Breakfasts at the Prindle

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The happiest part of my happy days at DePauw is my breakfast every weekday morning out at the Prindle Institute, where I have one of my two offices (the other one is on campus in the Philosophy Department suite in Asbury Hall).  For the last several months, I've been having breakfast every day with Linda, our assistant director, and Nicki, our graduate intern.

I'm usually the one who arrives at the Prindle first, and I busy myself in my office until Nicki comes to announce to me that she and Linda have arrived and it is time for breakfast!  Occasionally, if I'm absolutely beside myself with eagerness for our breakfast, I pace around by the front door (accumulating beneficial steps counted on my pedometer) and peer out to the parking lot for the first glimpse of their arriving cars.

We each bring our breakfasts from home, or else keep the supplies for them stashed in the cupboards and fridge of the Prindle kitchen.  Linda's breakfasts have the most variety and are of exemplary healthfulness: a hard-boiled egg, or an egg poached in her little-microwave-poaching device - and some kind of fiber-rich cereal, and fresh fruit (blueberries, an apple).  Nicki and I have no variety at all.  Nicki has Lunchables, which actually look more appealing than they sound, as she spreads her crackers with herbed creamcheese and thin-sliced turkey.  I have half of a grapefruit with one packet of sugar and half of a toasted Ezekiel-brand whole-wheat English muffin, topped with some Amish cheddar cheese from the Bloomington farmers' market.  Once you start eating the Ezekiel-brand muffins (introduced to me by Linda), you can never go back to Thomas's, which were for decades my English muffin of choice.  After Ezekiel-brand, Thomas's is like eating air.  An Ezekiel English muffin stays with you for hours.

So we assemble our breakfasts.  Then we eat them together, perched on the Prindle counters.  We talk over all the MANY MANY developments in our lives since we departed from each other's company yesterday afternoon or evening (Nicki and I walk most evenings, with her dog, Henry).  And then we are ready to start our day.

I find myself remembering one of my best-loved passages from Winnie-the-Pooh:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing  you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh.  "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
 Pooh nodded thoughtfully.  "It's the same thing," he said.