Things I read fairly regularly
NYC
What follows is an email account I sent out after our big trip to NYC this past weekend. If you didn't get the email and are viewing this for the first time you might want to go pee or get a cup of coffee before you begin. It contains lots of useless touristy stuff and if you've been to NYC before then you know about a lot of what I'm going to say here. You're excused if you decide that you just don't have the time or the interest in this post and want to go do something else. I won't be offended at all.
Okay so New York City is noisy and smelly and crowded. But it's also pretty exciting and cool and we had a great time.
On Wednesday we arrived really early - we flew out at 6AM and it only takes an hour or so to get there. We took a cab to the hotel (I slept much of the ride because the effects of my drugs take longer than an hour to wear off) but since we arrived so early they didn't have the room ready. We were able to check our bags though and so we took off exploring. We were in a great spot - just on the south end of Central Park right off of Fifth Avenue. At the corner was the 24 hour Apple computer store and F.A.O. Schwartz - the big toy store in Big. We toodled around a bit and just took a walk down the street and tried to look like we belonged there. Stupid, really since almost everyone there is a tourist.
We went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw some really great stuff - Van Gogh, Warhol, Lichtenstein, a nude chick hoolahooping with barbed wire, some chick fellating a milk jug, a pile of dryer lint with mirrors, two chairs nailed to a wall....that kind of thing....Not a bad afternoon for $20 each. We did have a wonderful meal in their cafe - it's totally cool. As in, they don't have heat in the cafe because they're afraid of setting fire to the Van Goghs.
We wandered back up to the hotel and were able to get into our room around 3pm - we took a nap. The hotel was old and grandmotherly. Our room wasn't so bad but The Dude's sister's room was really ....interesting...pink...pink and floral.... The hotel was old and was running down but the rooms were pretty big and our view was great - we looked out onto Central Park.
After the nap we tried to decide what to do with our evening so I called the box office for Spamalot and they had two tickets. We got dressed and went to supper at a little sports bar kind of place - $10 for a pint....it was some indication that this trip was going to be like no other.... We walked down to the theatre which meant going through Times Square (isn't square) through a crowd of maybe a million people. It's a jumble jamble mess of people on the sidewalks at all times. Not the kind of chaos I could deal with.
Spamalot was a total hoot - we were trying to decide if you'd need to have seen much of the Monty Python stuff to enjoy it and I think I'm leaning on the side of it's best to have seen the movies if you want to understand any of what's going on. I can't see anyone who hasn't seen the movies getting half the jokes - although it is tweaked and isn't a direct retelling of the movie. It was very fun though. And so cool to be seeing live theatre....I think it's been about freaking forever since I saw a play. We walked up a few streets afterward to a little Irish Pub (one listed in our handy dandy guidebook) and had a couple of pints ($5...much more reasonable) and watched the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup and listen to a really excellent guitar player.
When we walked out of the pub I pointed at a cab going by to say to The Dude "there's a cab" and he screeeeeeeeeeched to a stop. Kind of cool to stop a cab like that - I'm from the world of calling U-Need-A-Cab and they send it right over.
The cabs. Holy Macanoly, the cabs. They swerve, they honk, they talk on their phones while driving (those stupid ear thingys), they race lights, they don't pay any attention to lanes....The Dude's brother in law R sat in the front and he had the most entertaining rides of all of us. The most irritating part of the ride is that there's a little tv in the back of the front seat that plays "news" on it - but it's short little clips that repeat so if your ride is long you seen the same story over and over again. Day one it was about a woman who had to be taken to the hospital by the HAZMAT guys because she was covered in bird mite bites, day two was about colon cancer, day three was about skin cancer, day four I figured out how to turn the damned thing off when we got in the cabs.
Thursday we were waiting for L and R to arrive so we had breakfast in the hotel dining room. It was very old school - the butter had PL embedded in it. For the Park Lane hotel...la-di-da The waiters were very old men...the toast was cold, the eggs were dry and it was $60. Okay, so you know how cheap I am...it was killing me...but...as we decided later it was "all part of the experience" each time we encountered something slightly off we would remind each other that it was "all part of the experience".
