Well, I did have sole. For dinner. It was one of my more successful meals, I think. I had sole flash fried after being dredged in corm meal and dill. The pasta was linguine dressed with ricotta cheese, peas, olive oil and sea salt. Lemon juice was drizzled on both the fish and pasta.
It was simple and quick--I don't think that it took more 12 minutes to cook the pasta and fry the fish, and it wasn't even that bad for you. I suppose I could have grilled the sole, but I lost my grill somewhere, and grilling such a delicate fish would have been a bit of a challenge. Hey, my cholesterol is 58, so what is a bit of oil? And the fish had Omega 3's so I am in the clear. I would try this again, I think.
I was out driving around this morning trying to find a photo and all I really found was a place to eat. It was one of those diner-type places where they call you "hon" and keep filling your coffee cup so it barely cools enough to drink. Pretty plan food, but fine people. Of course I was a stranger and waitress Cindy had questions for and about me. It was pretty funny. She asked me if I left the wife at home, a very not so subtle way of asking if I was married.What does one say? When I told her no, I was single, she said well, that is a shame because there are a lot of nice girls around. I was saved by a horde of kids and a mom looking for pancakes, so I never had to hear about or meet any of the nice girls she had in mind.
Of course the unspoken question was "Why are you single?" I could have told her about my very nice 5 piece set of matching baggage but I am sure that was and is too much information. Funnier still was "This American Life" on public radio this afternoon. They talked to some actual rocket scientists who were all single and they quantified why they were, and almost put it in a formula. If I followed this, it would work like this.
St Cloud has about 130,000 people in the metro area. Let's say half of those are women, and trust me, that is my target population. That means that there are 65,000 females. If you look at the age distribution of that portion of the population, roughly 45% of these women are under 30, or probably too young even for me. Another 25% are over 55, so let's just say that only about 23,000 are in any type of a potential dating pool. I am a reasonably educated person, so let's say that my potential date would have to have at least a BA or BS. At best, only 25% of the population has a bachelor's degree, so the pool is now down to 5600. Graduate education would be nice, but only about 5% have a master's degree, so leaves about 280 potential dates. I think that we would have to assumes that some of these women, probably 60% of them, are married. We are down to 112 or so potential dates. Take another 10% out for those who have other orientations and we have about a 100 potential women that I might even potentially date. Education isn't everything but let's say I was looking for someone with a similar educational background. Only 1.5% of Minnesotans earn a degree beyond a Masters. Sigh. I am really looking for one out of between 1.5 and 100 women...
Of course this is a rough way to sort this all out, but it does kind of put it in perspective. And of course it would assume that I wasn't too short, too tall, too fat or too skinny or too young or too old for any of this group, a flawed assumption if there ever was one. Of course, I am laughing about all of this because I am not so uncomfortable being single and do believe it isn't a flaw, no matter what Cindy might think. But it is one more reason why it isn't good to know too much math and why it is never good to equate or involve math in affairs of the heart.
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