Keeping Right

Dear Barb,

I started losing footing today. Already. Just a day later! And so I decided to make my best effort to stay right. After a horrible 2 hours with the most immature 15 year-olds on the planet, the bell rang. I vented with my friend F, whose room is next door, then I decided to stay. I remembered how good I felt just a day before and thought, no, I can't be wrong already, it's too soon to be off. I wanted when I walked out the door not to hate my job, not to want to run home to my martini shaker. So I stayed for another 2 hours, and did things I enjoy doing. I organized a little and I wrote a new quiz, rewrote some notes and questions from a Nova I show, and looked for images of karyotypes I can use on a test I want to re-write. When I left at 4 I was in an entirely different mood than I was when the bell rang at 2.

Oprah was already in progress when I got home, so I watched the rest of it, then got busy in the kitchen. I had made a pilgrimage to Trader Joe's over the weekend and had some ingredients I wanted to use, so my menu was already in my head. With mahi mahi thawing, a new bag of arugula, and a jar of piccata sauce I picked up to test, I was ready to go. I wasn't sure how I'd like the jarred sauce or not, so I didn't want it to be the focus of my dish and since I had fresh ingredients on hand, I didn't want to drown them in it. So this is what I did.

I put a couple of generous handfuls (side note: why is it brothers-in-law and passersby, but not handsful?) of arugula in the bottom of my shallow, rimmed pasta bowl, squeezed the juice of half a lemon on it and drizzled a little olive oil. I seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper and tossed with my fingers. I put just a sprinkle of shredded Parmesan on top. While the pasta was cooking I put the mahi mahi, seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides, in a smoking hot sauté pan with a little olive oil. (I got a great crispy sear on it! Yay.) Then, as instructed on the label, when the fish (or chicken) is done, I added the sauce to heat through. (Actually, I did that just before the fish was done, just after I turned it over.) I turned the stove off and let it sit while I waited for the pasta to finish cooking. When the pasta was ready I tossed it with a little olive oil and lemon juice in a separate bowl, then put that on the arugula. I topped it with the fish and sauce and put in a slice of lemon and sat down and ate.

It was SO GOOD. Of course, three bites in I decided to go ahead and mix the arugula with the pasta, and a couple of bites after that I decided to take a picture. It just looked so pretty. And so spring-like. And I wanted evidence that I turned my day around. I could make myself happy in my classroom with my science and curriculum writing skills and I can make myself happy in the kitchen. I am creative and being creative makes me happy. Whether I'm writing new materials for my classes or blogging here or elsewhere, making delicious dinners or taking pictures, being creative makes me happy. It keeps me right.

I hope you are right today, too. Or figuring out a way to get there when you can.

Love you,

Barb