Szechuan Green Beans at 5 a.m. and "Tool Academy"

The fragrance of them in your kitchen is so delightful! So why not cook them at 5 a.m.?

Getting up very early this term and so far it is working out well. The gym is not at all crowded, and the sun comes up over the lake out the big plate glass windows while I am marching in the air on the elliptical and watching "Tool Academy"* or some such cultural enrichment program.

In this bento I had leftover shiitake mushroom and steak stir fry, white rice, and the fresh Szechuan green beans, along with a mandarin and some blueberries & two chocolates.

In this second bento I had a salad but I have to report bad behavior on the part of Hello Kitty:


Kitty has little snap closers on each side, and something in my bag flipped one of the closers in transit so Kitty spilled her guts all inside my bag. This is not a great design! It adversely affected my mood to find olive oil and green pepper chunks all over the Iliad. But I got most of it back into Kitty and the lunch was good. Lesson learned.

*"Tool Academy" is a reality TV show in which bad boyfriends (the Tools) are sent to boot camp style training to become better. I've only seen it once, on the elliptical, but I stayed longer to see how several of these relationships would turn out. Almost all of the guys seem like contenders for Penitentiary PrimeTime, and their girlfriends have a hard and desperate edge. There's a lot of crying - just like life! - and every guy who succumbs to the exotic dancers, while hidden cameras capture his every lapse, has a million excuses: "They were always making fun of me in school!". Which would of course explain why you must now lick vodka out of a hot girl's navel as your ladyfriend watches in despair.