stone soup and other recipes

i found ants in my sugar bowl and a gecko in my t-shirt. i swept them both away and went about my business. i'm not often thrown by the little african quirks of the day around here. i eat rice three times a day, go without dairy, do my laundry in a bucket, and wake up the next day and do it all again. no big thing. but today i had a craving. today i looked at the clock, saw that it was nearly one, and had a vision. i saw a sandwich. i saw a sandwich of honey wheat whole grain bread. it was spread with trader joe's red pepper humus and stacked with green peppers, alfalfa sprouts, tomato, snow peas and avocado. it sat on a little ceramic plate with a cold clausen pickle next to it and a tall glass of 2% milk. when i woke from my vision i was sitting in the office with a bread roll and an empty coffee mug. i was real sad.

question: how does someone keep eating rice and pumpkin over and over everyday without their taste buds and tummy atrophying?
answer: because on certain mondays in october, they get a letter in the mail full of love and fruit snacks that taste like heaven going down and make all the rest of it worth swallowing.

i'm a lucky girl. with love and fruit snacks and sleep overs and skype dates and good morning coffee and even better emails that together make all the rest of it worth swallowing.

yum yum.