Return to civilization

Things Ysabel does when she visits her family in California:

1. Eat
2. Sleep
3. Drink coffee
4. Eat
5. Do tons of laundry... 'cause it's FREE!!!!
6. Raid my dad's CD collection
7. Eat

Having been essentially a college student for the past 7 years, it is always a (wonderfully pleasant) shock to my senses when, everytime I open the door to my parents' or sister's refrigerator, I find it completely full of delicious leftovers skillfully crafted the previous night or so from actual scratch ingredients by actual human beings. Instead of various processed food products made to eat directly out of the box or "cooked" in the microwave. Which is essentially what my diet has consisted of since August of 1998. Even during the last two weeks in Bear Valley, I consumed a frightening amount of instant noodles as, during the fateful morning of my departure for the music festival, I was hazily wandering the aisles of the local grocery store (As I was warned, you soon learn that eating out in Bear Valley involves a commitment of at least $20 for every meal, so, unless you want to spend your entire festival paycheck on food, musicians know to bring groceries from home...) completely distracted by my anxiety over the as-yet missing eb clarinet and trying to hold a conversation on the phone with Scott. Hence, I ended up leaving for Bear Valley with grocery bags containing bananas, a bag of bagels and about 20 packages of Ramen instant noodles...

I didn't quite comprehend the horror of my situation until I got to Bear Valley and saw all the thoughtfully planned out foods my housemates had brought. Tons of fresh produce, pastas, etc. Luckily, my friend Erin was wonderful and pretty much fed me the whole time we were there. Thanks, E!

Anyway, I'm back here at the parents' house in Santa Rosa and am well on my way to completely emptying out the contents of their fridge. It's glorious. I have to find something to do while I'm waiting for my (FREE!!) laundry to finish, right? If I work efficiently enough, I will finish the job tomorrow morning in just enough time to drive to my sister's house in Sacramento and annihilate their food supply as well. MWAHAhahaha!!! I did enough walking in Bear Valley so I can afford to..... Also, coffee (along with a variety of flavored creamers) is always abundant at both of these dwellings so, despite my annual springtime attempts to break free from the addiction, I always fly back to Knoxville completely dependent on the delicious delicious caffeinated liquid crack.

I'm not doing too badly, yet. It is still early in the afternoon of my first full day here and I've only had 3 cups.

...Damnit.