Substitutions

Tuesday, I just didn't feel well. Not quite actually sick, but just not feeling right. At times I would think that it wasn't going to be so bad, and I might as well get up and do something. And then I would get a twinge and think, no, that's not a good idea. I'm going to get worse. I'm really going to be sick and I might as well get used to the idea and do something so that it won't be so bad.

I thought about what would make me feel better. Eating a whole lot of cookies makes me feel better, but that isn't really good for me. But I was thinking that I could make a whole lot of cookies out of this cake mix I got on clearance (not this year, and not even last year, and I still have lots of it left) and all I would have to do was add a half stick of margarine and two eggs. That would cost about fifty-five cents. Then I could eat cookies. I could probably eat cookies instead of eggs for breakfast. Maybe I could even eat cookies for dinner. I could eat cookies and still do this dollar a day thing.

But the dollar a day thing isn't important. I was going to drink less soda this week, have less sugar, and here I was thinking that eating cookies for breakfast might be the thing to do.

Probably not a good idea.

I gave up and went to the dollar store for some over the counter meds, and while I was there I bought mac and cheese and a pint of chocolate milk. So I have so far spent an extra two dollars that I had not planned to spend. And I think that I will just have to say that I've gone over six dollars and leave it at that.

I keep thinking of something I saw, maybe with John Hirsch, maybe in Taxi (though I really can't remember and I never did watch much of Taxi). Anyway, there is this man at a restaurant that he probably can't afford. And he keeps trying to make it work out that he can eat there. He keeps asking the waiter what comes with what and can he make substitutions. And then he ends up saying something really silly, like can he substitute another meatloaf for the sprig of parsley.

So I keep thinking that maybe I can substitute something and still only use six dollars for the six days. But I should give up on that. The chocolate milk and the mac and cheese did make me feel a bit better, and without most of the added sugar of eating a whole bunch of cookies. Spending less than a certain amount of money isn't really the important thing this week. Not being sick is important. Getting some work done is important. Maybe not ingesting a lot of sugar is important.

It may not always be that way. I think that if I don't want to do eat what I have planned to eat, I don't have to. There are other things in the house to eat, and if I really wanted to, I could spend ten dollars or so and go buy Chinese food, or a pizza, or ice cream, or something at a bakery. I could do something like that to make myself feel better.

If I really only had four hundred dollars to spend on food for the year, and I spent a dollar a day, and then I didn't feel well and went out and spent ten dollars, I could do that, once. I could do that a second time and a third time. The fourth time I wouldn't quite have ten dollars left, and I would maybe look around on the ground for someone's dropped change. The fifth time I would just be out of luck, unless I happened to find a ten dollar bill that someone dropped.

Anyway, I felt good again yesterday, but this morning, not so much. We will have to see.