Dinner with the Girls

There’s something about the fallowness of late winter that calls for a party.  A celebration for the sake of itself.  In a phone call with sister Shelley a couple weeks ago, between doldrum sighs, we fondly recalled a birthday party I held for girlfriend Elena quite some time ago, the attendees of which were particularly entertaining.  Not lampshades-on-heads silly, but women witty and sharp and capable of the right innuendo at the right moment.  Shelley said, “You should throw a party again with that same group.”  And I said, “Me?”  It took all the extroversion I had saved up to do the thing a year and a half ago.  When my friends think of the word “party,” it is not my face that comes to mind.  But Shelley was right.  Winter had us in a state of social moribundity, and we needed a jolt.  I called my friend Christine for her input and was bowled over when she said, “I’ll do the party.”  A beam of light shone down from the heavens and illuminated her gleaming, if slightly askew, halo.  “Are you sure?  Oh!  Thank you, Christine!”  There’d be a party, and I wouldn’t get an ulcer.

As thankful as I was at my friend’s generosity, I was surprised.  Christine has her own internal debate about party-throwing.  But she enjoys cooking and carrying on with her friends, and the spirit moved her.  Who was I to probe deeply?  After a couple volleys of possible dates, all interested parties could agree to last Saturday night, and so it was.  Eight peri-menopausal women (okay, seven; Mitzi’s got a few years yet), tired of the blandness of winter, eager for the stimulation of colorful company, crowded into Christine’s kitchen, raising stemware and decibels at the same time.  Christine’s saint of a husband, Scott, must be hard-of-hearing–or is now–for his willingness to play sous chef and general dogsbody to the roaring hoard.  Our fun was in direct proportion to our volume.

While Christine prefers to manage the whole menu when she hosts, she accepted offers of help this time, allowing herself to focus on the main course, a shrimp scampi that was anything but skimpy.  Right in front of me at the table was this mountain of linguine studded with bright pink shrimp flecked with parsley, which I reflexively poached onto my plate throughout the  night.  So much for portion control.  We had begun the eat-fest with an array of crunchies, compliments Elena, and sopped scampi sauce with good Italian bread and salad.  Food my friends and family make is always delicious. so predictably, Christine’s cooking slapped big satisfied smiles on everyone.  We ended the evening with Limoncello and little ginger-lemon cheesecakes, sweet and spicy tarts–just like us.

As befits a gathering of educated, cosmopolitan women, our conversations ranged from who had a tatoo and was willing to show it off to horror over the media’s new monster, the octuplet mom.  Many of us in attendance, having scaled parenthood to the summit, could not look back over the edge to babies and their business without vertigo.  And eight?  Well that was plunging into the abyss.  Best to focus the conversation back on topics relevant to women of a certain age–a comparison of whose breasts were most perky was popular.  By nine, energy spent and wine gone, we marched out the door leaving Christine and Scott the dishes and other party detritus. 

When I say “party” to my two twenty-something sons, they envision a gathering very different than I do.  Yeah, maybe there was a time when I might have arrived at ten and stayed until one a.m. or hopped from one chaotic event to another.  Certainly I recall  balmy nights with pulsing music, though I can probably count those experiences on one hand.  Nonetheless, I do not miss that part of my youth.  (Particularly since no one cooked back then!)   Our once or twice a year estrogen circus meets my needs entirely, and is all the more satisfying when it’s at someone else’s house.   Thanks for a great evening everyone ( :

Don’t Let that Bright Light Fool You

A couple weeks ago the ground hog saw his shadow and put us all on alert.  Six more weeks of winter, he portended, and since then, we here in Washington have mostly trudged on in the gray.  Oh, to be fair, we’ve had two days of early February snowfall and the intermittent winking of sunny patches among the clouds.  In fact, one afternoon last week I went running in temperatures that approached the mid-sixties.  And everywhere I looked I saw folks…outside!  Little clutches of neighbors on the sidewalks, dogs walking their people, the occasional fender bender when glare got in the way of a safe left turn.  It was as if the rise in Fahrenheit was an invitation to leave the house and breathe.  But don’t be alarmed,  I’m not going to break into an ode to spring.  After living my life in this region, I know a thing or two about the transition from the brumal to the vernal (for those of you on the vocabulary-building track), and it’s a tug o’ war.