We took a bit of a walk through Central Park - it's freaking huge. Like http://centralparkposters.stores.yahoo.net/ this poster demonstrates...huge... I mean, it's not Algonquin Park huge but for a city park it's pretty danged big. We were on the bottom right corner. It's more rolling than I had imagined and there are big granite outcroppings and that ice rink that is in all the movies is used as an amusement park in the summer.
L and R arrived around noon and the guys went to the baseball game - it was conveniently the Blue Jays against the Yankees so that was fun for them. L and I went shopping - we hit Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel's, Barney's, Bloomingdale's, Tiffany's - mostly we just walked through and oogled but I did end up buying a pair of black pumps for a disgustingly large price - well, for me...I held some of those shoes the Sex in the City chicks are always going on about and they run about $600...and they don't have rocket power or anything. Just a stupid little sandal with about $4 worth of material....nuts.
Okay, but I did buy these shoes at Bloomingdale's and I'm told by L (who knows these things) that they were a great deal and that she had bought a pair of the same brand in Toronto for double what I paid. Yes, I obsess about the cost of things too much.
I got caught by one of the make up people - you know how they usually leave you alone when you say "no" in most stores. In NYC they are like Carnies - they come at you in packs, shoot you with smells, say it will only take 3 minutes to make you beautiful (which implies that you're an ugly hag...). So we were walking through Henri Bendel's (a shop that is far too expensive to even consider buying anything but fun to walk through) and one of them got me. I cried to L for help but she laughed at me. Anyway, since it was a Thursday the make up girl said that she was bored and would I please just sit in the chair and let her do my make up and I didn't need to feel like I had to buy anything - she made me look like a whore...no...it was nice but so much more than I normally wear that it did feel kind of funny. She was totally cool about letting me go without buying anything - but she might have been able to get me to buy the eyeliner stick thing if she'd pushed...and if I hadn't just bought those shoes.
We went out for dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant - I have to say that I had fantastic food (other than whatever gave me food poisoning which was probably fantastic when I ate it but turned on me somewhere down below). R really knows wine so he was the one in charge of the wine list each night and he did a fine job of getting us liquored up...I mean...selecting the correct wine to go with our meals. We went to a little roof bar place for an after dinner drink - lots of well dressed drunks...much like us really. I had a nice conversation in the washroom with a couple of girls - they might have been locals for all I know but it was kind of like any conversation you might have in a washroom...except it was in NYC! You know...why is there always a line for the ladies and not for the mens...why does the lighting in here have to be so intense...is my thong showing....that kind of thing.
We went back to the hotel and fell over in our beds.
Friday morning we found a little restaurant just down from the hotel to eat in - much less than $60 but still....$5 for a glass of orange juice.....seriously...
We went for a carriage ride "through" Central Park which was roughly $40 for the same distance that The Dude and I had walked the previous day but with a guy driving and giving out little tidbits of information. But again it was "all part of the experience"
We decided to go the the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it was truly spectacular. It's massive - just massive. We picked a few things we really wanted to see and let the rest slide. It's complicated and hard to find your way around even with a map so it was good to plan it as our main activity for the day. We ate a hot dog on the street - "all part of the experience"
We walked back to the hotel through Central Park and it was hot but really nice. You can totally see how a park like that is necessary in a place like NYC - so many people won't have any green space at all. It's hard to imagine when you live where we live to think of not having any small spot of green. The concrete would drive a person nuts. Would drive me nuts.
We had an early dinner at a place called the Gotham Bar and Grill http://www.gothambarandgrill.com/ - highly recommended and I recommend it too! We had an early dinner reservation and it was really hard to get a cab in front of the hotel - there are these private cars that will drive you but they're much more expensive and there were a couple of them waiting and they kept asking if they could take us to the restaurant - there was another lady standing waiting for a cab and finally the guy said he'd take the 5 of us for 45 dollars or something so we all loaded up in the cab. This woman was from Mississippi and it turned out that she was a cook book author and she was in town to do Good Morning America and promote her cookbook.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Springtime/story?id=5030161&page=1
She was totally nice and we had a lovely ride down with her - we forgot to tape GMA this morning of course....
