Take a Break

All I want

Is one break

Which is not

My neck.

 - J. P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

I have to be a bit pickier about breaks. I want a break that is also not nervous and/or down. Also, not a break for which there is a designated room, as in Employee Break Room where, for all I know, employees are either broken, or only admitted if they’re already broken. I’ve been there and I’m never going back. Besides, I’ve had my neck literally (not figuratively) broken and it’s now held together with some titanium sticks and bolts. So, I’ve got the whole bionic thing going for me.

But enough about breaking things and throwing china and cleaning possibly deadly spiders’ webs out of old cars and figuring out how to put stuff on e-bay to attract people with too much disposable income and an un-satiated lust for “collectibles” of no discernible intrinsic value. You know who you are.

Instead, let’s talk about the amazing weather and the lovely sunshine that is so warm and gold I can hear it whispering for me to come and bask. Of course, everything outside sounds like its whispering from in here sitting inside in front of my computer pursuing my eternal quest for enlightenment on the internet and pondering the wisdom of some of my bookmarks.

I need a break anyway. I spent the morning reminding myself that I can still craft a hella legal document, specifically an amendment to a trust document, replete with herebys and witnesseths and pursuants sprinkled liberally among the bold and underlined important stuff, and the stuff that is in CAPS just so you know it’s the most important in the hierarchy of importance.

So, then I made some sun tea and added enough sugar to induce an insulin coma and then my kombucha starter. Now it sits for a couple of weeks to ferment. The violet kombucha I made last month has carbonated the heck out of itself in bottles and a double shot adds a delicious sweet fizz to the nasty smoothies I make out of leafy greens, fruit and nuts. No matter what smoothie components I use I end up with this thick green mush that I will generously admit is an acquired taste, and not to be taken from a clear glass where you can see the sludge left behind.

I’m not as fussy as my roommate in combining smoothie ingredients and use what comes to hand. Princess (let’s call her that) flatly refuses to acquire a taste for my recipes and finally objected so strongly that I had to stop using mustard greens, the wimp. And, as Princess Wimp fancies herself a culinary wizard, she prefers to add bananas and avocados and often almond milk to achieve a nice creamy consistency, which I admit looks and often tastes better than mine.

I’ll use water and/or fruit juice and often end up with grassy strings of chard or stems of broccoli rabe. I also toss in a few teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, which tends to make my concoctions on the tart side.

Now, some would say I’ve always tended toward the tart side and I wouldn’t deny that in terribly unladylike terms, at least until happy hour was well underway. So I’ll now take my grey smoothie (kale, chard and pomegranate juice mix together into a purplish gray that is a slightly more appealing color than spilled tile grout. But I’ll be drinking it in the golden afternoon sun, taking a break from my labors and reading a good book.