You’re so sad, and pathetic. So sad! So wilty!

That is what I just exclaimed to the spinach I spied in my fridge. Home from running for the night (we’ll get to that in a minute) and now showered, and starving, I ate a few handfuls of “Trekking along with Cashews and Hibiscus” and realized I needed to figure out what to eat for dinner.

The kitchen left clues that suggested Jeff had pasta earlier in the day. “So I am guessing you won’t want pasta for dinner, too?” I asked. “No, I’ll do pasta again,” he says over the phone.

Do I have the ingredients for cheese sauce? Barely. The showing of the cheese in my fridge is distressing. Only parm, and a half-block of raw milk cheddar. Did we have any red sauce on the shelves? No. Now, to those of you who live in LA, I know this will shock you. Don’t worry – I have the supplies to make a sauce from scratch, but my stomach is rumbling NOW. Plus Jeff has to rush back out to work tonight, so that won’t do.

Jeff offers to stop at TJ’s for sauce and sausage – our favorite quick dinner. So now, to the kitchen to prepare the water for pasta (of which we’re dwindling close to less than 5 pounds. Jeff assures me we must use up our “random” pasta before we add to the collection. I am skeptical.) Spinach and chive linguine I must have bought once at TJs, although I don’t know what possessed me. I don’t like linguine. It must have been for something, but now it’s tonight’s dinner.

And now, a vegetable, which leads me to the conversation with the spinach. I opened the fridge, scared of what I’d fine in the vegetable drawer. The CSA from last week is half eaten, and I went to the farmer’s market yesterday and committed a cardinal sin of the farmer’s market. I was on my cell phone when purchasing. I also (sin number two) was in a time crunch, as yoga started at noon. This led to the purchase of a large bunch of spinach, a medium bunch of kale, two crowns of broccoli, an onion, some garlic, three lemons, and who knows what else.

This melody added to the Swiss chard, artichokes, beets, carrots, baby carrots, onion, and garlic I ALREADY had made for a very green fridge. Oh CSA, why can’t you teach me another way to each artichokes?

Anyways, back to tonight, and my kitchen. Like I said, I had a lot of veg. So I figured Jeff would prefer broccoli to say, chard. Opened the fridge, and spotted the sad, pathetic, ONE DAY OLD spinach. “Really? Really you look like that? I bought you yesterday. Pathetic.” So the spinach went in, and then the broccoli as planned, head shaking all the way.

Luckily Jeff knows that TJ’s for sausage and sauce also means garlic bread, so we have that to look forward to.

Meanwhile, I ran Friday and then again today. 1.75 miles today, 23:35. Not bad, says Nikki, and my feet. My body is so sore from yesterday’s yoga where I had a great aha! moment that involved really working my arms like I should have been all along from plank to up dog. Anyways, tangent. This run was the longest yet, probably the longest distance I’ve ever run just to run, and my feet did NOT blister over. They instead have callused. I take this as a good sign, despite that all this working out has led me to talk to spinach in my kitchen…