could handle.

Hard to tell what I drank, because they kept filling glasses that were half-full. But my guess is about 6 oz. of champagne and about 16 oz. of cranberry juice.

I was quite hungry by dinnertime, and Cory had been asking for a specific recipe of mine (the way to a mom's heart!), so I started defrosting and cooking and made quite a mess of the kitchen that's still there because I really didn't feel I should have to wash dishes on Mother's Day. (Unfortunately, no one else felt they should have to wash dishes on Mother's Day either.)

I made one of my favorite recipes -- meatballs in an onion/paprika/sour cream sauce, over noodles tossed w/ butter and poppy seeds. I was in heaven. Had 1 1/2 servings, and had to throw the leftovers in the fridge right away or I would have kept eating.

Monday, I have errands to run -- a physical therapy appointment, Cory has soccer. I have reading to do for the WGA, have to get started on taxes, have to get back to changes on scripts. So no time for real cooking on Monday.

FRI. MAY 12

I had a rather odd breakfast -- I felt like something tomatoey, and since I didn't have any fresh tomatoes in the house to do something omelettey, I ended up having a Lean Cuisine cannelloni. That's one of the great things about being a writer -- you can get away with stuff like that.

I was working through lunch -- paying bills and thrilling stuff like that. Then I connected with an old friend -- my maid of honor -- and actually we go all the way back to 6th grade. I spent hours over at her house growing up, trying to get out of my own, and sort of invited myself over most Christmas afternoons to see what a real Christmas looked like. And then she got married and moved off to Washington, and before you know it, more years had passed than one wants to think about, and aside from the occasional Christmas card and high school reunion, we hadn't seen each other for well over 10 years.

And then she dropped me a line that she would be in town for her son's graduation, and I picked up the phone and called her cell number -- and the next thing I knew we were having lunch!

We met at The Grove and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I had 2 pieces of bread (one white, one dark) w/ butter, and an order of Thai chicken pasta (and forgot to tell them to hold the bean sprouts). Somehow I always end up ordering the same thing there, I don't know why.

It was so wonderful to see her again! It took me back over 20 years!

For dinner, I had my Alliance of Women Directors board meeting -- a couple of our regulars were out of town, and somehow that threw us all off. Usually the unplanned potluck works out perfect, but this time, everyone brought dessert!... One woman, knowing our regular salad-bringer would be out of town, did bring a salad -- but she put avocado in it, so I couldn't eat it (allergic).

I had about 4 oz. of roast chicken, appx 1/2 c. of white rice, 2 chicken/lemongrass sticks (from Trader Joe's -- sort of like half-sized taquitoes but wrapped in egg roll dough), about 7 mini-sized cinnamon rolls dipped in icing (about the size of a half dollar), a piece of pound cake, and about 3 strawberries. Oh, and a v. small scoop of chocolate ice cream. We had a lot more desserts, I just didn't eat them.

Sat. is our writers group -- so doughnuts and lunch afterwards. Then just hanging out.

THURS. MAY 11

A rough nervous-making week. No other excuse. (Anyone still there?)

Okay, yesterday I snagged Sabrina's leftovers for breakfast -- about 1/3 of a bagel.

I had an early lunch of a chicken fettucine Lean Cuisine. And much later Lee went out to McDonald's and brought me back a QP w/ cheese and a chocolate chip cookie..

After school, because Sabrina had won a bet w/ Cory, Lee took her to See's candy for one piece of candy as a prize. She brought me home 1 Bordeaux chocolate.

For dinner I made a fish casserole fish, rice, peppers, onions, mushrooms, celery. I loved it. I was the only one who did however. Oh well.

Today (Fri.) I have a chance of a visit w/ an old high school friend, here in town for the weekend -- hope it works out! She will have had lunch already, so coffee or whatever.

Tonight I have a meeting, one of the potluck ones. Not a clue what I will take (hmm.. wonder how they'd feel about leftover fish casserole).

TUES. MAY 9

I'm sorry. Today was a triple slam of not-so-great news. And even as I sit here, I find I don't really care what I ate today.

Okay fine. A bagel. A smoothie. A Caesar salad w/ chicken. A turkey sandwich. A bag of chips.

Tomorrow is one of those make-or-break-your-career meetings. We get the job, we're cake for close to a year. We lose the job, we rethink our lives. One of those days. I may not care much what I eat tomorrow either. We'll see.

SUN. MAY 7

Why is it so hard for me to keep caught up here?!!!

Okay I'll just pick up with yesterday. I skipped b'fast. Got ready for church, but we had a bit of a problem, as the school across the street from us was having its fair. Lee drove Cory up to church early for his jr. high group, and we put out a traffic cone to hold our parking space, but some nice person moved the cone and took the space. Lovely.

Which basically left us trapped in our home all day. And then Sabrina, who was up and ready early, wanted to run across the street to go to the fair for 5 minutes. Which turned into 40 minutes. Which meant we missed church. (Lee drove back up to get Cory and parked in the street blocking our garage door.) At least we got a good lesson about temptation out of it.

So we all went over to the fair for lunch, as they had some top restaurants providing food booths. I had a cheeseburger from the top steakhouse in town. Also had a small dish of raspberry sorbet and the world's smallest brownie (1"x1")..

Later in the day, Lee found some tickets lying in the street, so he used them to go back to the fair and buy our dinner. Wolfgang Puck pizza for the kids, and grilled chicken for him and me (from that same steakhouse). I also made some pasta w/ cheese sauce to go w/ the chicken.

