TGIF!

It was sunny and warmer on Friday morning. Before I left for work, I started the dishwasher and washed the main bathroom floor with the Swiffer Jet.

When I was walking in the parking lot between Building 3 and 4, a car pulled in. I stepped to the side of Building 3 to let it pass and immediately, a swarm of bees came out of the wall! I didn’t get stung and I watched them all fly back into holes in the mortar between the cement blocks.

Now, this was my problem, but not my responsibility. So, I put in a maintenance request to have them sprayed.

I was telling Kelly, the receptionist, about it and she said, “That explains it! The night cleaning crew left a note on my keyboard saying there were bees on my keyboard saying there were bees on my desk!”

So, they are not only in the walls, they have found their way into the building.

I went to Time Out and got a chicken quesadilla. For the first time, I ate the whole damn thing. I was hungry, I guess. Then I went to the 24-hour grocery store and bought a green pepper for tonight’s dinner.

It was noticeably warmer and sunny on my afternoon walk. I avoided the wall altogether.

When I got home, I emptied the dishwasher (after treating the cat). I changed clothes and started the weekend wash, since I sloshed coffee on my bathrobe this morning.

I watched the news for a bit and then started dinner. I was making was so many American housewives called goulash. Of course, it’s not Hungarian goulash, so let’s just call it “macaroni and beef” goulash.

So, I browned a pound of ground chuck in the Dutch oven while I diced a medium-sized onion and half a green pepper. When the beef was done, I drained the grease and let them took until they softened.

I grabbed what I thought was a large can of whole tomatoes and a little can of Rotel (diced tomatoes with green chile peppers) I opened the “whole tomatoes” and found they were tomato puree!

Sidebar: Read the damn labels!

Well, I wasn’t going to throw them out, so I threw them in. Now it was too thick, so I added water until I thought the consistency was about right. But, what about the tomato chunks I wanted? So, I diced up the six Italian tomatoes I had from my garden.

Sidebar: That was a mistake, sort of…

I added about two cups of elbow macaroni, brought it to a boil and then turned it to simmer. I put the lid on it and set the timer for 15 minutes.

When the timer went off, I checked and the macaroni seemed a bit undercooked. So, I let it go five minutes more.

One final taste test (it needed a bit more black pepper) and it was done.

It was pretty good, except the fresh tomato skins had come of and were an unpleasant texture. But the taste was excellent (I ate two bowls, LOL).

I watched some TV during dinner and until the goulash cooled. Then I put it into three containers and into the fridge. I filled the Dutch oven with soapy water and left it to soak overnight. Then I went to bed.