Take-Out

"You deserve a break today."

-- McDonald's ad slogan, 1971

Self portrait 7-8-14

"Cinderella never asked for a prince.

She asked for a night off and a dress."

-- Kiera Cass

Everybody needs a day off from their job now and then.

But the family cook doesn't get days off, or even weekends off.

Meals come around with surprising regularity and hungry boys just keep getting hungry day after day after day after day.

I feel like I've been in the kitchen non-stop lately. And as much as I do enjoy cooking for my family, I'm not immune to burn-out.

So last night we ordered take-out and ate it straight from the takeout containers.

The food was overpriced, unappealing, mediocre and lukewarm. 

But I'm not complaining. 

Take-out is all part of my grand plan to make sure my hungry guys appreciate my culinary prowess and never take for granted how good they've got it.

A Hammock

"Hammocks? My goodness, what an idea. 

Why didn't I think of that? Hammocks!"

-- "Hank Scorpio," The Simpsons, "You Only Move Twice"

Self portrait 7-7-14

"I don't care who you are, the pressure is on to go to the next task immediately.

What happened to the days of hanging out in the hammock all afternoon?"

-- James Brolin

Monica:

"What did you change your name to?"

Phoebe:

"Princess Consuela Bananahammock."

Chandler:

"That's what we were going to name the baby."

-- Friends, "The One With Princess Consuela" (2004)

Spending lots of time in here lately.

Reading.

Listening to baseball.

Daydreaming.

Wool-gathering.

Lollygagging.

Idling.

You know. 

All that good stuff.

Red Wine

 "I like my coffee black, my beer from Germany,

wine from Burgundy, the darker, the better."

-- Barbara Crooker, More

Wine corks 7-6-14

"Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup.

All wine should be tasted."

-- Paulo Coelho, Brida

Backyard Fireworks

"Fireworks had for her a direct and magical appeal.

Their attraction was more complex than that of any other form of art ..."

Lego mini figures  "oooh" 7-5-14

"They had pattern and  sequence, colour and sound, brilliance and mobility;

they had suspense, surprise, and a faint hint of danger ... "

Lego mini figures "aaaah" 7-5-14

"...above all, they had the supreme quality of transience, 

which puts the keenest edge on beauty and makes it touch some spring in the heart

which more enduring excellences cannot reach."

-- Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver

One of my favorite family traditions is "Leo's Annual Fourth of July Big Backyard Home-Rolled Fireworks Extravaganza."

Mackenna and Leo 7-5-14

He's been doing it since he was about 9.

We always invite our 86-year old neighbor Vera, and a few very select friends have joined us over the years for Leo's display of smoke bombs, firecrackers, Roman candles, sparklers and other cool, noisy stuff that shoots fire into the air and goes Crack! Pop! or Boom!

Last night's show lasted nearly 3 hours and was the best yet. We had cookies and coffee. The kids drew shapes in the dark with their sizzling sparklers. I took pictures.

I look forward to Leo's show every year. Vera always asks if we're still having it and stays up way past her usual early bedtime waving sparklers in the air and gleefully slamming Pop Its against the patio cement.

I truly enjoy Leo's backyard fireworks more than the big fancy display that our town will put on tonight. I guess it's because Leo's show is ours and ours alone. And even if both shows happened on the same night, I'd easily choose to stay home with the people I love most rather than follow the crowd.

It's our little way of celebrating independence.

Now Showing: Spontaneity, The Movie

"Why not seize the pleasure at once?

How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,

foolish preparation!"

-- Jane Austen, Emma

Movie box office 7-4-14

"Say yes and you'll figure it out afterwards."

-- Tina Fey

I'm not very spontaneous.

I like to know what's happening and when, well in advance, so that I can prepare myself for whatever's coming down the line. 

Sudden change throws me off balance and makes me terribly anxious, so I tend to not do things on a whim. I like a set schedule. I like a set plan. I like a set routine. 

Phrases like "play it by ear," "roll with the punches" and "devil may care" are not in my lexicon.

I don't "throw caution to the wind." I don't like things coming "out of left field."

You can't schedule or plan or prepare for spontaneity, or it would cease being spontaneous. Hence my timidity when it comes to being spontaneous.

But every once in a very blue moon I follow an impulse to go out on a whim (I know the phrase is "out on a limb." I'm making a play on words. Get it? Except if you say it out loud it sounds like Elmer Fudd is saying "out on a limb.") 

I digress.

This is all by way of saying that Sam and I went out to see a late-night movie last night -- just decided right on the spot to bust out of the house and go. Sam is only marginally more spontaneous than me, and equally cautious and rigid about schedules and routines. Here's how the conversation usually goes:

[Sam working on his laptop. Me working on my laptop.]

