This could be long.

Today, I worked all day. In other words, between 8am and 5pm I let my brain turn into fungal rot and sat slack-jawed staring at a computer screen.

The real treasure was knowing that promptly at 5pm, Joe would be there to scoop me up and carry me home (in the passenger seat of his car). Once home I would enjoy a couple hours of quiet while Joe was at his night class, then he would arrive home and we would sit at the dinner table; me in a little black dress and a strand of pearls, him in an expensive and well-tailored black tuxedo with a monocle and pocket square, and we would enjoy a feast under our 14-tier chandelier while being serenaded by a string trio. Right?

Right.

We agreed on dinner yesterday: paprika-rubbed tilapia over vegetable basmati rice. So, that's what I started making roughly an hour before Joe got home. I took my time carefully dicing the vegetables to be just about the same size, I created a paprika rub and let the fish absorb it in the fridge... I really did everything quite well. I'll spare myself the embarrassment of the details of the first round of rice. Suffice it to say that we are now short one cup of (expensive) basmati rice, a saucepan, and a tupperware. That's all you need to know.

In the end, everything came out really nicely, but it missed something. I think it was in the rice. Either the rice needed a little more flavor or more onion or something. The fish was seasoned nicely but with the bland-ish rice, it was a little lax.

Here's the recipe!

Tilaprika (Yes, I came up with that on my own!) and Rice

1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp dried oregano (someone should try fresh oregano and let me know how it is! I didn't have any on hand...)
1 tbsp ground pepper or peppercorns (if using peppercorns, crush them in a mortar and pestle first)

-Combine the above to make the rub

2 tilapia filets
1 cup basmati rice, rinsed
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 tbsp olive oil

Dry tilapia filets and pat with rub. I found that I had to use the whole rub to get a nice layer on both sides of both filets - and I'm glad I did. Place filets on a plate and saran-wrap or place them in individual zip-top bags and let rest in the fridge while preparing everything else.
Prepare the rice according to package instructions - be careful not to let the bottom of the saucepan become too hot and burn the rice (I mean, what?). Sautee vegetables in olive oil until preferred texture has been reached. I prefer my veggies a little crunchy, so I did not cook them into mush.
When there is about 3-5 minutes left on the rice cook time, combine the vegetables in with the rice and let them finish cooking with the rice. -Here is where you can do a taste trial and add an extra zing of spice... If you try it and love it, let me know what you did!
Cook tilapia filets on a griddle, grill, or in a pan, whichever is your preferred method. I cooked ours on a George Foreman grill and it came out muy delicioso.
Serve tilapia on top of rice mixture and enjoy!

It was seriously super-easy and kind of a kitchen-sink recipe... I just thought of some stuff to put together and it happened to work! Hooray!

Making dinner for Joe is one of my favorite things. I love when something just really works out spectacularly well and he's impressed. Food doesn't typically faze him, he eats when he's hungry and whatever fills the hole will do, regardless of quality.

Our night in our first apartment was not capped off by such a successful meal.

(This is where the harp would arpeggio thoughtfully and white puffy clouds would separate to reveal a flashback sequence.)

Our first night was chaotic and stressful, as we had just spent the whole day schlepping all of our belongings out of a storage unit, into a U-Haul, out of the U-Haul, and into the apartment. At some point around the return of the U-Haul to its home, I lost the keys to my grandmother's van that she had graciously let us borrow for the move. I lost the keys. To a van that isn't even mine. I was mortified beyond words. This was punctuated by the fact that my grandmother and her husband drove up - about an hour and a half - the following morning with her spare keys to retrieve the van. In the world of dogs, I'm sure my tail was tucked so far between my legs that it actually retracted into my spine.

Once that embarrassment was dealt with, Joe and I began to feel hunger pangs shooting through our bodies. That's fine, except... SHIT. We didn't do any grocery shopping. We bought all the necessities (toilet brush, trash bags, dish cloths, a stepladder)... but no food.

We had gone to lunch with his parents, my dad, and my grandma (not the van grandma!) earlier, and fortunately had saved a few nibbles from that. While we heated that up in the oven, we poured some Juicy Juice (Joe's mother always makes sure there is juice! Mmmm!) and set the table. These leftovers were sad. A pittance in the middle of the plate. Unsure of what to do besides starve (mind you, at this point we still had the van, but no keys - it was taunting us with its presence), we snapped into critical-thinking mode quickly. We scavenged the apartment for spare change and went down to the vending machine in our laundry room. We each bought a sticky bun, he bought a Kit-Kat, and I bought a pack of Jolly Ranchers that looked more like Sucrets (but thankfully did not taste like Sucrets). We pretended like I made a fancy meal garnished with expensive cheeses, but I think our story actually has more character without the picture-perfect meal.

We also spent that night sleeping in the living room, for some reason.

As Joe Walsh said, "Life's been good to me."