Why I shouldn’t be allowed to go to the grocery store when I’m hungry and tired. Things like a 3# bag of boiled peanuts follow me home.

I went into Publix to pick up the last things I needed for Turkey Day last night, after staying late at work and going by the dance studio only to leave without the program information (not incredibly surprised, but still not happy… I really wanted to get started on the printing and folding this weekend). I was hungry and not at all interested in cooking the dinner that Menu Mailer said was next. Harumpf.

So, in addition to the fruit and eggs and rolls and pumpkin stuff, I also brought home some Thai noodles, Pad Thai sauce (peanuts again), a small ham (because I’ll get some Turkey from Mom to take home but I have to watch how much Turkey I eat; turkey contains tryptophan which carcinoid tumors can use to produce more serotonin… again, just in case), the boiled peanuts and some chocolate chunk cookies.

I don’t know why but I’ve been on a peanut kick for a while. Pad Thai has been a near-constant craving for several weeks (I only wish there was a take-out place that delivered it… I could order it from Rice Bowl and go pick it up but…) and while I can make a fairly good version myself, its a bit time intensive when all is said and done. I’ve always yo-yoed on peanut butter, but I don’t like it alone. I’ve never been fond of the dry in-shell peanuts like Roadhouse serves, I’d rather eat chalk.

I usually consider a craving as a sign that my body needs something that is inside or connected to that craving. Pizza craving could actually be the antioxidant-rich tomato sauce, that sort of thing. What do peanuts have? Protein. But my protein intake has been pretty good lately, I usually eat a fair amount of animal protein on a regular basis. There might be one other thing that Pad Thai and boiled peanuts have in common though: sodium. I suppose it could be low. But more than likely it’s the reaction of sodium intake: thirst, that my body is actually needing. I was probably a bit dehydrated (I hadn’t drunk my entire liter of water at the office). Still it was yummy.

It’s probably been two years since I last had boiled peanuts. V loved them and occasionally when they would have the green peanuts in the store I’d buy a couple pounds, boil them with tons of salt and nothing else, and we’d snack on them while watching a movie or the Sopranos or something. I enjoyed doing things like that, getting things that were unusual (relatively speaking) and surprising him with them. I didn’t have to do it, and I knew it, but he didn’t.

We had an argument once, while we were still together, about what he did versus what I did. I ended up having to justify my contribution to our little family more than once, and I would cite my trips to the grocery store (including ones that were out of my way because he wanted me to go there instead of the nearest one), the meals I cooked, the laundry I did, in addition to the money I brought in. I considered these acts of love, after all–there are plenty of women who refused to do laundry or made their husbands do all of the dishes or expected them to cook. And it was the way I did them, happily for the most part, knowing that I was doing something that made our lives better, that made him happy, it wasn’t curing cancer, but it was what I could do.

He? He considered it ‘my job.’ When I would say I did this for you, he came back with ‘that’s not something you do for ‘me’, it’s your job as a wife, it’s your duty.’ Can you say take the wind out of my sales? It didn’t occur to him that I could do anything but what I did, that if I skipped those things that I was slipping and lazy. If he offerred to do a load of laundry or make a trip to the store it was cause for celebration and fireworks… because it wasn’t his ‘job’ and therefore a gift to me.

Bullshit.

At the time I allowed myself to be beat down a little by his notions. Not any more. As I stood there, snacking madly on the boiled peanuts, enjoying the briny taste and the pebbly feeling my lips were taking on, like I’d been at the beach too long and the salt water was making my lips and fingertips raw, I thought about the last time I’d eaten boiled peanuts. I decided that no longer would I associate them with V, and as the microwave dinged that the thai noodles were done I decided that boiled peanuts might just need to become part of my Thanksgiving ritual from here on out.