So we had a lovely dinner and then we went to see Curtains - it's another play but it stars David Hyde Pierce who played Niles on Frasier and it also had Debra Monk who played George's mother on Grey's Anatomy....and some guy who was on Guiding Light. It was light and fun although a little predictable. We walked around Times Square afterward since L and R hadn't seen it. It was noisy and crowded - so crowded.
We walked back to the hotel - past Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room. All names that are just a part of everyone's collective unconscious even if we don't quite know why.
And then we ate...again...and then we went to the Apple Store since it's open 24 hours and I actually held one of those light laptop computers...they're totally cool.
Saturday was really, really, really hot. Texas hot. So we decided to do the most walking that day. We took the subway for a change and it's a wild and confusing beast of a thing. It's not just north/south or east/west - it's flipping diagonals...and kind of scary too...but you know the people were really quite nice. Those who talked to us and who knew we were obviously tourists - how hard would it be to live in a city where there are so many tourists all the damned time? One time on Saturday a lady asked me for directions...I thought that was pretty funny.
We went through Chinatown and walked over to the WTC site. It's hard to fully grasp what it used to be since it's now a big space - and it wasn't familiar to me at all before Sept 11th so I didn't have a concept of the size of it. I'd say it would be like picking up the space occupied by the Skydome (or whatever it's called now) and having a giant hole there. It's a construction site now so it's totally fenced and you can't really see anything down but when you look up you're really aware of the space those buildings took up. It's crowded though and there are people selling stuff all over - although there are signs asking to please keep the site sacred and not buy anything the vendors were doing a brisk business.
We walked from there down to the end of the island and looked out at the Statue of Liberty - it was a hazy day but you could make her out...we decided not to get on a boat and bake ourselves out to have a closer look. I figured I could buy a postcard.
We then went looking for Greenwich Village and SoHo. Not for any particular reason but just because these neighbourhoods come up a lot in NYC lore - We took the subway and guessed where to get off. We found a street market in Greenwich Village and ate at a little French restaurant/cafe...oui! oui! We then walked over through NYU and saw some of the typical NYC kind of stuff - street musicians in a park and the people playing chess at fixed tables. It's the weirdest thing to see chess hustlers. Seriously. Big guys waiting to play chess for money and beat you. Chess...for money...weird world. We walked down through SoHo and it was crowded and crazy and at one point it was like the whole place changed. There were street vendors all over the city but at one point it was just people with blankets on the ground with stuff - two VHS tapes, a pair of shoes and an old suit. That kind of thing. Then there was a line of people just sitting with carts full of what must have been all their possessions. We decided it was time to head back to the hotel.
That night we had tickets to the Top of the Rock observation deck http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/welcome/default.aspx - it's at Rockefeller Centre and you take this really fast elevator ride 60-something stories up and you can walk out on this deck (there's glass) but you feel like you're on top of the city. It's not the Empire State Building but I think it's kind of better since it's not as crowded. Yes, I actually went all the way up and stood on the observation deck....without my drugs....
We went back down and found a wine bar and had appetizers since our dinner reservations weren't until 10pm. This is where I think I ate a bad sausage....right there in the wine bar....I think....no one can prove that it was the sausage...but I think it was. It was the only thing I ate the whole weekend that tasted bad...therefore, I'm blaming the sausage.
At the time though, I was very happy. Really...a little wine and a great trip will do that.
We went down to the restaurant and sat at the bar and had a drink while waiting for our table and struck up a conversation with a lady who was a curator at the Met - she was fascinating. She had been in Paris that morning and was trying to stay up so she could adjust to the jet lag....or she just wanted to eat sea bass at 9:30pm. Who am I to judge?
