I tried...

The week before Christmas, while I was planning menus and making grocery lists I got ambitious. That combined with the extra time at home in the evening meant that I cooked dinner a couple of nights in a row - invented a pesto sauce from random ingredients, used lots of vegetables, the works. There were leftovers for lunches the next day at work, and the fridge was stocked with tupperware.

So then came a night when I felt that I had time to cook, but insufficient fresh ingredients. But I was on a roll of balanced meals, and even though I didn't feel like cooking, I was feeling guilty for my recent cheese and red wine streak. So I opened the freezer, and pulled out one of the meals I keep on hand for quick packed-lunch virtue. After five minutes I pulled the plastic bowl out of the microwave and my forehead wrinkled as I looked at pasta that was both over and under cooked at the same time, and I took a bite of bland sauce that made my mouth sad. I stood there at the kitchen counter for a minute, pondering the worth of virtue, and the five bucks this microwave disaster had cost me. Then, with a decisiveness that I would not regret, I picked up the bowl and found the trash can, pulled out the stand-by provisions (cheese, salami, and alcohol) and created the dinner that yes, I may have four nights out of five, but hey, add an apple (a usual accompaniment) and tell me that this isn't a balanced meal: Judge me if you will, but if this is wrong, I'm still living right.