So far the best thing about having my driver’s license is that I can go to town to meet up with my friends for coffee or whatever more or less whenever I want to. I used to have to beg Olof to take me in or (horror!) take the bus, and either way I had to make my plans according to someone else’s timetable. Though Olof did take pity on me a fair bit of the time and chauffered me around more or less without complaint, I missed more of the get-togethers than I made it to. But now I’m free, free as a bird!

À propos de coffee-drinking, I was reading the other day that if you drink one latte every day without making any other changes, you’ll gain 13 kilograms–nearly 30 pounds–over the course of a year. Now, I don’t drink anywhere close to one latte every day, but if I start going to town even once a week for coffee, I could easily drink two lattes per week. That may not add up to 13 kilos, but it’s still a lot more “empty” fat and calories than I need. Mindful of that, I’ve decided that my drink of choice will now be regular coffee with milk and perhaps a bit of sugar. It’s a sacrifice, but as my friend Melanie has said, “Beauty must suffer.”

I felt rather virtuous this afternoon ordering a cup of medium-roast coffee and a bagel with vegetables and a small side of cream cheese when the vanilla lattes and chocolatey-good kladdkaka were fairly calling out my name.

I felt virtuous later on, too, when I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up a roast chicken and some fresh broccoli to make a broccoli-chicken pie for dinner. Lydia is having a friend sleep over tonight and she had implored me earlier not to make any of the “disgusting food” that I normally serve up, so I settled on the pie as a nutritious, tasty, and altogether normal alternative. Unfortunately, my efforts were all for naught, and the friend did no more than look gloomily at her plate and pick half-heartedly at her food until I gave in and offered her some of the plain left-over chicken I had in the fridge. Apparently it was the eggs in the pie that she found objectionable–she likes eggs, she told me, but only if they’re served in an egg cup. After a few years of hosting this kid, I have to wonder what exactly she eats at home. I don’t think I’ve ever served anything that she hasn’t had one or another complaint about. I really hope Lydia’s not so difficult when she goes to other people’s houses.