We had yet another spectacular meal. A man came up to R and The Dude and complimented them on wearing suits to dinner (he was wearing a suit too ) and went on about how men don't dress for dinner anymore. It was really cute. And then The Dude's brother The Younger Dude who couldn't be there had made an arrangement for him to have a shot of 60 year old scotch - it was so cool. It wasn't something I would ever think to do and it was totally wonderful. And they brought out cake and a candle and they had written Happy Birthday in chocolate syrup - so neat.
So Sunday morning I woke up feeling a bit off - nothing serious but a bit off. There was a big Puerto Rican day parade scheduled for noon and so they were going to be closing off the streets around the hotel. We didn't need to be at the airport until noonish but we had to leave early because of the parade. We ended up packing up and then had to walk a block and a half with our stuff in order to get a cab because they had barricaded off the streets in front and behind the hotel.
Things took a turn for the worse in the cab. It was hot and I began to feel just awful - I had to empty my pretty F.A.O. Schwartz bag in case I had to barf in it. Not good. And of course the cabbies drive like crazy people which is not good when you feel sick. We got to the airport and it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other.
The airport was hot and dirty and just gross - not the place you want to be feeling sick. When we got up to the counter we were told that it would be an extra $25 to check the third bag so I said that I would carry it on (aside...hey airline dudes...if you start charging people to check luggage then everyone is going to bring everything on the damned airplane and you're going to have a ridiculously stupidly small plane get even smaller...give it some thought...) but I had to get all the effing "gels and liquids" out of it since I hadn't planned on taking it on the plane and didn't pack it that way. So I'm feeling like hell and have my little suitcase open on the floor of a disgusting airline check in area with a bored and nasty check in clerk waiting for me while I go through the bag to see if there's any sunscreen. I wish there had been an industrial sized bottle of KY in it so I could have taken that out and made a big scene. Well, if I had been feeling well at the time it would have been funny.
Then it was wait in line for security, take off my stupid shoes, get out all the electronics...blah, blah, blah. All the while I can barely stand and it's so hot - the AC must have been working overtime but it was really, really hot in there.
So our gate is as far as it can possibly be from security. As we're walking we have to find washrooms and rest stops on the way - when we finally get to our gate I lie down on the airport floor and go to sleep. Seriously. The grossest floor you've ever seen but I couldn't stay upright anymore. The Dude goes off to get a sandwich and I just stay there with the stuff. I've never slept on an airport floor so it was "all part of the experience". So many new things in so few days.
Finally they call our flight and we have to walk out onto the tarmac to get on the plane - I'm at JFK and it's like getting on a plane in Hamilton....it's hot, so hot and it's taking forever to get on and once we get on and get seated I feel like death warmed over. The AC isn't working on the plane because it's sitting on the ground so we're in a little metal oven full of people baking in the sun...ghastly.
Well, we taxi out and then we're told that air traffic on our flight path has been stopped and that we are going to sit indefinitely in the aircraft on the runway. Indefinitely. Had I been feeling fine in that hot situation I wouldn't have been happy but when sick...there was NFW I was going to sit "indefinitely" on a plane. I made Doug get the flight attendant and turn the plane around and take me back to the terminal. (all part of the experience). There's a medic guy there when I get off and they get a wheelchair and they load me off in the disabled waiting area - it's still in the middle of the terminal by the gate but it's roped off...apparently disabled people need to be roped off or something. I'll tell you those disabled people can move quickly when someone starts puking near them though.
So the gate lady works out the flight stuff and the next flight home leaves at 10pm. We can sit in the airport and not leave until 10pm and be home at midnight or we can rent a car and drive it and be home by 9ish (at this point we thought that was possible...then things got complicated...like they weren't already complicated) I decide that I can sleep in a car better than I can sleep at the airport and if The Dude is okay with doing all the driving then we can do it - because there's no way I can drive at this point.
If you want to get up and walk around a bit just to get the feeling back into your legs after sitting and reading through that I totally understand. We can meet back here in 5 minutes.
When we last left our heroes they were trying to make their way to the Budget Rent a Car terminal at JFK airport. They managed to rent a car with a GPS system since they had no idea where they were and those lame maps the car rental people give out couldn't help a person find their own arse.
