ping at home

Ping came home from her road trip to Graceland to find a fully-stocked refrigerator, thanks to her boys. She also found that a downstairs neighbor's smoke had permeated her apartment to the degree that she has not been sleeping there very often. I arrived to deliver an iron frying pan she craved, a plastic box for lures from Walmart that she had wished for to store her earrings, and a pound of Zabar's espresso. I got to Belmont, Mass.,  at 3 pm and left at 9 am for Providence and my granddaughter's eighth birthday. In that period of time, she served me three multicourse meals comprised of foods she knows I particularly like and a case of Stella Artois. I could not eat or drink it all, but I assume the boys will help.

A light snack: Dragon eyes (like lychees), blueberries, clementines, plums, apple, boiled peanuts, soybeans.

Dinner: Dry tofu, shin of beef, beef tendon, pickled vegetables, French beans on a bed of blue corn chips, more peanuts and soybeans.

Breakfast: Congee (my fave!) with pickled vegetables, some weird powdered fish and seaweed stuff that I don't know what it's called but I like it, green beans, wild-caught salmon, tofu with anise and soybeans.

Ping walks it off at the rate of at least 6,000 steps a day. Me, not so much.