I was raised to avoid throwing away plastic (and anything else that might, in theory, be useful – just ask my husband about my collection of dried up pens that could potentially be revived with new ink cartridges). I don’t like to add to the landfills when I can help it, and besides, yogurt containers can have long and fruitful lives after the yogurt has been eaten up. Mine generally go on to serve Tupperware rotations until their inevitable separation from their lids.

Last night neither of us felt like cooking, and we opted to flake out and have mac ‘n’ cheese and frozen lima beans. It turned out we didn’t have any milk, so I made what turned out to be a rather nice sauce of garlic, olive oil, white wine, hot pepper flakes, and the juice of half a Meyer lemon. It was quite fiery and tasty with the pasta and limas and some parmigiano. And after supper I put the leftovers into a yogurt container (in hindsight, I think it may actually have been a cottage cheese container) so I could bring them to school for lunch.

This morning I overslept and had to scramble to get out the door for my carpool. I snatched food off the shelves and out of the fridge while brushing my teeth and scooping Royal Canin Urinary Diet kibble in the general direction of the squalling cat. (Somehow this had happened the previous day as well, and in the back of my mind was a determination to do better than meatless barbeque riblets, peanut butter, bread, and a Clif bar.) I snatched up the pasta. I flew out the door.

My a.m. toast was holding me over pretty well, so I didn’t eat lunch before Bits ‘n’ Pieces, a student variety show that happens occasionally at school. It went on twice as long as scheduled, with kindergarteners playing impromptu recorder compositions with titles like “People Running,” third-graders performing theatre of the absurd, another third-grade lad reciting his poem from the viewpoint of a shoe (“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Oh, we’re on the soccer field. Dribble. Ow. Dribble. Ow. etc.”), and the like. Contemporary performance artists have nothing on our Littles. We closed with some very talented older musicians (notable piano performances of a Hiller piece and the theme song from The Office), and by that time I was starving.

I fairly dove into my bag for the leftover pasta. I prised off the lid as I trotted toward the microwave, only to find that I had brought along a container of … moldy yogurt.

P.S. This is, in fact, still a knitting blog. I have a new finished sweater to show you, too, but I rarely see my photographer husband during the daylight hours. Cross your fingers that enough light may penetrate the lowering cloud cover and drifting mizzle we’re scheduled to enjoy for – apparently – the entire foreseeable future, and you might just see a picture over the weekend.