“Tater-Tot Casserole”, to give it a name. Tater-tots, cheese, sour cream, and some pepper all mixed and melted in a casserole pan. It’s not so bad. A heavy meal with all the starch, and I suppose that’s good because it lasts a while. I made it last night for dinner, and the rest is for lunch today. I remember all the meals we’ve had over the years, all my life, as I eat it now. Spaghetti, tuna helper, hamburger helper, all sorts of helpers to help one eat inexpensively. Sometimes my mother makes chicken fajitas, and those are cheap besides the cheese. One of my favorite meals.

I wonder what other people are eating now, if they’re eating now, and what they like to have. I think of fast food, chips, and soda. “Health food” for some, “low carb” for others, and maybe even fruit. A friend of mine was recently surprised when I commented that fruit is expensive. I guess that shows different perspectives.

I wonder why things are like they are and why we have to buy the cheapest possible foods. Sometimes I wish I could have ribs or steak or fish or something fancy. Strawberries maybe. I love strawberries. We only buy those rarely, and perhaps that makes it even more the treat. But I do wonder why.

Another friend was venting to me recently. He’s been having problems, and I guess everyone else is, too. That’s life, people have their problems. He’s been bothering me to go to University of Kansas with him next year. I don’t really want to go to KU, because it’s here, and I don’t like here and would much rather be there but I can’t be and anyway if I could be anywhere away from directly here, it certainly wouldn’t be at KU which is just staying here anyway. If that makes sense.

So he was talking about this and that and all these things on his mind, and then he mentioned KU again, and I went a little too far with my answer. Which was that I don’t want to go to KU, I hate KU and the entire section of the country that includes KU, and besides, even if I wanted to go to KU I can’t possibly afford it. That in a few months, if something good doesn’t happen soon, we won’t be able to afford food, much less college. So I went a little too far, because my problems are my problems and I shouldn’t be giving them to someone else. And now he feels bad for “complaining” when he has “nothing to complain about”, and I feel bad because he feels bad and it’s my fault.

But it’s true and I’m worried now, while I finish my leftover lunch, about whether and how we’ll manage to have more leftover lunches soon. So we’re working, my mother most especially, trying to do this real estate business in a crushed real estate market, trying to fix three vehicles that won’t run, trying to finish one house and fix another for rent or sale, and trying to make money to support the rest of these, all the while trying to take care of two children; and I feel so terribly useless even though I’ve been of use, because whatever I do, it’s not nearly as much as what she’s doing.

I’m still hungry but not starving so I’ll wait until dinner to cook some fish sticks. Those are cheap too, and not so bad with catsup. Until then I’ll sit here thinking of what to do, what can possibly be done. I can work a “real job” but that means no time to watch the kids and help cook food and help work on houses and such, and I don’t know how one is supposed to do all this, even though my mother is doing even more. I’m running low on hope but there is still some small bit left, and it wants a day where leftover lunches are just leftover lunches, and mean nothing else.