However, the GPS things are not much better as our heroes (or rather our hero and his sick as a dog wife) found out. When you program the stupid thing it takes the shortest route but not necessarily the best route. It took us straight through the heart of Manhattan. There was much much much swearing. And honking. At us...but again...all part of the experience. The thing would say "turn right" when you were past the corner and the go on about "recalculating route". Since we didn't have a real map we were kind of held hostage by this stupid thing.
The Dude had wanted to go north and go through Albany and that area and across but it took us west first and then north - we ended up in back woods New Jersey....don't ever go there. Just don't.
Most of the drive is a total haze for me. I was sort of awake for parts of it (like the backwoods New Jersey part...shudder) but mostly I was out of it. We got home about 11pm. The Dude dropped me off at the house and went to the airport to return the rental car and get our luggage which had taken the flight home without us. That 10pm flight that we would have taken was delayed and wasn't due in for another hour.
So while I might bitch and complain about my husband and his sometimes irritating habits he proved that he loves me and will take care of me when I'm old and grey (although as long as there's Miss Clairol I'll never be grey) because he went along with us getting off the flight and with the driving me home when I didn't want to sleep the day away on the airport floor.
All in all, it was one of the best times I've had in my life and I'm totally glad that we went. But I'm staying away from sausages for a while.
A Missed Period
Settle down there. It's just a creative title.
I'm supposed to be re-typing two stories for the grade two class. The kids write these little stories and they get sent off to volunteer typists (moms) who use templates to type them up and print them out and send them back. Apparently when I typed one of them out I missed a period on the final sentence for the author's biography. So instead of being "She is 7." it said "She is 7" See? See the part where there's no period after the 7? Since this was such a glaring error the whole manuscript (all 3 pages) was sent back to me so I could correct it - I could correct it with a flipping magic marker but the editor (also a volunteer mom) has circled the spot where the period should go and written "No Period" in blue ink. I could have saved the whole thing with a dot....but now I have to re-type the whole manuscript (all three pages).
I know I have to do it and I know that I made a mistake and I know that there is a little girl out there who may be crying over her missed period...wait...that's not like it sounds.... I just don't want to. So instead of actually getting down to re-typing the whole thing out again because I missed a period (again, not like it sounds) I'm complaining here about it.
I'm taking my little address thing out of the ziploc bag when I send it back though - it's my way of turning in my resignation on this volunteer job. It's just one more volunteer position I won't be circling when those stupid "What committee do you want to be on?" sheets come out in the fall. I want to be on the "Get a stupid marker and make a dot on the damned page instead of sending the whole effing thing back" committee.
Any questions about why I am not cut out to be PTA president?
Out of my League
#1 participated in an after school activity in the winter that helped me to meet some of the moms at her school. It's been kind of hard to break into the parent clique at this school. With the kids taking the bus to school every day there isn't that opportunity to hang around the school doors and chat with the other moms that there was at their old school. It's taking just about all I have to crawl out of my hole and be social when the opportunity presents itself. So since #1 was in this activity with just 6 other kids I got to spend a little time chatting with the other moms. We're sitting in the kitchen during one of the sessions and talking over a bottle of wine and one of the moms points out that she has a new watch. She says that she got it for her birthday and for quitting smoking. It's pretty and all so I'm doing that cooing thing that you do when someone gets something new. The mom next to me says "it was $7000" and I try to keep cooing so that no one will know how shocked I am at that when she points to her own watch and says "this was half that and I sometimes have mini panic attacks over it"
And I realize that I am sitting in the kitchen in the presence of $10 000 worth of watch. I start to try and calculate just how many large double doubles at Tim Horton's that would be or how many gallons of milk...since these are the scales that I use to calculate the value of things. The answer nearly tosses me off the stool. I realize that I am sitting in a really nice kitchen with some nice ladies and I am completely out of my league. My shoes cost $10. I'm wearing my University of Waterloo jacket which I thought was crazy expensive at $70 15 years ago..
