Friday, January 2, 2009

Saved By Pork

My bitty guys are back with me again and I am happy. They got electric scooters for Christmas and are chomping at the bit to ride them. I have them charged but need to adjust the brakes and put air in the tires still. I continue to question my sanity in choosing these for them. I was motivated purely by the desire to give them a gift they didn't think they would really ever get.

I made us all dinner last night, which always feeds my soul. I like doing traditionally womanly things for those I love. It is almost more selfish than giving really. My soul is fed when I feed them. Joe had a craving for a favorite of his. He likes boneless pork loin sliced very thin, breaded and fried to a crunch, served with mashed potatoes and gravy, and I made a spinach salad to go with these things to satisfy my need to at least pretend I am feeding them something healthy. We don't cook that way every day and when we do I have a lot of accolades given to me for the yum factor. Joe's son Andrew had sent us a chocolate cake as part of our Christmas gift from him, so we brought that out and the boys enjoyed that little treat a lot. We don't need to talk about the grease fire I managed to start while cooking do we? Yes? No? I think I am going to go with No. We don't need to discuss that rather embarassing incident that brought Joe running from the living room and had every window open with every fan set up to draw the smoke out and fresh air in, right? After all, dinner wasn't ruined. I personally think the best part of the whole ordeal was my looking to Joe while still holding the pan with the drippings, him flinging salt onto the burner to put out the flames (which were admittedly rather large), and cheerfully asking him if he still wanted gravy with dinner. I believe I grew two heads in that moment, albeit briefly. The truly sad part about this is that it is something like the third grease fire I have managed to start in the last two months. What's up with that ....a question that is my own version of wailing "Why do these things keep happening to me?! Every now and then I really do seem to be overcome by a dingy-ness that is of blond Hollywood proportions, and I feel so embarassed afterward. Joe is a very. VERY. patient man. Of course, it always helps to feed him pork if looking to diffuse a crisis...I had that going for me.

After dinner Joe and I taught Alex to play Scrabble and Nick brought out a massive set of Mars Mission Legos that he got for Christmas and put those together beside us. Joe is probably the best Scrabble player I have ever seen. It frustrates me a great deal...his mind works so quickly. I take forever to decide on a given play and they kept humming the Jeopardy theme at me, getting up to use the restroom, etc. I think they may have dozed off at one point. At one time back when we were married Stewart tried to teach me to play chess. After two games, I never wanted to play chess again, it aggravated me so much to lose. I can come close to feeling that way about Scrabble. Playing with Alex kept it on a lighter level. Nobody got hurt.

I am considering taking the boys to Six Flags today. Poor Joe doesn't have the day off, but the rest of us do, and since he works from home it might be good if we are out of the house. I am torn...the guys really want to ride those scooters. But they have all weekend to do that and they burn out after a half hour supposedly and need another 12 hours of recharging (a ratio that is rather ridiculous), in which case we'd have to find some way to occupy the rest of the day without them being disruptive. It is supposed to be relatively nice out today, so I think we will do the Six Flags thing, our last visit for the year.

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