Lunch

Yesterday, CoolGuy and I went to eat lunch at our new fav which became our new fav because the old one closed.  Sigh. Restaurants are notoriously difficult to maintain, I know. Going out to lunch on Saturdays is a ritual we've acquired in the years since the children all moved away. So often, we're too tired to go out at night. By the time I get home from school, we'd really just like to sit down and not get back up to go out.

I read a piece about lunch lately--specifically sandwiches--and it made me think about that meal and it's ramifications. As a child, I didn't eat "lunch"--farmers eat dinner in the middle of the day. When school was on, it was called lunch, but our cafeteria ladies were so awesome that it closely resembled my mother's creation, "dinner," that I ate whenever we were home. I didn't pack a lunch for school, ever. This is why, when my children began school, they usually ate lunch there. Also, we were incredibly poor at that time, and we could get reduced-priced lunches. It wasn't until they were a few years older, we lived in another state and I'd begun substitute teaching, that I learned that the modern version of School Lunch was icky. Nothing like the homemade yumminess of my childhood.

My kids packed lunch most of the time when we returned to CA and we were dramatically more well off. I recall buying stuff at Sam's Club or Price Club or one of those Clubs...and people would just pick from that what they wanted to take to school. I helped the little boys, but the middle school and high school people were on their own. I'd take requests, and I remember various staple items being vetoed eventually out of boredom. I don't remember school lunch being that big of a deal.

I used to fix CoolGuy's lunch every day. I packed it in a black metal lunch box that he'd found and renovated. It included a Thermos jug that fit in the curved top. It would be strapped securely to his sissy bar and traveled back and forth to the base. I baked all of our bread, so his sandwiches were on honey-wheat slices. I can't for the life of me remember what I put in his lunches now--I just remember fixing them. I know that sometimes he'd go out  with people--like on a Friday payday. But even if I packed his lunch, he always had the option to ride over to the other side of the hill where he worked on the submarine base, to the beach and sit surf-side while eating his packed lunch.  When he got out of the Navy and we moved to an Air Force Base town in Idaho, he worked the night shift, so there wasn't the "going out" alternative. I fixed all of those lunches too. He started eating out exclusively when we moved back to CA. I didn't miss fixing lunch. He loved leaving the office and driving his bike down the coast highway a couple of miles and eating clam chowder while watching the surfers. Nice life, if you can get it.

When I started to work as a teacher, it was clear that a teacher's "lunch hour" will never be an hour and you'll be lucky if you get 20 minutes of your half hour. There isn't time to "run out" anywhere, and usually my schools haven't been close to a food place, anyway. I developed a standard lunch which was quick to wolf down, gave me an energy boost, didn't create gas....you laugh...but imagine being trapped in a room with 28 nine-year olds and having nowhere to go, but needing to vent???? No, I'm really careful about what I eat for lunch.

At first, I'd go to the teacher's lounge and eat. You'd think--cool--chance to talk to grown-ups, relax, maybe use the microwave. And all those things are true. And sometimes, I'd bring lunch that needed the microwave--leftovers are great. But a couple of years into it, we got a new young teacher on our team, and for some reason, she had to pick on me. It was weird...even the other teachers noticed and finally, some of them called her on it: we didn't need a food police or a clothing police. She'd make fun of my teacher clothes, and she'd ask what I was eating and then say, "Oooh, that's just nasty" or stuff like that. Very strange. What finally clinched my eventual retreat to eating in my own classroom, though, was the principal's trend of eating during the fourth grade lunch and sitting by me and chatting like we were old friends.

We did share several things: we were both from the West--in fact, we'd grown up on opposite sides of a big mountain--she in Idaho and me in Wyoming. We actually knew people in common because of my brother-in-law owning a ranch over there on the Idaho side. It was a bizarre coincidence that we'd end up meeting up on the East coast. However---during the school day, as my supervisor, she was unrelenting in her campaign  to proclaim me as a total incompetent. It was harsh, it was difficult. I did learn to be a better teacher; perhaps I even needed the drill sargent approach to break me down and enable me to discard old habits. I credit her for helping to shed the bad and embrace the good. But no way could I pull off the lunch time chats. I realize for her, the harsh treatment was just business, but I couldn't deal with the schizo-ness of the chatty lunch when she'd ask my advice about her grown children, or her regrets at having left the church behind. (I was the only other LDS person on our staff beside her--and at parties, she always got drunk...)

So, that left me in my current habit of eating in my room by myself. I love it. I shut off the lights (I have glass brick windows for illumination) and I just sit quietly at my desk and read e-mails, or browse the web and eat 1/2 of my turkey sandwich, my small cup of non-fat cottage cheese, a few pieces of fruit and drink some water. I eat my square of dark chocolate, and then head down to the cafeteria for my 10 minutes lunchroom duty (all the teachers have the last ten minutes in the cafeteria) and I'm refreshed for the rest of the day. After the students leave, I eat the other half of the sandwich, the little cup of rice pudding and the rest of my fruit. Then I spend another two hours in my classroom (or I'm eating this in the car on the way to class).  At any rate, my lunch fuels me for about three hours and then it's time for more food. It isn't recreational. I need to eat in my quiet room away from conversations. I spend the whole day talking. I need to have that silent break in the middle of the day. It refuels my brain like the food refuels my body.

If I want to Lunch for Fun, then there is always Saturday when CoolGuy and I indulge ourselves with lunch out on the town. When I get back to using my feet again as actual feet, this lunch is usually done on the motorcycle, so that just adds another aspect of recreation. Food--it can be just a utility or it can be a party.