These women are nice. They really are. And fun and funny. It just makes me feel funny to be around people who can spend that kind of money on accessories. They're not telling me I can't hang out with them because I've got $10 shoes. I'm the one feeling like I don't belong. It's like I have some kind of reverse snobbery. Where I'm rejecting people who are richer than me. Among my friends it's frequently a race to the bottom where we try to out do each other over bargains. Back in the day the conversation around the table would have been who spent the least on a watch...on sale, with the coupon!
I guess in the end I've got to give them a chance with their fancy stuff so they'll give me a chance with my bargain stuff. Maybe it will all work out in the end.
Big News
Cracker Boy ate a carrot at dinner last night. Ate the whole thing. Happily. Proudly.
For those of you following the adventures of Cracker Boy (aka #3) and his near scurvy inducing eating habits this is sure to make your day.
And we had a nice trip to Austin and I drank too much...big surprise.
the truth
I was washing my kitchen floor yesterday when the truth hit me. I'm not going to be an actress. For a long time I held out that after the kids were bigger I would be able to go back and pursue what I wanted. There on the floor I realized that it just isn't going to happen. It's hard to be surrounded by all of the children's programs where they stress that "you can be anything that you want to be" when you know in your heart that you can't. I know people who are working so hard to 'live their dreams' and it just simply isn't working out. An entire industry exists to help people get motivated, find themselves, live their dreams...but for the vast majority it's just not going to happen. Some days it takes all I've got not to scream at the Blue's Clues guy that he's fooling himself if he thinks he can be anything that he wants to be. Unless what he always wanted to be was a source of lustful material for stay at home moms all over the world. In which case, he's achieved it.
Things aren't bad. I've got a great family and a home and judging by the scale, plenty of food to eat. But there on the kitchen floor I felt my heart break. If I hadn't already been on my knees I would have fallen there. It's just simply coming to the realization that after everything I'm not going to get my chance. I had my chance and I let it slip away. I made choices that lead me here. Here is not a bad place, I know that. I know that I don't have the courage to follow those dreams. That following those dreams would mean tremendous sacrifices from those around me and since I come from the world of "suck it up, princess" and "what makes you think you're so great?" I cannot ask anyone to sacrifice for me.
This is depressing, isn't it? I know...no one comes here expecting me to bare my heart. You come here so I can make you laugh. I just don't feel like being funny right now.
And I'm going to post this right now. I might take it down later since it seems slightly too honest to stand out in the open.
You know what it is? It's that I was told to give up wheat and dairy a week ago and the lack of ice cream and bagels is making me mental. I blame all the extra vitamins I'm getting in the healthy food for the onslaught of midlife angst. Damn you vitamins!
so now I'm just rambling.
Have a good day
These are a few of my favourite things...
I know, they just look like coffee mugs but every morning I pour my coffee into them and they bring me joy. It's a tiny little thing in my day that gives me a shot of joy. I mean, I don't jump up and down about them or anything (that would spill the coffee and then I'd cry over spilled coffee) but they make the day start better than it would with any other mug.
I have a fluffy robe that I bought after Christmas for $17. It's fluffy and fleecy and static-y but it's also soft and warm and every morning when I haul my fat arse out of bed to make lunches for #1 and #2 I put it on and it's almost like not getting out of bed...and it was $17 which if you know me at you know that is a factor in my loving something - if it's a bargain then it races to the top of my "loved things list"
These are my black boots. When I started at my jobs in the fall I was determined to make enough money to buy myself these boots. They cost significantly more that $17 so I had to earn the money for them and not take it out of the regular budget. I love them. I don't have many occasions to wear them but I love stomping around in them. They didn't come from Payless which makes my other shoes jealous as heck but they can suck it up. A girl should have a few nice things.
It occured to me that in all the things I have in my life - great husband, fabulous kids, nice home...blah, blah, blah...I get little shots of joy from small things I encounter every day (well, the boots are for special occasions) so I ask you - what are the little things in your life that you are happy to have? A special piece of jewelry? A warm pair of socks? A musical instrument that fills you with joy? What are your love objects now that you're a grown up?
Shhhh....I'm hiding....
