Tobyjoe is leaving for Boston today. He’s heading up there to attend a Ruby on Rails class. And I’m stuck here all by myself.

My soccer league starts tomorrow and although my team doesn’t yet have a name, and our game is all the way up in Foreverawayville (138th Street), I’m looking forward to trying something new. I tried running more than 3 miles twice last week and it didn’t go over too well. I can walk downstairs again without noticing a stitch of knee pain so I figured things were getting better but my IT band is still tighter than ever. I’m going to have to get physical therapy if I want to continue running longer distances. This fact thoroughly bums me out.

But soccer will be fun even though the shoes I bought are a litle space-agey and weird. We’re playing on turf, which means we can’t wear real cleats. Instead, we were told to pick up indoor soccer shoes, or shoes made for turf. I got the pair made for turf. And I wasn’t given any choice in the matter. There were literally no other soccer shoes to choose from. (There are slim pickings for women when it comes to soccer shoes. I’m not sure what’s more frustrating, the fact that there might be too little demand or the fact that there’s just too little supply.)

We made homemade ravioli last night. We rolled out the dough using our Imperia Pasta maker. We tried this once before using whole wheat flour and that didn’t quite turn out the way we wanted. But last night’s adventure was much more rewarding.

Tobyjoe made the stuffing while I prepared the dough. The last time we did this, the noodles were too thick because we couldn’t roll the dough out thin enough without it falling apart. The ratio of pasta to filling was off, plus, they just didn’t taste like typical ravioli.

The noodles were perfect last night. I used white flour and eggs to make the dough. They stayed together perfectly when we boiled them. Raw pasta is realy quite tough especially with a little egg wash.

I also made an apple, cranberry, walnut crunch cobbler. I have attempted an apple cobbler for the past three weekends. Each time it turned out well but my topping hasn’t been as crunchy as I would have liked. I tried something a little different last night and, behold, it worked. This is the best batch yet. Now that Tobyjoe is leaving, however, I’m going to have to consume quite a lot of cobbler over the next week.

We’re flying next Saturday and I’m already nervous about it. I have already started thinking things like, “Well, how do you want to live your last week on Earth?” (This fear is irrational. I know this. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking in this most absurd way especially when I’m sleepy.) I have enough Xanax to calm a herd of angry elephants so hopefully by the time I get on that plane the only thing I’ll have to worry about is slipping on my own drool.