Don’t be put off by the analogy, but getting safely out of winter into spring is labor-intensive.  Everything must be born again.  All that dead-looking stuff in our gardens must find what life’s left within it and force it out the ends of stems and branches: pwoot.  a bud pops out.  All we can do is watch the spirea and the current and hope their tender, tentative leaf tips aren’t chomped off by a week of sub-freezing temperatures competing with a still distant sun for our attention.  And while daffodil bulbs may have pushed a half dozen inches of foliage up out of the icy ground by this time, they will keep their bright yellow bonnets to themselves until conditions are pleasant enough to ensure a throng of admirerers are about in the garden.  At mid-February, everything is in negotiations.

I must  admit that I am in negotiations, too.  In spite of even today, a surprisingly bright, cheery, and nearly warm February day, I cling to my pessimism as if the expectation of doom is a comforting state.  For a bit this afternoon, I felt lured toward hopefulness.  Following my run, Ruby and I walked our usual route and discovered ourselves lost in birdsong and pussy-willows.  We both smiled.  Then realizing our vulnerability, Ruby stuck her nose in some scat by the roadside, and I thought about the Dow Jones average.  Worry lines returned to our foreheads.  Winter isn’t over yet, we agreed, let’s not get all silly.

It is remarkable, though, how even a hint of spring can inspire belief in possibilities, tempt us to shed the safety of our husks and expose all our soft, green hope to ourselves and anyone else who’s looking.  But I get ahead of myself.  We often have freezes well into March, afterall.  My nose is cold and the heat just kicked on.  No sense in living in the future; thinking about spring won’t thaw the ground any faster.

Buy American

It’s chilly up here in the Pacific Northwest today, but not as chilly as it’s been.  And I’m talking about inside the house.  From mid-December until this past Monday, we have been without our heat pump.  It iced over one day during the snows of Winter Blast 2008, and never returned to life.  After repeat visits, an HVAC man identified the defunct part and ordered a replacement.  We waited, tapping our toes to keep warm as much as to register impatience.  The part arrived, was installed, and the unit promptly froze over again into a heat pump Popsicle–the irony.  We again invited the HVAC man to weigh in on the puzzle, and this next time he brought his boss to consult.  My, my, my, my.  The heat pump isn’t pumping heat.  Whatever could be the matter?  The professionals decided that the new replacement part was also defunct, so they ordered another.  By this time, we were on about week six, and our electric bill for December had arrived.  Do you know how much it costs to heat a house on “emergency” heat–aka, a hot wire and fan–during a cold snap?  Exactly.  So as we were deliberating whether to hock my wedding ring or take in boarders, another week went by, and finally the second new part was installed, and voila!  The house was warm again in minutes.  Only seven weeks total inconvenience.  Only several hundred dollars of increase in the electric bill and for labor costs for the heat pump service men.  Well these things happen from time to time, eh?  Well, yes.  And as we “celebrate” the three years we’ve been in our new house this month, we began to enumerate how many times those things have happened.

Since moving into our house in 2006, our brand-new, under warranty (thank God) heat pump has required a repair three times.  Two of those times we were without service for several weeks.  Our high-end, fancy-schmancy, three-year-old water-saving washing machine has been down twice, and the last gap in service had me spending a month of weekends last winter doing our laundry at Sherry’s house.  Her washer died this past fall.  As I rotated a half dozen loads through the machine today, I began to smell the scent of burning rubber.  I fear my washer is too prissy to actually wash clothes long term.  I suppose that is why it’s known for being an Energy Star.

Our beautiful, French-door, freezer-on-the-bottom refridgerator makes a sound like a bird being killed by a cat each time the fan goes on, and the microwave (aren’t those indestructible?), tends to roar if I set it for more than a few seconds.  All of those appliances are American made.  At least the manufacturer used to be an American company.  But what difference does it make, really.  The point is that what used to be called “durable goods” now have service lives about as long as a bad cold.  Tom blames cell phones.  They appear to be built to destruct precisely as our service provider contract expires, so we are easily lured into the next contract by the promise of a “free” new phone. 