We did make it up to church for the 6:00 p.m. service -- not my favorite, but don't like missing church altogether. When we came home, I had 7 increasingly insane messages on my voicemail from my increasingly insane mother -- who started out wanting to vent about a doctor she's furious at for no reason that makes sense, and ended up disowning me, disinheriting me, announcing that I was no longer her daughter -- all because I wasn't home to pick up the phone.

So after I got off the phone I sat down to watch what remained of "West Wing" and ate a pack of Doritos that had somehow come home from the fair, just out of sheer frustration.

Today we have to work on our big pitch for Wed. I have a physical therapy appt. this morning, then have to go to Cory's soccer game this afternoon. Probably will make that chicken tortilla casserole for dinner.

THURS. MAY 4

I skipped breakfast, as I suddenly had to put together a "1-page" treatment for the project we're trying to get (let's just say it's going to be 4 pages and be done with it -- the idea of a 1-pager is so ridiculous).

Had to run errands, which included waiting for over 30 minutes in the gas line at Costco for the privilege of paying $3.46 for premium (as opposed to $3.59 elsewhere). I grabbed some lunch -- a turkey/swiss/bacon/tomato sandwich, and fries. And while I was at Costco, I had 2 bites of lemon cake and 1 bite of chocolate cake -- they had tons of other good free samples, but somehow none of them were ready when I walked by except the artichoke dip -- I passed.

Sabrina ended up going to a friend's for dinner (a friend whose dad is a fairly powerful producer in town -- and she's been invited back tonight -- my kids are better connected than I am!). And Cory had a soccer game after school (they trounced the competition, 6-1, though w/ not much help from Cory I'm afraid), so Lee just picked up dinner on the way home. I had orange chicken from Panda Express, sticky rice, and a mango smoothie. Yum!

I was planning to make chicken tortilla casserole for dinner last night -- and then again tonight -- but now Sabrina's back at her friend's, and Cory has a junior high church group outing, so probably it will be pick and choose for poor me and Lee, left at home alone.

WED. MAY 3

Somewhere in the morning I had one Thin Mint G.S. cookie.

I paid bills and whatnot all morning, broke to have some vegetarian spaghetti w/ Parmesan.

For dinner, I had to make something quick because Cory had the jr. high group at church. I made teriyaki chicken -- chicken, rice, teriyaki sauce, broccoli, carrots. Cory and I were the only ones who liked it. I was still hungry, so had a small serving of leftover scalloped potatoes. Later I also had a small bowl of orange sherbet..

That was it for Wed. Today (Thurs.) I will be running errands, and Cory has a soccer game after school, so will probably pick up dinner -- probably Panda Express or Quiznos because we're going to be in the Palisades for the game, and there isn't much there -- on the way home.

TUES. MAY 2

Yesterday (Tues.) was a non-writing day -- the first such weekday I've had in a long time! I almost didn't know what to do with myself!

Lee offered to get me a Jamba Juice in the morning, but I didn't want what I consider to be fairly empty calories without the specific need for an energy boost, so I passed. For lunch Lee heated up the leftovers of our fish-&-chips dinner from the night before. I had 1 1/2 pieces of fish w/ appx 2 T. of tartar sauce.

Because our kids are in the middle of their standardized testing week, I wanted to make sure they were eating well -- lots of protein, lots of energy, etc. Sending heavy snacks to school for them every day, which I usually don't do (cheese and crackers, peanut butter, etc.). So for dinner I made meat loaf and scallopped potatoes and salad. The meat loaf was a big hit w/ Cory, not so w/ Sabrina. Later, Lee made me a rather too big bowl of Moose Tracks ice cream.

Maybe tonight will be fish -- brain food, they always say...

MON. MAY 1

Oh, I blew it again. We turned in our script Friday, after staying up almost all night Thurs. night, then we had to switch gears to prep for a really important pitch yesterday (Monday), so somehow I just never got around to doing that which I should be doing. My bad.

If anyone is even still reading, could you click on the comments and let me know? Maybe that will help me be more consistent here.

Okay, yesterday.

We had a huge pitch meeting for which we were woefully underprepared at 3:00, so food was sort of an afterthought for most of the day. I made a Lean Cuisine baked chicken thingie for breakfast because it was the easiest thing I could think of, then strapped myself to my computer and kept working w/o stop until I had to throw my hair and clothes together to get to the meeting.

Because of the big immigration marches yesterday, we had to meet at a deli (the office of the producer we were meeting w/ was on the march route and they had to leave at noon). The senior producer we were meeting with had a piece of chocolate blackout cake, and it was murder watching him eat it. (He offered bites all around, and Lee took a few, but since I'm the major pitcher, I didn't want to take the risk of getting chocolate crumbs on my teeth.)

We picked up the kids late (a LOOOOOONG meeting -- a good one, though), and stopped at a fish-&-chips place to pick up dinner, as I was devolving into my post-pitch numbness and knew I couldn't possibly cook anything worth eating. I had 2 pieces of fried cod, 4 oz. of clams, and appx 4 oz. of chips, aka fries, plus about 1/3 c. of tartar sauce. It was heaven.

Today (Tues.) I am home all day. Normally I would say it's an all -writing day... but we now have nothing to write. So I guess it's time to catch up on the last month of stuff I haven't gotten done. I think I'll make meat loaf for dinner, as I have already-defrosted hamburger waiting to be cooked....