Sam: We should go see (insert name of movie here).

Me: We should.

Sam: Wanna watch the trailer?

Me: Sure?

[We watch the trailer.]

Me: What time does it start?

Sam: 10:00.

Me: We should totally go.

Sam: We should.

Me: What time is it now?

Sam: It starts in 15 minutes.

Me: We probably can't make it.

Sam: Yeah. And I don't want to be up too late. I have to get up early.

Me: I want to get this done for tomorrow.

Sam: OK. See you in the morning.

Me: See you in the morning.

[Sam closes laptop and goes to bed. I continue working. We don't go see the movie.]

We are very good at talking ourselves out of spontaneity.

But last night, we defied our typical, cautious predictability and followed the impulse to see a late night showing of the new Melissa McCarthy comedy, Tammy. 

We didn't think about it. We didn't talk ourselves out of it. We just up and went. 

It felt wild and crazy going someplace and doing something during the part of the day when we're usually winding down for the night. 

Sure, it wasn't as wildly, crazily impulsive as, say, cliff diving, or drag racing on the turnpike, or unprotected sex with strangers. There was no risk involved. But our unplanned act of spontaneity did feel a teensy bit dangerous nonetheless. I mean, we weren't exactly Thelma and Louise on a roadtrip, but it did feel good to do something out of the ordinary for a change.

Maybe we'll do it again.

Maybe we won't.

Who knows.

You can't plan these things.

I guess we'll just play it by ear.

Sharing My Kitchen

"Upon walking into Eva's kitchen, something profound happened to Delphine.

She experienced a fabulous expansion of being."

-- Louise Erdrich, The Master Butchers Singing Club

Me, Mackenna and Jill 7-2-14

"I feel fortunate to be part of the cooking community.

We learn from each other."

-- Marcus Samuelsson

"Lucy settled into August's kitchen as if they were a family."

-- Susan Richards Shreve, You Are The Love Of My Life

Mostly I cook alone.

My husband grills the meat, but I do everything else. Sometimes I also grill the meat.

Occasionally Sam takes over the kitchen on one of his baking binges. And Leo scrambles himself eggs from time to time.

But that's pretty much it. Otherwise it's just me in there.

My kitchen is my domain.

And I like it like that.

But yesterday I had the opportunity to share my kitchen with two very special people.

My very dear and incredible friend Jill was here for a visit en route from West Virginia to her new home in Chicago. And Leo had abandoned a lovely young woman -- his girlfriend Mackenna -- at our dinner table to go to football practice.

It was time to start supper, so the three of us apron-ed up, got out the big knives, and got cooking.

When Jill comes to visit, it's a foregone conclusion that we'll be having Taco Night. She always counts on it, and she always gets it. Yesterday, as often happens, she also helped make it. We recruited Mackenna from the sidelines and put her to work as well.

While Jill diced tomatoes and broke down a head of iceberg lettuce, I taught Mackenna how to make hummus and my famous, velvety smooth avocado-lime dip.

I cooked the meat and shredded the cheese, while Jill, who is vegan, prepped the rice and got the black beans started.

Meanwhile, Mackenna set the table. She also cubed the tofu -- Yes. Tofu in a burrito. It's delicious. -- which Jill coated in spices while I heated a pan of oil to fry it in.

Leo wouldn't be home until later, Sam had plans to meet a friend for sushi, so when my husband got home from work, it was like he'd walked onto the set of Sister Wives. 

The four of us -- this fresh new assemblage of faces around my dinner table -- had a lovely time devouring what we'd made. Jill loaded up one of her famous "diapers full of delicious," a burrito so full and bulging and dripping that it looked like, well, I think the name says it.

Mackenna's eyes were clearly bigger than her tiny dancer stomach, and she artfully built a burrito that rolled up to be the size of a swaddled newborn. She gave it a pretty good go, but tapped out with more than half of it still clutched in both fists and a glazed look in her eyes.

I've always been a little jealous of those multi-generational families of women who gather in the kitchen, standing hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, re-creating age-old recipes and cooking secrets, chatting and laughing and sharing the simple joy of making good food together.

I got a happy little taste of it yesterday.

It tasted good.

Indoor Plumbing

"The flush toilet, more than any single invention,

has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law

could never accomplish."

-- Thomas Lynch, 

The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade

Polymer clay toilet 7-2-14

"Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing.

It didn't change people's habits. 

It just kept them inside the house."

-- Alfred Hitchcock, 

NY Journal-American, Aug. 25, 1965

"Indoor plumbing. It's gonna be big."

-- "Atropos," Hercules (1997 film)

Me + intestinal virus.

Do the math.