With all our technological advancements, it seems to me that basic appliances should work, without repairman intervention, for at least ten years.  I’d even take five.  But the regular breakdowns, rattles, and funny smells has conditioned me to be wary of depending on anything with a cord hanging out of it.  Even my new crock pot let me down when the lid handle broke off the first time I used it.  The regular disappointment with these goods has me purchase shy.  Why buy anything if it’s going to go kaput first chance it gets?  Appliances are supposed to be time savers, doers of the old-fashioned work we Twenty-first Century types don’t want to do anymore.  Tom and I are losing faith in modernity.

A large package was delivered to our porch today.  It’s a fire ring.  It’s Tom’s back-up plan for our untrustworthy heat pump.  He’s also gathered some rocks for me in case the washer goes AWOL.

My Sisters’ Kids

I did something today that I rarely do.  In fact, people know better than to ask me to do.  I babysat.  I spent two hours watching my niece Shea so Mom could go to an appointment unencumbered by the Energizer Bunny.  Shea had plenty of ideas for how we could amuse ourselves for those two hours, too.  The soup-splotched princess and I made paper airplanes and raced them, until Tessie the Boston Terrier slapped one down in flight and reduced it to confetti in an homage to King Kong.  Next we played Candyland and Chutes and Ladders according to rules so byzantine that I gave up trying to understand why Shea kept throwing my game piece down the chutes, and for that matter, down the ladders, regardless of the space I’d landed on.  After a while, I just accepted my losses.  We  also played a few rounds of ”con the auntie,” another popular game, which included highlights such as, “I’m hungry for a snack–let’s have ice cream,”  and “Yes, it’s okay for me to play with the Life game.”  As soon as Mormor (AKA Brogan, AKA Grandma) walked through the front door, I heard,  ”Shea!  You know Papa said you can’t play with that game!”  By the time Mormor returned, we were playing another game, too, called  ”Hide and Hide”; I was hiding in Mormor’s room watching Oprah, and Shea was hiding in the dining room playing Life.  We both enjoyed the hiding game.

I have never been a little kid person.  I wasn’t a little kid.  Fortunately, my own kids figured out that if they wanted my attention, they needed to lure me out of my head with some philosophical question, like, “Mom, what’s the meaning of life?  And while you’re thinking about that, could you make me a sandwich?”  Given my limitations, I struggled to relate to my sisters’  and my friends’ little kids.  You would never find me on the floor playing cars or tea party to connect to the wee ones, for example.  I’m pretty sure Derek and Travis didn’t even know I was their aunt until they’d grown tall enough to look me in the eye, at which point I asked them, “Have you read any good books lately?”  And of course, they had, since those were the only gifts I’d given them for most of their lives.

The good news is that Derek and Travis are now at an age I relate to.  They are teen-agers.  I practically have a degree in teen-agers.  I know deep mysterious strategies for relating to them, such as grunting and tossing my head, and saying all-knowing phrases like, “Wasssup?” or “Hey.”  I know not to touch them unless to attempt a head-lock, although the last time I tried that, Derek, not knowing the rules about wrestling with aunties, dropped me on the floor, flat onto my indignity.  My experience and education related to teen-age boys also comes in handy when trying to have a conversation with Travis (Derek’s older and has now entered the “I-don’t-have-conversations-with-adults” stage).  But Travis, in the tradition of teen-age boys everywhere, begins a conversation with a soft serve to center court, and I bat it back, just within reach.  He then tries a cross court return, and If I’m smart, I’ll put it away hard and fast deep into back court, but if I’m too easy, he’ll slam it straight to me, and I’ll have to duck or run.  Conversations with teen-age boys are not for the delicate. 

