The more I think about my slow cooker, the more sad I am about the magic that it once promised. The more I read recipes that sound very promising for this slow cooker, the more I realize that a whole lot of prep work needs to be done for the most optimally tasting dishes to come out of this six-quart monstrosity. It’s not one of those “dump everything in and watch the magic happen” type of pots as people like to think of them. I’m sure you could do that, but you’d be pretty disappointed in the result.

Today for dinner, I made chicken tikka masala in the slow cooker, but I had to do quite a bit of preparation first. I had to trim all the fat off the chicken thighs and cut them into bite-sized pieces; mince garlic and ginger and dice an onion to then saute with spices and tomato paste; marinate the chicken in yogurt and spices, and also roast tomatoes. I did most of this yesterday to speed up the prep time today, but it was still a good deal of work. It’s no wonder people just resort to delivery and eating out; this takes a lot of time to get a really good home-cooked meal out of a slow cooker.

Tonight, Chris and I attended a film screening that was selected to be part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The collection of short films, Pressure Points, included one short film that my good friend co-produced called Shooting an Elephant based on a George Orwell short story.

My friend invited a number of friends to the event, including a couple of my old colleagues who also attended. I hadn’t seen one of them since he left my old company in the fall of 2012, and of course since then, I’d also left, and my life had taken a different course. A lot happens in three and a half years. Since then, I had gotten engaged and married and left the company we were both at together, and he had changed jobs several times and now has decided to pursue occupational therapy as a career. Right before he left the company, he had eloped with his long-time girlfriend from college, and they had purchased an apartment together. Well, I guess their marriage was short lived, as I discovered tonight that they had broken up and sold that apartment.

We’ve been Friends on Facebook this whole time, but I had no idea about his marriage ending. It’s not always fun to make public difficult life choices on social media channels. When people say that they want to keep up with their acquaintances’ lives via social media, this is an area that we can’t always count on getting updates for.

I feel like as I’ve gotten older, I can’t keep up with all the new hip food trends and restaurant openings like I used to. Instead, I’m finding out about them from my younger colleagues, who are anywhere from three to seven years younger. One of the latest crazes is poke, or raw fish served with rice, quinoa, or in the form of a burrito/wrap, which came by the way of Hawaii and/or California. Poke Works is near my office, and so one of them suggested we go next week. The “sushiritto” thing I learned about from Chris when he was on a work trip to San Francisco. I hate that he found out about a San Francisco food trend before me.

I wanted to see what the hype was about, so after looking it up on Yelp, after work today, I walked over to see if I could potentially get it for dinner tonight. As soon as I got to the place, I was appalled to find out that there was not only a massive line inside the shop, but there was even a roped off area in front where people were queuing up. In total, there were at least 30 people in line, and it was not even 6pm yet on a Thursday. I couldn’t deal with the line, so I left and went home, dejected.

I refuse to wait in a line unless I absolutely have to. Damn trends.

Another bonus of going down to Chinatown yesterday afternoon for a massage was that I realized that because it’s April, it means it’s mango season. Mangoes will be at their peak in Chinatown, as would fruit like jackfruit. As we walked along Canal, all I could smell was that wafting, sweet and rich scent of jackfruit beckoning. I haven’t picked jackfruit meat out of an actual jackfruit since high school, and I remember quite vividly how sticky and disgusting the process was. I had to have the fruit, though; it was cheap and smelled perfectly ripe. The innards of a jackfruit are like glue, and not polite white Elmer’s glue that washes off simply with soap and water, but the type of glue that persists even after scrubbing an abrasive all over your hands. It’s okay, I thought in my head as I made my half jackfruit purchase. I’m bringing this six-pound baby home. It will be worth it.

Well, I spent about half an hour taking out all the jackfruit meat and scrubbing my hands with salt and soap over and over. Chris washed the dishes and complained on and on about how hard it was to get the jackfruit stickiness off the cutting board and knife. “No more jackfruit in this house!” he exclaimed. “This is pleb work! I’m not doing pleb work!” I insisted I like jackfruit and that it’s tasty. “You can eat it, but no more picking it out in this house!” He yelled back.

Well, he obviously doesn’t like it as much as I do.

Because of the greatness of Chris’s company, we get a sizeable credit every month that his work covers for us to get massages. Since we go to a place we found in Chinatown that is only $36 an hour, his credit covers both of us plus an over 50 percent tip we give to the masseuses. I was never that excited about massages, but Chris loves them and looks forward to them each month, and of course, he drags me with him. And I know I sound like a brat when I say this, but most of the time I don’t really want to go. I’m just lazy on Sundays and want to stay in our neighborhood.

Well this time, I actually really wanted a massage, and I’d been really wanting one since the wedding weekend. When we went in today, my regular masseuse Lucy commented to me in Chinese that every time I come, my muscles are usually quite knotted and I seem like I’m under stress, but this time, they were especially knotted. “Every time you come, your muscles are more and more tired, but this time, they are the most tired!” she exclaimed while chuckling. I didn’t want to launch into a whole broken Chinese conversation about how I had just pulled off planning three days worth of wedding events, so I just laughed and said that I was really exhausted and that her work felt really comforting.

And then tonight, as I am writing this, I realize that my muscles are sore from all her work. She really did get all the knots out, but now I am in slight pain.

I have a lot of flaws, but one of the flaws that bothers me and probably anyone who will ever live with me is that I always feel like I need to be doing something. I know I get this from my mother, and I know she recognizes it, too, when she sees me. One thing that my friend and former roommate once pointed out to me was that just because I may be efficient doesn’t necessarily mean that I am having fun.

One day years ago when we were living together, I spent a whole Sunday out running many errands and then came home to reorganize and clean. When she came home later that night, she asked me, “How was your day?”, and I responded, “It was good. I got a lot of things done.” She said back to me, “Did you have fun?” And I replied, “Yeah, I was really efficient.” She then said, “Yvonne, that wasn’t what I asked you. I asked you if you had fun, not if you were efficient.”

I feel like I barely did anything today, and it actually felt good. Yeah, I did clean the bathtub last night, and I did sweep the floors and do the week’s grocery shopping, but today, I got the closest to doing nothing as I probably ever will. This weekend is the first weekend since the wedding that we have no plans, no visitors, and nothing on the schedule. And it feels so relaxing, which I rarely feel. This is a good feeling.