I got a little app-happy this week. I heard about something called Breakfree, which monitors your smartphone usage. Checking Facebook too often? Putting off your bill-paying and other chores for just one more BuzzFeed quiz? This app rates your addiction level. I already know I have a problem. So I trustingly downloaded this thing.

And after only two hours together, two hours in which I really tried to be a good girl and stay away from my favorite blogs/newsfeeds/timers/Evernotes/etc., etc., etc., this thing consistently awarded me an addiction score of 100+. Not only that, it sent me funny (to them) messages like “I’d hate to be your phone!”

What would it take to get a pat on the head from this slap-you-on-the-hands app?

Plainly, we weren’t going to get along. So good-bye and good riddance!

Must be how the title character felt in Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. Charlotte is the valedictorian of her high school class somewhere in the Carolinas, and the object of a certain jealous sneering from the truck-and-beer-loving kingpins of Allegany High. Plainly she and the jocks at her school aren’t getting along. So good-bye Allegany High, and good riddance! Come fall, Charlotte is off to Dupont University, an Ivy League school where presidential candidates give the commencement speeches. No more shallow and disgusting high school social scene. Not to mention that college offers an escape from her mother with the plaited bun wound around her head, and her father with the mermaid tattoo on his forearm. Oh, Charlotte loves her parents. But every day, her eyes open a little wider and she can’t unsee the shabby narrowness of their lives.

Surely, Dupont will raise her up to nobler, loftier heights. She can’t wait.

Given what we all know about colleges, and sports, and fraternities, what do you think Charlotte will find on  campus?

Tom Wolfe is the soul of decency, an astute observer of our culture. Yes, his books portray the decadence. There’s even a lengthy riff on the F-word, but Wolfe plays the dismayed gentleman. Don’t they know any other words? Do they have to say it as often as they blink their eyes?

Charlotte Simmons is one of my all-time favorite reads.

As for dinner tonight, I reached for one of my all-time favorite restaurant foods.20150405_180256 (2)

I once tried Giant Focaccia Sandwich. The meat and cheese sat on a homemade flatbread made with oats and molasses. It was an interesting if sticky-doughed experiment. At 12 servings, I was glad plenty of people came to dinner that day.

Normally, far fewer people sit around my table. Next time I tried it, I froze the focaccia portion we didn’t eat. Maybe on soup night, I told myself.

I believe those molasses-tinged wedges still sit, cold and lonely, in the freezer. Plainly, my family and this bread are not getting along. I need to dig around in there, say good-bye and good riddance.

Still it’s fun to put your sandwich fixings on fancy bread once in a while. So I splurged on Panera’s Asiago Cheese Bagels. Slightly sweet with a sharp-cheese tang, I love them. I used the same filling as the original sandwich.

We capped off our dinner with Lemon Bars.