The sun was unslowed by clouds and cut its way through the tree cover. There was no evidence of the previous day. Everything was already dry. The ground was dry to my feet, the trees were dry and not even dripping, the sky was dry, and some clothes I hung out to wash in the night were dry as well. The day of rain could have been a dream if my rumbling stomach didn't remind me I'd only had one meal.
My breakfasts have not changed much since I started out. Sometimes I cook up oatmeal, and sometimes I just launch the boat and munch on snackfood. I did, however, add scrambled eggs to my diet. I have verified that eggs can go at least a week unrefrigerated. I just crack open three or four of them into my pot and stir as it cooks; just eggs with no oil or milk. Since I don't much clean the pot after meals anymore, last night's supper adds its seasoning, and then I also have salt, pepper, and dill available.
The morning sun found me without oatmeal, without snacks, and without eggs. As an experiment I had picked up some Aunt Jemima pancake mix at the last store. I wasn't sure what I could do in a small pot, but I thought maybe I could dump a bunch in there, mix in water, and stir it as it cooks, just like for scrambled eggs. Except this would be "scrambled pancakes".
Well, I stirred and stirred, and it started bubbling, but nothing seemed to be hardening. I turned up the heat a bit, and got a couple corners of the pot to start making pancake. I mixed these lumps in with the rest of the goop, and the stove stopped; it ran out of fuel.
My little fuel bottle was dry and so to get more I'd have to fix the large jug out of the canoe. This wouldn't be fun with only mud to stand in. I decided I would have to eat my creation, which was really just warm, wet pancake mix.
I did start eating it, and I was able to keep it down. It was essentially just flour water, right? It had the effect of filling my stomach and possibly giving me some calories as well. Still, there was no denying it. I managed to eat most of the pot before pouring the rest into the river.
It was the worst breakfast ever.
Day 63 ended: 50*26.273N, 101*21.503W
Saturday, October 4, 2008
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4 comments:
The pancake queen is saddened. What has happened to my competitor? Reduced to making uneatable paste? What a tragedy!
You'll remember the scene in the Prisoner, I believe the "Schizoid Man" episode, where he is offered different breakfasts. When the "flapjacks" are revealed I remember Dustin K. nearly shouting "Those aren't pancakes!" I'll have to agree with Dustin on this one: those aren't pancakes.
Today I tried my own recipe, adding cocoa into my coffee as I grounded it, and then a little vanilla in the filter with the grounds. I have to say, it did a lot for the flavor, smoothing and rounding it in a way that didn't reveal the ingredients of the change, at least to my unrefined, gourmand tastes.
This morning I ate dates and a bagel for breakfast. The coffee I didn't have until around 10:30~11, just before S and I went to the farmers market. We ran into some friends, who noted that there would be some Japanese film tomorrow night. We were grateful, since we see these friends (whom I met through S) less now that S is here than when she was away to her childhood city in Florida for a time, even though we all work for the same company. I also ran into some other friends, also seen rarely, who I promised to ping more often, as well.
This morning I worked on preparing some diagrams I promised for my old adviser and his grad student (from now on ProfW&N), as well as writing an initial private critique for N. I look back at my time working on a thesis, and I think my number one mistake was trying to connect to people intellectually, by tying in related disciplines and literatures, instead of writing software that intrinsically had meaningful use, and then situating it. As Paul Graham says about startups, the number one challenge is not funding, scalability, competition, or the like, but just making something people want. Design for the heart, and the head will usually come along for the ride.
Who knows what else today will bring: laundry is planned. I stopped off at the library earlier, found some interesting things I might mention in a different post as I read them.
Wow. That's pretty pathetic Kevin. However, it was good to read in the sense that it killed any lingering jealousy that I was feeling in regards to your adventuring. In fact, my home life feels pretty good right now. Today for breakfast I had a delicious smoothie. Nectarines, blueberries, strawberries, a bit of banana and some milk and yogurt. Delicious.
This was the particular culinary low of the entire trip. I threw that stuff out next chance I could get. I have actually been eating remarkably well lately!
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