Preparations: Don't Die Before You Get There

Although I realize that this blog is supposed to represent the lives of both myself and Paul, I have to confess to you right now that Paul will probably go MIA until....oh....until September.

Poor guy.

He's practically living in his dissertation-writing office.  No, seriously, he's living there.  He has an air mattress and clothes and toothbrush and a mini-fridge.  A mini fridge!  He takes showers over there.  And does laundry.  Cooks his oatmeal with an electric kettle...  I mean, he's bacheloring it up over there.




Wonder of wonders, he actually surprised me by coming home to sleep last night.  He got home at 10pm and was out the door the next day by 7am--but I didn't care!  I was so happy to see him that I decided to get all romantic and lit about 500,000 scented candles strewn about the 60 sq meter apartment.  That's serious business when the candles come out.

It was the best impromptu 30 minute date I've ever been on!  It even ended awesome--with the smoke detector going off and a vanilla-scented melted wax puddle the size of a dessert plate plopped on our rental carpet.

After frantically running around blowing out every single candle and fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to turn off the smoke detector (did we forget how to use electric lights?), we just stood over that wax-fused carpet puddle with our heads cocked to one side and exploded into guffaws--rolling around on the ground laughing.

The carpet got a very careful trim this morning and it smells fantastic!  But this is all beside the point.

The point is that my job these next few months is to finish my own grant-funded project, learn a second language, and organize an international move while making sure that Paul stays alive...and maintains a basic sense of personal hygiene.  This means that I have to get him to eat, even if it means putting a bowl of food in front of him and to stand there watching until he actually nourishes his recently emaciated marine biologist's body.  The dude has lost 15 pounds in three months--pure stress loss.  Though...it could also be the fact that he's been too busy to bake cakes and pies and danishes every weekend like he did during the good ol' days.

Regardless of the reasons, I need to keep the man fed and fed well.  We both know, though, that when one is in "the writing zone" the last thing you want to eat is some fussy salad or anything that requires more than one utensil.   My personal thesis-writing preference was always Taco Bell gorditas...  You know, comfort foody types of things.  But the marine lab is in a food desert and so all meals need to be imported from home...so...

Do any of you know of a dish that can be warmed up in a microwave, eaten with just a fork, include something relatively healthy, but also taste like...oh...how to say it....taste like the idea of melted cheddar and mashed potatoes?

Save the Paul, Donate Recipes

(or else he'll resort to eating his experiments...)

He's done it before...