I woke up in the middle of the night and got up to do the dishes. Ended up compromising my sleep, so I woke up late. I took a shower and made myself a small breakfast (a soft-boiled egg). A little while later I made lunch for myself and my wife, as she's working from home this week - I made us sandwiches. Mine had the portuguese canned sardines I bought at the market a while ago, which reminded me of our recent trip. We decided what to have for dinner (a light parmigiana with pan-roasted courgettes and ricotta) and this made my wife 1 minute late for her clock-in. "Now I need to finish 1 minute later!" she said with a frown (she's cute). I went to the market to get the missing ingredients and some bread, avoiding the rest of the shops so as not to fall into temptation. Once home I made myself coffee and had it at the window along with a cigarette, even though the sky was the usual grey and it was not particularly enjoyable. It feels like autumn has already started; it was even a crisp morning. I spent the afternoon working on the bloody paper I'm writing, working out annoying details on paper. When I get back to working on research I am always amazed AND irritated by the complexity we are able at times to juggle in our heads. It made me think of how there are a merely a handful of people in the world that, say, truly "understand" how Windows OS truly works, and despite all the no-doubt extensive internal documentation most of that understanding - the pure abstract structure of it in its intricate detail - is inescapably locked in their heads. Lots of important knowledge is like that, incarnated into an oracle, even though we don't fully realise.
At some point my wife asked me whether I wanted to join her, Va. and Pa. to the pub later, to which I said yes. At around 17:20 we left to go meet them just around the corner. Pa. had a bag of books by Luciano De Crescenzo that Va. had loaned him; I recalled reading his retelling of the Odyssey when I was in elementary school and in the process of becoming obsessed with mythology - I still am. We went together to what used to be one of our favourite pubs. It still is, it's beautiful inside, but when it's busy you have to sit outside on some cheap metal chairs and tables and there's no point in that, so we haven't been there often. We sat in the deepest recess of the pub, by the fireplace, which was off but had lit candles inside instead, which was charming. We talked about our respective summer holidays in the motherland and agreed on how increasingly hard it is in our adult years to spend extended periods of time with our parents. I think they don't realise that our personalities have completely detached from theirs, but that's part of becoming an adult. When out smoking I noticed that the pub in front had the exact same beers as the one we were in, and that made me realise all pubs have the same beers from the local brewery, with few exceptions. It bummed me out a little. Both Va. and Pa. have had dreams about my wife and me recently, which I found surprising (I don't recall many dreams nowadays). Va.'s dream was long and complicated but the bit about us was in the context of an Amy Winehouse concert (but she was also someone else I don't recall), and I had my same personality but was physically an american man she has met during her last trip to Thailand. Apparently we had been tasked with bringing powdered milk and my wife had brought a little and I had brought a lot. In Pa.'s dream he was sitting at our kitchen table and my wife was busy cooking breakfast; I entered the kitchen and insulted her briefly, then went back to bed; she followed me, yelling at me to wake up and hitting me to that effect. It made me laugh.
I left early by myself to get dinner started and spent an inordinate amount of time pan-roasting courgette slices. My wife finally came back and helped me finish the dish by grating the cheese - something I am not fond of. I assembled the parmigiana and slapped it in the oven, then rolled a light joint as my wife brainstormed bringing down the company she works for (she had been talking about work with her colleagues at the pub). I think the conclusion was that unionising would be a first step. The parmigiana was already done by the time I was done rolling; we smoked by the window as we let it cool. It turned out very well (indubitably because of the excess of olive oil) and we soaked up all the juices left with bread, religiously dividing them evenly between the two of us. Not long afterwards my wife started dozing off while we were watching the Simpsons, so I convinced her to get into bed and skip her bedtime routine. She fell asleep with her head on my chest, and after a while I slowly released myself and slipped away quietly to wash the dishes. I spent some time browsing the internet and then fell asleep on the sofa; my wife woke up, and I went to bed next to her soft warm skin.