What’s most important, though, is that I really like my niece and nephews.  I think they are smart, witty, and kind–good folk in the making.  I’m glad that they take me the way I am, too.  Shea seems to understand that shaking hands with Auntie Sue is in some ways far more satisfying than a drooly kiss.  Derek and Travis know they can call me for homework help or vocabulary building, even if neither actually improves their grades at school.  All my sisters’ kids seem to appreciate that I speak a certain language, and with all the demands of their rich lives–basketball and ballet, hunting and gymnastics– they muster a poke or tease for me, or ask me what some word means, or invite me to play Chutes and Ladders one more time.  I’m not one to say it directly to them, mushy stuff that it is, but I love my sisters’ kids, and I know they love me…just the way we all are.

What’s for Dinner? No! What’s on Second

There’s a comedy routine that Tom and I repeat a half dozen times a week.  Just after breakfast, I realize we’ll need dinner (again) that evening, and I’d better figure out what it will be.  So, I say to Tom, “What would you like for dinner?” 

“Oh, I dunno, do you want to go out?” he offers, signalling his willingness to share the dinner burden.

“I dunno, do you?  Where?” I say

“Thai?  The Ram?”  Tom starts down the list of not-too-spendy restaurants within a fifteen minute radius.

“Nah…I’ll cook.  What sounds good?”

“I dunno…pasta?” suggests Tom, who from time to time adds a variation of “spaghetti.”

“Nah, that doesn’t sound good.  How about enchiladas?”  say I, or risotto, or white bean chili, or whatever else I’m truly hankering for but know I neither have time nor the ingredients for.

“Sounds great!” Tom says hopefully.

“Nah, I don’t have any tortillas.  Maybe a chicken casserole?”

“Yeah!  You know me, I’m easy to please,” Tom again says hopefully.

“Hmmm, no, not that.  Maybe pasta would be a good idea,” I say reconsidering what’s available in the pantry.

“Anything, Babe,” Tom says, sweating nervously, fearing I will start the routine all over again.

“Yeah,” I say, “Do you know how stressful it is deciding dinner every night?”  By this time Tom’s head has exploded and what’s left of him has collapsed on the floor.  “Geeze!” I snort, thinking how even women who work full time are still stuck with most of the usual household drudgery.  The fact that Tom has assured me he’d gladly eat leftovers, including the styrafoam take-out boxes, if that was all that was left in the fridge doesn’t get him off the hook with me.  Like most every woman I know,  I start my morning enumerating the parallel job responsibilities of laundry, cleaning, and dinner planning that I’ll need to get done in the moments between getting up, leaving for work, getting home, and going to bed, and the most invidious of those tasks is dinner because ,in one way or another, it nags me all day.

There’s something inherently wrong about having to think of a dinner menu at five-thirty A.M.  No one is in a dinner frame of mind at that time, and so I invariably make misjudgments.  Soft in the pate from sleep, I rummage in the freezer for something the size of a small Frisbee and toss it on the counter to thaw.  Twelve hours later I’m asking myself what I can do to jazz up a pound of chicken legs in thirty minutes.  Rachel Ray, I’m not.  In a panic driven by a complete vacuum of chicken leg inspiration, I start fondling the naked little appendages, hoping for signs of ice crystals so I can safely chuck them back in the freezer.  I settle for locating a recipe for a kind of chicken cacciatore that would be better made in the crock pot.  Whew!  Dinner now planned for the next day, I refrigerate the meat (likely full of salmonella by now–but it’ll cook out) and pull out the menu for Chili Thai. 

Tom says–very carefully–that I’m the only one who pressures myself over dinner.  He wonders if we, as a society, have convinced ourselves that every meal should be delicous and interesting.  He likes to mistily recall his bachelor days of bean burritos and…well, leftover bean burritos.  But Tom’s real complaint about dinner isn’t that I work too hard to serve up some little amusing and nutritious dish each night, but that I empty the cupboards of pots, pans and utensils in the process and then implicate him in the clean-up.  To avoid the dish washing marathon–not to mention the Who’s on First or What’s for Dinner bit–Tom would gladly treat to dinner out, as many nights as needed.  But I was raised right, to work hard, and suffer.  And Tom will suffer right along with me as we responsibly make our own week-night meals.  I will, however, go on a celebrity chef fast to lower my expectations.  Tonight we’re having a half-frozen block of ground beef.