I had a major one yesterday -- or maybe just a mentla blok or a mindfart or something, because despite the fact that I don't actually *own* the house the dish was going to be installed in, it never occurred to me that I might need permission in written form. Bah. So no dish yet. My landlords, however, rock, and have already written a letter for us, which I shall pick up this morning and have on hand for when my satellite dish is *actually* installed -- at the latest, Tuesday, but I am hoping to fenagle something for tomorrow so Ed and I can watch pre-season and season-opener goodness this weekend. And, you know, maybe some Iron Chef or Nigella Lawson.

I have discovered the perfect salad: red leaf lettuce and cucumber, perhaps some sweet pepper and a few sweet peas, drizzled lightly with hazlenut oil, spritzed with lemon juice, and them sprinkled with some ground or slivered almonds if any are on hand. I have always liked fresh green things, but never craved them. I've always had to go out of my way, in a sense, to eat them though I always enjoy salad when I finally have one in front of me. This is the first salad I have ever discovered that I actively *crave*. Dangerous stuff.

The hazlenut oil -- along with some fresh casarecci pasta, a zester, cardamom, and mexican hot chocolate (joy! not the xococoatl I have been questing after, which has chillies, but perfectly lovely.) -- was one of my aquisitions form a recent trip to The Cookbook Co. on 11th Ave. That store is flat-out dangerous. It is on the expensive side, but I get looking at the shelves with the pomegranate molasses and truffle risotto and start *planning*. And once a meal has been planned, it only takes so long before I've assembled the ingrediants for a complete meal and am up to my elbows in avacado. Which, again, dangerous.

Speaking of dangerous, I picked up all of my books this week. I am only taking two classes, yet somehow managed to drop over $400 in books for the upcoming semester. I console myself by knowing they are all books I should own, should probably have owned before now, but looking at my credit card has begun to make me feel squidgy inside again.

Luckily, my literary and culinary indulgence will hopefully be counteracted by a new RA'ship/serfdom I am neterig into this upcoming semester. I have a meeting with Professor X today to discuss my future enslavement to him. While not terribly glorious, photocopying and carrying things means I can support my habits, and since I have started reading comic books with a vengeance again (after being reminded just how hot Dr. Doom really is), my habits require supporting.