Please don't tell anyone where I am. I am hiding in the computer room with my beer. The Dude's family is here and I'm just about ready to leap off of something high. Instead I have retreated to the comfort of cold beer and hot screen time...okay...maybe not hot screen time since we have one of those nanny blocker things so my porn is limited....kidding, I'm kidding. I have unlimited porn and I'm not afraid to use it. (dang...mentioning porn just makes this page come up on Google searches...is that ever going to be a disappointment....)
Seriously, I love them all but I feel like I'm on some kind of game show with all the questions being fired at me "where do you want this bowl? what's the population of this area? do you want me to wash this? what are the neighbour's doing? Is that an above ground pool? Do you ever see those people? why are you drinking so much? does the cat want to go out? what's the biggest industry around here? " Every answer to any of those questions is met with a statement indicating that she doesn't believe me anyway.
Add to that trying to get ready to host #1's 10th birthday party...ugh...and making both a big full on turkey dinner and a lasagna because I am either the best wife in the world or completely messed in the head...and you'll find me hiding in the computer room drinking beer and complaining to the whole internet about how hard it is to have guests who are interested in my life and who want to help empty the dishwasher even though I suspect it is just to hide my dishes and see if I'll finally be driven over the edge.
Timer is beeping...beer is empty...I guess I have to leave my hidey hole and venture up to the kitchen....wish me luck.
(MONDAY UPDATE) They left this morning and they stole my purse. I didn't think it would be this bad but not only did I feed them and let them stay here they took my purse with them when they left. I'd think it was funny if this kind of thing didn't happen all the time. I know now to keep all of my things out of the foyer when people are packing their car....honestly, we'd be dangerous, dangerous people if we could get our act together.
The Tyranny of Dinner
For many years now I've been a stay at home mom. It wasn't my fault. It just kind of happened. Due to my stay at home mom status the whole "feeding the family" thing fell to me. This was really not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. Although I do have several credits in Family Studies from High School I was never Mrs Moulder's favourite student. And while the skills I learned in high school have served me at times - apparently food shouldn't all be the same colour on the plate and hockey puck is not a real "doneness" for steak - I still suck as a cook. But the worst part of not being skillful in the kitchen is the fact that I have to make dinner every night. Every Night...
It used to be that every day around 3pm a dark cloud would come over me when I realized that I had to make dinner again. That the Dude would be coming home from work and expecting that there would be food on the table. Real food. Real warm food. And vegetables and stuff. Now that he works from home he hits me with "So what's your plan for dinner?" around 1pm. As if somehow he thinks I have a plan. He thinks I actually plan this stuff out and don't just stand in front of the fridge demanding that it throw something at me so I can cook it.
It's not really the cooking of it that gets me down. It's the deciding what to have. I absolutely dread having to plan what's for dinner. I even said to the Dude that I would shop and cook but I needed him to do the meal planning. Just tell me that you want chicken on Tuesday and we will have chicken on Tuesday. His response was to make a list of a bunch of things that were acceptable for dinner.
"This is not what I asked for." I said.
"Just pick something from the meat column and put it with something from the vegetable column and something from the starch column and you'll have dinner" He said.
"There are only two things in the vegetable column and the kids won't eat either of them. Well, #2 will eat them but the other two kids will get scurvy" I said.
"Just pick something from each column and you'll have dinner" He said.
"You aren't doing what I asked. Now you've made a list that makes more work for me." I said.
"Hmm..." He said.
"I need you to pick" I said.
"No you don't." He said.
So I ate him.
No, I'm kidding. I didn't actually eat him. I should have.
Yesterday he pulled the "What's your plan for dinner?" question again.
I said "Bacon and tomato sandwiches..." He said "Is it low fat bacon?" Seriously. He asked me if it was low fat bacon. Low fat bacon. Bacon is pretty much all fat....Dude....
From now on my "plan" for dinner is to run and hide until everyone gets themselves a bowl of cereal or toasts a waffle.
Things I Learned This Week...
1. I am a cantankerous old fart with a mean streak.
2. What are you looking at?
